2013 09 04
DESCRIPTION
ÂTRANSCRIPT
michigandaily.comAnn Arbor, Michigan Wednesday, September 4, 2013
ONE-HUNDRED-TWENTY-THREE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
Psych prof. appointed faculty mediator
Ombuds serves as middleman in faculty conflicts
By SAM GRINGLASDaily Staff Reporter
Bruno Giordani, chief psy-chologist in the University’s Department of Psychiatry and professor of psychiatry, neu-rology and psychology, began his term as faculty ombuds, the University’s chief media-tor, Sunday.
A faculty member at the University for 26 years, Giordani has a vast array of experience in academia and University governance. Between 2005 to 2007, he was chair and vice chair of the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs and for 12 years was the director of
the neuropsychology section of the University Health Sys-tem.
As ombuds, Giordani will serve as a mediator in conflicts and as a liaison with stand-ing to recommend changes in policy or procedures to senior University officials.
According to the faculty ombuds website, ombuds — which translates to “repre-sentative” in Old Norse — is a neutral official positioned outside of an organization’s staff hierarchy. In their his-torical role, ombuds have provided a check on govern-ment rulers in the interest of a nation’s citizens.
In 2003, following the practice of other universities, then-Provost Paul Courant created the position of fac-ulty ombuds at the request of SACUA.
WSJ: Real-estate tycoon gives
$200M, largest gift to ‘U’ in historyBy PETER SHAHIN and
JENNIFER CALFASDaily Staff Reporters
Not to be outdone by Charles Munger, philanthropist and real estate mogul Stephen M. Ross nearly doubled the size of the previous biggest donation in Uni-versity history with a pledge of $200 million, first reported by The Wall Street Journal early Wednesday morning. Ross will
also serve as the chairman of the University’s upcoming multi-year fundraising initiative set to begin in November.
The donation — reportedly to be split between the Athletic Department and the Uni-versity’s business school that bears his name — elevates Ross’s total giv-ing to the University to $313 mil-lion. His new total inches him up the ranks of top university donors in the nation. Accord-ing to statistics compiled by The Chronicle of Philanthropy, this
donation would put Ross sec-ond behind Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, who pledged $350 million to Johns Hopkins University earlier this
year.A press
conference to announce the donation is scheduled for 9 a.m. Wednesday morning with
Ross, University President Mary Sue Coleman, Athletic Direc-tor Dave Brandon and Business School Dean Alison Davis-Blake.
The Michigan Daily could not reach the University for com-ment as of 2 a.m. Wednesday
morning.In an interview with the
Journal, Ross, 73, said the dona-tion will “finish the job” in completing renovations on the Business School’s other build-ings. In the last fifteen years, every one of the top 10 business schools in the country has spent at least $30 million on upgrades to its facilities. One of the chief factors in convincing Ross to give his original $100 million donation was to help keep Mich-igan’s business school competi-tive with peer institutions.
“I believe you give till it feels good,” Ross told the newspaper.
Ross is the founder and chair-man of Related Companies, a
Assembly resolves election issues, clarifies rules
By AMRUTHA SIVAKUMARDaily Staff Reporter
On Tuesday evening, the new Central Student Government assembly convened in the Michi-gan Union for the second time since the highly contested March elections.
In addition to introducing new resolutions that clarified and defined rules within student gov-ernment — and re-addressing an old resolution that opposed the price increase to student season football tickets — the assembly looked upon a series of agenda items.
After representatives who were unable to attend the first assembly meeting in April were sworn into their positions, the assembly voted to resolve the tie in the election for the singular representative seat available for the School of Public Health.
In the March elections, four students tied for the represen-tative position, each garnering one vote from their school. But,
because all four of those students were absent at the meeting, the assembly voted to leave the seat vacant for the remainder of the semester.
CSG President Michael Proppe, a Business senior, also informed representatives of developments between CSG and the University that had taken place over the summer, including the push for more student input in administrative decisions.
Proppe specifically referenced the new general-admission policy for home football games, which was largely implemented without advisement from Uni-versity students.
Despite addressing the Uni-versity’s Board of Regents at its May meeting, passing a CSG resolution against the new pol-icy and personally speaking to Athletic Director Dave Brandon, Proppe was unable to convince the department to compromise on the issue.
However, representatives from the Athletic Department will address the assembly on Sept. 17 to discuss its reasoning behind the policy and address concerns.
“The resolution worked,
ADMINISTRATION
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
CSG holds first fall meeting
Commisions to focus on Detroit, civic
engagement
By AMRUTHA SIVAKUMARDaily Staff Reporter
The Central Student Government has increased the number of task-oriented commissions that exist within its structure in order to grow its ability to enact change on cam-pus.
On Aug. 15, Business senior Michael Proppe, CSG President, issued executive orders to establish two commissions — the Voice Your Vote Commission and the Commis-sion on Detroit Engagement — based on the recommendations of CSG affiliates and student-body mem-bers.
The commissions, appointed by the CSG president, exist within the executive branch to conduct in-depth studies on campus issues and recommend solutions for consider-ation.
After discovering last year’s
‘M’ looks for scout-team player for Nix, or two
The 342-pound lineman is part of
an elite front seven By ZACH HELFAND
Daily Sports Editor
No one would ever accuse Notre Dame defensive tackle Louis Nix III of being petite, so Devin Funchess had to
catch himself after practice Tuesday. The Fighting Irish defense suffocated Michi-gan last year, Funchess said, because of their overpower-ing front seven.
Funchess, a sophomore tight end, said Notre Dame’s defensive line in particular was especially fearsome, and this year it returns two of three starters.
“The D-line, all three of
those little guys right there — ” Funchess said, then stopped. He raised his eyebrows. “Not little,” he said. “They’re kinda big.”
Even that underplays the size of the three Irish line-men. Defensive end Sheldon Day, the smallest of the bunch, is 290, and he is dwarfed by his teammates. The other end, Stephon Tuitt is 6-foot-6, 312
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
CSG adds two new boards to gov’t
See OMBUDSMEN, Page 3A
See CSG, Page 3A See COMMISSIONS, Page 3ASee FOOTBALL, Page 3A
ERIN KIRKLAND/DailyNotre Dame defensive tackle Louis Nix III (right) weighs in at 342 pounds. That’s more than two Dennis Norfleets. He won’t just be one of the Michigan line’s biggest tests of the year, but one of the toughest, too.
» PAGE 4A
So far away Making a MovementIs a long-distance relationship
in college really a crutch?» INSIDE
The Coalition for Tuition Equality forgedsignificant change in University policy.
TERESA MATHEW/DailyStephen Ross speaks at the Business School in Sept. 2012. Ross’ total donations to the University will total $313 million with the gift, according to The Wall Street Journal.
ROSS STRIKES AGAIN
See ROSS, Page 3A
“I believe you give until it feels good.”
-Stephen Ross said to The Wall Street Journal
INDEXVol. CXXIII, No. 124©2013 The Michigan Dailymichigandaily.com
N E W S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 AO P I N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 AA R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 A
S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7AC L A S S I F I E D S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 AS TAT E M E N T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 B
NEW ON MICHIGANDAILY.COMTrending: #NoMoreNokiaMICHIGANDAILY.COM/BLOGS/THETANGENT
GOT A NEWS TIP?Call 734-418-4115 or e-mail [email protected] and let us know.
WEATHER TOMORROW
HI: 71LO: 50
2-News
2A — Wednesday, September 4, 2013 News The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW TODAY
Though administra-tors seem to disagree on the group’s impact, it’s
clear the Coalition for Tuition Equality was a driving force in changing University policy.>> FOR MORE, SEE THE STATEMENT, INSIDE
2
Mississippi’s first state-wide alligator hunt has commenced and led to
the capture of two alligators, ABC News reports. The first catch beat previous record holders, weighing in at 723.5 pounds.
3
CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES
Tech saleWHAT: The Computer Showcase will host a sale with special prices on lap-tops, tablets, software and accessories. The sale will run through Sept. 13.WHO: Information and Technology ServicesWHEN: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.WHERE: Michigan Union and Pierpont Commons
Spanish lunch breakWHAT: Join other Span-ish enthusiasts for lunch and conversation. People all levels of proficiency are wel-come to attend.WHO: School of NursingWHEN: 12 p.m.WHERE: Nick’s Cafe, 300 N. Ingalls Building
Harmon exhibitWHAT: The famed #98 jersey of Michigan football legend Tom Harmon will be “unretired” for a exhibit of his life here in Ann Arbor. A collection of artifacts includes photos, documents and other materials. Har-mon was Michigan’s first Heisman winner. WHO: Bentley Historical LibraryWHEN: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.WHERE: Bentley Histori-cal Library
Career workshopWHAT: Learn what steps you should take to explore an array of career choices.WHO: The Career CenterWHEN: 8 a.m.WHERE: 3200 Student Activities Building
CORRECTIONSl Please report any error in the Daily to [email protected].
CRIME NOTES
Raise the roofWHERE: West Quad Residence HallWHEN: Sunday at about 5:30 p.m. WHAT: Multiple people were spotted on the build-ing roof. Citing disorderly conduct, University housing staff gave a verbal warning and escorted the two sub-jects off the roof, according to University police.
Skater hater WHERE: Church St.WHEN: Sunday around 7:15 p.m.WHAT: Several subjects were skateboarding, Uni-versity Police reported. One was given a citation for a regent’s ordinance viola-tion.
Window woesWHERE: 700th block of Fifth St.WHEN: Saturday or Sun-day between 1 p.m. and 10 a.m. WHAT: A burglary with forced entry was reported when a television accessory was found on the ledge of an open window, University Police reported. There are no suspects.
MORE ONLINE Love Crime Notes? Get more online at michigandaily.com/blogs/The Wire
A new study by the World Health Organization shows women over 50
years older are living on aver-age 3.5 years longer over the last two decades, The New York Times reports. Most of the gains were made by women in wealthier nations.
1
Getting smokeyWHERE: 1800 block of McIntyreWHEN: Sunday around 12:30 p.m.WHAT: Several people were smoking at the bus stop near Northwood IV. Housing security advised them of the smoke-free campus policy, University Police reported.
ON SABBATICAL
Mike McGovern is an associ-ate professor of anthropology, and has been working at the Uni-versity since 2012. He is on sab-batical for the fall semester.
What are you working on during your sabbatical?
I’m finishing up a book on Guinea, which is one of the main countries where I work in West Africa. My first book is on Côte d’Ivoire , and my sec-ond book is on Guinea, and my Ph.D. research was on Guinea. But I’ve also done research in Senegal, Mali, Niger, Chad and also a fair amount in Liberia.
What does your research focus on?
I mainly work on politics. But, as you may know, anthro-pologists approach politics from quite a different angle than a political scientist would. In social times we talk about large-end and small-end stud-ies, which basically mean a large-end study would be more quantitative.
What courses do you teach?I teach a course called
Anthropologies of Insurgency, and next semester I’ll be teach-ing a lecture course called The State in Africa. I teach some
graduate seminars, one that’s called Politics’ Aesthetics, and I’ve taught courses on cosmol-ogy and environs.
What do you do outside of the classroom?
I’m a rower. I row for the Ann Arbor Rowing Club. I like to eat; my wife is a chef.
So, what’s your favorite restaurant in Ann Arbor?Oh, let me see, I just had a real-
ly nice meal at Café Zola. Grange is also a favorite, and Pacific Rim. I guess I’ll say Grange.
— KATIE BURKE
Taking a break for African politics
TUESDAY:In Other Ivory Towers
THURSDAY:Alumni Profiles
FRIDAY:Photos of the Week
MONDAY:This Week in History
WEDNESDAY:Professor Profiles
PA C K T H E B O W L
420 Maynard St.Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327
www.michigandaily.com
The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the University of Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for fall term, starting in September, via U.S. mail are $110. Winter term (January through April) is $115, yearlong (September through April) is $195. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscriptions must be prepaid. The Michigan Daily is a member of The Associated Press and The Associated Collegiate Press.
BUSINESS STAFFAmal Muzaffar Digital Accounts Manager
Doug Soloman University Accounts Manager
Leah Louis-Prescott Classified Manager
Lexi Derasmo Local Accounts Manager
Hillary Wang National Accounts Manager
Ellen Wolbert and Sophie Greenbaum Production Managers
ANDREW WEINER Editor in Chief
734-418-4115 ext. [email protected]
KIRBY VOIGTMANBusiness Manager
734-418-4115 ext. [email protected]
Newsroom734-418-4115 opt. 3
Arts [email protected]
Sports [email protected]
Display [email protected]
Online [email protected]
News [email protected]
Letters to the [email protected]
Editorial [email protected]
Photography [email protected]
Classified [email protected]
EDITORIAL STAFFMatthew Slovin Managing Editor [email protected]
Adam Rubenfire Managing News Editor [email protected] NEWS EDITORS: Alicia Adamczyk, Peter Shahin, K.C. Wassman, Taylor WiznerASSISTANT NEWS EDITORS: Ariana Assaf, Jennifer Calfas, Hilary Crawford, Ian Dillingham, Will Greenberg, Sam Gringlas, Matt Jackonen, Rachel Premack, Stephanie Shenouda, Christy Song
Melanie Kruvelis and [email protected] Roberts Editorial Page Editors SENIOR EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS: Dan Wang, Derek WolfeASSISTANT EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS: Aarica Marsh, Megan McDonald
Everett Cook andZach Helfand Managing Sports Editors [email protected] SPORTS EDITORS: Alejandro Zuniga, Jeremy Summitt, Neal Rothschild, Rajat
Khare, Daniel Wasserman, Liz VukelichASSISTANT SPORTS EDITORS: Greg Garno, Alexa Dettlebach, Daniel Feldman, Erin Lennon, Lev Facher, Max Cohen
Kayla Upadhyaya Managing Arts Editor [email protected] ARTS EDITORS: Elliot Alpern, Brianne Johnson, John Lynch, Anna SadovskayaASSISTANT ARTS EDITORS: John Bohn, Sean Czarnecki, Max Radin, Akshay Seth, Katie Steen, Steven Tweedie
Adam Glanzman and Terra Molengraff Managing Photo Editors [email protected] PHOTO EDITORS: Teresa Mathew, Todd NeedleASSISTANT PHOTO EDITORS: Katherine Pekala, Paul Sherman, McKenzie Berezin, Ruby Wallau, Patrick Barron
Kristen Cleghorn and Nick Cruz Managing Design Editors [email protected] Goldberg Magazine Editor [email protected] DEPUTY MAGAZINE EDITOR: Paige Pearcy
Josephine Adams andTom McBrien Copy Chiefs [email protected] COPY EDITORS: Jennie Coleman, Kelly McLauglinAusten Hufford Online Editor [email protected]
HEY, SEE THAT BIG LIST OF NAMES OVER THERE?
YOU COULD BE ON THE DAILY’S MASTHEAD.
To join our staff, attend one of our mass meetings, which start at 7:30 p.m. at 420 Maynard St.:
THURSDAY, SEPT. 12SUNDAY, SEPT. 15TUESDAY, SEPT. 17
THURSDAY, SEPT. 19Nyad: Maturity helped me finish record-breaking swim
64-year-old swims from Cuba to Fla.
without shark cage KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) — The
clocks Diana Nyad uses to time her training swims show that she’s a slower swimmer than she used to be. That’s only natural: At age 64, she acknowledges she is no longer the “thoroughbred stal-lion” she was “back in the day.”
And yet, the endurance ath-lete says she felt stronger than ever when she completed her successful effort to become the first person to swim 110 miles from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage.
“Now I’m more like a Clydes-dale: I’m a little thicker and stronger — literally stronger, I can lift more weights,” Nyad told The Associated Press in a one-on-one interview Tuesday, a day after she finished her 53-hour, record-setting swim.
“I feel like I could walk through a brick wall. ... I think I’m truly dead center in the prime of my life at 64.”
Nyad isn’t alone among aging athletes who are dominating their sports.
Earlier this year, 48-year-old Bernard Hopkins became the
oldest boxer to win a major title, scoring a 12-round unanimous decision over Tavoris Cloud to claim the IBF light heavyweight championship.
Tennis player Martina Navra-tilova played in the mixed dou-bles competition at Wimbledon in her late 40s, and hockey leg-end Gordie Howe played in the NHL in his 50s.
Thousands of U.S. athletes, including 60-year-old Kay Glynn, also compete during the Senior Olympics.
Glynn, of Hastings, Iowa, has won six gold medals in pole vaulting at the Senior Olympics and set a new pole vaulting world record for her age in the 2011 National Senior Games.
Older athletes tend to find more success in endurance events than power events such as sprinting and other sports that rely on “fast- twitch” muscle fibers, which are more difficult to preserve later in life, noted Wojtek Chodzko-Zajko, a physi-ologist at the University of Illi-nois Urbana-Champaign.
But just because Nyad was swimming rather than pounding her joints against the concrete doesn’t mean she didn’t achieve a remarkable feat, Chodzko-Zajko said.
“This ultra, super-length
swimming is brutal regardless,” he said, adding that another rea-son athletes are able to endure is because they often train smarter and have a mental concentration that is well honed over decades.
“She’s one of any number of people who are redefining what happens with aging,” said Dr. Michael J. Joyner, an anesthesi-ologist and exercise researcher at Mayo Clinic.
“If you start with a high capac-ity, you have some reserves,” Joyner said. “You can lose some absolute power, but what you lose in power you can make up for with experience and strategy and better preparation.”
Nyad first attempted swim-ming from Cuba to Florida at age 29 with a shark cage. She didn’t try again until 2011 when she was 61.
She tried twice more in the past two years before beginning her fifth attempt Saturday morn-ing with a leap off the seawall of the Hemingway Marina into the warm waters off Havana. She paused occasionally for nourish-ment, but never left the water until she reached the white sand beaches of the Keys and waded ashore.
Nyad says her age and matu-rity should not be discounted when measuring her most recent success.
J. PAT CARTER/APEndurance swimmer Diana Nyad talks to the media about her record-setting swim from Cuba to Florida on Tuesday, Sept. 3.
ERIN KIRKLAND/DailyLSA senior Nicolette Techawatanasuk uses the new computers at the newly renovated Fishbowl on the first day of classes. Techawatanasuk thinks the changes are “quite nice” and said she might hang out at the Fishbowl more now because of them.
3-News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com News Wednesday, September 4, 2013 — 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
LANSING
Gov. Rick Snyder embarks on third trade trip to Asia
Gov. Rick Snyder on Wednes-day will embark on his third trade trip to Asia, this time with an added focus on selling Michi-gan as a destination to Chinese tourists.
The governor will begin the 10-day mission in China and then go to Japan over the week-end before returning to China for more meetings next week with senior government officials and executives of some of the coun-try’s biggest companies.
Snyder said the focus on attracting Chinese tourists is a new one compared with similar trade trips he took to the region in 2011 and 2012. The delegation plans to have receptions in two Chinese cities to tout the state’s attractions with the “Pure Mich-igan” tourism campaign.
DETROIT
State certifies Detroit mayoral primary election
Former Detroit Medical Center CEO Mike Duggan won Detroit’s Aug. 6 mayoral primary by more than 20,000 votes, according to official results approved Tuesday by state canvassers.
Tuesday’s certification was delayed two weeks after Wayne County canvassers turned the job over to the state.
County canvassers refused to count more than 24,000 write-in ballots because city elections workers used numeric counts instead of hash marks to tally them.
SAN FRANCISCO
Microsoft acquires Nokia’s smartphone biz.
Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s troubled smartphone business represents a daring $7.2 billion attempt by the software giant and a once-influential cell-phone maker to catch up with the mobile computing revolution that threatens to leave them in the technological dust.
The deal announced late Mon-day offers both companies a chance to make up for lost time with a strategy to meld their soft-ware and hardware into a cohe-sive package, like rival Apple has done. But there are plenty of reasons to question whether the copycat approach will pay off.
Unlike Apple, Microsoft Corp. makes most of its money from software for personal comput-ers — a still-profitable franchise that has gradually been crum-bling as smartphones and tab-lets supplant laptop and desktop machines. By some estimates, more than two-thirds of the computing devices being sold now are either smartphones or tablets, and there are few signs that trend will change during the next decade.
PYONGYANG
Rodman embarks on second trip to North Korea
Former NBA star Dennis Rod-man landed Tuesday in North Korea and said he plans to hang out with authoritarian leader Kim Jong Un, have a good time and maybe bridge some cultural gaps — but not be a diplomat.
Rodman was greeted at Pyong-yang’s airport by Son Kwang Ho, vice-chairman of North Korea’s Olympic Committee, just days after Pyongyang rejected a visit by a U.S. envoy who had hoped to bring home Kenneth Bae, an American missionary jailed there. The North abruptly called off the official visit because it said the U.S. had ruined the atmosphere for talks by holding a drill over South Korea with nuclear-capa-ble B-52 bombers.
—Compiled from Daily wire reports
Project may better Japan’s stake for
2020 Olympic bid TOKYO (AP) — The Japa-
nese government announced Tuesday that it will spend $470 million on a subterra-nean ice wall and other steps in a desperate bid to stop leaks of radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant after repeated failures by the plant’s operator.
The decision is widely seen as an attempt to show that the nuclear accident won’t be a safety concern just days before the International Olympic Committee chooses among Tokyo, Istanbul and Madrid as the host of the 2020 Olympics.
The Fukushima Dai-ichi plant has been leaking hun-dreds of tons of contaminated underground water into the sea since shortly after a mas-sive 2011 earthquake and tsu-nami damaged the complex. Several leaks from tanks stor-ing radioactive water in recent weeks have heightened the sense of crisis that the plant’s owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., isn’t able to contain the problem.
“Instead of leaving this up to TEPCO, the government will step forward and take charge,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said after adopting the out-line. “The world is watching if we can properly handle the contaminated water but also the entire decommissioning of the plant.”
The government plans to spend an estimated 47 billion yen ($470 million) through the end of March 2015 on two projects — 32 billion yen ($320 million) on the ice wall and 15 billion yen ($150 million) on an upgraded water treat-ment unit that is supposed to remove all radioactive ele-ments except water-soluble tritium — according to ener-gy agency official Tatsuya Shinkawa.
The government, howev-er, is not paying for urgently needed water tanks and other equipment that TEPCO is using to contain leaks. Shinka-wa said the funding is limited to “technologically challeng-ing projects” but the govern-ment is open to additional help when needed.
The ice wall would freeze the ground to a depth of up to 30 meters (100 feet) through a system of pipes carrying a coolant as cold as minus
40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 Fahrenheit). That would block contaminated water from escaping from the facil-ity’s immediate surroundings, as well as keep underground water from entering the reac-tor and turbine buildings, where much of the radioactive water has collected.
The project, which TEPCO and the government proposed in May, is being tested for fea-sibility by Japanese construc-tion giant Kajima Corp. and is set for completion by March 2015.
Similar methods have been used to block water from parts of tunnels and subways, but building a 1.4-kilometer (0.9-mile) wall that surrounds four reactor buildings and their related facilities is unprec-edented.
An underground ice wall has been used to isolate radioactive waste at the U.S. Department of Energy’s for-mer site of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Ten-nessee that produced pluto-nium, but only for six years, according to the MIT Tech-nology Review magazine.
Some experts are still skep-tical about the technology and say the running costs would be a huge burden.
Japan to spend $470M to plug up leaking reactor Remark by Boston
mayor sparks anger from Detroit gov’t
guys,” Proppe said at the meet-ing Tuesday night, assuring the representatives of their suc-cess. “(The Athletic Depart-ment) got some bad press on it and now they are turning it around.”
Proppe also pointed to the lack of student representatives on the University Regent’s Presidential Search Advisory Committee, saying there were even more “serious, long term
implications” than the lack of student input in ticketing poli-cies.
Although the push to attain student seats on the commit-tee was not successful, Proppe said the University Council — a joint governing body com-posed of presidents from the student governments of all University schools and col-leges — will finalize steps to gain more input on Sept. 9 in a meeting with Regent Kath-erine White.
Tuesday’s agenda also included an item to elect and
approve leadership positions on executive and legislative boards.
Once selected, represen-tatives were elected to hold chair and vice chair posi-tions on the four legislative committee and the assembly voted unanimously to con-firm the executive nomina-tion of Business senior Eric Kibler for treasurer and LSA senior Russ Hayes for chief of staff. They will serve on the executive branch beside Proppe and CSG Vice Presi-dent Bobby Dishell.
The ombuds must main-tain confidentiality in negotiations and pin-point new issues that may require University review. Any member of the Uni-versity faculty, including professors, researchers, librarians or instruc-tors, can use the ombuds. The University also has an ombuds designated for students that reports to E. Royster Harper, vice presi-dent for student affairs. Additionally, each academ-ic unit has their own fac-ulty ombuds.
At the University, the ombuds provides informa-tion and options to faculty looking to resolve a con-f lict with other faculty, administrators or students. Potential conf licts can
include disputes over hir-ing practices, performance evaluations or other Uni-versity policies applied unfairly. The ombuds serves a resource for mem-bers — though they do not advocate or choose sides in a conf lict.
“I want to assure faculty that I can be an effective voice when they need one to reach other faculty, U-M faculty governance, or Uni-versity administration,” Giordani said in a state-ment.
Giordani earned a Bach-elor of Arts degree in 1975 from Dartmouth College and a doctorate from the University of Virginia in 1982.
He came to the Univer-sity in 1987 and has been a mentor in the Undergradu-ate Research Opportunity Program since it was found-ed 25 years ago.
OMBUDSMENFrom Page 1A
CSGFrom Page 1A
pounds. He is an All-American.In the middle, though, Nix’s
size is unparalleled. He goes by the name Irish Chocolate. He is listed at 342 pounds. That is exactly two Channing Striblings. It’s more than two Dennis Nor-fleets.
Offensive coordinator Al Borg-es said the defensive line will be the toughest Michigan will face this year. And as the Wolverines prepare for it this week, they must first solve one question: how do they replicate Nix?
One reporter asked Borges if Michigan would use one scout-team player to simulate Nix or two. He was only half joking. Borges laughed.
“Boy, he is a load,” Borges said. “He’s not easy to move.”
Still, as Borges talked Tuesday, inspiration struck.
“We’ll find somebody,” Borges said. “Matter of fact, I have some-body in mind as you speak. Not going to say who.”
Whomever Michigan picks, he’ll still be considerably light-er than Nix. Borges said the coaching staff prefers to keep scout-team players at their nat-ural positions. The Wolverines have some hefty offensive line-men, but less on the other side of the ball. Michigan’s bulkiest defensive lineman is sophomore Ondre Pipkins, at 315 pounds, but he plays significant min-utes. Redshirt junior Richard Ash is 314 pounds, 28 less than Nix.
Borges said scout-team players take a certain pride in weeks like this. Tuitt’s double, for example, must create some resemblance to the All-American.
Fifth-year senior Quinton Washington, Michigan’s own, smaller version of Nix, remem-bers playing on the scout team during Notre Dame week. Back then, Washington was an offen-
sive lineman. He had to block Brandon Graham.
“You could just tell the differ-ence between that week and dif-ferent weeks,” Washington said. “It was a different feeling. You got hit a lot differently being on the scout team.”
Last year, Notre Dame rode its dominant defense to the nation-al championship game. Pres-sure from the front seven stifled Denard Robinson and held him in check earlier in the season. Mich-igan threw five interceptions in the loss in South Bend. Borges said Tuesday that the pressure caused the mistakes.
Both Borges and Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly mentioned on Tuesday that Michigan has a much different offense than in past years. The new offense emphasizes the downhill run-ning game. But Kelly has con-structed his defense to defend that.
“Well, we’re built that way,” Kelly said at his press conference Tuesday. “We’re a bigger, physi-cal football team. We prefer that kind of match up.”
Kelly said Tuitt could play “quite a bit” against Michigan’s own All-American, fifth-year senior left tackle Taylor Lewan. But he’ll also play on the other side of the line. Kelly added that Temple had triple-teamed Nix at times last week.
That’s what happens when you’re 342 pounds. More fright-ening, Nix has played more con-sistently than last year, when Notre Dame gave him frequent breathers. Even so, Manti Te’o, who finished second in the Heis-man voting last year, said he would have voted for Nix, accord-ing to the New York Times.
Washington weighs 41 pounds less than Nix, but he can relate. He came to Michigan at 330 pounds. The size works for Nix, but it’s not for everyone.
“I’ll never get back to it,” Washington said. “It was hor-rible.”
FOOTBALLFrom Page 1A
executive commissions were no longer operational within the dictates of the Constitution, CSG President Michael Proppe and Vice President Bobby Dishell initially issued executive orders in July to create 23 new “task-oriented” commissions.
However, the reorganiza-tion granted the executive commissions additional f lex-ibility — allowing students to recommend the establishment of any additional commis-sion to the executive branch if they felt any campus issue was underrepresented in student government.
LSA senior Hayley Sakwa, former vice presidential candi-date from political party forUM and proponent of the Commis-sion on Detroit Engagement, said the commission would bring together student leaders from various Detroit-based stu-dent organizations to facilitate collaboration.
“The missions and the goals
will really come from all of the student organizations that come together in that space,” Sakwa said, citing better, low-cost transportation amenities between the University and Detroit as a possible venture. Available CSG funding would help back the commissions’ pilot projects, she added.
Besides the collaborative and programmatic function she said she hopes the commission would satisfy, Sakwa said the commis-sion would more actively pres-ent a “strong, cohesive, united voice” to University administra-tors where matters regarding Detroit were concerned.
In an e-mail to the CSG com-mission chairs and assembly representatives, Proppe said an active Voice Your Vote Com-mission would be important in planning for the Ann Arbor City Council elections in November and begin the voter registration processes for the Michigan elec-tions that will take place the fol-lowing year.
The commission, unlike the Commission on Detroit Engagement, existed within last year’s executive branch,
but Proppe said it was left out of the initial executive orders until he was aware of student interest.
“Initially we left it off because traditionally Voice Your Vote has not been active when there have not been national or state-wide elections,” Proppe said in an interview. “But there were some students who actually wanted to leave the commission active to (register students and plan for the future).”
In the upcoming weeks, the Executive Nominations Committee will present their recommendations for the can-didates that will chair the 25 commissions. Currently, Proppe and Dishell have sub-mitted their nominations for chair positions to the Execu-tive Nominations Committee, which is in the process of con-ducting reviews.
As per the CSG Constitution, the recommended candidates will be inducted into their chair positions to garner a simple majority vote from the Assem-bly. All commission chairs will be confirmed by Sept. 23, Proppe said.
COMMISSIONSFrom Page 1A
Detroit Mayor Bing says Menino’s
remarks were ‘regrettable’
DETROIT (AP) — Detroit Mayor Dave Bing accused his Boston counterpart of insen-sitivity Tuesday after Thomas Menino told a magazine that if he ever visited the Motor City, he’d “blow up the place and start all over.”
In a New York Times Maga-zine article that first appeared online last week, Menino said Detroit is a place he’d like to visit, then added the rest when asked what he’d do there.
“It is extremely regrettable that Boston Mayor Thomas Menino used such an unfortu-nate choice of words to describe what he would do if he came to Detroit,” said Bing, who is not running for re-election after one term as mayor. “I would think the mayor of a city that recently experienced a deadly bombing
attack would be more sensitive and not use the phrase ‘blow up.’”
A spokeswoman for the Bos-ton mayor said Menino “feels strongly about cities,” cares about Detroit’s problems and “would like to help in any way he can.”
“The mayor is sorry that people have taken offense,” Dot Joyce told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “It was never his intention.”
She said that Menino’s pro-posal to “blow up the place” meant to overhaul the broken systems that have helped bring down Detroit.
Three people were killed and more than 260 injured in April when pressure cookers packed with explosives, nails, ball bear-ings and metal shards detonated near the finish line of the popu-lar Boston Marathon.
One of the suspects was killed three days later in a gun battle with police. His brother was captured and has pleaded not guilty to using a weapon of mass destruction charges.
large real-estate development firm based in New York City. He graduated from the University of Michigan’s Business School in 1962 and later went on to earn his J.D. at Wayne State University in 1965. Ross founded Related Companies in 1972 — which has since flourished into a $15 billion enterprise.
As of March 2013, Ross’ personal net worth was valued by Forbes at $4.4 billion. He is also the owner of the Miami Dolphins football team.
The Ross School of Business is no stranger to sizeable donations. In 2004, Ross donated $100 million for the school’s extensive recon-struction, which opened in 2009. In honor of his contribution, the Board of Regents voted in a special session to rename the school after its larg-est benefactor. Ross now serves as chair for the upcoming capital cam-paign, which will focus on extend-ing greater financial aid.
Ross serves on University Presi-dent Mary Sue Coleman’s Advi-sory Group in addition to the Director’s Cabinet in the Univer-sity’s Department of Intercolle-giate Athletics. His other gifts to the University include a $5 million donation toward a new athletic aca-demic center, $1 million to establish a professorship in real estate at Ross and $50,000 to establish the Henry Pearce Endowed Fellowship in LSA.
Wednesday’s gift is only the lat-est in a series of large donations to the University as public universi-ties increase their focus on private donations due to lowered govern-ment support in Michigan. During the last few months, the University has been the benefactor of several gifts targeted at graduate programs, housing and revamping certain medical facilities.
In April, the University received a $110 million donation from Alum Charles Munger, the vice chair-man of Berkshire Hathaway, to build a graduate housing complex at Division and Madison Streets, on
land where the Blimpy Burger res-taurant and several rental houses once stood. At the time, Munger’s gift topped only Ross’ $100 million gift to his now-namesake Business School in 2004. Munger’s donation will help fund the $180 million resi-dence project and includes $10 mil-lion for fellowships to help create a residential community.
A $50-million donation from the Zell Family Foundation, granted to the LSA Master of Fine Arts in Cre-ative Writing program, is the larg-est donation in that college’s history. The March donation, will help ease the financial burden of those par-ticipating in the program to ensure they will have the resources to continually practice and hone their writing abilities.
And finally, the Frankel family has given a total of $50 million to the University’s Cardiovascular Center in the last decade — with $25 million donated in 2007 and another $25 million in March of this year. The center now ranks 12th in the nation for its specialty.
ROSSFrom Page 1A
4A — Wednesday, September 4, 2013 Opinion The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ANDREW WEINEREDITOR IN CHIEF
MELANIE KRUVELISand ADRIENNE ROBERTS
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORSMATT SLOVIN
MANAGING EDITOR
420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
I f this school year is like any other, many of you new stu-dents are arriving at the Uni-
versity with a long-distance boyfriend or girlfriend at another col-lege or back home. A couple of weeks ago, you left each other for what might be the first time. Now, as you navigate the cereal dispens-ers in the Hill Dining Center, you imagine them longing for you in the midst of golden wheat fields or on smoky fire escapes. As you lay awake in your dorm room with a stranger’s snoring filling the dense Ann Arbor night, you read and reread their text messages.
“I love you so much,” they say. “This is the worst, but we’ll get through it.”
Of course, it’s good to know that someone cares for you, especially when your surroundings are so frighteningly new. You don’t know where to find Angell Hall Audi-torium A or if you’ll have to play another icebreaker tonight, but you’re sure that there’s a person missing you from miles away. Your sweetheart — excuse the gender-neutral ‘50s slang — is a security blanket, a perceived constant, a reminder of the comforts of home. But, there’s such a thing as being too comfortable.
I know from experience that it’s easy to use a long-distance rela-tionship as a crutch. It can become an excuse to stay in and video chat on a Friday night while kids from your hall are exploring the mysterious streets of Ann Arbor. They’re being brave and making new friends, while you perform Skype sex in your dim dorm room — hoping to God you don’t hear the
sound of your roommate keying in the code to your door. They’re get-ting tipsy, maybe even laid, while you’ve got your pixelated genitals traveling all the way to a space sat-ellite so your partner can get off on a wavering image of you.
Sure, there’s something tragi-cally romantic about having a lover so far from your fingertips, and physical loneliness may not seem so bad in the face of all your damn love. But in reality, sexting gets old real fast and relying on weekend visits with your roommate in the bunk below you is going to make the long, cold Michigan winter feel even longer.
I know it can be especially hard to imagine yourself with a new person if your sweetheart was the first girl to slide her hand down the waistband of your underwear, or the first guy to treat your nakedness as a gift. However, I can promise you that there are many others out there who would gladly do the same. It’s also not just about sex. Imagine what you could be missing out on while you slip away from your friends to update your sweetheart on what you ate for breakfast or what your pro-fessor was wearing in lecture.
The classes, choices and experi-ences you have now will change you immeasurably in the long run. College is a microcosm of endless possibility and due to its magic, it’s unlikely you’ll be the same person once you graduate. You could take geology classes that inspire you to spend the rest of your life on archeo-logical digs. One wacky Residential College puppet-making class could convince you to join the School of Art & Design. Most importantly, no matter how great You 2.0 will be, you won’t be the same person your sweetheart signed up for, and that could be true for them as well.
“This is hard!” your lover’s texts say. So, ask yourself: Why are you doing it? Do you imagine a life with them after college, a wedding
attended by your entire family and your genes converging into babies? If so, then do what you have to do; in that special case, you’ll have the rest of your lives to be together after school. If you’re unsure, have an adult discussion about the future with your partner. If you’re mak-ing the commitment to stay faithful from a distance, then you should be able to discuss what your relation-ship may look like in the long term.
But, if there’s no endgame in mind, if there’s no plan, then why are you committing yourself to years of shared loneliness? Is it true love pro-pelling your long-distance relation-ship or fear of the unknown?
New social and sexual experi-ences are worth the uncertainties that come along with being on your own in an unfamiliar place. At this very moment, there are thousands of other new students wandering starry-eyed through campus. Their collective excitement is building an energy that sparks new friendships and bravery, but it will dissipate once classes fall into full swing. This is the sweet spot — now’s the time to take advantage of the fact that everyone is jittery and unsure and open to new experi-ences. Be nervous with them. Get out there and use your fear. You could be anyone, and do almost anything. This is the time to move on from your old life and join in on the excitement of firsts sweeping through campus.
— Emily Pittinos can be reached at [email protected].
(Not) going the distance
Forty-four states have adopted the Common Core State Stan-dards, a set of federal benchmarks that spell out math, read-ing and writing skills for students in kindergarten through
twelfth grade. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Michigan is not one of these states. Despite the fact that these standards would ensure that Michi-gan students are on the same level as students across the nation, state lawmakers are clearly comfortable wasting their constituents’ time with arbitrary and strictly ideological debates about the idea of man-dated standards. A clear majority of states are currently working on developing curricula, educating teachers on how to help students meet these benchmarks and utilizing technology for the classroom. It’s about time Michigan does the same for its students.
FROM THE DAILY
The Michigan State Board of Education adopted Common Core standards in 2010, and schools subsequently adopted these standards into their curriculum. However, in July, the state legislature blocked funding that would help to implement the standards. One of the main reasons Common Core is still not univer-sally welcome is general misinformation. The Common Core establishes what students need to know by the end of the year to make them college- and career-ready. However, they do not dictate how teachers must instruct stu-dents, nor do they determine which schools get funding based on standardized test scores. An Education Next poll shows that, in general, the more people know about the new standards, the more they like them.
Despite the benefits of the initiative, conser-vative-led opposition has prevented Common Core from becoming state law. State Rep. Tom McMillian (R-Rochester Hills) has spearhead-ed the campaign against the standards, spend-ing hours badgering the subcommittee with irrelevant questions. At the crux of his dissent is the Tea Party notion that the Common Core is a gross exercise of federal power, undermin-ing the state’s ability to develop education.
Regardless of political ideology, this under-standing of the standards is off base. While the federal government offered grant money to states that adopted the standards, the Common Core campaign was lead in part by the National Governors Association — in other words, it’s a
state-led effort. Common Core is not a part of No Child Left Behind, nor does it “track every-thing about our nation’s children and report it back to the federal government,” as U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) suggested. And while some adversaries of the initiative dubbed it “ObamaCore,” the standards were being draft-ed before the president took office.
Common Core is not a nationalized curric-ulum but a set of educational goals — a list of math and English skills students should have regardless of where they are from. The stan-dards have been developed by teachers and education experts with significant experience and understanding of where American stu-dents should be heading. Adoption of the stan-dards is voluntary — it’s not being forced down anyone’s throat by the federal government. Gov. Rick Snyder understands this and sup-ports the initiative. So does former Republican Gov. John Engler.
While McMillian and other opponents’ dis-sent may make them heroes of the right-wing fringe just in time for election season, it’s not doing any favors for Michigan’s students who continue to fall behind. Michigan ranks near the bottom in most subject areas compared to other states. These standards will help Michi-gan to not only compete on a nationwide level, but on an international one as well. Michigan’s lawmakers need to set the ideologically driven paranoia aside and focus on what we really need — better education.
If there’s no endgame, then why commit
yourself to years of shared lonliness?
Across party lines, politi-cians in recent elections have agreed on one thing:
We have an “energy issue.” What precisely that issue is has been more dif-ficult to define, but whether the motivation arises from geo-politics, environ-mental concerns or technologi-cal forecasts, the widely accepted consensus is that we, as a nation, simply cannot stay the course when it comes to fuel.
Last November, Michigan voters struck down a ballot proposal that would have mandated that 25 per-cent of the state’s energy usage be supplied from renewable sources. Scientifically, it was a feasible goal, although the outcome of the vote shed light on a more complex reality. The roadblock to reaching a solution to our “energy problem” isn’t tech-nological, but political. If Michigan is serious about being a leader in addressing the energy concerns, we must be serious about supporting alternative fuels. The most economi-cally, technologically and geopoliti-cally sustainable way to do this is to advocate for the continued growth of nuclear energy throughout Mich-igan and the rest of the country.
Opposition to alternative ener-gy often comes from an economic standpoint. Fossil fuels provide more energy output per unit than many other types of fuel and are eas-ily deliverable to consumers given current infrastructure.
For many Americans, the price at the pump is the measure for wheth-er or not we have an “energy prob-lem” worthy of political action. We expect our fuel to be cheap, con-sistent and available. If the costs are too high, there’s an issue. But,
currently, we don’t have another choice besides literally buying into the problem.
The technology required to achieve independent, sustainable energy already exists. If the United States undertook a massive over-haul of our current electrical grid and replaced all power stations with breeder nuclear reactors, we’d be able to meet our energy needs at the current consumption rate for up to five billion years. France already gets almost 80 percent of its electric power from nuclear sources com-pared with Michigan’s 22 percent and the United States’ 19 percent.
So why don’t we “go nuclear?” Simply put, the technological switch to more sustainable fuel sources is being held back by a society that has adapted to fossil fuels. Even if the infrastructure of our current power grid were taken out of the equation, many examples of societal rejection of energy alternatives would still exist. From the long-established coal mining communities of the eastern United States to the power-ful anti-nuclear lobbies, the energy issue isn’t played out in research labs, but in political campaigns.
Fear is also a strong motivator against change. Although there are legitimate concerns about what the United States would do with its nuclear waste, the issues raised about the safety of nuclear power are largely misconstrued. Nuclear power is statistically the safest form of energy currently available. When assessed by the number of deaths per terawatt hour of energy produced from each commercially viable power source, nuclear ener-gy is at the very bottom of the list. Coal and oil combined are respon-sible for almost 5,000 percent more deaths than nuclear power. More people have had fatal accidents falling off their roofs installing solar panels than have ever died by nuclear incidents.
Despite these statistics, the fact that nuclear power was first intro-duced to the world as the atomic bomb — a devastating source of destruction — continues to have lasting effects. Following the Fuku-shima Daiichi disaster of 2011, public support for nuclear power dropped to 43 percent, though pub-lic support for hydroelectric power has remained fairly consistent over the years, even in the wake of the dam failure in China that killed an estimated 171,000 people. If we’re to fairly address energy issues, we must present the facts accurately and encourage a culture in popular media and schools that leans away from an anti-nuclear bias.
Michigan’s rejected ballot pro-posal represents a crossroads that the United States must contemplate. Have we reached the point in our society where we perceive the limi-tations of our fossil-fuel-dependent infrastructure to finally overshad-ow the costs that overhauling the system would incur? Or do we still perceive our economic and societal situation as one where the oppor-tunity cost of devoting significant effort and resources to this kind of overhaul would be too great? At this point, the limiting factor in prevent-ing a solution to our “energy prob-lem” isn’t technological, but rather political and ultimately, societal — a problem that we can and must change through education, policy and politics.
— Julia Zarina can be reached at [email protected].
Go nuclear?
The roadblock to reaching a solution to our
“energy problem” isn’t technological but political.
EMILY PITTINOS
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERSKaan Avdan, Sharik Bashir, Barry Belmont, Eli Cahan, Eric Ferguson, Jesse Klein,
Melanie Kruvelis, Maura Levine, Patrick Maillet, Aarica Marsh, Megan McDonald, Jasmine McNenny, Harsha Nahata, Adrienne Roberts, Paul Sherman, Sarah Skaluba,
Michael Spaeth, Daniel Wang, Derek Wolfe
JULIA ZARINA
Weeks after the Egyptian military overthrew democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi from power, an Egyptian court ordered the release of former President Hosni Mubarak from prison after failing to charge him with any crimes — one of many testaments to the rever-sal of the democracy-seeking Arab Spring.
These events, in tandem with the military’s new self-imposed rule, have left the country in a state of “Mubarakism without Mubarak,” and, as a result, prompted many to jump to the conclusion that Islam and democracy are irrec-oncilable — if they weren’t already convinced so. Egypt dabbled in democracy for a short period, but its failure reaffirmed the precon-ceived notion that Muslims are incapable of maintaining a democratic government due to their inability to suppress their violent tenden-cies, respect people of different faiths and grant basic rights by virtue of their holy book.
From the onset of the uprisings in the Arab World, the West has offered its recommenda-tions for achieving democracy in the region — imperialistically, I might add. What is unclear to many is that political beliefs are relative to individuals within a specific identity, and prescribing Western democracy is not a viable solution to the hot political climate of the Mid-dle East, for cultures will clash with systems that aren’t mindful of their intricate dynamic. It’s not the Middle East that is unsuitable for democracy, but rather Western democracy is unsuitable for the Middle East.
Indispensable in the discussion of Ameri-can and European endeavors in the Middle East is the distinction between Western democracy and the shape of democracy appropriate for the Middle East. The West-ern prescription for democracy in the Middle East includes a substantial dosage of secular-ism, but neglects the most vital ingredient for democracy — pluralism. Egypt’s experiment with democracy failed for many reasons, but most importantly because it attempted to uti-lize an imposed model of government that doesn’t take into consideration the religio-cultural fabric of the country. In failing to recognize Islam and democracy’s inherent commitments to pluralism, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood illegitimated itself and razed any hope for sound human rights policy in
the country.For decades, Egypt’s people withstood
censorship in every sense under Mubarak’s despotic regime. Since being released from his stronghold, the Muslim Brotherhood has reacted erroneously to the public’s concerns. Consequently, critics around the world were quick to jump the gun and herald Egypt as the paradigm of what democracy looks like among Arabs and Muslims. Never mind that Morsi and his cronies thrived on sectarianism and followed their own deluded interpreta-tion of Islam. And never mind that this placed the Muslim Brotherhood at odds with the legitimate democratic process that brought the party to power and Shariah law, which it claims to have been trying to implement.
What is most important to note when discussing the Shariah is that men created this body of laws. The Qur’an is the primary source used to construct said laws, but it’s by no means a book of laws. This supplements the suggestion that Islam doesn’t intrinsically encourage any form of government. Seeing as the Shariah is man-made, it’s predisposed to change just as man’s opinions are with time, thus not ruling out the prospect of democracy.
Contrary to popular belief, it’s not blasphe-mous for Muslims to live under the rule of a government by the people and for the people. In a region such as the Middle East, how-ever, where a person’s religion defines his or her identity, it‘s difficult to isolate faith and politics. So, the most practical solution is to implement a fusion of the Shariah and democ-racy — in Muslim-majority countries, that is.
Moreover, a culturally relativistic approach when offering advice as an outsider is impera-tive. The United States is without a doubt the most important actor in the global political arena, but what our government fails to rec-ognize at times is that this isn’t a one-size-fits-all world, and what is suitable for our secular society may not be so in the Middle East. We must not impose our visions for the region in such a way that will thwart any progress towards governments that will honor the rights of their people and promote diplomatic relations with the rest of the world.
Layan Charara is an LSA junior.
LAYAN CHARARA | VIEWPOINT
One size doesn’t fit all
CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATIONReaders are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and viewpoints.
Letters should be fewer than 300 words while viewpoints should be 550-850 words. Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation to
Common Core, common senseIt’s time to focus on educating students and end ideological debates
5-Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com News Wednesday, September 4, 2013 — 5A
Critics note disparites in Arab
neighborhoodsJERUSALEM (AP) — Jerusa-
lem’s mayor presides over perhaps the most complicated city in the world: deeply divided between Arab and Jew, religious and secu-lar, rich and poor, and claimed as a capital by both Israelis and Pal-estinians.
But Nir Barkat, a successful former high-tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist, told The Associated Press that Jerusalem is thriving like never before and in a re-election pledge insists the key to success is keeping its vari-ous fragments united.
With peace negotiators dis-cussing the potential future partition of Jerusalem, Barkat emphatically says the city can’t be split and urges negotiators meet-ing in Jerusalem Tuesday to take any such talk off the table.
“It will never function, it will never work. It is a bad deal,” he said during an interview in his office at City Hall. “Doing a bad deal is worse than no deal.”
Jerusalem is Israel’s largest city and its 800,000 residents are split almost evenly among secular and modern Orthodox residents, Muslim Palestinians and ultra-Orthodox Jews. The Arab popu-lation lives almost entirely in east Jerusalem, the sector captured by Israel in 1967 and claimed by the Palestinians as their capital.
Elected in 2008, in a victory seen as a backlash against ultra-Orthodox control of the city, Barkat claims to have stopped the exodus of tens of thousands of secular Jerusalemites, invigo-rated cultural life in the city and improved quality of life for the city’s Arabs. But it remains one of the poorest cities in Israel.
Barkat, who is seeking a sec-ond five-year term in October, laid out his goal of maintaining Jerusalem as “the center of the world” — a city that is open and accessible to all.
Drawing on the city’s ancient history, Barkat said Jerusalem has always been at its finest when it allowed all those who entered its gates to feel equality and a sense of belonging. He said Jerusalem had to go “back to its roots” and rediscover what made it so special.
“Jerusalem of 3,000 years ago was not divided into tribes. All people that came to worship ... at the Temple felt that Jerusa-lem belonged to them as much as it belongs to everyone else and that feeling created a very spe-cial atmosphere of belonging,” he said. “There is only one way this city can function — it is a united city that all residents and visitors are treated honestly and equally. It is the only model.”
Before turning to politics, Barkat was the first chairman of Checkpoint Software, a leading maker of computer security tech-nology, and an Israeli business magazine recently ranked him as the country’s richest politi-cian with an estimated net worth of roughly $125 million. Barkat earns a symbolic salary of one shekel a year and drives his own car to work.
Israel captured east Jerusalem, home to key Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites, from Jor-dan in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed the area in a move that has not been recognized inter-nationally. The fate of Jerusalem remains at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While past peace talks have discussed parti-tion options, Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says that is out of the question.
The Israeli government is responsible for peace talks with the Palestinians, and Jerusalem’s mayor has no official say in the city’s political future. But as chief executive he can affect the deli-cate balance between Arab and Jew, especially in regards to daily life issues like building permits, construction, education and pub-lic services.
Barkat, 53, said his administra-tion has treated the city’s Arab
residents “honestly and equally” by building roads and classrooms, increasing budgets and invest-ments in their neighborhoods and expediting building permits.
Critics, including human rights groups, say public services in Arab neighborhoods continue to lag far behind Jewish areas.
In a report coinciding with the opening of the school year this week, two Israeli human rights groups accused the city of discrimination and neglect toward the schools in east Jeru-salem. It cited a dire shortage of classrooms, a double-digit drop-out rate and disparities in key resources between Jewish and Arab schools. Altogether, some 36 percent of east Jerusalem Arabs fail to complete 12 years of school-ing, the report said.
“Deep disparities in the educa-tional system are not accidental but rather the product of policymak-ing that results in a lack of funding, resources and efforts to ameliorate the current situation,” said the report, issued by The Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Ir Amim, a nonprofit group that pro-motes equality between Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem.
Oshrat Maimon, Ir Amim’s pol-icy director, said it was “regretta-ble” that the mayoral candidates have paid little attention to clos-ing these gaps. “While parents in west Jerusalem are excited about their children’s first day in school, a few meters away parents in east Jerusalem don’t know if there will even be a place in school for their children. This gap, which continues to increase every year, requires an urgent response from elected officials,” she said.
Barkat rejects such criticism, and claimed Arabs also oppose dividing the city, a claim that is open to debate. A 2010 poll of east Jerusalem Arabs found that 35 percent of respondents said they would prefer to become citizens of Israel if a Palestinian state was established, compared to 30 per-cent who would prefer Palestin-ian citizenship and 35 percent who didn’t know.
Mayor says Jerusalem can’t be split
2-News
Classifieds Call: #734-418-4115Email: [email protected]
THERE’S ACROSSWORD
ON THISPAGE.
DOIT.
HAPPYWEDNESDAY!
ACROSS1 Saw point6 Etching fluid
10 Touchesaffectionately
14 Prenatal exam,for short
15 Body part thatsmells
16 Jump in a skater’sshort program
17 Legend with anax
19 Actress Hayworth20 Dinner pair?21 Like cough syrup22 Indigenous New
Zealander23 Legend with a
clarinet26 Alcove29 Not at all well-
done30 “Let’s Get __”:
Marvin Gaye hit31 Udder parts33 Jamaican genre36 Legend with a
vine40 Animal on
Michigan’s stateflag
41 Coffee shopcupful
42 Fishing tool43 “Your Majesty”44 It includes a bit of
France46 Legend with a bat51 Betting every last
chip52 Hat-borne
parasites53 Toward the
rudder56 Charlatan, e.g.57 Legend with a
bathrobe60 Sour61 Actor Morales62 Dutch pianist
Egon who taughtVictor Borge
63 Lime beverages64 Holiday song65 Important word
for 17-, 23-, 36-,46- and 57-Across
DOWN1 Packer’s need2 Arab League
member3 Burden4 Up to, briefly5 Bindle carriers
6 Former U.N. chief7 How some flirt8 Life-cabaret link9 Place to relax
10 Where to seefloats
11 Self-evident truth12 Flashy tank
swimmer13 Like many
characters inShakespeare’sdramas
18 Catering halldispensers
22 Dashinginventor?
23 1885 Motorwagenmaker
24 Reduce to smallpieces
25 Inauguration Daypledge
26 Customaryobservance
27 Reference listabbr.
28 Bulletin boardmaterial
31 Icon on a pole32 Immature newt33 Goad34 “Felicity” star
Russell35 Like the Flying
Dutchman
37 “In space no onecan hear youscream” film
38 Not, quaintly39 On the safer side43 Bypasses44 Chickenpox
symptom45 Expletive
replacements46 Sicily neighbor47 Epic that ends
with Hector’sfuneral
48 County on theRiver Shannon
49 Pond plants50 Zero, to Nero53 Prefix with war or
hero54 Forest floor
flora55 High school math
class57 Feathery layer58 Club for GIs59 “... but __ are
chosen”
By Victor Barocas(c)2013 Tribune Content Agency, LLC 09/04/13
09/04/13
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword PuzzleEdited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
STUDENTPAYOUTS.COM Paid survey takers need in A2.
100% FREE to join. Click on Surveys.
FAMILY ASSISTANT / homework aide needed. A UM‑based family with two daughters, 17 and 13, is looking for a super‑reliable, fun, smart, dedi‑
cated family asst. for after‑school homework help and chauffeuring. Flex.‑
hrs, afternoon to early evening. Min. $12/hr + gas & mileage. Must have
own car. Residence is near campus in Ann Arbor Hills. Please e‑mail with in‑
terest and refs to [email protected]. Thanks!
LOOKING FOR EXPERIENCED servers and bartenders, eves. and wknds. Apply within at Village Pub. 3452 Washentaw, Ann Arbor 48104.
UM LAW PROF. and wife seeking mature college student to drive our kids approx. 4 times/week to local activities in the afternoons and wknds. We live
close to the campus. Great job for someone looking for extra money with‑
out a big time commitment. Car req. Call Steve or Nancy at 761‑7752.
HOUSE CLEANING FOR Retired Professor. $15 per hour. Flexible hours.Car a plus. 668‑8850
CARLSONPROPERTIES.COM 734‑332‑6000.
RESPONSIBLE INDIVIDUAL NEEDED to assist faculty family for P/T 3‑5:30 pm supervision of 1 school aged boy, driving needed. groshL@ya‑
hoo.com
THESIS EDITING. LANGUAGE,organization, format. All Disciplines.734/996‑0566 or [email protected]
HELP WANTED
SERVICES
CHILDCARE
FOR RENT
6A — Wednesday, September 4, 2013 Arts The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Lyrics to hit songs can tell you how to
live life at the ‘U’By KENDALL RUSS
Online Arts Editor
You’ve arrived at Michigan. You’ve enjoyed your first win at the Big House, cheering rau-cously as you and thousands of your neon Maize-clad peers form a cowbell-and-lanyard-fueled euphoria. You’ve stub-bornly worn your freshman lanyard to every single orienta-tion event. You’ve decided to frame your lanyard for the good luck it brought you at UMix triv-ia. You love your lanyard. You look at your lanyard and think, Oh, lanyard, can college possibly get any better than this?
Now, I’m not here to answer that admittedly difficult ques-tion. And I am absolutely not here to patronize you. I wore my lanyard once, too. I’m merely here to offer you some totally unwarranted, probably unde-sired and yet, perhaps, mar-ginally helpful guidance on approaching your college expe-rience.
Since I usually write about music, and since I lack author-ity to speak on the matter on any grounds other than the I’ve-been-here-F O R E V E R-so-let-me-tell-you-how-to-do-it angle, I thought I’d invoke a muse, or four, and try to spell out some lessons I’ve learned — or wish I had learned sooner — during my three-plus years at Michigan. Make of them what you will.
Animal Collective —
“College”
Relevant lyric: “You don’t have to go to college.”
The question appears in many forms, usually first in high school. “Where are you going to school?” Eventually, once you’ve settled: “What school do you go to?” When you near the fin-ish line, it alters slightly: “What kind of job are you looking for?” The fundamental prem-ise underlying these questions, though, suggests there is a path we must follow, a structure we must fit in to, a game we have to play. Today, the question is not, “Do you want to go to college?” It’s “What college are you going to?” There’s an implied sense of obligation, of having no viable alternative.
I was asked the other day if I went to school. It was refreshing to hear, not least of all because I’m tired of all the questions about what my post-graduation plans are. It was asked without pretext, and it reminded me of that Animal Collective lyric. You don’t have to go to college to be successful, find your passion or eat a lot of pizza (though it might help for that last one).
Sometimes it feels like college is something we have to do. When it does, it becomes a lot less enjoy-able. Don’t go to college because you think you have to. You don’t. Go to college because it offers you the best resources for learning — about yourself, about growing up, about the world.
Robyn — “Call Your Girlfriend”
Relevant lyric: “Call your girl-friend / It’s time you had the talk / Give your reasons / Say it’s not her fault / But you just met somebody new”
Your brother is telling you to. Your parents are telling you to. Your friends are telling you to. Even you’re kinda telling you to. And now I’m telling you to. Trust me on this one.
The National — “Slow Show”
Relevant lyric: “You know I’ve dreamed about you / For 29 years / Before I saw you”
Don’t wait 29 years like Matt Berninger — go out and meet people! Introduce yourself to that cute boy or girl you always sit next to in Statistics. Maybe you’ll get married on the spot. Join that club you’re interested in but over-whelmed by. Be overwhelmed. It’s normal. Michigan is a huge school. Make it smaller.
All orientation speak aside, don’t refuse a potentially great thing by defeating yourself. If someone’s a jerk to you, they aren’t worth it anyway. Don’t let a jerk dictate your life. Nobody likes jerks anyway.
Pink Floyd — “Shine On You
Crazy Diamond”
Relevant lyric: “Shine on you crazy diamond / Come on you raver, you seer of visions / Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!”
A lot of things are going to happen to you in college. Some of them will be really good, and some will be truly awful. You’re going to make a lot of mistakes. People (like me) will try to tell you how to avoid making those mistakes, but at the end of the day, you’re on the hook. Don’t worry so much about doing it right or doing it wrong that you wind up doing nothing at all. You’ll end up learn-ing a lot more about yourself if you don’t let other people’s experienc-es direct your own.
Do your thing. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Enjoy your time at Michigan and shine on like only a crazy diamond could. Because you know what they say: #YOLO — You Only Lanyard Once.
A playlist of advice for freshmen
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
By ANDREW MCCLUREDaily Arts Writer
Amid all the superficialities of high school, there’s something real and foretelling about those four years: the bullshit classes, the hard classes; the odd gym teacher, the cool one; the druggies, the straight-edges; the sex, the non-sex. It’s merely life in microcosmic form, where a line of chalk distinguishes elite from average, yet everyone’s equally flawed. For most, the epiphany monsoons in around late junior year, when it hits them — this “future” shit sort of matters. In the poignant “The Spectacular Now,” two unlikely sweethearts
cross but ignore the integral les-son that each offers the other.
For his third feature-length release, filmmaker James Pon-soldt (“Smashed”) might’ve had a drinking problem him-self as we see booze integrate and disintegrate his leads from “Smashed” to his new “Spectac-ular.” He uses scotch and bran-dy as a link to connect people in a basement-party sense but also to peel back the layers of their masks, to zoom in on their unadulterated sentiments. He does this particularly well as he paints vulnerability all over his “to care is to surrender” leading loudmouth.
Sutter Keely (Miles Teller, “Footloose”) is the man, the homie, the dude, the coolest. His confidence in his car, naturally coiffed hair, blonde girlfriend and undeserved job at a men’s clothier balance his outward confidence. When push comes to shove, his girlfriend dumps him for the jocky, otherwise-perfect class president. Sutter’s only clue to his recent dumping is that he needs to look beyond the present, a clear problem he considers his biggest asset. Unfortunately, that asset entails something grimmer and in disguise as an 80-proof stress reliever. Kid’s got a problem, and the abrupt trauma leaves him in despair.
Aimee Finecky (Shailene Woodley, “The Descendants”) is the supreme foil of Sutter: She has one friend, likes sci-fi books, doesn’t go to parties and is a vir-gin. To boot, her dad died and she lives in a one-story flat with
a belligerent mother. Unlike Sutter, she hasn’t undergone a recent hardship like breakups because, frankly, her life’s pret-ty simple with few moving parts so emotional collision is rare for Aimee. They make the happiest, saddest, afflicted and entirely unaware couple. And it’s good.
Film whiners love to bitch about believability in casting choices, but for just reason. Some directors like to idealize while others seem to strip off the glitter so severely that we’re left with skin and bones and a quivering lip. Ponsoldt manages a happy medium where Sutter’s cool, but not enviably so, and Aimee’s beautiful, but not in a describable way. This allows us to engross in the story, a story that can be told without second-guessing Aimee’s chiseled facial features or Sutter’s alluring, scratchy voice. You never have to grimace in this coming-of-ager. You’re in the good hands of Ponsoldt.
Teen flicks usually tell viewers how to feel through sappy scores or original soundtracks. You’ve screened too many “American Pie”-like pics if the Coldplay-backed final scenes extract tears. “Spectacular” skips the piano and emo lyrics and instead deliv-ers slow, heartfelt moments. During their drive back from visiting Sutter’s estranged father for the first time, a loaded Sut-ter swerves horribly into the left lane almost silencing Aimee and himself. A voice-cracking Sutter demands Aimee get out of the car because she can’t see that he “is bad for her.” No song or church organ would enhance this scene; the longer the raw silence, the better.
Sometimes a small town can spin a yarn better than Gotham. And that’s precisely what “Spec-tacular” sets out to do: use all the core ingredients of a high-school stew devoid of any super-fluous salt, trans fat or sugar cubes. And Woodley provides the best bite.
A24An intimate game of Pacman.
A-The Spectacular NowAt State
A24
Ponsoldt paints ‘Spectacular’ love story
Who knew teenage
alcoholics could be so endearing?
FILM REVIEW
SEND US A TWERK.@michdailyarts
INTERESTED IN JOINING THE DAILY?
COME ON DOWN TO THE MAGICAL LAND OF 420 MAYNARD ON
SEPTEMBER 12, 15, 17, 19 TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT HOW YOU CAN
GET INVOLVED.
All mass meetings start at 7:30. See you there!
7-News
SportsThe Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Wednesday, September 4, 2013 — 7A
By MATT SLOVINManaging Editor
Fifth-year senior safety Thom-as Gordon addressed the media Tuesday for the first time since his one-game suspension that kept him out of Saturday’s season opener.
Gordon referred to Michigan coach Brady Hoke as a father figure and showed regret for his actions, which the program has only referred to as a violation of team rules.
He learned that he would be missing the Central Michi-gan game through a conversation with Hoke some time in the last month.
“(Hoke) told me I let the team down, and I let him down,” Gor-don said. “Me and coach Hoke have a great relationship. It was like a father-son talk. I knew what was going to happen.”
The suspension left the Wol-verines without both of their starting safeties, as senior Court-ney Avery underwent arthroscop-ic surgery last month that could also keep him out of the game Sat-urday against No. 14 Notre Dame.
Gordon was forced to watch the game at home in Detroit with family, away from the teammates he so badly wanted to lead in his senior season. And though it was incredibly frustrating to watch from a new perspective — he rattled off defensive schemes as
his family watched him in amaze-ment — Gordon said he had no choice but to understand why the decision was made. His status as a five-year veteran earned him no sympathy.
“It doesn’t matter what type of player you are, especially in this program, there’s not going to be one who is more important than the team,” he said. “That’s the message that had to get out.”
NERVOUS BORGES: In the now-iconic photograph of former Michigan men’s basketball star Trey Burke putting up a 30-footer with time winding down in regu-lation of the Wolverines’ Sweet Sixteen contest against Kansas, coach John Beilein is kneeling.
His right hand is tightly clenched. His eyes are fixated on the ball as if it could fall out of the sky any minute, ending his team’s tournament run.
Watching a 3-pointer in the air is exactly how offensive coor-dinator Al Borges said he feels
sometimes when redshirt junior quarterback Devin Gardner drops back to pass. He’ll watch with baited breath as the read is made and hope for the best.
Last year against Notre Dame, all the hoping in the world wouldn’t have bailed out Denard Robinson, who threw four first-half interceptions in the 13-6 loss in South Bend.
Borges is hoping his offense can learn from that disaster and improve the game plan for Satur-day.
“Denard took a lot of figurative and physical hits in that game,” Borges said. “They weren’t all easy, pitch-and-catch throws. That tells us we’ve got to take care of our quarterback. That’s part of our planning, too.”
KELLY RECANTS: Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly began his press conference Tuesday by changing his position from a tele-conference Sunday, when he said he didn’t consider the series with
Michigan to be a “historic, tradi-tional Notre Dame rivalry.”
Kelly said he would like to “dis-pense with the nonsense,” adding that the rivalry is “great and his-toric.”
Since Kelly’s comments on Sunday, Hoke has repeatedly said Notre Dame is a great rival and even said Tuesday that he hopes for the sake of college football that the series continues one day.
Hoke has previously stated that the Fighting Irish are “chickening out” of playing Michigan. Notre Dame opted out of the series for 2015-2017, the last scheduled games between the two schools.
NOTE: Borges said fifth-year senior wide receiver Joe Reyn-olds is “going to be fine” after suf-fering an apparent leg injury in the game against the Chippewas. Reynolds scored his first career touchdown, and Michigan’s first of the season, on a 29-yard punt block that he took back for a touchdown.
NOTEBOOK
Seasoned team finished returns
nearly every starter from 2012 squad
By ZACH SHAWDaily Sports Writer
After just three days of prac-tice, the Michigan field hockey team had already looked ready to begin the regular season. It was all there on Phyllis Ocker Field: crisp passes, precise plays and energetic communication.
Three weeks later, it’s still only the first week of Septem-ber, but the Wolverines just might be close to ready for the November postseason.
Despite a pedestrian 7-5 start last year, a thrilling overtime victory over rival Michigan State propelled the young Wol-verines to win eight of their final 10 games, good for second in the Big Ten and ninth place in the NCAA Tournament and final rankings.
“I was very proud of the team at the time and in hindsight,” said Michigan coach Marcia Pankratz. “Coming just short of a Big Ten title with one senior and starting six freshmen is something I’ve never heard of happening before anywhere.”
Nearly all of last year’s team returns this year, and that has raised the bar. With veteran leadership and youthful depth at all positions, Pankratz will once again be able to pull out the playbook that has won seven Big Ten titles and a national championship in her 13 seasons at the helm.
“The expectations can be a little higher with this group,” Pankratz said. “We can pick up where we left off last year since everybody’s back, and we can start at a higher level tacti-cally and not go back and learn things. We can just move for-ward.
“Last year we overachieved, but remain unsatisfied. Our seniors are very hungry and looking for more out of this sea-son.”
Among those hungry for more is senior forward Rachael Mack.
The two-year captain led the team in scoring the past three seasons and has compiled a 46-23 record as a starter.
“We have very high expecta-tions for ourselves,” Mack said. “We want to reach the Final Four. That’s our aim. But first we want to win our regular-season games and go for a Big Ten Championship.”
Perhaps even hungrier than Mack is her fellow captain, red-shirt junior midfielder Ainsley McCallister.
After being named captain to begin the 2012 season, McCal-lister was forced to watch the season unfold from the side-lines due to an injury. With a
redshirt as a consolation prize, McCallister was itching to get back to competing again.
She got her wish a few months later, as she was selected to rep-resent the United States as a member of the under-21 World Cup team in July. After playing against the best in the world, McCallister rejoins a team load-ed with both talent and aspira-tions. Adding another leader is always good, but Pankratz wants to make sure McCallister sticks to being the same player that played every game in the Wolverines’ 2011 Big Ten title campaign.
“When you play against the best in the world, your game picks up ,” Pankratz said. ”You get stronger and faster and better than you ever knew you could be before. Having her back this year gives us a lot of leadership and experience on the field. We just want her to play her game and do what she can do, and not try to do everything. If she does that and everyone else does their job, we’ll be fine.”
If Michigan’s captains aren’t enough, the addition of an eight-member freshmen class should help.
The freshmen give Pankratz the depth she needs in order to keep up.
“They all are here because they’re tremendously athletic, smart and love Michigan,” Pan-kratz said. “The big class gives us a tremendous amount of depth. They’ve done a nice job of jumping right in and learning what they need to learn.”
Rolling subsutitions have become more common in field hockey, meaning more and more of the team will see the field this year. As the freshmen quickly try to learn what Michi-gan field hockey is all about, Mack knows it’s important to make them feel welcome and ready to play.
“What we took from last sea-son is how to better communi-cate and link with the younger players and create team cohe-siveness with each other,” Mack said. “That’s something we’ve been really focusing on so far this season, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job with it so far.
A wealth of additions and minimal subtractions add up to lofty goals for the Wolverines. Michigan has started the sea-son 1-2.
The players and coaches alike know that while Novem-ber’s NCAA tournament looms ahead, the Wolverines must work hard to get there.
“Every year we expect to win the Big Ten championship and to reach the final four and contend for the National Cham-pionship,” Pankratz said. “(The girls) know that they have to work for it though. One of our other goals is to outwork any-one else, and if you do that, good things tend to happen.”
By ERIN LENNONDaily Sports Writer
Following a season that brought an unranked team to its first Final Four appearance in program his-tory, the Michigan volleyball team enters the 2013 season ranked sev-enth in the AVCA preseason poll. At No. 7, the Wolverines claimed their highest preseason position in 40 years and fall just behind conference foes No. 6 Minnesota and No. 2 Penn State.
Michigan sits among seven other Big Ten teams represented in the top-25, including No. 10 Nebraska, No. 14 Michigan State, No. 16 Purdue and No. 20 Ohio State. The Wolverines are sched-uled to play three other regu-lar season opponents — Illinois, Texas A&M and Wisconsin — who each narrowly missed a top-25 nod.
For a team whose late-season success was attributed to chem-istry both on and off the court, this season presents a whole new challenge. Michigan coach Mark Rosen acknowledges that, with a target on their backs, the Wolver-ines will have to be solid at every position.
“Everyone is coming after us,” Rosen said. “I think in some ways, it won’t be that much different. When it comes to Michigan and the block ‘M’ , most teams we play in and out of conference, we get their best shot. I’ d rather wear a big target and be good than hide around in the background and just be average. We proudly wear that target, but we have to under-stand that we can’t take any nights off. The name doesn’t get us any points, it’s how we play.”
Michigan returns 13 letter-winners and five starters. Only fifth-year senior middle blocker Claire McElheny has graduated. Previously a young team, the 2013 roster boasts five seniors and one junior. The Wolverines swept their first challengers since a sum-mer tour in South America at the Xavier Invitational.
After three weeks in the gym, here is a look at the Michigan vol-leyball team by position:
Outside hittersSenior co-captain Lexi Erwin
proved herself among the nation’s elite hitters with her record-setting junior season. In 2012,
Erwin set a school record for most kills (614) and hitting attempts (1,701) in a single season. She led the team with 17 double-doubles and recorded double-digit kills in 34 of 38 games last season. Her postseason performance earned her a spot on the Division-I Vol-leyball Championships all-tour-nament team, Berkeley Regional Most Valuable Player and AVCA All-America honorable mention. Erwin enters her senior year as one of three Wolverines selected to the All-Big Ten team.
Senior outside hitter Molly Toon represents the second in the hitting one-two punch. In her junior season, Toon started 28 games and finished with 528 kills. Known for her live arm and explosive streaks — she bested her career high with 25 kills against then-No.4 Nebraska — Toon will need to improve upon her consis-tency in order to compete against the many skilled blockers in the conference.
Middle blockersWith the addition of three tall
freshmen, the roster now boasts 11 players over 6-foot, a potential X-factor against conference oppo-nents like Penn State, Nebraska and Minnesota. At 6-foot-4, fresh-
man middle blocker Abbey Cole represents the Wolverines’ tallest member, and will likely start in September.
Though Michigan will need to fill the loss of McElheny at the net, the fifth-year senior made her home on the right side for most of her final year in Ann Arbor. It is likely that Cole or 6-foot-four freshman Gabbie Bulic will likely make the transition to the oppo-site position, giving the Wolver-ines a towering front line.
Michigan returns two middle blockers in senior co-captain starter in Jennifer Cross and sophomore Krystalyn Goode. The pair led the team in blocks, with Goode’s 112 blocks falling second to Cross’s 181. Cross was named to the preseason All-Big Ten team following a year that included 379 kills and a spot on the AVCA All-America third team. Having recorded 908 career kills, Cross will likely join the 1,000-kill club by the midway point this season.
SetterEntering her third year as the
Wolverines’ starting setter, Lexi Dannemiller rounds out the All-Big Ten preseason selections. In 2012, Dannemiller started all 38 matches at setter en route to
1,622 assists — good for third in the U-M record book and with as many as 59 in a single match. Dannemiller aided in over 11 kills per game for the Michigan and recorded 15 double-doubles on the season. As the sergeant on the court, Dannemiller is responsible for directing both the defense and the offense on nearly every play.
The Wolverines add a second setter in 6-foot Cindy Zhou, a top-50 recruit out of Libertyville, Ill. With her height, Zhou will likely earn time on the right side, in order to run what is called a six-two system to give Dannemiller an opportunity to swing from the opposite position.
DefenseA Final Four run forced a
young Michigan defense to earn its stripes against some of the league’s toughest arms — and they did just that. Despite early-season jitters, libero Tiffany Morales fin-ished her freshman year as the leader of the Wolverines’ back line with 559 digs and as a member of the All-Big Ten freshman team. Morales was also a threat with her serving (.928) and sets out of the backcourt.
Though Rosen did not add any-thing to the defense, a confident Morales and an experienced back line should take care of business for Michigan. Morales will be aided by Erwin — who plays her position all the way through — and defensive specialists junior Ally Sabol and freshman Lind-say Lerg. But if there is one place where the Wolverines will look to improve, it is on serve reception. Michigan committed 132 receiv-ing errors in 38 games last season.
“We’re a good blocking team and we’re constantly getting bet-ter at blocking,” Rosen said. “But we’re also a very good floor defen-sive team. We’re bigger than we’ve been in the past so I think we can be a little more aggressive at the net but I think we still have great backcourt defense. Defense is cer-tainly going to be a big focus for us as it always is. I like what we have to work with defensively, but yet I think we can also be a very, very physical offensive team. We’re big, we’re balanced, we can control the ball well on serve-receive, so I see us being a very steady physical offensive team as well, which is a great combination.”
Field hockey sets sights on Final Four
VOLLEYBALLContrite Gordon rejoins team
TERRA MOLENGRAFF/DailyFifth-year senior safety Thomas Gordon had to watch Michigan’s opener at home while serving a one-game suspension.
PATRICK BARRON/DailySophomore libero Tiffany Morales returns as a leader of Michigan’s back line.
Volleyball position-by-position preview
Making a Movement
statementSEPTEMBER 4, 2013
No. 482: A new year, a new dorm that’s better than all the rest.
No. 483: It’s OK to miss Rick’s more than the Ref Room.
No. 484: Thanks to Instagram, “How was your summer?” is no longer applicable.
THE rules
Wednesday, September 4, 2013 // The Statement2B
THE statementMagazine Editor:
Haley Goldberg
Deputy Editor:
Paige Pearcy
Design Editor:
Alicia Kovalcheck
Photo Editor:
Teresa Mathew
Illustrator:
Megan Mulholland
Editor in Chief:
Andrew Weiner
Managing Editor:
Matthew Slovin
Copy Editor:
Tom McBrien
Josephine Adams
Jennie Coleman
I bumped into him on my way back from a club meeting. The October moon glazed over the street. I barely made out his face in the dark.
Tentatively, I called out his name.
He paused, then walked closer. Behind us, a streetlamp beat out its own steady light. His eyebrows kicked upwards in recognition. “Carlina! How’ve you been?” We chatted briefly. No, he wasn’t in school this semester. He was working at a restaurant in town. He’d be traveling abroad in the winter.
The talk ended after we’d exchanged numbers, and I hus-tled back to South Quad to gush to my roommate over how cute he was.
A few weeks later, he texted me: “Sooo… we should hang out.”
And so, I found myself in Kerrytown in early November, drinking hot chocolate with a cute boy and blabbing earnest-ly. More of a friend-date than anything, I convinced myself. Until he texted me later that night: “you’re awesome Car-lina. Like really. we should chill again soon.” My heart winked for a tiny second. I analyzed the text over dinner with my friend Andrew. “He’s definitely inter-ested,” Andrew declared, stirring a watery bowl of lentil soup. Still, I wasn’t sure.
I hung out with him a few more times that month before I real-ized how much I was beginning to like him. It seemed that I had finally found a guy who got it. How to listen and absorb, how to be fascinated by the world, how to be sexy and modest at the same time. When I went home one weekend, I told my sister he
had potential to be The One. “I’ve never felt like this before with anybody,” I exclaimed. “I just like him so much.”
He kissed me over Thanks-giving break. A small kiss. He had to duck down, tap his mouth to mine, standing beneath the streetlamp by his car. I adored him: his cheeks, the Angela Davis books scattered in rectangular piles all over his room, the blonde splash of hair nestled in the cen-ter of his head. I thought I was on my way to being in love.
And then, it stopped. He
stopped calling me as frequently. Wouldn’t reply to my texts for days. Acted uncomfortable and distant when we hung out. The confession came past midnight, both of us nested on a curb by East Quad. “I’m about to leave in less than a month, and we got into this so fast… too fast, almost,” he blurted, “I just don’t think this is feasible, given the time that we have.”
When he finally left, I cried. I cried at the Diag, running into a friend who fetched me toilet paper from the men’s room at Mason Hall. Cried in my room,
unleashing my inner-emo while staring at a blank ceiling and lis-tening to Bon Iver. I wanted him to be The One. Or if not THE One, then A One. I loved his hands, and his eyebrows and the stupid dog hairs on his shirt. I loved how he surprised me, constantly, with his brain.
For six months, we exchanged the occasional Facebook mes-sage or email. His messages were always simple, short. Nice. When I left for my spring semester in New Hampshire, he told me to expect a letter. I spent six weeks in New Hampshire painfully checking the mail every day, awaiting an international post-age-marked envelope that never came.
If one flavor of love is yearning, then I suppose I did love him. For half a year, I wanted him to think of me as the girl he might want to love back, time given. But I also wanted, desperately, for us to keep on having our cool and calm conversations in comfort with-out the wrenching anxiety that came with waiting for his replies back, his affirmation. My two wants seemed incompatible with each other. “Love” versus Friend.
“Thing” versus Friendship.When he finally came home
over the summer, we split a sand-wich at Jimmy Johns and read astronomy books at Dawn Tread-er. Neither of us mentioned our “thing.” But he told me I was an important friend. “I’ve learned a lot from you,” he said, “I’m grate-ful.” I never told him how much, exactly, I thought I’d been in love with him. In a way, it didn’t mat-ter anymore. I still loved him, but it was a love that wasn’t curried with demand. He gave me a letter he meant to send me a month ago. It was signed, “Your friend.”
ann arbor affairs: a thing by carlina duanwe want youWelcome back to The Statement. This semester, we have
one major goal: to put you in the magazine. You’ll notice the new “Statement on the Street” section, which takes us out of our newsroom cave at 420 Maynard and to the streets to hear your voice. And we want to hear back from you. Share your opinion on our content, and let us know what gets you thinking on campus. You can even write a Personal State-ment to share your own experiences with our readers. So you — person excited to hold the first issue of the semester — comment, tweet, e-mail or snail mail us what you want to read and say. This is your chance to make a statement, so speak up — we’re listening.
The Statement Staff
ILLUSTRATION BY MEGAN MULHOLLAND
“Love it or hate it, the “Noodle” was ONLY inside Michigan Stadium as part of the inaugural W.O.W. Friday
(i.e. Gameday Destination). #GoBlue”
– @umichfootball, Michigan football program’s Twitter account, on the 20-foot long noodle spotted in the Big House last Friday.
“It’s 10 o’clock, man. Where is everyone?”
– A PRIVATE SECURITY GUARD, about the lack of students in the general admission line for the first football game.
“If you don’t like money, drugs, strippers or murder, you should turn this album off. Quickly.”
– JACKSON HOWARD, Daily Arts Writer about the requirements for listening to Juicy J’s new album Stay Trippy.
”“statement on the street
The new Superman-Batman movie is slated to bring in $131 million to the state when filming in Detroit in early 2014. Ladies, get ready—Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck will be looking for their Loises and Mary Janes.
New numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau show that college enrollment has declined by 467,000 students from fall 2011 to 2012 for both undergraduate and graduate schools. Now is it time to roll back tuition costs?
At 64, Diana Nyad became the first person to swim the 110-mile route from Florida to Cuba without a shark cage protecting her. This was her fifth attempt at the feat in 35 years, proving to us all that anything is possible (and her body must be rockin’).
trending
on the record
#NoMoreNokia
#GeneralAdmission
#SerenaWilliams
#FiftyShadesCast
#swim2cuba
#HeroicDetroit
#Syria
#collegedrop
Wednesday, September 4, 2013 // The Statement 3B
7 a.m., 8.5 hours to goThe first few brave souls in the general admission football line on Saturday at 7 a.m. explained
what else could keep them waiting in a line for 8.5 hours.
“I don’t know, maybe if I had a kid some day? Not
much.”
Grady Chang, Engineering graduate student
“Luke Bryan. Meet and greet — the whole package.”
Hayley Burnash, Nursing freshman
“I already don’t like this eight-hour wait … This might
be about it.”
Matt Viola, Engineering senior
In a $7.2 billion all-cash deal, Microsoft plans to buy Nokia’s Lumia devices and services to launch their own mobile platform in the future. With this deal, we say goodbye to the Nokia’s deidcated smartphone line.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013 // The Statement4B Wednesday, September 4, 2013 // The Statement 5B
It’s possible that the Coalition for Tuition Equality’s defining moment was neither in a University Board of Regents meeting nor
inside the Fleming Administration Building. At this decisive junction, there were no micro-phones, yellow shirts or senior University offi-cials —instead, just two guys at a table in a quiet section of the Shapiro Undergraduate Library.
At nearly four in the morning, Kevin Mersol-Barg, then a Public Policy junior, and Yonah Lieberman, an LSA junior at the time, were up late studying like they did most Sunday nights.
“We’d be in the UGLi talking about stuff, and Kevin mentions, totally offhand, ‘Dan Morales was speaking at the regents meeting on Thurs-
day,’ ” Lieberman said in an August interview.It was February 2012, and Morales, a then
LSA freshman and a current CTE spokesman, was set to share his experience struggling to afford a University education before he gained U.S. residency.
Lieberman, ruminating on class readings on the Civil Rights Movement, suggested CTE allies hold up signs to represent the University student organizations that composed the coali-tion during the speech.
CTE had 12 members, and Mersol-Barg had founded CTE only a few months prior to the regents meeting.
About 30 students, representing the coali-
tion’s member organizations such as the Col-lege Democrats and the ACLU, held up signs as Morales spoke. Then, the students walked out.
“We had no idea what we were doing. It was the first direct action any of us had ever done,” Lieberman said.
At the time, granting in-state tuition costs to Michigan’s undocumented residents was a virtually unknown issue on campus. But with sharp focus on a singular goal — securing in-state tuition fees for undocumented students — CTE soon packed regents meetings so tightly they were moved from a small room inside the Administration Building to one of the Union’s ballrooms. CTE, and what they stood for, became unavoidable.
However powerful the coalition’s strategy, its platform was not void of controversy. Tuition equality, as the issue became branded by advo-cates, is complicated; it is an issue that tested the University’s ability to respond to student griev-ances and forced a community to take a hard look at ideas of citizenship and scholarship.
At the July 2013 regents meeting, after consis-tent protests and months spent pouring over the issue in a task force, regents passed new tuition equality guidelines by a 6-2 vote from the regents. Set to take affect in January 2014, undocumented students who graduated from and attended three years of a Michigan high school and two preced-ing years of middle school at a Michigan school will receive in-state tuition. Under the new guidelines, military veterans will also receive in-state tuition fees, regardless of residency.
In a matter of two years, a small group of students took on what had been a fringe issue,
rallied support, built their case and ultimately changed University policy. So how did they do it?
MAKING A MOVEMENT
In February 2011, Mersol-Barg was gearing up to run for president of Central Student Gov-ernment and looking to build a platform that addressed issues of social justice and diversity. After attending an event sponsored by student organization Human Rights through Education, Mersol-Barg found an issue for his platform.
At the event, a former student from Ann Arbor spoke about being denied in-state tuition once the University discovered his undocumented status. Shortly after the conference, Mersol-Barg began thinking of ways to engage issues facing undocumented students on campus.
To form CTE, Mersol-Barg laid out three main factors that helped set up a successful movement.
First, Mersol-Barg chose a coalition structure, an entity made up of many existing University groups, which today includes 32 member organi-zations. He said the coalition was crucial in involv-ing a large and diverse cross-section of students.
Second, Mersol-Barg said the coalition was better able to “harness the power of members” by avoiding leadership hierarchy.
By focusing on a singular goal — one where students had a tailored perspective to contrib-ute to the conversation surrounding immigrant rights — members were able to keep the coali-tion together.
By June of 2012, it was clear CTE’s presence
at regents meetings would not quietly disappear.Students showed up to CTE events in droves,
regardless of their relation to undocumented students. Many viewed CTE’s platform as an issue perfect for student activism — it was a problem within the larger immigration debate where student voices mattered.
After Regent Julia Darlow (D-Ann Arbor) asked the University to explore the issue at the March 2012 regents meeting, then-Provost Phil Hanlon created a task force to examine the Uni-versity’s residency guidelines that dictate how the University grants in-state tuition.
Led by Lester Monts, Vice Provost of Academic Affairs, the task force included two other admin-istrators and four CTE members: Mersol-Barg, Lieberman, Luz Meza, then an LSA senior and Sanjay Jolly, then a Public Policy senior. With the goal of producing a report to present to the regents, the task force began meeting twice a month.
In interviews with The Michigan Daily, Monts and the student representatives said they viewed the task force as an open, collaborative working environment, while Lieberman and Jolly said its creation was initially a mechanism of deference.
“When Phil Hanlon proposed this task force, it was 100 percent a measure for the University to drag their feet,” Jolly said. “They didn’t want to touch this. They wanted to show the world that they engage our students and we have a task force just for this issue.”
However, Jolly and Meza said Monts and the other task force administrators were entirely genuine throughout the process.
“I don’t have words to say how much I appre-
ciate them for working with us,” Meza said.Jolly said Monts encouraged the task force to
leave no stone unturned and to take a meaning-ful look at the University’s undocumented popu-lation in realms such as campus life, financial aid and admissions.
In a recent statement to the Daily, Monts lauded the work of the student committee mem-bers.
“Given the nature of the issues at hand, there were often differences of opinion regarding the interpretation of data and its implications for the creation of a new policy regarding tuition equal-ity,” Monts said. “However, I’m pleased to say that the report is a product of a consensus build-ing process that was pervasive in our delibera-tions.”
But throughout much of 2012, University President Mary Sue Coleman avoided any public position on tuition equality while the task force investigated the issue.
In a January 2013 interview with The Michi-gan Daily, Coleman emphasized the importance of immigration reform at a state and federal level, rather than through University gover-nance.
“It would be so helpful if we could change things at the state level and do it as a comprehen-sive plan because I feel it’s just an issue this coun-try has stuck its head in the sand about forever, and it’s not right,” Coleman said.
Republican Regent Andrea Fischer Newman, who voted against the final measure granting in-state tuition fees along with Republican Regent Andrew Richner in July, expressed reluctance similar to Coleman’s January 2013 stance.
COALITION FORTUITION EQUALITY:HOW A SMALL GROUP OF STUDENTSUNITED BEHIND A FRINGE ISSUE ANDCHANGED UNIVERSITY POLICY
By Sam Gringlas
RUBY WALLAU/Daily
2011
2012
2013
ACHIEVING TUITION EQUALITY
October 26 - The Coalition for Tuition Equality is established.
January 24 – Central Student Government unanimously passes a resolution supporting tuition equality.
April 19 – CTE protests at a Regents meeting for the third time. CTE assembled a large outdoor rally and nearly 200 students march to the Regents meeting to support multiple CTE speakers.
June 2012 – The task force officially forms to examine residency guidelines and the experience of undocumented students on campus. The task force is composed of students and administrators.
October 25 – Protest outside the Fleming Administration Building. More than one hundred students form a circle around the building to raise awareness among administrators. To show willingness to collaborate with the University, CTE hands out coffee and bagels to staff and officials entering the building.
December 12 –29,000 Silent Voices Protest. Clad in yellow shirts, CTE fills the December regents meeting in a visually symbolic display. Over 150 protestors cover their mouths with red tape to represent the silenced voices of undocumented students.
January 31 — In an interview with The Michigan Daily, President Mary Sue Coleman says reforms related to immigration should be enacted at the state and federal level, rather than through University governance.
April 18 – At the April Regents meeting, President Coleman announces the University will have a “positive recommendation” on tuition equal-ity in the coming months. CTE holds a “study-in” at the meeting.
July 18— The Board of Regents pass new guidelines which grant in-state tuition to military veterans and students who graduated and attended three years of a Michigan high school and two years of a Michigan middle school, granting tuition equality to undocumented students.
April 17 — CTE participates in a protest sponsored by One Michigan, a Detroit-based organization of undocumented students. Protestors march from the Michigan Union to President Coleman’s house chanting “Education, not segregation!” Later, eight students are arrested when protestors block traffic on State Street and South University.
March — The task force presents their report to the Regents.
September 18 – CTE holds a mock graduation ceremony for undocument-ed students outside the Hatcher Graduate Library.
September 20 – CTE protests for the fifth time at the Board of Regents meeting.
March 15 – CTE protests at the Regents meeting for the second time. CTE member Luz Meza discusses how the University’s residency guidelines have affected undocumented students in her Southwest Detroit neighborhood. Students walk out after her speech. Regent Darlow requests then-Provost Phil Hanlon provide further information on a potential plan for tuition equality.
February 16 – First CTE protest. During the public comments section at the University Board of Regents meeting, CTE member Daniel Morales reflects on the challenges of being an undocumented student before he achieved Michigan residency. Then, 30 sup-porters carrying signs representing members of the coalition walk out of the meeting.
TERESA MATHEW/DailyDES
IGN
: ALI
CIA
KO
VA
LCH
ECK
Wednesday, September 4, 2013 // The Statement6B
“I have concerns about whether this is appropriate under federal law and believe this type of national issue should be resolved at the federal level,” Newman said in a statement.
Opponents of the measure have also expressed concerns, mainly regarding undoc-umented families not paying state taxes.
According to an Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy report families of undocu-mented students often pay some state taxes, such as sales and property tax, contributing about $126 million in local and state tax rev-enue in Michigan.
However, the University’s initial concerns focused on changes to residency requirements.
“I think we are in a circumstance now where we have residency requirements and we need to be consistent without undermining the residency standards that we’ve had in the past because those have been important for the University,” Coleman said in January. “I’m hopeful that we can get there, but we’ll see.”
As a result of these concerns, the Univer-sity administration and task force carefully considered the impacts of potential changes to residency guidelines.
TUITION’S NITTY-GRITTY
Between June 2012 and February 2013, the committee explored the ways in which university, state and federal policies affected undocumented students.
As part of this process, the task force exam-ined policy at three especially progressive universities in the area of tuition equality: the University of Texas-Austin and the University of California-Berkeley and Los Angeles.
In addition to Texas and California, 16 states have provisions allowing in-state tuition rates for undocumented students. Fourteen states provide these provisions through state legisla-tion and two states allow in-state tuition rates for undocumented students through Board of Regents decisions.
While the report was not intended to make a final recommendation, the task force considered potential methodology to qualify undocumented students for in-state tuition. Previously, the Uni-versity based tuition fees on residency, meaning students needed to be recognized by the state as Michigan residents. This policy prevented undocumented students from taking advantage of the hefty difference between in- and out-of-state tuition. Following the example set by the UC campuses and the UT-Austin, the report found tuition fees could be based on a student’s high school education rather than residency.
While it seemed the task force had nar-rowed in on a possible solution, the Universi-ty’s Office of General Counsel, represented on the committee by Donica Varner, University Associate General Counsel, raised concerns regarding potential externalities of revised guidelines.
“We (the University) get sued on our (pre-revision) residency policy all the time and we always win because our residency policy is airtight,” Jolly said. “It’s legally rock solid.”
With a high school-based guideline, the General Counsel said the largest demographic affected by the policy would not be undocu-
mented students. Instead, students on Ohio’s border who attended a Michigan high school or boarding students at private schools, such as Cranbrook, would receive the largest, unin-tended benefit.
Thus was born the middle-school clause in the adopted version of the guidelines, which requires two years attendance at a Michigan middle school as a condition for receiving in-state tuition.
EVOLVING VIEWS
While the task force trudged on inside the Administration Building, CTE continued their protests down State Street at regents meetings. Jolly and Lieberman said the prog-ress of the task force often influenced the tone and scale of direct actions such as protests and sit-ins, with organizers carefully considering the demands of the moment.
December 2012, just before students left
Ann Arbor for semester break, CTE members and allies, now numbering in the hundreds, wore yellow t-shirts and donned red duct tape over their mouths to represent “silenced” voices of undocumented students.
The protests and task force meetings con-tinued simultaneously.
“For maybe six months, through Decem-ber, it did not seem as if we were going to get our way,” Lieberman said.
As protests continued, the task force was meeting simultaneously, sometimes the day before or after an action from CTE.
“It was awkward, but at least (the adminis-tration) understood we weren’t going to put up a white flag due to the task force,” Jolly said.
According to administrators, the protests did not stifle the working relationship of the task force.
University Regent Mark Bernstein (D–Ann Arbor), an early proponent of granting in-state tuition to undocumented Michigan students, deemed CTE’s protests as thoughtful, digni-fied and effective—especially in sharing the stories of affected students.
“It was a blueprint for effective advo-cacy,” Bernstein said. “I was deeply moved by the stories that these students and their allies shared. They were very successful in
attaching a human face to a not particularly interesting area of University governance. Storytelling is the most effective form of advocacy, and they mastered that.”
Provost Martha Pollack, who succeeded Hanlon last spring, tempered CTE’s role in influencing the policy.
Contrary to Coleman’s January statements stressing the firm nature of residency guidelines, Pollack said the University had already been considering revisions prior to CTE protests.
Pollack emphasized the broader nature of the new guidelines, created to streamline paths to in-state tuition, rather than promote larger policy concerning undocumented students.
“That being said, it’s certainly true that as the students from CTE and the various vet-erans groups spoke over the year, that they raised our awareness of this and that got built into the process, but again the changes in the policy are much broader,” Pollack said.
But Bernstein said CTE protests might
have guided the direction of the changes to in-state tuition guidelines.
“The tuition guidelines are a dynamic docu-ment,” Bernstein said. “They change every once and a while to keep pace with the changing nature of the University. There are lots of ways tuition guidelines can change. The advocacy work by these students had a significant impact on the evolution of our tuition guidelines.”
THE HISTORICAL ARC
Though various parties may dispute CTE’s ultimate influence, it’s difficult to discredit the scope of their on-campus presence. In less than two years, what began as a small group of students organizing at four a.m. in the UGLi reached a visible crescendo last April when eight students were arrested outside the Union in a display of civil disobedience. Protestors marched from the Michigan Union to Cole-man’s house shouting, “education, not segrega-tion!” before blocking traffic at the intersection of State Street and South University Ave.
Even after the passage of new in-state tuition guidelines a few months later, it’s still difficult to tell what CTE might mean for the larger arc of University narrative. For many, the movement translated into more than policy
change or civil rights dialogue — CTE was also a conversation about what student activism might mean and look like in the 21st century.
“It’s the biggest thing that’s happened in Michigan student activism since the ‘60s,” Lieberman said. “It’s the story of students coming together, identifying a problem and thinking about how to change the issues fac-ing them. I think a lot of people paint our gen-eration as apathetic people who don’t really care. This story fundamentally challenges that narrative.”
The movement also placed a spotlight on the inflexible nature of higher education. While multiple coalition members have rec-ognized the success in the movement’s turn-around time —less than two years — some characterized the University as traditionally slow to change.
“If the threshold for change required an entire movement, I don’t think that’s reason-able,” Mersol-Barg said. “I think the Univer-sity decisionmakers could not only be doing a much better job engaging a students who want to change campus, but proactively seeking them out and ensuring their vision is realized.”
Mersol-Barg is convinced the University could have issued a decision without waiting a number of months.
“Ultimately, direct actions like the sit-in in front of the Union are what pushed the regents over the edge,” Mersol-Barg said. “As I understand, a number of regents just wanted to get it taken care of because we were making too much noise.”
Though some administrators have dis-counted CTE’s total influence, they have fre-quently applauded the movement’s displays of student activism.
“Dialogue on challenging issues is what we’re all about here at Michigan, and I hope it doesn’t go away,” Pollack said. “I won’t always agree with the students, but I certainly want to hear what they have to say.”
Still, Mersol-Barg said it’s difficult to pinpoint the extent to which CTE truly influenced the opinions of regents or admin-istrators. While Pollack characterized the administration’s views on tuition equality as evolving, Mersol-Barg said the administration didn’t follow a uniform progression, adding that some administrators and regents were more receptive than others.
“On one hand, this is a wonderful success in that we demonstrated that the regents will respond to students, especially when it comes to matters as complicated and controversial as this one,” Mersol-Barg said. “However, I don’t think that this establishes too much precedent in terms of students who want to change the University.”
But for now, CTE is not going away. LSA senior Meg Scribner and Morales, current CTE leaders, said the new focus of the move-ment will be securing financial aid for undoc-umented students.
“It’s really important not to let this issue disappear,” Scribner said.
Though the impact of the recently inked policy may remain uncertain, one thing’s clear: Less than two years ago, a couple of stu-dents had a grievance and an idea.
TERRA MOLENGRAFF/Daily
The bus is packed, but we’re the only people talking. Maize and blue freshmen stare at us with wide eyes.
I’m red, visibly sweating and incoherently mumbling the words I so badly don’t want to say.
Rewind 20 minutes. Surface-level, Taylor Lewan is intimidat-
ing. “I’m just there to be big and hit guys,” the football team star lineman has told me before about his football skills. At 315 pounds he’s a hummer H2 of a guy, and standing anywhere near him is dwarfing — and I’m 6-feet-3-inches tall.
The Michigan Man incarnate and I walk to catch a bus from North Campus to Cen-tral. “So, umm, you play ... football?” It’s a stupid question that I already know the answer to, but as friends and failed dates will confirm, one-on-one situations with men I don’t know well are not my strong suit. Taylor Lewan doubles the usual anxiety.
While I avoid eye contact, Taylor is friendly and normal as he casually describes turning down his first-round NFL Draft pick — read: fame and fortune — to finish up with Blue. College is pretty fun, it turns out, and he isn’t done with Ann Arbor just yet. As we walk down Bonisteel, the fresh-men stare, incredulous that he exists outside of the Big House. Taylor waves at one or two with a friendly laugh, much to their embar-rassment.
Like them, I have forgotten how to act like a person in his presence. Taylor tries to spark conversation, but I can’t seem to rattle off more than a few words at no more than a whisper to any of his attempts. He told me weeks later he couldn’t figure out why I dis-liked him so much at first. “No, man, I was just straight up terrified of you.” Note: Tay-
lor had a pet teacup pig, fedora and moped scooter. Terrifying stuff.
Finally, we board the bus. It’s the day of the last game of the Final Four. The cam-pus has been electrified for the last couple weeks by the success of the men’s basket-ball team, which has made it to the national championship for the first time in 20 years. In lieu of shuttle buses to Atlanta, the Ath-letic Department is showing the game on big screens at the Crisler Center. Slack-jawed and silent, the kids heading to Crisler stare at Taylor and me — read: Taylor — as we talk. I start to act like a human being again. He speaks at a normal volume on the quiet bus. I’m not sure if he notices that all conversa-tion has stopped to eavesdrop on his, or if it’s such a commonplace occurrence that he’s learned to feign ignorance.
The bus curves down Fuller. The con-versation takes the turn I was hoping it wouldn’t. Taylor tells me about how his girlfriend — Alex, who’s very sweet and co-owner of the teacup pig — is the sister of his teammate Drew Dileo and of the occasional awkwardness of that arrangement. At this point, the freshmen’s eyes are heat lamps in my direction. I begin to panic sensing the question I can see coming as clearly as the cars headed toward us one lane over.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”I lift my sleeve to my forehead to wipe
away sweat as I stammer sounds too inco-herent to qualify even as syllables. Somehow the words fall from my mouth at a nearly inaudible volume.
My anxiety level is better fit for a life-threatening situation.
Without a beat of pause: “Oh my god, I’m so sorry I used gay as an adjective before, I totally shouldn’t —” I wave my hands for him
to stop, it’s cool, it’s cool. I’m not offended, and, hey, let’s talk quieter! The adjective use before we got on the bus had barely regis-tered with me, but he hadn’t forgotten. His reaction tackles me, I nearly fall over as the bus stops at an intersection and deservedly feel like an asshole for making assumptions about someone I barely knew at that point based on a few keywords: big, football, Southern.
“You know, I’ve never met a gay per-son before, I think.” I skip the pedantic rant about how that’s statisti-cally impos-sible. Instead we talk — he’s legitimately interested. Is it hard to meet guys? Do my parents know? As my pro-fuse sweating subsides and I really hope I put on deodor-ant that morn-ing, I answer. I answer as easily as if he had asked me if I’m Cana-dian — I’m not, thank God — or about being Jewish. Smil-
ing since his initial reaction, I can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the setting, actors and dialogue of this scene.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”The question doesn’t really scare me any
more. The bus keeps rolling forward.
Andrew Weiner is a Public Policy senior.
Sudoku Syndication http://sudokusyndication.com/sudoku/generator/print/
1 of 1 10/1/08 1:14 PM
1 3
4 8
64
3 7
8 49
6 5
97
82 3
76
3
9 35
8 6
8 537
1 7
2 3© sudokusolver.com. For personal use only.NICE N’ EASY puzzle by sudokusyndication.com
Do you have a girlfriend?by Andrew Weiner
ILLUSTRATION BY MEGAN MULHOLLAND
Wednesday, September 4, 2013 // The Statement 7B
Wednesday, September 4, 2013 // The Statement8B
Assistant Prof. Stephen Ward who teaches courses in urban stud-ies, community development and African-American studies and Communication Studies Prof. Scott Campbell met at The Michigan Daily newsroom to discuss this question. Below are selected excerpts from their conversation.
Prof. Scott Campbell: One of the things I’ve noticed with stu-dents over the last couple of years is it seems like they’re feeling an increasing amount of pressure to be involved in various social causes and volunteer organizations and things for the sake of getting that scholarship, or even getting that job or that internship, in bolstering their resume and getting their leg
up. It just seems like they’re feeling a lot more pressure to do that then they used to.
Prof. Stephen Ward: Almost like, for lack of a better term, the professionalization of activism or really, engagement. That’s a word that’s used a lot now and covers a wide range… Really what do we mean by student activism? What counts as activism? What consti-tutes activism?
So we can sort of talk about what we’ve seen there and we can also talk about student activism, having been in another time period.
I think a lot of activist energy has been transformed into what we call engagement in many ways, so social service, activities, service learning
activities, so you referenced it in terms of students feeling the pres-sure to do these things for their resume, right? So that’s for their personal, which is very different from the sense of social responsibil-ity that we might think of previous generations like the ‘60s generation.
SC: Right. When I was offered
my position here … I had kind of the preconceived notions of what the culture is like at the University of Michigan from kind of a stereotypi-cal point of view.
SW: Such as, what would that mean?
SC: Historically, I think of Mich-igan as a very progressive place with protests, you know? Vietnam-era protests, Civil Rights protests. And I got here, and I felt like the activ-ism that I saw was highly engaged, but, to use a word that you dropped, professionalized in a way. People in the B-school bolstering resumes…
SW: Right, right.
SC: … and that kind of thing. And it felt like they were a little bit more personally ambitious in their goals than collectively trying to change the world.
---SC: It does feel to me, and again I
wasn’t here a generation or two ago, but it does feel to me that student activism is happening perhaps a bit more in concert with institutional efforts.
SW: Oh absolutely.
SC: … rather than oppositional. So I would say that probably at least seems to be one of the major differ-ences in terms of the visible forms of activism.
SW: Absolutely. I mean, we’re here in the Daily offices and around the room they have past front pages
and a couple of them deal with stu-dent activism, one of them is a stu-dent climb up of this very building protesting how the University was dealing with Student Publications. Others are from the ‘60s dealing with things off campus as well as challenging the University. A couple of them are about affirmative action, so at the time you and I have been here, it seems to me two of the main spaces of student activism which were more generally active in terms of challenging the University and things across society were affir-mative action about a decade ago, and more recently tuition equal-ity, which is going to be in the news today.
SC: Right.
SW: So I see those as students engaging with issues that are relat-ed to them here on campus — hap-pening here on campus but having broader social implications. So the protests are prodding at the Uni-versity to do something for affir-mative action same as the policy which now has been changed with tuition equality for students who are so-called undocumented … So, tuition equality, my understanding, is that all the students, many of the students, who are involved in that struggle are not themselves stu-dents who would benefit, and they see that as an issue. In the affirma-tive action case it was less so, but, still, many white students were involved in affirmative action, so that’s not a particularly important point, but that’s what I think about how activism takes place.
“How has student activism changed at
the ‘U’?”with Assistant Professor Stephen
Ward and Professor Scott Campbell
ADAM GLANZMAN/Daily