The 
Michigan 
Daily 

Administration Beat sat down with 
University of Michigan President 
Mark Schlissel to discuss the plan 
for the winter semester, why the 
University changed its approach 
on 
testing 
and 
enforcement 

policies, regulating Fraternity & 
Sorority Life and the impact of the 
election on campus.

This interview has been edited 

and condensed for clarity. 

TMD: In the announcement 

about winter semester plans, 
you said the University had an 
“unacceptable level” of COVID-
19 cases. In your opinion, how did 
that happen?

MS: Well, I would say the vast 

majority of students have been 
following, as strictly as they 
can, the guidance we put out 
about masks and distancing and 
small groups and hand washing. 
But when we investigate the 
cases, we find that people let 
their guard down and the cases 
are being transmitted in social 
circumstances where too many 
people 
are 
getting 
together, 

they’re not wearing their masks 
and they’re causing clusters 
of infection. And when that 
happens at a high enough rate 
of many, many new cases a day, 
it runs the risk of exceeding 
our 
capacity 
to 
do 
case 

investigations and to quickly 
isolate people who are infected 
and to track down their contacts 
to keep it from spreading even 
further. And that’s actually what 
resulted in the public health 
order that we cooperated with 
on the campus as a whole, first 
on Mary Markley Residence 
Hall, but then more broadly on 
the undergraduate students.

TMD: So do you regret 

opening 
the 
dorms 
and 

everything for the semester, 
given the “unacceptable level?”

MS: I think that we deserved, 

as a community, a chance to try 
our very best to have a good 
mix of remote, in-person and 
hybrid classes, and to have as 
many people as possible remain 
healthy and make it through 
the end of the semester. So I 
don’t regret trying. We’ve never 
been through this before as a 
university. Although the basic 
principles are clear about how to 
prevent transmission, we didn’t 
know until we tried to figure 
out how our community would 
respond, how much compliance 
we would get, where the weak 
points turned out to be. I also 
think people are suffering a 
little bit from (what) someone 
termed COVID fatigue, the sign 
of relentlessness of having to 
always have your mask on and 
always being in small groups 
and always washing your hands. 
It just wears on people, so I 
think it’s gotten tougher as the 
semester’s gone along, and all of 
those things have led, I think, to 
more cases. 

TMD: Many colleges pursued 

a strategy similar to U-M’s 2021 
winter semester in the fall, and 
many elements of the new plan 
for winter semester, like the 
right to work remotely and more 
testing, are things the Graduate 
Employees’ 
Organization 

asked for during their strike 
in September. Why didn’t you 
agree to these provisions then?

MS: Back in September, we 

started out the school year with 
80% of our classes remote, and 
the rest were either hybrid or 
in person. As the semester’s 
gone on, we’ve become more 
remote and less in person. We 
worked with the GEOs and 
basically got to the stage where 
any graduate instructor that 
didn’t feel comfortable working 
in person, we were able to 
accommodate. And the good 
news is there have been few, 
if any, infections amongst our 
graduate students. It’s largely 
undergrads, and it’s largely 

freshmen 
and 
sophomore 

undergrads, which is where 
most of the transmission has 
been. In terms of testing, we’ve 
ramped up our capacity through 
the semester. We’re at the 
highest point now we’ve been. 
In hindsight, you know, there 
are some schools that made a 
big early investment in testing. 
They’ve had some good success 
and some less good success … So 
testing is one component that’s 
important to place a lid on the 
number of cases and to prevent 
their spread.

But if you don’t wear masks, 

stay in small groups, keep 
distance from others, you can 
test all you want, and there’ll 
still be lots of disease. You know, 
back in the very beginning of the 
semester, there was an option 
to 
purchase 
large 
amounts 

of testing from commercial 
companies. But at the time, the 
turnaround time on those tests 
was between three days and 
seven days. If it takes you that 
long to get a result, the testing 
doesn’t prevent the spread of 
disease because all the people 
who have the disease didn’t find 
out about it for almost a week So 
commercial testing in the early 
days of the semester would not 
have helped us, but through 
the semester, working with a 
local startup, we’ve made the 
investments that have ramped 
up the level of testing, and we’re 
now at a capacity around 9,000 
or 10,000 tests a week. And 
by the time the new semester 
begins, we’ll be up to 12,000 to 
15,000, and if we need to, we 
can go further than that. So 
we’ve built the capacity.

TMD: Can you explain more 

about how mandatory weekly 
testing will be administered 
and enforced for those who live 
off campus but use on-campus 
facilities next semester?

This semester looks different: 

masks are required, most classes 
are virtual, social gatherings 
are limited and exploring the 
streets of Ann Arbor is regulated 
by laws and limitations. But 
for some, being a University of 
Michigan student this semester 
means sitting at their computer 
dressed in maize and blue, and 
trying to stay awake during a 
lecture while 12 hours ahead of 
Ann Arbor’s Eastern Standard 
Time.

The 
University 
allowed 

students to return to campus 
this fall with limited in-person 
classes, 
but 
for 
many 

international students, traveling 
became more difficult during the 
ongoing COVID-19 pandemic 
and the restrictions that differ 
from country to country. 

Time zone differences put 

international students on new 
schedules 

For LSA sophomore Rachna 

Iyer, who is currently living 
in Mumbai, India, the biggest 
adjustment has been managing 
the time difference. Iyer is on 
Indian Standard Time, which 
is 10-and-a-half hours ahead of 
Ann Arbor.

“One of the biggest differences 

is having a different structure in 
my day,” Iyer said. “If someone’s 
in the same time zone, it’s easier 
to have a more normal structure 
of the day or like you wake up, 
you go to classes, you have lunch, 
you do homework and then you 
see friends. But for people living 
in a different time zone.” 

Iyer completes most of her 

school work during the late hours 
of the night in Mumbai. Students 
can complete homework and 
asynchronous classes during the 
day, but some class functions 

require synchronous activities. 

“My new thing is that I need 

to wake up before the sun sets 
here,” Iyer said. “I can at least 
pretend to maintain a little bit of 
sanity. If I wake up, and it’s dark 
outside, I would lose my mind.” 

The time differences have 

been an issue across the board 
for international students at 
the University, according to 
International Center Director 
Judith Pennywell. 

Pennywell said the use of 

asynchronous class, a strategy 
that allows instructors to publish 
work and students to complete it 
at their own pace throughout the 
day, has allowed students more 
flexibility than if they had every 
class at a scheduled time. 

“While many instructors have 

changed from a synchronous 
to 
asynchronous 
style 
or 

rescheduled 
their 
classes 

to 
times 
of 
day 
to 
better 

accommodate 
international 

students, 
others 
have 
not,” 

Pennywell said. “It requires 
some international students to 
be available for synchronous 
classes very early in the morning 
or late at night, at times when 
they might normally be asleep.” 

Though 
asynchronous 

classes allow more leeway in 
mitigating 
time 
differences, 

international 
students 
said 

there are still other problems 
that going asynchronous doesn’t 
automatically fix. 

Engineering junior Jingxuan 

Wu is learning from China, 12 
hours ahead of EST. Wu said the 
issue can extend beyond class 
time into things like scheduled 
exam times. Wu has taken 
midterms that started anywhere 
from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m.

“For the exam time, there’s no 

time alternatives, so you can’t 
change anything, you just need 

to go,” Wu said. “Midterms are 
usually scheduled during class 
times, or after class. What seems 
like an ideal time for a midterm 
for Ann Arbor students, is quite 
different 
for 
international 

students.”

LSA freshman Shiryn Anissa 

Noor Affendi said taking a 
class 
asynchronously 
as 
an 

international student can also 
create barriers in trying to get 
help. Affendi said she often has 
to rely on email to communicate 
with her instructors.

“My 
asynchronous 
classes 

are definitely more challenging 
just because I’m mostly teaching 
myself the material,” Affendi 
said. “I can only get help via 
email, so each problem I face 
really boils down to, ‘Can I 
answer this myself, or am I 
willing to wait two business days 
for them to reply?’” 

LSA 
senior 
Jing 
Dong, 

who is taking classes from 
China, said Graduate Student 
Instructors will typically have 
delayed responses to questions 
because her usual work time 
is the middle of the night in 
Ann Arbor. However, despite 
this inconvenience, Dong said 
there aren’t many other notable 
differences in learning this year.

“Because 
I’m 
a 
computer 

science major, personally, I don’t 
think taking classes online would 
be any different from taking 
classes offline because even if 
I’m in person, I would probably 
watch lecture recordings, but I 
guess that’s pretty specific to my 
major,” Dong said.

Taking classes at night allows 

international students to use 
their time during the day to 
prioritize what’s important to 

them, according to Dong. She 
said having the new schedule 
has allowed her to take on 
new roles such as a research 
assistantship because of the 
flexibility. Affendi uses the time 
she has during her day to spend 
time with family and friends.

Being off-campus changes 

learning, social experience

In 
addition 
to 
the 
time 

difference, 
there 
are 
a 

variety of global, social and 
environmental 
elements 
that 

have altered students’ learning 
environments. For Iyer, one is 
the heat in India that makes it 
hard to focus.

“Giving a timed exam is 

harder, virtually you just don’t 
really know what circumstances 
someone’s in,” Iyer said. “It’s 
really hot in India, for example, 
and to be giving an exam at this 
time, it’s just really hot, which 
makes it harder to focus.”

Academics is only part of the 

experience of being a college 
student — and international 
students said they missed the 
experience of being in Ann Arbor. 
Besides not being on campus, the 
virtual events hosted by clubs 
and organizations often don’t 
accommodate 
international 

students’ time zone differences.

 Wu said it is particularly 

difficult to work with libraries 
and shared spaces.

“The 
main 
thing 
I 
miss 

about campus is libraries and 
in-person office hours,” Wu said. 
“I think it’s more convenient 
and it’s also harder to connect 
with classmates and friends 
when you’re abroad in another 
country.” 

Outside of school, Affendi, 

who lives in Malaysia and is 13 
hours ahead of Ann Arbor, said 
it has become nearly impossible 
to make friends. She feels like 
she would have to sacrifice 
getting sleep to be able to attend 
extracurricular meetings. 

 “I’ve always loved school for 

the friends I gain in and outside 
of class,” Affendi said. “It’s hard 
to approach a stranger when 
everyone is virtually in their 
own bubble. I really miss the 
support system of friends in my 
classes and lately it just feels like 
it’s every man for themselves, 
which makes me feel really 
lonely.” 

Iyer hasn’t been able to see 

any of her friends in person since 
classes ended last March.

Dong said she has not been 

able to participate in many 
sorority events because they are 

not virtual. She said she feels 
especially sad for freshmen, who 
have never had time on campus 
to make connections.

“If you’re not on campus, 

social life is hard,” Dong said. “I 
would imagine there’s a big hole 
in the experience for freshmen, 
and I feel sorry for them.”

The University has put on 

many virtual events and lecture 
discussions in order to create 
community, but international 
students 
are 
still 
finding 

these difficult to participate 
in, Iyer said. Pennywell said 
the 
International 
Center 
is 

working to create a virtual 
community that accommodates 
international students and their 
time zone differences.

“We have made an effort 

to record certain University 
programs, such as the IC and 
Ginsberg 
Center’s 
Understanding 

the U.S. Presidential Election,” 
Pennywell 
said. 
“There 
are 

many wonderful UMS Digital 
presentations, 
so 
students 

overseas can enjoy them at their 
leisure.”

Daily 
News 
Contributor 

Shannon Stocking can be reached 
at sstockin@umich.edu

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
 4 — Wednesday, November 11, 2020 

International students 
talk virtual challenges 

DESIGN BY MICHELLE FAN

Remote learning brings time zone difficulties, altered social scene

Schlissel discusses winter 
semester, recent election
U-M President says ‘I don’t regret trying’ regarding fall plan

New format of learning brings challenges in time management

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com
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