SGA votes on modifying spring schedule, Kikano introduces surveillance testing
SGA President Katie Prebelich introduces possibilities for a modified Spring semester schedule at SGA's General Board meeting over WebEx on Sept. 21, 2020.
Opinions and questions were heard in debates over how the spring semester might look and Central Michigan University's new surveillance testing program on Sept. 21, 2020.
During CMU's Student Government Association General Board meeting, CMU's leader on the COVID-19 response Dr. George Kikano presented the new coronavirus surveillance testing program and the student body voted on intermittent days off during the spring semester.
Different spring semester schedule
No spring break is a possibility this spring semester, but SGA voted on alternative options that might lead to more holes in the school year. They voted on starting classes Jan. 11 and having several different days throughout the spring semester as days-off, as well as having a virtual first week of classes.
The student body had a number of options to choose from, none of them including a regular spring break:
- Start on Jan. 11 and end the semester a week earlier.
- Start on Jan. 11 and have online-only instruction and encourage students to stay in their dorms during the first week back, then end the semester one week earlier.
- Start on Jan. 11 and have several days throughout the week on different days as a day-off, ending the school year on the regularly scheduled day.
- Start on Jan. 19 and end on the regular date.
Due to a large amount of discussion around the first week being virtual, it was added as an additional question on the WebEx poll, which is used to count votes from the student body.
Brendan McDonald, Academic Affairs chair, wasn't sure about option #3. Because it's only an extra day or two unlike a long break, he said that students would most likely use it to work on assignments they were procrastinating on.
"I don't think the majority of students would take it as a day off like you would under spring break where you could take four days off without worrying about it," he said.
In the WebEx chat, students raised concerns that professors would still assign work over the free days.
Dr. George Kikano's presentation on surveillance testing
Kikano explained how the coronavirus surveillance testing program will operate to the student body. Partnering with a company with a "reliable test methodology," students, faculty, and staff can volunteer be involved in tests that would check to see how much of the campus is asymptomatic, Kikano said.
The nationally recommended threshold for asymptomatic universities is five-percent, he said.
"Personally, I think it's going to be lower," Kikano said.
Other business
Max Ranger was approved as the Government Affairs chair during the General Board meeting.
Committees did not meet, and both House and Senate had no new or old business to take care of.
