Year in Review
2020-2021
The 2020-21 school year was a year of challenges for everyone, including the University Unions community. We found ourselves developing new processes to keep the community safe from COVID-19, encourage student engagement and to provide virtual services.
To provide a safe environment for our visitors, our buildings installed safety signage and plexiglass barriers, increased cleaning measures, and implemented other public health informed practices. Entrance doors were monitored by greeters to ensure our visitors had completed their daily ResponsiBLUE questionnaire. And we offered virtual services to accommodate students who were unable to come to campus.
Our approaches may have been new, but our mission remained the same: To provide a catalyst for connection and learning that cultivates community and belonging at the University of Michigan.
Spaces
Service to the Community
University Unions facilities are uniquely positioned to offer a central location for students and faculty to study, meet and shop. For the 2020 election year, the Unions provided easy, safe access to voting, both in the August primaries and the November election.
The Union buildings also provided safe access to COVID-19 testing for students, staff and faculty, supporting the university-wide goal of making testing easily accessible to the campus community.
“Being able to test for COVID-19 on campus was really easy and provided me with a sense of security as I felt I was looking out for myself, my family and my colleagues.” – U-M Staff Member
Student Theatre Arts Complex
The Student Theatre Arts Complex remained open in limited capacity to provide space for performance groups to safely rehearse. Several rehearsals held in STAC led to virtual performances, keeping the University of Michigan community engaged in the arts from a distance.
Some of the student performance groups who rehearsed in STAC and offered virtual performances include: MUSKET (who performed the musicals Newsies and Bright Star), Groove, Michigan Pops Orchestra, RhythM Tap, Thus Spoke Ann Arbor, Maize Mirchi, and Rude Mechanicals.
Services
Campus Information Center
By September of 2020, the need for online engagement opportunities became clear to the entire U-M community. Thankfully, Happening @ Michigan provides a centralized way to share events across campus! During this school year, the number of events listed on Happening @ Michigan grew by 27% as more partners took advantage of this resource.
Due to the lockdown and limited access to residential halls during the winter semester, the number of people on campus was drastically reduced. Despite that reduction, the Campus Information Center provided support in these ways:
- Answered over 36,000 questions received via phone, email, and chat.
- Partnered with the First Year Experience office for a virtual “Ask Me Anything” session where they answered 261 questions. The most common question was: “Where do I get my COVID kit?”
- Partnered with the Division of Public Safety and Security (DPSS) to run the COVID hotline after hours. This service ensured that students and parents who had questions or concerns received quick and helpful responses.
Conference and Event Services
Quarantine and Isolation
The responsibility of providing comfort and safety for quarantined and isolated students fell, in part, to the CES team. In addition to creating welcome kits with snacks and resources, the CES team also created and operated the Quarantine and Isolation Coordination Center. The Coordination Center was staffed from 10am - 8pm seven days a week during the academic year, including academic breaks. CES supported students by facilitating rides, deliveries, meals, mail service and supplies for students who needed to stay in quarantine and isolation housing.
Quarantine & Isolation Housing Partners: Michigan Dining, Division of Public Safety & Security, Michigan Housing, Environment, Health & Safety, University Health Service, Contact Trace Corps, Dean of Students, Student Life Facilities
Canopies
Based on the CDC’s recommendation that open air spaces help to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission, the Office of the Provost funded a canopy program in partnership with Conference and Event Services and University Productions to provide outdoor canopies. These spaces were open-sided tents with tables, chairs (spaced appropriately for social distancing) and U-M Wi-Fi. Thanks to these canopies, students had the opportunity to eat, study and relax as part of an on-campus community.
Partners: Office of the Provost, Facilities & Operations, University Productions, Student Life Facilities
Study Spaces
To reduce the spread of COVID-19, campus spaces were de-densified to enable proper physical distancing. Furniture was removed in study and gathering areas across campus, including in the Unions. This reduced the number of available study locations for students.
Anticipating students would still need study space, the Office of the Provost coordinated with U-M ITS and many schools, colleges and units to implement studyspaces.umich.edu. CES inventoried all available seats in meeting rooms and lounges to add to the system for students to reserve across our spaces. Additionally, since in person events were not able to happen during the pandemic, we were able to convert many of our meeting and event spaces into designated study areas.
While students might not have been able to sit together, they could at least study in the Unions with others—it was a new kind of community building that provided 9,218 study spaces for 1,800 unique users. By providing opportunities for students to be safe on campus, these study spaces supported students’ well-being and academic success.
Study Space Bookings
Wedding Tasting
COVID-19 drastically changed the plans of so many engaged couples throughout the year. CES provided support as couples had to cancel or reschedule important dates and events—in some cases multiple times! In lieu of their annual wedding tasting, CES provided a custom tasting to surprise and delight couples. Working with MDining, they served 17 couples custom-made bags with freshly prepared samples—6 entrees and 4 hor d’oeuvres per couple. They loaded the bags with additional giveaways to make the event extra special.
“...we were thoroughly impressed with how it went. The food was delicious... The additions of cakes, cookies and cupcakes was such a fun nice surprise that really put a wonderful bow on the experience.” – Wedding Tasting guest
Michigan Union Ticket Office (MUTO)
The 2020-2021 year brought distinct challenges to MUTO in light of the many cancelled in-person events on campus and in the community. MUTO’s flexibility and resilience allowed it to handle the cancellations, refunds, reschedules, postponements and exchanges.
With the demand for virtual events surging, MUTO discovered a way to integrate their ticketing system with Zoom to distribute private links for prerecorded productions to patrons.
MUTO also needed to implement new ticketing software in 2021. By completing a 6-month onboarding process in only 2 months, MUTO was able to partner with Student Life Tech Solutions to roll out the new ticketing system just in time to accommodate three new in-person ticketed events in March.
At the end of the school year, MUTO facilitated all the technical needs of “Gathering Together After 1 Year”, an event designed to help process and heal from the difficulties of the pandemic. The event was hosted by CCI, Wolverine Wellness, CAPS and the Association of Religious Counselors.
CCI Major Events
Senior members of RhythM Tap (a UAC sponsored student org) worked with the Major Events Office (MEO) to adapt a large-scale culminating event into a COVID-safe recording opportunity.
Eighteen senior members of 4 dance groups, FunKtion, RhytM, Impact and Encore, performed in an empty Power Center while the audience watched online.The name of the event was called “DanceMix!”
Student Organization Resource Center (SORC)
SORC was able to convert all of its reservation processes to virtual in order to continue providing advertising support for student organizations and departments on campus.
Balloons ordered by parents and families quadrupled over the last year as students living in Ann Arbor received support from loved ones.
To recognize and congratulate graduating seniors, SORC repurposed campus advertising boards for use by parents and family members as giant greeting cards.
Programs
Center for Campus Involvement
Student Programs
Reaching out to engage with students became more important than ever this year. With so many students out-of-state or confined to their living spaces, it was crucial to ensure students had opportunities to connect and have fun. CCI started the fall semester strong, but as the process became more streamlined, they were able to triple their programmatic offerings for winter semester. The events reached a new level of creativity with themes like online escape rooms, trivia nights, DIY projects and drive-in movies.
Partnered with: University of Michigan Engineering, Recreational Sports, Wolverine Wellness, Campus Farm
“I so enjoyed these discussions in which we support one another's journeys, be present with the challenges, and rejoice in our collective strengths.” – Student
A student-wide weekly email called “Things to Do” was developed in the winter semester to increase opportunities for students to engage with the community. The staff at the Center for Campus Involvement, partnering with Communications, Marketing and Design, developed the email and contributed to the curation of events, the organization of the email and the approval process.
Student Organization Support
This year, the University of Michigan recognized student organizations who worked to engage students in community even from a distance. Supporting these student organizations remained a key component of CCI’s work through the creation of workshops, training, and continual communication about guidelines and policies.
Virtual fests were a key way for CCI to support student organizations in their recruitment efforts, and in turn, in creating involvement opportunities for students seeking student organization communities to join. Festifall and Winterfest were both held virtually using Career Fair Plus, where students utilized video conferencing to meet organization leaders.
Festifall 2020
Winterfest 2021
CCI also played an important role in maintaining public health informed behavior among student organizations through the enforcement of the Student Organization Accountability and Recognition (SOAR) process. CCI was able to work with student organizations to provide education and support about safe, remote and hybrid options for engaging their members.
“I liked how well organized the program was and that the OrgBasics team made a solid effort to compile all of the resources in one place for organization leaders to use.” – OrgBasics Participant
Partners: Office of the Vice President and General Council, Office of Student Conflict Resolution, First Year Experience, Ginsberg Center, Fraternity and Sorority Life, University of Michigan Engineering, Ross Business School, Recreational Sports
Diversity and Inclusion
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs responded to current events like elections, topics of police brutality and violence and racial justice, supporting wellness specifically connected to identities, and pathways and strategies for social justice in student organizations. The DEI team implemented fully virtual opportunities for students and staff to engage in conversations related to identity and leadership, group activism, honoring diversity and the many opportunities to celebrate (Black History Month, Women’s History Month, etc.).
Professional development offerings for UU staff included bi-weekly DEI huddles focused mainly on topics related to race and racial justice, as well as more specific offerings including: “Justice & Our Jobs,” “Intersections in Isolation,” and “Exploring Whiteness at Work.”
During the winter semester, a Racial Justice Working Group was established in the UU management team group. They performed an audit that focused on exploring professional staff hiring, student advisory boards, and student employee development to determine areas of strength as well as opportunities for improvement. Implementation began immediately following the process and will continue into the 2021-2022 academic year.
This year was a difficult one and reminded us, once again, that University Unions includes an amazing group of staff and students. We’d like to thank every member of our community for their integrity, dedication and kindness during these challenging times. Your work was seen and appreciated, and your strength of spirit was inspiring.
To learn more about any of the University Unions programs, services or facilities, visit the University Unions website.