The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, September 8, 2021 — 3
ADMINISTRATION
‘U’ leaders defend COVID-19
policies after faculty pushback
Schlissel: Classroom ‘the safest place to be on campus’
University of Michigan President
Mark Schlissel and Provost Susan
Collins defended fall semester
COVID-19 guidelines in a Sept. 2
email to concerned faculty, stating
that “perhaps the safest place to be
on campus this fall will be in the
classroom.”
“Stellar rates of vaccination,
paired
with
an
indoor
face-
covering requirement for all, make
the classroom a very safe learning
environment for instructors and
students,” Schlissel and Collins
wrote.
The message Sept. 2 was sent
in response to an Aug. 26 faculty
petition asking the University
administration to provide more
stringent COVID-19 guidelines for
the fall semester. More than 740
instructors signed the petition,
which requested more flexibility
for instructors to teach remotely,
mandatory testing for all members
of the campus community, six feet
of social distancing between people
and a mandatory 14-quarantine
period for vaccinated close contacts
of positive cases.
In
response,
Schlissel
and
Collins
wrote
that
multiple
prevention strategies — such as
indoor face mask requirements,
increased air ventilation and the
ResponsiBlue app — are part of
a layered approach to mitigating
COVID-19 spread.
Course
instruction
methods
have been evaluated by individual
schools and colleges within the
University, according to Schlissel
and Collins, and those units
have control over the amount
of in-person, hybrid and online
classes that are offered.
In terms of individual COVID-19
concerns for instructors, Schlissel
and Collins wrote that faculty
should contact Work Connections,
the
University’s
disability
management program, to report
their personal disability or medical
conditions.
But a group of faculty calling
themselves
“community
advocates” wrote in an email to
fellow petitioning faculty Sept. 3
that the University was still not
providing the autonomy to make
decisions based on their risk
assessments.
“We are also disappointed that
we have again been directed to
Work Connections, a unit that
has rejected numerous requests
by instructors with serious pre-
existing conditions, compromised
immunity, and other risk factors,
or who have family members
with
various
vulnerabilities
(including children too young to
be vaccinated),” the faculty group
wrote.
92% of students and 90% of
faculty are fully vaccinated, and
Schlissel and Collins wrote that
information on students who are
unvaccinated in classes would be
shared when and if the indoor face
covering policy is lifted. Schlissel
and Collins wrote they believe
there
are
enough
COVID-19
mitigation policies in place to safely
conduct in-person classes.
“Living and working through
a
pandemic
is
unsettling,”
Schlissel and Collins wrote. “It’s
unpredictable and, yes, it involves
an unavoidable level of risk. As an
institution, we believe we have
taken all appropriate measures
to mitigate that risk for you, your
faculty colleagues, your students
and the staff members.”
Schlissel and Collins wrote that
everything involves a level of risk
that has to be balanced against the
importance of other tasks.
“We all recognize the risk of
auto crashes, yet most of us accept
that risk by driving to campus each
day to teach, serve others, or help
patients heal,” Schlissel and Collins
wrote.
The
“community
advocates”
took issue with the comparison to
driving, saying that faculty are not
forced to drive to work the same
way they are being pushed to go
back to in-person teaching.
The faculty group also wrote that
Schlissel and Collins’ message did
not address most of their critiques
of existing procedures. They said
in-person teaching without taking
the measures outlined in their
petition is a risk to faculty.
“Many of the policies in place
strike us as an alpha variant
response to a delta variant world,”
the faculty group wrote.
Schlissel and Collins’ statement
on classrooms being the “safest
place on campus” also received
negative feedback from the faculty
group, which said there is no
documentation of classrooms being
safe from COVID-19 transmission.
“We are dismayed by President
Schlissel’s
repetition
of
the
assertion
that
classrooms
are
‘perhaps the safest place to be on
campus this fall,’ which, to the
best of our knowledge, has not
been documented,” the faculty
group wrote. “We are disappointed
that President Schlissel has not
provided detailed information on
our classroom environments, such
as the percentage of students in our
classes who are vaccinated.”
Daily News Editor Calder Lewis
can be reached at calderll@umich.
edu. Daily News Editor Jasmin Lee
can be reached at itsshlee@umich.
edu.
CALDER LEWIS &
JASMIN LEE
Daily News Editors
JA: The process that went into
creating the ECRT was one of the
initiatives that I really worked
hard on as the vice chair of the
board with Regent Ilitch to get
done last year as part of a holistic
approach toward making sure that
our campus was safer — not just
prior to any sort of misconduct
happening on the education side,
but also making sure that we
support survivors afterward. We
have a lot of work to do still on this.
One of the things that I
mentioned in my remarks at
our last Regents meeting, and
that I still strongly support, is
the creation of an ethics and
compliance office. I think we
need it — most AAU (Association
of American Universities) schools
have it already. The fact that
we don’t is, frankly, a glaring
hole in our regime of preventing
misconduct of any kind. And as
we see some of the things that
happened in the past, especially
involving Martin Philbert, this
sort of office would have gone a
long way toward making sure that
didn’t happen. So that would be
the biggest initiative. But I think
there’s still more work to do. I
think the cultural journey is going
to be very important. And I think
we still have to keep looking at
our peer institutions, seeing what
they’re doing, and making sure
that we follow the path of best
practices amongst our public and
private peer institutions.
TMD: How do you think
the expansion of the Go Blue
Guarantee free tuition program
to the University of Michigan’s
Flint and Dearborn campuses this
year will ensure more academic
opportunity
for
lower-income
students within the University of
Michigan system?
JA: It’s a big step. I think that
first and foremost, adding our
Dearborn and Flint campuses was
crucial to providing the promise
of the Go Blue Guarantee. But it’s
just a start. One of the things that
we need to think about is where
experts are (aware of) when it
comes to students who come
from low-income backgrounds is
making sure that we’re not just
talking about free tuition. We’re
not just talking about the cost
of education, although that’s a
very important part, but we need
to make sure that we raise our
graduation rates.
Frankly, some of the things
that we need to work on most are
raising our graduation rates in
Flint and Dearborn. It’s one thing
to get into school and to start
school and to have free tuition
there. But the most important
thing is to leave those campuses
or our Ann Arbor campus with a
degree. Our graduation rates in
Ann Arbor are pretty high, and in
Flint and Dearborn, they need to
get higher.
When we talk about as a board
where we’re spending money and
on what services, making sure
that we raise our graduation rate
is crucial. Yes, affordability is the
number one challenge, but we also
don’t want anybody graduating
with any sort of student debt and
not having the degree that will
allow them to pay it off. We need to
do more to raise those graduation
rates, period.
ACKER
From Page 1
CAMPUS LIFE
Bus routes adjusted after long
waits, overcrowding issues
Student frustration brings back pre-pandemic lines
Starting Sept. 7, the University
of Michigan will restore bus
routes used prior to the pandemic
following increasing concern from
students during the first week of
the fall 2021 semester.
The Sept. 2 announcement of
the updated routes come after
students reported long wait times
and overcrowding on buses, with
some noting that lines at the CCTC
stretched back to the School of
Dentistry. Some students said
they had to walk to North Campus
to be on time for class, while
others said they were concerned
about contracting COVID-19 on a
crowded bus.
The
Bursley-Baits
and
Northwood bus routes that ran
between
North
and
Central
Campus before the pandemic will
be returning, according to the
announcement.
The reinstated Bursley-Baits
route will run from 7:15 a.m. to
2:00 a.m. on weekdays and from
8:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. on Saturdays
and Sundays. Rides are expected
to run at 15-minute frequencies,
according to the announcement.
Northwood will return to
use from 7:15 a.m. to 1:55 a.m. on
weekdays and from 8:00 a.m.
to 2:00 a.m. on Saturdays and
Sundays. Rides are expected to
run at 20-minute frequencies.
The Oxford Shuttle will return
to operation on weekends from
5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. at 15-minute
intervals. New route information
will be updated on the Logistics,
Transportation & Parking website
early next week, though the new
routes will not be available on the
Magic Bus app, according to the
announcement.
These updated routes will run
in place of the Bursley-Baits and
Northwood loops that were part
of the “hub-and-spoke” system
developed by Transit Services
and faculty from the College of
Engineering last school year.
The “hub-and-spoke” model was
created to provide more frequent
trips between North Campus’s
Pierpont
Commons
and
the
Central Campus Transit Center
as well as to reduce time spent in
the bus per ride in light of COVID-
19. It offers two shorter “spoke”
routes: the Bursley-Baits loop and
the Stadium-Diag loop.
In an email to The Michigan
Daily
the
day
before
the
announcement
of
reinstated
routes, University spokesperson
Kim
Broekhuizen
attributed
the long wait times to a “serious
labor shortage” affecting Transit
Services as they adjust to serving
more students on campus.
“One area where we have been
hit the hardest is in the recruitment
of temporary and student drivers,”
Broekhuizen wrote on Sept. 1.
Sept. 2’s announcement also
specifies safety and preventative
measures,
including
a
face
mask requirement, installment
of moveable shields between
passengers
and
drivers,
and
increased air circulation through
open windows. Drivers are also
encouraged to keep doors open at
stops for increased ventilation, and
cleaning protocols for frequently
used surfaces will remain in place.
Daily News Editor Kristina
Zheng can be reached at krizheng@
umich.edu. Managing News Editor
Liat Weinstein can be reached at
weinsl@umich.edu.
LIAT WEINSTEIN &
KRISTINA ZHENG
Managing News Editor &
Daily News Editor
EMILY TAMULEWICZ/Daily
The Bursley-Baits and Northwood routes have been reinstated after widespread student frustration.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com