The University of Michigan’s 

Senate Assembly met virtually 
Monday afternoon to provide an 
update on the work of the Faculty 
COVID-19 Council, specifically 
discussing 
how 
to 
improve 

messaging from administration 
to students. Senate Assembly 
also heard from Kevin Hegarty, 
the executive vice president 
and chief financial officer, who 
will be retiring at the end of 
the semester, and voted for the 
Senate Advisory Committee on 
University Affairs’ nominating 
committee.

Luke Hyde, a professor of 

psychology and member of the 
Faculty 
COVID-19 
Council, 

said 
conversations 
between 

members of the council and 
administration 
revealed 
that 

members 
from 
across 
the 

University community should be 
offering their input on COVID-
related changes. The COVID-19 
Faculty Council was established 
in October to serve as a faculty 
voice in administrative decisions 
after the Faculty Senate passed 
a vote of no confidence in U-M 
President 
Mark 
Schlissel’s 

leadership in September.

“The faculty COVID Council 

has met five times bi-weekly on 
Friday mornings,” Hyde said. 
“The 
President 
and 
Provost 

have expressed that they have 
found it helpful for them to get 
feedback from sort of average or 
non-COVID medical and public 
health-related faculty.”

Hyde assured faculty that 

Schlissel and Provost Susan 
Collins have been addressing 
all issues and ideas brought 
forth by Senate members. Hyde 
said Schlissel and Collins have 
been responsive to concerns, 
though 
he 
admitted 
that 

faculty members have differing 
views on how issues should be 
addressed.

“Some of the major topics that 

we’ve addressed so far have been 
messaging and communication 
both about COVID broadly but 
also vaccine rollout, and also 
sort of messages to students,” 
Hyde said.

Hyde said he was disheartened 

to hear that the University has 
the capacity to vaccinate more 
than 25,000 students a week but 
is not receiving enough vaccines 
from the state to do so.

“I will be honest, probably 

the hardest thing that I had in 
the last meeting was learning 
that even if things go really well, 
they may not be vaccinating 
undergrads until the fall,” Hyde 
said. “And for whatever it’s 
worth, this is not U-M’s fault.” 

michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Wednesday, January 27, 2021

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All University of Michigan 

athletics will be paused for 
two 
weeks 
starting 
Sunday, 

Jan. 24 in accordance with a 
recommendation from the state 
health department according to 
messages obtained by The Daily 
and confirmed by a source close 
to the athletic department. The 
order, which halts all athletic 
activity 
including 
practice, 

is limited exclusively to U-M 
athletics after a recent influx 
of positive cases within several 
Michigan teams. 

According 
to 
a 
statement 

released 
by 
the 
athletic 

department Saturday night, the 
Wolverines have been following 
Big Ten testing and reporting 
protocals, 
but 
the 
Michigan 

Department 
of 
Health 
and 

Human Services is taking a more 
stringent approach to the novel 
COVID-19 B.1.1.7 variant.

A source told The Daily that 

there were five confirmed cases 
of the new variant, with 15 more 
presumed positives throughout 
the athletic department. The 
novel strain was first introduced 
to Michigan at the beginning of 
the semester by a U-M athlete 
traveling 
from 
the 
United 

Kingdom. All members of the 
athletic department are expected 
to quarantine for 14 days.

“Canceling 
competitions 
is 

never something we want to do, 
but with so many unknowns 
about this variant of COVID-19, 
we must do everything we can 
to minimize the spread among 
student-athletes, coaches, staff, 
and to the student-athletes at 
other 
schools,” 
said 
athletic 

director Warde Manuel in the 

statement 
released 
Saturday 

night.

An 
MDHHS 
spokeswoman 

confirmed that five cases of the 
variant were found on Michigan 
athletic teams. An MDHHS 
memo provided to The Daily laid 
out the state’s recommendations 
for the next two weeks. Those 
include:

- 
 
Immediate 
14-day 

quarantine for all Michigan 
athletes, household members 
and close contacts starting from 
Jan. 23

- A review of all positive test 

results in the past two weeks

- Immediate PCR testing of 

all team members, including 
genetic 
sequencing 
of 
any 

positive tests

- Thrice-weekly PCR testing 

during quarantine

- The assumption that all 

cases linked to the outbreak 

are variant infections, pending 
confirmation

The 
memo 
also 
provides 

campus-wide recommendations, 
saying that if the variant is 
detected in an organization, 
there should be twice-a-week 
PCR testing for all members 
of that organization. It also 
recommends ramping up testing 
for the entire community, and 
a 10-day quarantine for any 
students returning to campus 
from out of state or abroad.

This past week 22 student-

athletes 
tested 
positive 
for 

COVID-19 per release, 13 more 
than the week prior. No coaches 
or staff tested positive.

a Bulldog tested positive the 

day after the game, leading to 
two missed games.

The 
Michigan 
Daily 
sat 

down 
with 
University 
of 

Michigan 
President 
Mark 

Schlissel to discuss COVID-19 
vaccinations, the University’s 
climate goals, racial equity on 
campus and the Jan. 6 events at 
the U.S. Capitol. This interview 
has been edited and condensed 
for clarity.

Mark Schlissel: First of 

all, welcome back and happy 
New Year. The inauguration’s 
tomorrow, and I know there’s 
some anxiety among many, 
or at least some people — 
students or faculty and staff 
— because of all the violence 
that occurred in D.C. and 
threats of violence in the 
statehouse, so I just wanted 
to reassure you and students 
that our public safety folks 
have been in communications 
with all the other security 
partners 
around 
the 
state 

and around the country, and 
we’ve increased staffing and 
set up contingencies. We don’t 
expect problems on campus, 
but we just encourage the 
community if they’re anxious 
to talk about it. Talk about it 
with one another and try to 
stay balanced as we watch this 
change in the administration.

The Michigan Daily: What 

is the biggest challenge facing 
the University of Michigan in 
2021?

MS: The biggest challenge 

remains the pandemic, and 
it’s the challenge of, how do 
we continue to deliver on 
the mission of the University 
while keeping people healthy 
and safe, and having a good 
Michigan experience to the 
extent 
possible 
given 
the 

limitations of the disease, the 
virus.

TMD: So on that note, 

some health professionals are 
raising concerns over the more 
contagious coronavirus strain 
from the United Kingdom, 

which 
was 
discovered 
in 

Washtenaw County Saturday. 
What does this development 
mean for the University?

MS: I think it is of concern. 

If there’s any good news so far, 
there’s no indication that it 
produces a more severe disease, 
so it’s not more dangerous for 
your health. The other bit of 
good news is it still remains 
susceptible to the vaccine. 

But the report of cases 

in Washtenaw County isn’t 
surprising. I think all of us 
have to presume that if it’s in 
Washtenaw County, it’ll be in 
our campus community. It’s 
hard to imagine it wouldn’t 
since we have so many people. 
We’re really one community, 
so I think we have to treat one 
another and presume as if the 
strain’s around. 

And so far as best we 

know, the methods to prevent 
transmission are the same — 
social distancing, 

Faculty Senate 
talks messaging

‘U’ President Mark Schlissel: 
‘Unlikely’ U-M will vaccinate 
most students this semester

Spread of B.1.1.7 variant cases prompts state health dept. recommendation

In this interview, The Daily asks about vaccinations, the 
university’s climate goals, racial equity on campus & Jan. 6 riot

U-M Athletics on two-week pause

See SCHLISSEL, Page 2 

See COVID, Page 3

MADDIE FOX/Daily

Updates on COVID-19 council include 
how to best communicate to students

CALDER LEWIS,

 JULIANNA MORANO & 
CHRISTIAN JULIANO

Daily Staff Reporters

Dingell gives annual State
 of the District address

MARTINA ZACKER

Daily Staff Reporter

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

ETHAN SEARS
Daily Sports Writer

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

U.S. Rep. tackles bipartisanship, climate change & more

GABRIEL BOUDAGH

Daily Staff Reporter

U.S. 
Rep. 
Debbie 
Dingell, 

D-Mich., 
gave 
her 
annual 

State of the District address 
Monday morning to an audience 
of 
about 
700 
people 
via 

livestream. The event, hosted 
by the Southern Wayne County 
Regional Chamber, updated the 
community on Dingell’s recent 
work.

To start off her annual address 

Dingell discussed the pandemic’s 
impact on the daily life of her 
constituents.

“The most important thing 

for us right now is to stay safe,” 
Dingell said. “We are using 
technology to touch each other, 
stay close and talk about the 
issues we care about. There’s 
nothing normal about the year 
that we’ve been in. Because of all 
the chaos and the uncertainty, 
traditions are something that we 
actually hold on to tighter to give 
us a sense of normalcy and hope.”

Dingell also discussed the 

riot at the Capitol Building that 
occurred earlier this month and 
her experience during the attack. 
Dingell, who is a member of the 
U.S. House of Representatives 
Problem 
Solvers 
Caucus, 
a 

bipartisan group with equal 
numbers 
of 
Democratic 
and 

Republican lawmakers, said the 
attempted insurrection on Jan. 6 
strengthened her commitment to 
fighting for democracy.

“I didn’t envision the depths 

of 
division 
that 
we 
would 

experience over these last few 
weeks,” Dingell said. “Never 
in a million years did I think I 
would find myself sheltering in 
an undisclosed location in the 
United States Capitol, while 
my fellow citizens attacked a 
sacred building that gives young 
democracies around the world 

hope. … All of us have to be 
engaged for democracy to work. 
This needs to be a wake-up call 
for everybody.”

During her address, Dingell 

discussed her early commitment 
to combating the spread of the 
coronavirus.

“Confronting and combatting 

COVID has been my priority for 
the last year,” Dingell said. “I 
was one of the first members of 
Congress that wrote to anybody 
about it. I wrote to the CDC and 
said, ‘Why are we screening at 
some airports and not ones like 
Detroit?’”

In 
early 
January, 
Dingell 

requested that the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention 
provide an update on the steps 
they were taking to ensure all 
travelers coming from China — 
the early epicenter of the virus 
— were safe from COVID-19. 
The CDC expanded additional 
screening facilities at some major 
U.S. airports but some, including 
the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne 
County Airport, still had direct 
flights to areas where COVID-
19 cases were being reported. 
COVID-19 screenings were first 
introduced at DTW on Jan. 28, 
2020.

Dingell also discussed the 

bills she plans to introduce in 
Congress this year, including 
legislation to help strengthen 
personal protective equipment 
supplies in hospitals and to 
ensure underserved communities 
are provided with clean water.

“We’re introducing legislation 

to 
strengthen 
the 
Strategic 

National Stockpile, but we’re 
going to make sure we don’t get 
stuck flat-footed the way that we 
did last time where we didn’t have 
PPE equipment for our frontline 
workers,” Dingell said. “We’ve 
got to increase access to home & 
community-based care. I will be 

introducing legislation, this week, 
that will prohibit water shutoffs 
nationwide and provide financial 
assistance 
for 
low-income 

households to pay for drinking 
water.” 

Dingell, who is on the House 

Committee 
on 
Energy 
and 

Commerce said she plans to 
protect jobs at auto plants while 
introducing new technologies to 
this sector.

“Last year, I talked about 

the undeniable shift towards 
electric vehicles that is gaining 
momentum 
and 
self-driving 

vehicles,” Dingell said. “Even 
with a pandemic that upended 
our daily lives, this shift is 
continuing … I want to make 
sure that we’re bringing in newer 
technology and newer products 
to the plants that we have down 
here and that people think that 
our communities are a good place 
to live.” 

Dingell said she plans to work 

with the Biden Administration to 
remove PFAS and other chemicals 
from local waters, as well as fix 
local infrastructure and introduce 
a renewable energy plan. After 
her address, Dingell answered 
questions about student debt and 
renewable energy incentives. 

The first audience question 

touched on the student debt crisis, 
to which Dingell replied that it 
is important to find a balanced 
solution. 

“I think some of them are 

going to be viable because I think 
our students are really hurting,” 
Dingell said. “The question is 
what’s the right formula … We 
have to figure out how to lower the 
cost of education to young people 
and make it more affordable to 
everybody on an equal playing 
field.”

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

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