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

