11
Ninety-seven years of editorial freedom
VOLUME XCVII - NO. 119 ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN - WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 1987 COPYRIGHT 1987, THE MICHIGAN DAILY
'U,
Regent
Sarah Power falls fro
By STEVE BLONDER
and REBECCA BLUMENSTEIN
University Regent Sarah Goddard
Power (D-Ann Arbor) died yesterday
after falling from an eighth-floor
window of Burton Memorial
Tower.
: Power was pronounced dead on
arrival at University Hospital yes -
terday. Ann Arbor Police Sgt. Jan
Suomala said she landed on concrete
on the north side of the bell tower.
"Her death was self-inflicted, and
classified as a sudden death- a
suicide," Suomala said.
According to Fire Lt. William
Koernke, a witness reported having
een Power sitting in an eighth-
oor window and then pushing off
backwards. The eighth floor is the
highest floor to which the public
has access and contains several
music offices and a classroom.
"We have no reason to believe
there was anybody else on that
floor," said Captain Harold Rady of
the Ann Arbor Police 'Department.
Rady said that the window that
Power jumped from was so high
from the floor that her fall had to be
deliberate. "She could not have been
just looking at the scenery- we
found a wastebasket at the foot of
people to talk to P
"When I spc
morning there wa
evidence of depre
positive and upbe
'Sarah's legacy at the University is that sh
represented the conscience of the Univers
-Keith Molin, Interim Director
Co
commits
m bell tower
Power. University and us all," said Regent
oke to her this Veronica Smith (R-Gross Ilie).
s no indication or "She gave her time, talent, and
sion -diwethad armoney to the University - she
ssion - we had a, gave it all," Smith added. In
eat conversation, addition to serving on the
University's Board of Regents since
e 1975, Power was known both
ity.' nationally and internationally for
of niersty her committment to women's
of University rights, world peace, education, and
mmuniCation political activism.
ACCORDING to Molin,
Power, 52, had been hospitalized
.es . a several weeks last fall with a severe
arent suicide at case of bronchitis, a respiratory
.shocked family, ailment. Amidst speculation that
entire University she may have been terminally ill,
ny students were Regent Deane Baker (D-Ann Arbor)
ower's motives in said that "while she appeared on the
ch a conspicuous road to recovery, she has always
usy time, been very quiet about her own
ehind the death of health - she never complained."
h an apparently "Her respiratory aliment had
and private life are taken much more out of her than
family declined to anyone originally thought it
possible motives would," Molin said. "She was under
e.
vful tragedy for the See POW ER, Page 5 i
suicide
the window that she could have
used to get up to the window
ledge," he said.
ALTHOUGH the 212 foot
tower is reputed to be the site of
many suicide attempts, no statistics
were available to confirm the
frequency of such deaths.
University officials would not
confirm that Power committed
suicide. "There are many un -
answered questions, but we have
not termed it as a suicide" said
Keith Molin, director of University
communication and one of the last
he added.
Power's app
around 9:50 a.m
friends, and the
community. Ma
confused about P
jumping from su
place at such a bu
The reasons b
a woman with
fulfilling public a
a mystery. Her f
comment on p
behind her suicide
"This is an aw
Regent Sarah Power died yesterday after falling from the bell tower.
Charles Eisendrath, a Communications professor, described her as "a
fierce defender of the quality of the University."
RD wants to
By ANDY MILLS
During the school year, Janet
Hackel is a long way from Europe.
During the summer, she teaches
playwriting in London. Hackel
works for the Summer Program in
London sponsored by the Univ -
ersity and Sarah Lawrence College.
Someday, she wants to live and
work as a writer in London.
Hackel, a resident director at
Couzens, is an undergraduate
Pro file
AND then there's the Scotland
option: "If I really had my way, I'd
make millions of dollars and go up
to Scotland. I'd be perfectly happy
with the wind whistling around a
cottage and me and my little
computer for nobody ever to see, as
long as I'd be allowed to do it."
"I just want to try," Hackel said
of working in England. "Maybe I'll
become incredibly bored by it all, I
don't know. But I want to give it a
shot."
"Right now I want to go to
London. Who knows; in two
weeks, it could be Istanbul."
Hackel grew up in East Lansing
and entered the MFA program on a
whim, even though she always
enjoyed the theater.
"When I came to school, I didn't
have any idea of what I wanted to
do," she said. She contrasts that
with students she encounters
through teaching playwriting, intro -
ductory composition, and being an
RD.
"Most of them are pre-law, pre-
med, or pre-business," she said.
"They're more goal-oriented today."
Hackel said she was content
studying speech pathology until the
day she saw a advertisement for the
travel,'
MFA program: "I was going to
have a nice life and I saw this sign
and thought 'I've got to at least
try.' I don't want to be 50 years old
and have somebody say 'you should
have been a playwright."'
S H E has had three plays
performed, including one based on
experiences with former roommates
and, most recently, an adaptation of
Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in
Time for the Young People's
Theatre in Ann Arbor. Most of her
work draws on real life' episodes
that she either has taken part in or
has heard about. "They're usually
about general craziness," she said.
Hackel also works with the
Residence Hall Repertory Theatre,
taking ideas of the students in the
company and putting them into
theatrical form. She and the RHRT
recently went to Chicago to
perform at a housing conference.
Although she gets paid for her
work, Hackel said that very few
playwrights - herself included -
make enough money to live on the
revenue from their plays.
Hackel was the youngest of three
children in her parents' first
marriage; when her father remarried,
she became the oldest of four step-
write
brothers and sisters. "My family's
not that odd, I don't think. They're
just sort of strange - like
everyone's family is."
RHRT director Scott Weissman
admires Hackel's work. "Besides
being very good at playwriting,
she's very flexible and adaptable and
willing to change scripts. She has
very good ideas," she said.
For the most part, Hackel writes
her plays for herself. "I don't really
desperately want to have people see
my writing. I do a lot of writing to
work out my own problems," she
said. "Whenever I have an argument
with somebody, I come home and
have the argument again, but I win
on paper."
ACCORDING to Paul Best,
an Engineering freshman who lives
in Couzens, Hackel is a "fun
person, but she doesn't let people
push her around."
"She's tough," Best said. "You,
can get along with her, but if you
get on her bad side, you're in
trouble." Best recalls an incident at
two in the morning, when Hackel
pulled the plug from the lounge
TV, located just outside her room,
See RD, Page 2
"special" student. She received her
Bachelor of Science degree in
biological psychology in 1982. She
studied speech pathology at Eastern
Michigan University for a year
before returning to the University
to earn her Master of Fine Arts
degree in 1985 in playwriting.
She wants to move to England
permanently in 1988.
"If it doesn't work, and I can't
get a job and I run out of money
after a year, I'll come home. I can
always teach at a university," she
said.
Daily Photo by DANA MENDELSSOHN
Janet Hackel, a RD at Couzens, an avid gardener, and a playwright cares
deeply about broadening the horizons of the students she is committed to
educating.
Election
'hopefuls
lea ilS
on issues.
By CARRIE LORANGER
Ann Arbor Mayor Edward Pierce
and the two Third Ward city council
candidates fielded questions on
crime and affordable housing in a
public debate last night. The
Democrats appeared to have won
the support of the crowd.
Pierce's Republican opponent,
Gerald Jernigan (R-Fourth Ward),
was unable to attend the event at
the Forest Hills Cooperative, a city
ubsidized housing cooperative.
Pierce encouraged co-op mem -
bers to support the housing millage
on the April ballot which, if
ELECTIONS $ n
Rassed, will generate $4 million
MSA allocates money to UCAR
By MARTHA SEVETSON
The Michigan Student Assembly voted
unanimously last night to allocate $500 to the United
Coalition Against Racism. UCAR members will
bring receipts to the assembly's Minority Affairs
Committee and receive compensation for money
spent on anti-racism activities.
According to Lannis Hall, chair of MSA's
Minority Affairs Committee, the funds will cover
$200 in back expenses which have individual UCAR
members have financed, as well as future expenses.
The assembly has not yet voted to fund the activities
of the Black Action Movement III, but Hall indicated
that such funding may be proposed next week.
According to Ashish Prasad, chair of MSA's
Budget Committee, the assembly also paid for the
hotel accommodations of Rev. Jesse Jackson earlier
this week and may cover his travel expenses.
"MSA has been trying to get Rev. Jesse Jackson
to come to the campus for several months now,"
Prasad said. "It was the eruption of recent rapist
events that got him to come."
In addition, the assembly unanimously supported
both UCAR's twelve proposals and BAM III's eleven
demands to the University administration.
Despite the unanimous vote, several assembly
representatives were hesitant to endorse all of the
demands.
"I cannot support minority tuition waivers or a
mandatory course on racism," said engineering
freshman Marc Schafer. "The University does have
some mandatory classes because they teach certain
desirable skills, but this class would teach values. I
would like very much to support UCAR, but I do not
agree with some of the demands and do not think they
are all reasonable."
But the assembly decided that the obligation to
support the anti-racist activities of these groups
outweighed the individual disputes with the demands.
Racist flier found
in Mos her Jordan
By EUGENE PAK
A racist flier threatening death
by hanging to blacks was slipped
under the door of a black student's
dorm room in Mosher Jordan Hall
Monday, according to Cortez Jones,
Mosher Jordan's minority peer
during such a pivotal point of the
semester," he added.
According to Housing Security
Investigator Gerald Bradshaw, a
report on the incident was filed with
Housing Security on Monday and
officials are investigating it.
INSIDE
President Shapiro's partial con -
cession to BAM and UCAR
demands is a small step foward.
OPINION, PAGE 4
Music Director Kevin McMahon
talks about the upcoming Nat -
ional Arts Chamber Orchestra
concert.
ARTS, PAGE 7