W
hat does it mean to live in a
community?
In one sense, a commu-
nity is a group of people who have something
in common. When I reflect on what I have in
common with my fellow students, faculty and
staff, two things come to mind. The first is our
affiliation with the University of Michigan.
The mere fact of affiliation, however, confers
little significance within Ann Arbor. Meeting
a fellow Wolverine in your hometown or on a
trip abroad is exciting, yet here, our Wolverine-
ness tends to fade into the background. The
school swells with spirit on game days, but in
the course of daily life meeting another Wol-
verine is so common that it ceases to be special.
Another aspect of our community is that we
share a common space and engage with each
other within it. We meet our peers in this neu-
tral territory so that we can form bonds and
foster relationships of trust that lead to deeper
social connections. From the buzz of the Diag
to the roar of the Big House, the activities that
bind the individual to the community invari-
ably take place in the presence of others. Leav-
ing the privacy of one’s home is crucial to at-
taining this newfound sense of belonging.
It is this second aspect — our interaction in
public spaces — that is the greatest determinant
of our sense of community. When people say,
“I went to the University of Michigan,” they do
not simply refer to receiving their degree. It is
rather a question of being there; memories of
screaming in the students’ section, getting lost
in Angell Hall and hustling to class in sub-zero
temperatures linger in the minds of U-M stu-
dents years after graduation. In a similar vein,
the invaluable work of faculty and staff ensures
that this environment is preserved for current
students as well as the generations of students
to come.
However, this semester COVID-19 has
forced us to adapt to an unfamiliar social re-
ality. Reflecting on the possible
ramifications of this adaptation,
I began to wonder: How did we
interact historically in public
spaces here at the University,
and how have these interac-
tions changed in the time of CO-
VID-19?
In probing this question, I
decided to examine three kinds
of public spaces in particu-
lar: dining halls, libraries and
“crossroads,” places students
walk through or spend a few
hours in doing a variety of ac-
tivities, such as the Diag or the
Law Quadrangle.
B
efore the pandem-
ic, Michigan Din-
ing hosted thousands
of students per day in seven
public dining halls and two,
Martha Cook Dining Hall and
the Lawyer’s Club, designated as
“residents only.” MDining is also
the top student employer on
campus, with approximately
1,000 jobs offered each term.
The amount of food produced and consumed
in all of these places combined was and still is
staggering — anyone who has relied on the din-
ing hall system in their college career should
pause to quietly applaud this herculean effort.
For MDining, the act of feeding thousands
of students has stayed the same. The experi-
ence of going to the dining hall, however, has
changed a lot.
Dining hall student coordinator and LSA se-
nior Alethia Blough told me in our Zoom call
about the major differences in dining before
and during the pandemic. She works in South
Quad Dining Hall, where the old system of
grabbing food from different mini-restaurants
has given way to a highly organized series of
socially-distanced lines. There is no more eat-
ing in the dining hall, either; students enter the
dining hall, join one of the lines and are finally
spit out at the exit.
“We’re definitely trying to keep things more
enforced and be a more known presence, just
to direct the lines and things like that. And so
(students) kind of have to interact with us. They
can’t just grab their plate and go.”
Perhaps counterintuitively, the necessity
of the situation has decreased spontaneous
interactions among students and introduced
required interactions between student diners
and employees. This is a clear, even encourag-
ing caveat to any categorical denunciation of
COVID-19 damaging all social relations. As has
been the case for many other essential workers,
the pandemic has shown the importance of peo-
ple that previously students might have taken
for granted. Moreover, as cases climb in dormi-
tories across campus, fostering trust between
workers and diners is more important than ever.
When I spoke with Aidan Meador-Woodruff,
an LSA Residential College freshman, on the
phone to get the student perspective on the din-
ing hall experience, one of the first things he ex-
pressed was an appreciation for the kindness of
dining hall workers. “The people who greet us at
the dining hall and the actual staff are very kind
in their interactions with students,” Meador-
Woodruff said.
And these small, everyday interactions
count for a lot in a time when the coronavirus
pandemic also threatens an epidemic of loneli-
ness for new students. However well people get
along in the contemporary dining hall experi-
ence, it is no substitute for the vital social func-
tion dining halls have played in previous years
— the possibility of sharing a meal with friends
in these common spaces was crucial for devel-
oping a sense of connection among students.
Especially as the temperature drops, residence
hall residents — and anyone who lives alone —
will have to reckon with fewer opportunities to
break bread with their peers.
T
he library is another focal point of
public life that has drastically al-
tered its operations. As physical
spaces, the many U-M libraries have offered
generations of students a sanctuary for academ-
ic study. Unlike with the Union, the Fishbowl
and other serious academic hubs, the library is
not only a study space; it also holds a vast reposi-
tory of knowledge. The whole apparatus of the
library — both physical and virtual — is directed
toward the goal of supporting scholars from all
disciplines across the university.
This semester, most libraries at the Univer-
sity have temporarily closed in observances of
public health guidelines, yet librarians are still
working hard to replace the loss of in-person
access to the physical spaces. I got to hear more
about these efforts when I talked with two li-
brarians over Zoom: Emily Petty Puckett Rodg-
ers, a space design and assessment librarian who
also leads the Library Environments depart-
ment, and Dr. Rebecca Price, a subject specialist
for architecture and urban planning.
As the lead of the Library Environments de-
partment, Puckett Rogers conducts research on
how patrons engage with the physical, and now
virtual, spaces of the library. She told me about
some of the new services the library was testing
out, such as specialist virtual consultations, con-
tactless pickup and continued access to the spe-
cial collections. “I think that we are responding
to some of these challenges in ways that try to
place us at the point of need for people,” Puckett
Rogers explained.
It is clear that Puckett Rogers and her team,
along with the hundreds of employees of the
U-M library, are continuing to earnestly support
researchers here at the University in the vir-
tual environment. What has been temporarily
lost, however, is the experience of being in the
library. Price illustrated the nature of this expe-
rience well in our conversation.
“
Just being near all the ideas that are in
those books; you have, sort of, conversations.
People are talking to you — that sounds really
scary.” At this point Price paused and laughed
at herself. “But when you’re in the library there
are these conversations going on all the time
that you can be part of.”
This is an evocative description of what is
special about libraries, though I think Price’s
notion of being near the ideas also points the
way to a broader truth. When you go to a li-
brary, “the ideas” are not only sitting on dusty
shelves — they also exist in the minds of ev-
eryone around you. At any given moment, the
vast majority of people working in libraries are
wrestling with concepts, proofs, code, essays or
whatever they happen to be working on. They
do so privately in their own minds, but publicly
in the act of writing, typing and talking. In ad-
dition to the ghostly conversations happening
between writers and readers, actual conver-
sations also take place between the budding
scholars of the future.
Puckett Rogers described the library as an
“intellectual collision space.” That might be an
oddly chaotic image for a place usually reserved
for quiet contemplation, although the second
floor of the Shapiro Undergraduate Library is
a notable exception. At the level of ideas, how-
ever, collisions do occur. Even in the silence of
the Law Library, one can constantly hear the
frenetic pitter-patter of fingers on a keyboard.
Collisions are happening everywhere.
L
ast but not least, I reflected on the
character of the thoroughfares of
campus: places like the Diag and the
Law Quad.
The Diag is the most “public” of all the
spaces addressed in this article. It is a com-
mon byway for practically everyone, ranging
from seasoned townies to fans of the opposing
team on game days. The student population,
however, still probably provides the majority
of foot traffic. Indeed, in the time before virtual
learning, I traversed the Diag every day, which
is the case for most students. For this reason, I
assumed it would mark the cornerstone of the
community; it would represent our sense of to-
getherness.
Yet, I have started to notice something trou-
bling about the character of daily life in Ann
Arbor. It is not the fact that people keep their
distance from each other — this is a good thing,
albeit an unfortunate truth of following public
health guidelines. It’s also not about my frus-
tration with people not wearing masks — this
has been a problem since the beginning of the
pandemic.
I have noticed that, with regard to how we
treat each other, not much has changed at all.
I arrived at this understanding while I was
sitting on the Law Quad. It was a beautiful au-
tumn day, and lots of people had come out to
relax or do schoolwork on the lawn. The scene
was eerily normal. There was something famil-
iar about how people were simply leaving each
other alone. It was then that I realized that CO-
VID-19 has given us an opportunity to ignore
each other even more intensely than before.
Though we may not like to admit it, ignoring
each other is an integral part of the culture of
our campus. It’s rare to receive a smile from a
passerby on the way to class, unless you know
them. At bars, people tend to keep to their cir-
cle of friends. In the few minutes before class
begins, as people are unpacking notebooks and
their pencil cases, no one is in the mood for a
conversation. At a school as competitive as
Michigan, people are too busy, distracted, tired
or stressed to truly dedicate time and curiosity
to the well-being of strangers.
To be fair, this cultural practice is in no
way unique to the University of Michigan. In
all large cities and towns, there comes a point
when it is cumbersome to actively acknowl-
edge the existence of everyone you see. In-
stead, minding your own business becomes the
predominant attitude.
I think that is why there are so many smaller
communities at the University. The innumera-
ble fraternities, sororities, pre-professional fra-
ternities, consulting groups, a capella groups,
interest groups, clubs and even the student
newspaper contribute to a sense of community
that is much stronger than what mere univer-
sity affiliation can provide. Students in these
organizations care about each other, make last-
ing friendships and in some cases do incredible
things with a group of diverse,
like-minded individuals.
It is clear, however, that car-
ing for a smaller community
does not always translate to
caring for the U-M community
as a whole. People who are con-
scious of COVID-19 keep their
distance and wear a mask, ef-
fectively “ignoring” you, but
they do so because it is in the
interest of the community; they
acknowledge that others’ health
is important to them.
On the contrary, I am not
sure what I can say about the
person who walks the streets
without a mask, spits on the
ground and does not apologize
for either. This person clearly
does not know me, and he does
not care about me. Like all of
us, he pays attention to what he
finds significant. I do not think
there is any mystery involved in
his behavior, nor an interesting
psychological problem. He sim-
ply does not give a damn.
T
he paradox of COVID-19 is that
building a real community requires
meaningful and sustained inter-
action, while at the same it is currently in the
interest of the broader community for us to re-
main temporarily apart.
In terms of how we conduct ourselves in the
public sphere, we can learn much from their
stewards such as dining hall employees and li-
brarians. They ensure the continued function
of essential services, as well as the spaces in
which those services are rendered. They can-
not afford to ignore others as a part of their job,
but the truth is that neither can we.
Our lives are becoming increasingly private,
but in those rare moments when we are in pub-
lic we must tread carefully. Personal respon-
sibility will not be enough; what is currently
missing in the weakly-bound communities
across the United States is a sense of the col-
lective. Only when we are able to acknowledge
the existence of others will we recognize the
deprivations of unmitigated self-interest and
the virtues of living in the public sphere.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
15 — Wednesday, September 23, 2020
statement
BY ALEXANDER SATOLA, STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT
PHOTO BY ALEC COHEN
COVID-19 and the dissolution
of the community