There are few eras more difficult in a woman’s life than adolescence.

On Tuesday of Welcome Week this year, I had dinner alone on my porch. The house I had moved into just a few days earlier was still uncomfortably hot, so I fled to the cool breeze and quiet murmur of the street.

Waiting for a financial aid offer is a lot like waiting for a medical diagnosis. The unknown creates a fear so piercing, so all-consuming, that when the anticipated phone call or email finally comes through, holding your fate in a short string of sentences, your life halts for a second. And then, the shock: Maybe it’s a temporary loss of hearing. Maybe your heart begins to race so much you forget to breathe. Maybe you grow limp, wilting under the weight of life-altering information.

My dad is fifty-six years old. By most measures, he’s in great shape: He’s extremely active, he does manual labor for his work as a contractor, he eats things like bee pollen and protein bars and spinach smoothies and he regularly gets mistaken as fifteen years younger than he is. 

At the beginning of July, a new season of “Survivor Michigan,” the University of Michigan’s own fan-made version of the hit CBS reality show, started airing on Youtube on Wednesday nights. I wasn’t watching as a curious, objective viewer, though — in that season, filmed in the fall of 2018, I was a contestant.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a hectic news cycle. For the latest University of Michigan and Ann Arbor news on coronavirus, check out the links to The Daily’s articles below. 

Editor’s Note: The author of this op-ed is a staff member at the University of Michigan. They have been kept anonymous due to their fear of retaliation.

University of Michigan faculty members are considering a vote of no confidence in the administration due to the University’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and fall reopening plan, faculty members said at an emergency Faculty Senate meeting Friday. The meeting came a few days after a July 31 memo to University President Mark Schlissel from the President’s Advisory COVID-19 Committee on Ethics and Privacy was inadvertently made public and began circulating online, sparking criticism toward University administration. A successful vote of no confidence would mean the Faculty Senate no longer believes in University leadership’s ability to execute its role, which in this case applies to the University’s fall reopening plan, according to a copy of the motion obtained by The Daily.

Two cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in a University residence hall as students move onto campus. Two residents in West Quad Residence Hall who also visited South Quad Dining Hall tested positive for the virus, according to a notice from Danielle Sheen, executive director of the Environment, Health & Safety Department, which was dated Aug. 26 and taped in West Quad. University spokeswoman Kim Broekhuizen confirmed the two “unrelated” cases in an email to The Daily. She wrote that both students have returned to their permanent residences to isolate. The posting said the two students, who lived on the first and fourth floors, left West Quad Tuesday.

In the main hallway of Markley Residence Hall is a selection of large blue move-in bins. Standing next to the bins is a portable whiteboard sign with a hand-written message: “Please wipe before & after use!” On the floor lies a tube of disinfectant wipes, empty.