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Freshmen make the best of an unprecedented fall semester Arriving on campus for the start of courses, new students try to adjust to college life in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic BEN ROSENFELD Daily News Editor

As the first day of fall semester approaches and students move into on-campus residence halls, freshmen have had to modify their expectations for what the semester will now look like. LSA freshman Elizabeth Wolfe, who lives in East Quad Residence Hall, said she has tried to make her first several days as normal as possible despite the semester’s clear differences. “Interactions have been limited but I’ve kind of found ways to just sit with people in the courtyard, be able to eat food with people socially distanced,” Wolfe said. “I guess the way I look at it is it’s not gonna be what freshman year would normally be but it just makes it into a new experience and I’m just trying to make the most of that.” With reports of many movein policies going unchecked or abandoned, many freshmen are fearful of a COVID-19 outbreak impacting students and classes shortly after the start of the semester. The first two cases of COVID-19 in residence halls were seen in West Quad this week. Wolfe said the idea of an outbreak on campus is even more worrying to her due to her preexisting condition. “I’m really concerned,” Wolfe said. “For me personally, I have asthma so I’ve been trying to take a lot of precautions.” Additionally, Wolfe said starting school almost entirely online adds extra difficulty to the first year experience. “I’m a little anxious about starting with online classes just because it was really difficult to do that at the end of

senior year (of high school) on such short notice,” Wolfe said. “But I trust the teachers here to do what’s right. I have a lot of confidence in them right now.” Kinesiology freshman Lauren Nemeh added that the difficulty with transitioning to online instruction and learning at the end of last year makes her more concerned for the upcoming school year. “With the second half of my senior year online, in some of my classes it was definitely tough because teachers were really unsure about what was happening too,” Nemeh said. “And it was hard because some of my teachers were super lenient with deadlines and were just like ‘get this in when you can,’ but others were trying to make it as close to the actual in-person (experience) as possible.” According to Wolfe, the biggest change between student activity during a normal semester and now has been in their social lives rather than in academics. “In terms of just day-to-day stuff, I think things have been pretty normal, just getting into a college routine and getting ready for classes to start next week,” Wolfe said. “So I think besides the social aspect, so far academically, things have been pretty normal.” Wolfe said she understands the urge for students to make the semester as normal as possible, but worries that it might interfere with the following of guidelines. “For the freshman class, we missed out on a lot,” she said. “We missed the end of our senior year (of high school), we missed graduation and our proms and I think that can kind of be taken two separate ways. I think for some people that was more of a motivator

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to be really responsible during this time and to try to not miss out on anything else. But I think people can also take that experience and want to compensate for that lost time, and they are going to go out and party.” However, Wolfe, like many other students, did not consider taking a year off before starting school, explaining that the uncertainty of the pandemic made this a difficult choice to make. “My family asked me about maybe taking a gap year but I really didn’t want to,” Wolfe said. “I just wanted to get right into freshman year. I didn’t want to take a break because I didn’t think it would be productive. It wouldn’t be likely that I could even get a job. I didn’t want to be sitting around for a year just waiting for things to get back (to normal).” According to Nemeh, students living in the dorms have found ways to meet each other in safe ways by interacting outside and wearing masks. “There’s definitely a lot more people walking around than I imagined,” Nemeh said. “I saw a bunch of people out there (Hill Neighborhood) playing basketball and tennis. So it looks like people are kind of hanging out that way and trying to meet new people.” Nemeh said residence hall GroupMe chats have been helpful for students to meet one another. “In GroupMes for East Quad where I live and my f loor, people are always texting, ‘Hey, anyone wanna go to the basketball courts or something?’’ Nemeh said.

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Instructors prepare to teach courses in person

Face-to-face learning presents challenges for faculty IULIA DOBRIN

Daily Staff Reporter

Faculty members are preparing for a fall semester at the University of Michigan like no other. For the majority of faculty members, this semester will require teaching over Zoom or preparing materials to upload to Canvas if their courses are taught entirely asynchronously. But others will teach face-to-face in socially distanced classrooms. Instructors across the University’s different schools and departments are still set to teach in person, despite some faculty pushback against the University’s reopening plans. Professor Kentaro Toyama organized a protest outside of the Fleming Administrative Building after an open letter requesting greater transparency from the University went unanswered. “I think, as instructors, what we would really like to see is the administration recognizing that we’re doing the hard work on the front lines and listening to our concerns,” Toyama said. Toyama is teaching a 500-level

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course in the School of Information in the fall, which will have the option of in-person discussions and office hours for students who wish to meet face to face. Despite electing to make his course hybrid, Toyama said he does not believe the University will make it through the semester without having to go fully online. “I don’t believe we should be having an in-person, in-residence semester,” Toyama said. “But if we’re going to do it, I think we need to do it as safely as possible. We probably need to test more often, we need to make sure that everyone’s wearing masks and socially distancing and so forth.” In June, University President Mark Schlissel announced the in-residence semester, with on-campus housing opening and a mix of in-person, hybrid and remote classes being offered. This plan is still in place, with residents moving in this week and classes starting Monday. Around 31 percent of undergraduate classes are set to be taught in an in-person or hybrid format. The School of Public Health and LSA are among those with the lowest percentages of

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in-person instruction, while the School of Nursing has some of the highest rates. In an interview with The Daily on Wednesday, Schlissel said going fully online would not make much of a difference, given the large percentage of classes already taught remotely, but he is hopeful the few classes that require students to be on campus remain in person. “Going fully remote is a pretty incremental difference from where we are right now,” Schlissel said. “It wouldn’t have left people at home. We’d still have lots of students in Ann Arbor, and we’d still have the challenge of working with students to help everybody understand what it takes to be safe from being infected and from transmitting the disease.” The Graduate Employees’ Organization, the union representing graduate student instructors on campus, has started impact bargaining ahead of the fall semester, calling for a guarantee of their members’ right to a safe workplace amid the pandemic.