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January 14, 2002
Voi GXiI, No. 7 .!lean rbory , dlit tti n, 000211 IVMic1#gan_ ally-
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Ford c
Dearborn automaker is the
largest employer of University
0 engineering graduates
By Shannon Pettypiece
Daily Staff Reporter
---- - -------
1'
uts
ticularly concerning toi
according to the Col
annual report for 2000
University Engineering
any other employer, sa
the Engineering CareerI
"Last year wasn't ap
and Ford did pretty go
dents," Redwine said.
Ford spokeswoman A
although openings are
still have an opportunit
jobs at the company.
"We are having a sum
we are recruiting interns
" .
worryutu
many students, because we always are - looking for the best people,"
lege of Engineering's said Gattari. "There will be offers made, but as I
-2001, Ford hired more said, the number of people we hire this year will
students last year than depend on our business needs."
id Cynthia Redwine of Gattari said there might even be an increase
Resource Center. in job opportunities in the area of product
particularly stellar year, development as the company tries to restruc-
od with attracting stu- ture production.
"Our clear area of need is product develop-
Anne Marie Gattari said ment because this is a product revitalization
limited, students will plan," she said.
y to intern and take on While Gattari said it is difficult to assess the
future needs of Ford, its main supplier, Visteon,
imer intern program and is no longer hiring from the outside and cannot
s, and we are still - as guarantee its co-op students a job after gradua-
I
re engineers
tion like it has in the past, said Engineering In the past, even when companies have ma
senior Tom Hudson, a co-op student at the cutbacks in production they normally conti
company. ing their recruiting efforts, Redwine said.
"They can't even take care of their people "Those just coming in after graduation
inside the company," he said. something companies want to maintain so t
Despite a slowing economy, Ford recruiters have fresh ideas and keep people coming up1
visited the University's campus last semester, ladder," Redwine said.
but according to Ford's recruiting website, Hudson said that although opportunities
there are no scheduled visits to the University Ford are especially limited, it is difficult to f
this semester. a position at General Motors or Daiml
Gattari said Ford plans to continue involve- Chrysler as well.
ment with the University at this time. "It is especially difficult at Ford," Huds
"We are continuing to keep our relationship said. "I have several contacts there and ev
with universities and our recruiting efforts will using my contacts I have had trouble finding
be adjusted as the market dictates," she said. in there."
ade
inu-
are
hey
the
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er-
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ven
an
Friday's announcement by Ford Motor Co.
that it expects to lay off 22,000 workers in North
America and eliminate 5,000 white-collar jobs,
is causing many students who had hoped to
work for the Dearborn-based automaker to
rethink their future.
The financial troubles Ford is facing are par-
Surgeon
to delver
MLK
address
By Christopher Johnson
Daily Staff Reporter
Taliban captive
identifies photo
of Shoe bomber
Dr. Benjamin Carson, a prominent
neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Med-
ical Institute in Baltimore, will speak a
week from today as the keynote speak-
er for the University of Michigan's
Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium.
Carson's speech at 10 a.m. Monday
in Hill Auditorium is the main event of
the symposium,
which is the
largest at any uni-
versity nation-
wide. Events
began last week
and will continue
through February,
although most are
scheduled for next
Sunday and Mon-
Carson day, when classes
are canceled for Martin Luther King
Jr. Day.
Damon Williams, one of the chief
organizers of the symposium,
explained the selection committee
chose Carson for a variety of reasons.
"Dr. Carson was selected because he
is an alumnus of the Medical School,
he's ... from Detroit, he is probably
one of the top five neurosurgeons in
the world (and) he has also been laud-
ed tremendously for his commitment
to the issues of social justice, urban
education, a lot of the issues and val-
ues that are consistent with the work
of Dr. King," Williams said.
In addition to his success in the
medical profession, Carson has taken
considerable effort to encourage
underprivileged and minority children
to rise above impoverished surround-
ings. Carson has traveled around the
world to convince others to use their
innate talents to overcome poverty and
with his wife co-founded the Carson
Scholars Fund, which provides educa-
tional grants to students who demon-
strate remarkable academic and
humanitarian accomplishments.
Carson has strived to help under-
privileged youths because he had simi-
lar disadvantages during his
childhood. He described in a written
statement his experience in his mostly
See CARSON, Page 7A
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - Guarded
by U.S. troops and attack dogs, a second group of
suspected Osama bin Laden supporters departed
yesterday for a U.S. prison camp in Cuba as U.S.
bombers flew their most punishing raids in weeks
on caves near the Pakistani border.
The 30 prisoners, shackled and with their faces
covered, shuffled in the darkness onto a C-17
transport plane for the flight to the Guantanamo
Bay Naval Station in Cuba.
The men were among nearly 400 Taliban and
al-Qaida suspects interned at Kandahar. A U.S.
military official said one of them had identified
Richard Reid, accused of trying to blow up a
trans-Atlantic flight with explosives hidden in his
sneakers, as someone he had trained with at a
camp run by bin Laden's al-Qaida network.
The official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, said Reid was identified from a pho-
tograph, but had no further details.
The 30 detainees flown to Cuba will join 20
others who arrived from Kandahar on afriday.
Hundreds are to be eventually flown to Guan-
tanamo Bay.
Lights at the Kandahar base were shut off
except for low-intensity red and green lighting as
the men were marched onto the plane. Security
was tight, with attack dogs and Humvees with
50-caliber machine guns patrolling the area.
In Kabul, state-run television reported that
Afghanistan's interim government had ordered
provincial officials to recruit 6,000 men to
become the backbone of a professional military
free of the ethnic and territorial divisions that
have led to years of conflict.
In Pakistan, ahead of his departure for Kabul,
Fazal Hadi Shinwari, Afghanistan's newly appoint-
ed chief justice, vowed to sentence bin Laden and
fallen Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar to
death if they were brought before him.
The war remained very much alive in the
rugged hills of Paktia province along the Pakistani
border. Daylight bombing that began in the morn-
See WAR, Page 7A
Afghan soldiers loyal to Kandahar provincial governor Gul Agha arrive for a meeting with tribal factions
In Spinboldak yesterday.
Robot to aid UM HS
surgical procedures
Papered panes
By Kylene Kiang
Daily Staff Reporter
The University of Michigan Health
System's Department of Surgery will
officially add a robot to its surgical
team on Feb. 1.
The da Vinci robot, a seven-foot
tall, $1 million device created by Intu-
itive Surgical Inc., will assist in vari-
ous surgical procedures which will
apply less traumatic and minimally
invasive surgery techniques to patients,
making recovery time much faster.
Since the approval of robot-assisted
surgery by the Food and Drug Admin-
istration in July 2000, UMHS has been
one of the few hospitals in the nation
to utilize the advanced surgical
approach.
Since UMHS's acquisition of the
robot last year, the da Vinci has suc-
cessfully assisted in several surgeries
including kidney donations for trans-
plants, and prostate and gynecological
procedures.
Dr. Juan Arenas, assistant professor
of surgery at UMHS, was one of the
first surgeons in the nation to use the
robot for laparoscopic living kidney
donations.
Conventional laparoscopic surgery
allows the physician to observe and
operate on internal organs by inserting
surgical instruments and a tiny video
camera directly into the body through
keyhole incisions.
During robotic surgery, Arenas
applies the same technique while oper-
ating comfortably from an ergonomi-
cally designed console a few feet away
from the patient. There he is able to
view a three-dimensional image pro-
jected by cameras inside the patient
while controlling surgical instruments.
The camera and instruments are insert-
ed by the robot through small incisions
in the patient that are less than 1 cen-
timeter wide and result in minimal
scarring. Manipulating the instruments
is comparable to controlling computer
joysticks.
Dr. Arnold Advincula, director of
minimally invasive surgery for the
department, recently performed one of
the first robot-assisted laparoscopic
hysterectomies in the country.
"The use of robotics will allow us to
more accurately replicate what is
being done with traditional open cases,
but in a less invasive manner," Advin-
cula said.
Arenas said the only downfall to
using the robot is the surgeon's loss of
touch during operation. However, pro-
See ROBOT, Page 7A
Architecture senior Kai Orion views postings at the North Campus bus stop
next to Pierpont Commons.
'Aernes'pill
Study: Americans
- nicer since 9/11
terrorist attacks
not designed for
all-night studying
By Jordan Schrader
Daily Staff Reporter
It's become cliche to say that Sept.
11 brought America together, but a
new study indicates Americans may
really be more kind and loving since
the terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The study, based on responses to an
online survey, was conducted by Uni-
versity psychology Prof. Christopher
Peterson. Created to classify and mea-
sure character strengths, it gained new
meaning after Sept. 11 as a way to
Of the 24 virtues measured by the
study, Peterson said six showed a sig-
nificant rise: love, kindness, teamwork,
hope, gratitude and spirituality.
These character traits all "involve
other people as well as reflecting
beliefs about the meaning of life," he
said.
Peterson attributed the change to a
greater presence of death in peoples'
minds after Sept. 11.
"(Americans) are confronting the
possibility that life is short ind life can
be snuffed out, and it's kind of hard to
have that front-and-center in your
By Shabina S. Khatri
Daily Staff Reporter
Imagine all the benefits of a caffeine
pill, but without the harmful conse-
quences. Sound too good to be true?
The reality may not be too far off.
Studies are being conducted on a
drug called Modafinil, which was
approved by the Federal Drug Admin-
istration in 1998 to treat narcolepsy, a
sleep disorder characterized by uncon-
trollable sleepiness and frequent day-
time sleep. Unlike other stimulants,
Modafinil, also known as Provigil, has
been found to increase alertness and
focus in subjects without leaving them
feeling wired or anxious.
Most studies of the drug have been
performed on subjects mimicking the
..~t -.I r .. a r.-A_1:4.. A
night shifts. The military has also con-
ducted similar experiments, based on
the rationale that soldiers who sleep
less can perform better.
But is the drug safe enough for
healthy, non sleep-deprived individuals
who are just looking for a way to stay
up at night?
Dr. Ronald Chervin, director of the
University's Sleep Disorders Clinic,
doesn't think so.
"Modafinil is not a drug that stu-
dents should take to cram for a test or
write a paper," he said. "I have not
seen published reports about its use for
people without chronic sleep disor-
ders."
This lack of information involving
the long-term effects of the drug on
normal individuals has led many
Photo iustration by YONI GOODSTINF/Daily
Art sophomore Toria Marquard is thankful for the companionship of her friend,
Michigan State University student Laura Mulkoff following the Sept. 11 attacks.
The more than 300 questions on the
survey asked for agreement or dis-
agreement with statements including
"I have never deliberately hurt any-
in a universal power, a god."
The last question indicates spiritual-
ity, which according to Peterson is the
conviction that life is sacred, including