LOCAL/STATE The Michigan Daily - Monday, April 14, 1
School of Education celebrates 75th year
997 --A
'U' College
Bowl de en s
national title
*The University's College Bowl team
ranks among the best academic teams
in the nation. This weekend it compet-
ed at the Academic Competition
Federation tournament to win another
national title.
With its affinity for trivia, some
members of the team traveled to
London, where they won the interna-
tional champions title for the team at
Imperial College in London.
OTeam members who competed last
weekend include Steve Knowlton,
Benoy Chacko, Ravin Garg and Rory
Molinari. In the past, the College Bowl
members have appeared on
"Jeopardy!", which has a format much
like College Bowl toumnaments.
'U' to offer many
mini-courses
*The University will be offering sev-
eral mini-courses this summer with a
large variety of topics.
The programs are for students and
non-students alike, and target audiences
ranging from preschool to professionals.
Topics for the courses include under-
graduate courses, athletic camps, music
technology camps, computers and sev-
eral continuing education sessions.
The catalog is at the University's
fice of Academic Outreach.
German program
to bridge gap
with high schools
University lecturer Monika Dresser
is helping high school students adjust
to college through the Whitaker
Articulation Project. The project is an
tiative designed to help high school
erman classes align more accurately
with the University's German courses.
The project began with a workshop
that included University faculty and
high school teachers who discussed
necessary changes. They hoped to
decrease difficulty for students who are
placed into review classes and encour-
age continued language study.
The group intends to make curricu-
m changes and increase communica-
n between high schools and the
University with a website, newsletter,
resource book and guest instructors.
Alumni records
may be viewed
Necrology files pertaining to the
lives of deceased members of the
University community are now avail-
le to the general public at the
niversity's Bentley Historical Library.
The files consist of newspaper clip-
pings, biographical data, photographs,
obituaries and personal letters. The files
are used for research on the history of
students and groups.
The contents of the files vary among
individuals depending upon the per-
son's prominence as well as the time
period in which the person lived.
J' Prof. teaches
worldly dialects
University assistant Prof. Annette
Masson learns dialects from native
speakers and teaches them, after study-
ing the culture and origin of the dialect
Masson said speech is influenced by
region and history, citing the long,
deliberate sounds of a Southern speak-
in the hot climate as an example. In
Uder to learn dialects accurately, she
studies how the sounds are made by the
mouth as well as the patterns of pitches
used in speaking.
Masson teaches actors several
dialects, the most popular being
British, Cockney, Irish, French,
Spanish, New York, African American
and Southern.
- Compiled by Daily Staff Reporter
Marla Hackett.
By Matt Weller
Daily Staff Reporter
Education pundit and author David Berliner
joined University professors and educators yester-
day in commemorating the 75th Anniversary of
the School of Education.
Berliner's speech elicited nods of agreement
from many audience members.
"It gives new hope for the future," said
Education junior Lisa Montes. "You get tired of
hearing how education is going down the tubes.
This kind of gives inspiration."
Berliner, who is a professor at Arizona State
University, co-wrote a book defending public edu-
cation called "The Manufactured Crisis: Myths,
Fraud and the Attack on America's Public
Schools.' The majority of his speech echoed the
tune of his book's title and covered many of the
arguments that bash public schools.
"In 1983, the Nation at Risk report charged
America was experiencing a 'rising tide of medi-
ocrity,"' Berliner said, referring to past criticism
heaped on public school education. "In reality, it
has been a rising tide of achievement."
Berliner said a primary problem with education
today is inequality in school systems.
"My school system has one school spending
$3,000 a student and one spending $14,000;' he
said.
Ann Arbor Public Schools Superintendent John
Simpson agreed that disparity is a problem in edu-
cation.
"Right on target"he said. "(Berliner) gives a point
of view that it is more than just school, it's culture.
We need to address the pockets of poverty."
Berliner also questioned the techniques used to
assess public schools. He emphasized the view that
test scores and other data have been twisted for pur-
poses of negative propaganda by politicians.
"When President Clinton claimed in his last
campaign that 40 percent of third-grade students
read below grade level, we should be happy, not
horrified," he said.
Berliner also expressed his disdain for former
Secretary of Education William Bennett, who was
famous for criticizing public school systems in the
United States.
"I consider it a good day when I can start it off
with a cup of Puerto Rican coffee and say some-
thing nasty about Billy Bennett," Berliner said.
Berliner said that Bennett and other detractors
fail to recognize many factors that account for
slumping test scores. He said that changes in soci-
ety, such as the advent of television, are causing
the drop, not only schools.
"I call this Berliner's Law: If you've just spent
20,000 hours watching television, you've probably
read fewer books."
Berliner said public schools cannot be a disaster
because students today are more intelligent than
their parents and grandparents. He pointed to the
trend of rising Intelligence Quotient scores and the
effects of the Information Age. He said results of
studies and surveys pointing to the downfall in intgl-
ligence of Generation X may merely be sour grapes.
"The people interviewing students on college
campuses are not nearly as smart as those students
they're interviewing," he said.
Lawyers work to
correct their public
image, reputation
By Greg Cox
Daily Staff Reporter
Did you hear the one about the three
lawyers who walked into a bar?
Lawyer jokes, and lawyer bashing
in general, have become a common
practice for Michigan residents,
according to a recent survey.
Conducted by the State Bar of
Michigan, the survey showed that
many Michigan residents hold barris-
ters in less than high esteem.
That fact, along with the general
public's ignorance of prominent legal
figures, seems to point to public rela-
tions shortfalls for Michigan's attor-
neys.
Misconceptions of lawyers and the
legal system are a primary source of
many of the anti-lawyer opinions float-
ing around, said Law Prof. Donald
Duquette, director of the University's
Child Advocacy Center.
"Most people don't understand what
lawyers do," Duquette said. "They only
see lawyers when they're in the midst of
serious trouble."
Law third-year student Steven
Alerding agreed that a misunderstand-
ing of lawyers is a major cause of the
distorted public image.
"It takes three years of law school
to understand the issues," Alerding
said. "When outside of law, you
don't have the big picture, so to
speak."
About 85 percent of the 470 state res-
idents questioned believe lawyers file
frivolous lawsuits, and 83 percent
believe defense attorneys get their
clients off on technicalities. Of even
more concern to lawyers is that about
23 percent believe lawyers are dishon-
est and 46 percent believe they are
greedy.
"The misperceptions are quite
striking," said Tom Oren, a
spokesperson for the State Bar of
Michigan. "Lawyers have to do a
better job educating the public about
what lawyers do."
Law students said the media often
portrays attorneys in a negative light.
"Some of itsis that they only hear
bad things about lawyers - the good
things aren't publicized," said
Rebecca Ardoline, a Law third-year
student.
Alerding said the most defendants
will be convicted by criminal trial
juries.
"People often don't realize that
defendants are convicted three-fourths
of the time in criminal trials," Alerding
said.
Headline-grabbing cases, like the
O.J. Simpson trials, sometimes portray
the legal system as frivolous and filled
with obstructive technicalities,
Alerding said.
"Many of the alleged technicalities
are there to protect all of us that are
innocent," Alerding said.
Another source of negative stereo-
types against lawyers is the nature of
the justice system itself, Duquette
said.
"Because of the nature of our system,
one side always walks away unhappy,"
Duquette said.
Michigan's 32,000 attorneys are
perceived better among citizens who
have actually worked with lawyers
than those who have not. Seventy-six
percent of people who hired lawyers
rated their services as good or excel-
lent.
"Most people think that lawyers
are competent, skilled and courte-
ous," Oren said. "The negativism
that exists is directed toward the
behavior of lawyers, not lawyers
themselves."
JOSTHNNSUMM
Rob Gelardi, an instructor and program coordinator at the Specialty Vehicle Design Program poses, in front of some
students' current projects in the Media Union's Design Lab 2.
'U' students develop vehice
By Marissa Kim-Shapiro
For the Daily
Four University students and an off-
road vehicle helped put the
University's Michigan Integrated
Design and Initiative program in the
international spotlight.
Last spring, industrial designers
Mark Borus, Darren Wolfberg and
Robert Gelardi joined Art and
Architecture student Scott Howe to
win the First International Audi
Design Competition for their vehicle,
named the Qamel.
"Winning the Audi competition for
the design of the Qamel validates our
thinking that MIDI is on the right track
with its platform design approach," said
Gelardi, who now teaches a MIDI class
in the School of Art and Architecture.
The four designers began planning
the Qamel, a modular commercial off-
road vehicle, in May 1996, and devel-
oped it for the Audi Design
Competition in the summer. The
Qamel was chosen from submissions
from more than 34 teams and 50 coun-
tries to win honors in the competition.
This February, the team members were
notified that they had received honors
and a cash prize for their design.
MIDI has been getting a lot of
attention from the automotive design
industry for its unique structure.
Gelardi said the program has given
students a chance to participate in a
multi-disciplinary design team.
"MIDI's goal is to provide a more
accurate representation, for engineers
and designers, of the experience (of)
working on a platform team," Gelardi
said. "It gives students a chance to
practice dealing with the conflicts and
challenges of teamwork?'
Howe agreed that the experience
with MIDI has allowed him to appre-
ciate the platform approach to design.
"The parallels in the design process-
es have always intrigued me and as we
have shown with our Qamel project,
interdisciplinary design teams can pro-
duce award-winning work," Howe said
"One of the keys to this is the fact that
each designer brings a perspective from
their own field that can be refreshing to
the other members of the team."
Gelardi said the MIDI program
trains its designers unlike any other
college design program.
"There is no other transportation
design program like this," Gelardi
said. "(Top schools) normally school
designers in how to draw cars, then
they hand them off to the engineers to
make them. Things would have to be
changed, (the car) is not going to look
like the drawing whenit is made?'
Gelardi said this gap in the creative
process and the actual production Of
the car has resulted in many substaq
dard cars.
"All concerns are addressed in the
beginning and there are no surprises.
You still have design freedom; the end
result is just realized quicker."
The team was advised by architec-
ture and urban planning Prof. Colin
Clipson and Rick Franco, chief engi-
neer at AM General, the company th~t
designed the Hummer vehicle.
Gelardi said the design of the
Qamel will be completed using the
prize money and displayed in an Audi-
sponsored exhibit.
Archer to aid Detroit
Institute of Arts
DETROIT (AP) - The financially
strapped Detroit Institute of Arts is
expected to receive a substantial
boost in city spending when Mayor
Dennis Archer makes his annual
budget address to City Council
today.
Mayor's spokesperson Anthony
Neely declined to discuss Archer's bud-
get proposal, but said his boss is deter-
mined to save the DIA - one of the
country's largest museums.
"The mayor has made it clear for
many months now that something
needed to be done to make the DIA
more financially viable," Neely told
The Detroit News in a story pub-
lished yesterday. "We do have to
deal with the DIA one way or anoth-
er."
According to museum executives,
the DIA is $1.4 million in the red for
this year, and the debts could approach
$8 million in its 1998-99 budget year.
"Ultimately, it is a question of
whether the museum stands or fails,"
DIA Director Samuel Sachs II said.
"There has to be some solution for this
museum to survive.
The state's contribution to the art
institute has shrunk by $40 million
since 1991. Of its nearly $33 million
annual budget, the museum receives
$400,000 - less than 2 percent -
from Detroit.
"The mayor has been extremely
supportive, and we anxiously await
his budget inessage," Sachs said. "If
the mayor is able to give us some
help in the next year or two, that's
great. But we also need to look for-
ward."
e OAKLAND
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