LOCAL/STATE
THIS WEEK
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Five years ago...
University President Lee Bollinger
announced an increase in the school's
bureaucracy with the creation of three
new vice-presidential positions. The
vice president for university relations
position was split into three positions:
vice presidents for media relations and
government relations and University
secretary.
Bollinger named Cynthia
Wilbanks and Lisa Tedesco to the
jobs of vice president for govern-
ment relations and University secre-
tary, respectively.
Bollinger said reasons for the
change involved splitting up duties,
noting that there were "too many jobs
and too many roles to fill."
Ten years ago...
The Ann Arbor Tenants Union vent-
ed its dismay at the recent decision by
the Michigan Student Assembly to cut
off its funding. MSA President Craig
Greenberg said tenant advocacy was
available through other University
offices, including the University Off-
Campus Housing office and the Hous-
ing Law Reform Project through
Student Legal Services.
But AATU staffers said those two
offices presented a conflict of inter-
est because they were connected to
the University. He said he thought
University Housing officials forced
Greenberg to make the decision.
"It wouldn't surprise me if they had
a hand in this because they've always
tried to get rid of tenants," AATU
staff member Pattrice Maurer said.
Sept. 11, 1986
The College of Literature, Science
and the Arts announced that it is rais-
ing English standards for foreign
teaching assistants. TAs now have to
receive an 80 percent on an exam given
by the English Language Institute, as
opposed to a 60 percent previously.
TAs who did not pass would have their
teaching appointments delayed. In
addition, if a TA had previously
received poor ratings from students,
they would have to retake exams.
"For too long our college's under-
graduate teaching effort has suffered
from the employment of foreign-born
teaching assistants who do not speak
and understand English well enough
to function with maximum effective-
ness in the classroom," LSA Dean
Peter Steiner said.
Sept. 11, 1981
University Housing officials
announced that Mary Markley Resi-
dence Hall would now offer continu-
ous lunch service from 7 a.m. to 8
p.m. Most students reacted positively
to the change, saying it would allow
more flexibility within their schedules.
"It's more convenient. If you come
back from class later, there's no rush
and there's fewer crowds," LSA sopho-
more Erick Remer said.
Sept. 12, 1973
The Michigan Daily reported a new
Ann Arbor Police Department crack-
down on cyclists. AAPD officers
would be enforcing a city ordinance
that forbade bicycles to lean against
buildings while interfering with pedes-
trians.
"We just don't want people to walk
through a jungle of bikes to get where
they're going," AAPD Capt. Robert
Conn said.
Sept. 9, 1969
The Michigan Daily reported that
President Robben Fleming was con-
sidering punishing faculty members
who participated in a national Oct. 15
strike against the Vietnam War.
"Traditionally, in this country, peo-
ple are not paid while on strike," Flem-
ing wrote in an Aug. 7 letter to the
Senate Advisory Committee on Uni-
versity Affairs.
Sept. 7, 1967
Two hundred University plant
employees staged a walkout alleging
unfair labor practices against the
University. Union leaders said the
University had paid workers not to
join unions, among other issues.
Sept. 7, 1980
The ROTC reported a 30 percent
enrollment increase this year, with 111
students in its Army, Navy and Air
Force training programs - up from 78
last year. ROTC officials attributed the
trend to a growing conservatism on
campus and Soviet activity in
Afghanistan. But some students in the
program said money played a more
important role in convincing them to
inin N y a thirA of c,,Atetc in
The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - 3
MSA defends 'U'
autonomy against
critics of 'Gay' class
JASON COOPER/Daily
A student travels down the Shapiro Undergraduate Library corridor yesterday
evening. Many students are starting to return to the UGLi as classes resume.
HEALTH CARE
Continued from Page 1
"We did look at some other universities. We
also looked at some large private sector employ-
ers in the area and how they deal with their
salaries," said Richard Hirth, a committee mem-
ber and associate health management and policy
professor. "A lot of universities have already gone
to a graduated premium contribution ... to a
greater extent that Michigan has."
For example, Comprehensive Healthcare Insur-
ance Plans - major health care plans for faculty
and staff of the University of Iowa - require cus-
tomers to pay 10 to 20 percent of their premiums.
Employees at Northwestern University also foot
part of the bill for their health insurance.
"For single-person coverage, we found
employee contributions ranging from zero to as
much as 56 percent of the premium cost," said
University Human Resources spokesman Dave
Reid. "For family coverage, faculty and staff
contributions went as high as 60 percent for
some plans."
Despite the relative cost-efficiency of Universi-
ty health care, some faculty members - particu-
larly graduate employees - have expressed
dismay over the policy changes. This year, gradu-
ate faculty will have to shoulder the higher premi-
ums along with historically low pay raises.
"We're among the lowest-paid employees of
the University," said Graduate Employee Organi-
zation President David Dobbie. "It's definitely
unfair to burden us to pay health care costs."
Since 1999, salaries for graduate student
instructors have decreased 1.5 percent, according
to Dobbie and the organization's website.
In addition to low pay raises, Dobbie said forc-
ing graduate faculty to foot the cost of health care
violates their contract.
"Our health care benefits are bargained, so if
the University wants to change our benefits,
that's the equivalent of saying they won't
respond to bargaining."
But Peterson said the University will not
breach staff and faculty contracts. If the policy
changes come into conflict with labor contracts,
the University will enter into collective bargain-
ing with employees.
"We would renegotiate when the contract
expired," Peterson said, adding that she does not
believe the current policy changes violate gradu-
ate faculty members' contracts.
Citing modest pay raises for all University
employees, Peterson said faculty and staff subscrib-
ing to University health care will feel the effects of
sluggish salaries and ratcheted premiums.
"Salary increases are very restricted this year,"
she said. "The only comfort I think we can offer
is that everyone, everywhere, is in the same boat."
According to the Associated Press, health care
premiums have seen their highest increases since
1990, and this year portions of family health plans
paid by employees grew 12.9 percent nationwide.
By Andrew Kaplan
Daily Staff Reporter
Following a trail of controversy over the
University English course "How to be Gay,"
the Michigan Student Assembly passed a reso-
lution last night supporting the University's
"academic freedom" in
deciding its curriculum.
The resolution, which
passed without dissent, runs
afoul of remarks made by state
Rep. Jack Hoogendyk (R-
Kalamazoo), who has said the
course imposes ideology on
students.
In addition to supporting
the academic validity of 60
courses Hoogendyk has called Galardi
into question - including the English 317 section
- the resolution also opposed the lawmaker's
oversight bill, which would withhold public fund-
ing from state universities that failed to comply
with a curriculum review system.
"We shouldn't be controlled on what we're
learning about and what is or what isn't suffi-
cient knowledge," MSA President Angela
Galardi said. "If the enrollment is constant,
then someone is obviously getting something
out of this course."
Although advocates of the resolution had
originally slated it for a later vote, they said an
upcoming conference of the Association of
Michigan Universities - which assembly rep-
resentatives will attend - convinced them to
move the vote forward.
"I sent (the resolution) out early because it's an
issue that students need to know about and I want
to give people enough time to ask questions," said
Rules and Elections Committee Chair Pierce Beck-
ham, who sponsored the bill. "I moved it because I
heard state politicians would be at the AMU confer-
ence. ... MSA students needed to take a stand
before then."
Section 002 of English 317, titled "How to
be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation,"
discusses "the general topic of the role that
initiation plays in the formation of gay male
identity," according to the LSA website. The
class also "examine(s) a number of cultural
artifacts and activities that seem to play a
prominent role in learning how to be gay," but
does not offer students an "introduction to gay
male culture," the website states.
On passing the resolution, MSA agreed to send
letters to state politicians "expressing its stance on
this issue."
Among other unopposed resolutions, funding for
the 2004 Association of Big Ten Schools confer-
ence also gained assembly approval.
After months of planning, MSA will hold a
vigil to honor the victims of September 11th.
The ceremony will take place on the Diag
tomorrow at 8 p.m.
GOP race for U.S. House widens
TIPTON, Mich. (AP) - A
16-year Republican state House
member who left in 1998
because of term limits is run-
ning for the U.S. House seat
being vacated by Nick Smith.
Tim Walberg of Tipton
served in the Legislature from
1982 to 1998. Smith (R-Addi-
son) has said he will not run in
2004, honoring a pledge to
serve no more than six two-year
terms.
The Republican-leaning 7th
U.S. House District includes
Adrian, Battle Creek and Jack-
son. It has parts of Lenawee,
Hillsdale, Jackson, Washtenaw,
Eaton, Branch and Calhoun
counties.
The district does not include-
Ann Arbor, stopping just west
of the city. John Dingell (D-
Dearborn) represents Ann
Arbor in the House.
Walberg joins a Republican
field that includes state Reps.
Gene DeRossett of Manchester
and Clark Bisbee of Jackson,
Calhoun County Clerk Anne
Norlander and former state
Rep. Paul DeWeese of Eaton
Rapids. No Democrat has
entered the race.
"I am a conservative Repub-
lican," Walberg said.
Zogby: Arab Americans' political clout grows
DEARBORN (AP) - Arab
Americans are gaining political
muscle, with issues of relevance to
them ones that should be equally
important to Americans as a whole,
a leadingArab American leader said
yesterday.
The Sept. 11 attacks "had a terrible
impact on the (Arab American) com-
munity. But it has not had an impact
on our empowerment," said James
Zogby, president of the Arab Ameri-
can Institute.
"There's no doubt we're on the radar
screen more than before," he said.
Zogby's comments came as he
announced a national Arab American
community leadership conference to
be held in Dearborn in October.
Four Democratic presidential candi-
dates - Howard Dean, Dennis
Kucinich, Richard Gephardt and
Joseph Lieberman - are scheduled to
speak at the three-day event that will
group hundreds of community lead-
ers. Organizers hope to draw at least
two other candidates.
The aim of the conference, which
will be bipartisan, is to allow Arab
American leaders to talk with the can-
didates on key issues like U.S. foreign
policy in the Middle East, civil rights
and immigration. A Bush Administra-
tion representative has not yet been
determined.
Of particular concern is launching a
meaningful and substantive debate on
Middle East policy - discussions
Corrections:
The women's soccer photo on
page 8B of Monday's Daily
should have been credited to
Jason Cooper.
Campus Notes on page 3 of
yesterday's Daily were compiled
by Daily Staff Reporter Emily
Kraack.
Catch an error? We need to know
about it. E-mail the Daily at
corrections@umich.edu
2 years after attacks, one amily
comes to realize: "This as~ home'
James Zogby, president of the Arab
American institute, addresses a news
conference yesterday in Dearborn.
Zogby said Arab Americans' political
power is growing.
Zogby says have been missing in the
United States for decades.
"In the 30 years since the end of
(the Vietnam War), we have sent more
money, sent more weapons, sent more
troops ... lost more American lives
and invested more political capital in
the Middle East, and (there has been)
no real debate about the policy,"
Zogby said. "And the policy has been
a dismal failure."
Community leaders say the
upcoming conference will provide
representatives of the nation's more
than 3 million Arab Americans with
a chance to drive home the message
that these issues affect Americans as
a whole.
DEARBORN (AP) - For a while
after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Fadlal-
lahs thought of leaving.
But realistically, that was never an
option.
This city of 100,000, where the
main streets are home to Ford Motor
Co. and the slew of shops crowned by
bilingual Arabic and English signs, is
where Susan and Imad Fadlallah and
their four children feel they belong.
"There's a sense of loyalty because
what this country gave us, our home-
land failed to provide," said Imad, who
immigrated in the 1970s from
Lebanon and now is the principal at
Stout Middle School in Dearborn.
The United States "gave us a sense
of hope," added Susan, a successful
pharmacist who also came from
Lebanon in the mid 1970s and whose
father, Nabih Berry, is that country's
parliamentary speaker.
The Lebanon they left behind was
one mired in civil war. The conflict
gave the Fadlallahs what they see as a
deeper understanding of the United
States' founding principles.
"Here, you have an appreciation for
human rights," said Susan. "There's an
understanding and respect that we're all
different and it's OK to be different"
But Sept. 11 raised questions about
that belief for the couple.
In an interview three months after
the terrorist attacks, Imad said he
feared being caught up in the Justice
Department investigation that included
the detention of about 1,200 Muslims
and Arabs, interviews with 5,000 others
and the passing of the USA Patriot Act,
which gives the government broad
powers to monitor citizens. Thoughts
of leaving entered their mind.
But after the December 2001 inter-
view, letters from around the country
came in. Of 20 letters, 19 urged them to
stay. They said "Don't lose faith," and
"This is still a good country." Only one,
laced with expletives, said, "Go home."
They showed "the good people, the
real Americans, were still out there,
even with all the negative publicity"
about Islam and Arabs, said Imad.
Since then, the Fadlallahs, like many
other Arab Americans, are "day by day
trying to do our part to change both the
perception about Muslims in this coun-
try, the religion as a whole and about
the region," said Susan.
They do it in part to help their chil-
dren and to give something back to
their adopted country.
"We're going to be leaving behind
our most precious possession in life -
our children," said Susan, referring to
Silan, 4, Rima, 10, Ali, 15, and Mah-
moud, 19, a senior at the University.
"They were born and raised in this
country. To them, this is home. What
kind of home are they going to have,
though, if people still look at us with
suspicion?"
Shortly after the attacks, "I didn't
know how to deal with the people
around me,"recalled Susan.
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