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Tuesday
September 16, 2003
©2003 The Michigan Daily
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Vol. CXIII, No. 11
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One-hundred-twelve years of edtorialdfreedom
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CONNECTING THE GAP
Ceremony
o ens bridge
eZeen 'U'
campuses
By Jeremy Berkowitz
Daily Staff Reporter
Figuratively and literally, a new
bridge symbolized a connection
between students and the Life Sci-
ences at Michigan Program yesterday.
At an official ceremony, Life Sci-
ences Institute Managing Director Liz
Barry, LSA Dean Terry McDonald
and Chemistry Department Chairman
William Roush were three of several
participants to open a new pedestrian
bridge connecting the Medical and
Central Campuses. The bridge is
located at the corner of Washtenaw
Avenue and Zina Pitcher Place.
"It was a fun ceremony," Barry
said. "Bringing the campus together
is what the campus planners intend-
ed."
The LSI also opened yesterday,
which is one of three new buildings
connected with the initiative.
Administrative staff received keys
yesterday and will not be fully
unpacked until the end of the semes-
ter. Faculty members begin to move in
at the beginning of next month and all
their lab equipment should be
installed by the end of December.
Undergraduate, graduate and doctoral
students eventually will do lab work
in the building.
Yesterday represented the first
completed phase of construction for
the sciences, which is expected to
continue for the better part of the
decade. The 99,000 square-feet Com-
mons Building, slated for completion
See BRIDGE, Page 3
Radio station
mourns death
of employee
By Victoria Edwards
and Emily Kraack
Daily Staff Reporters
Michigan Radio had reason for
silence this morning. Steven Graham,
a respected employee at the radio sta-
tion for more than 20 years, was pub-
licly identified yesterday as the
49-year old Ann Arbor man found
dead in the LSA Building Saturday.
Graham, who was an engineer at
WUOM-FM, died as a result of an
apparent strangulation suicide,
Department of Public Safety spokes-
woman Diane Brown said.
The radio station staff gathered ear-
lier yesterday to remember Graham,
said Donovan Reynolds, director of
WUOM-FM Michigan Public Media.
"He was a popular member of the staff
and hard working," Reynolds said.
Reynolds said Graham was devoted
to his work and lived with his mother.
He described Graham as introverted
and shy but well liked by everyone.
"In the eight years I worked with him,
I don't remember him once saying an
unkind thing about anybody,"
Reynolds added.
He said Graham showed no indica-
tions of distress or depression in the
days before his death. Reynolds also
recalled a time in 1996 when another
I employee of the
radio station
attempted suicide.
"It's inexplicable
to me why these
things happen, but
they sometimes
happen," he said.
,WUOM-FM
offers psychologi-
cal services to
employees through
a faculty-staff assistance program,
Reynolds said.
Graham was discovered on the fifth
See DEATH, Page 3
ABOVE: Life Sciences Institute
Managing Director Uz Barry joins
Pharmacy Dean George Kenyon and
Dentistry Dean Peter Polverini for the
dedication of the new pedestrian
bridge near the Hill area yesterday.
Instead of having a ribbon-cutting
ceremony, two ribbons were brought
from each end and joined together in
the middle to symbolize the new
connection between the medical and
central campuses.
LEFT: Although the new pedestrian
bridge was dedicated and opened to
the public yesterday, fencing still
surrounds the area, which still has a
number of final developments that
need to be made before Its
completion. (Photos by ELISE
BERGMAN/Daily)
Informal rules do
not deter recruits
from drinking
By Evan McGarvey
For the Daily
4U)
activists
- both conservatives,
liberals
By Carmen Johnson
Daily Staff Reporter
- stay in national spotlight
On a campus where students once spent 37 days
camping out on the seventh floor of the Michigan
Union to protest a secret society's use of Native
American culture, active students know how to
make a scene.
It's a scene that gets noticed and puts the University
on countless "top politically active campuses" lists.
But many charge that the liberals get all the
attention.
This month, a self-described "social justice"
political magazine ranked the University of Michi-
gan on the list of top activist campuses for 2003
along with other colleges such as New York Univer-
sity and James Madison University in Virginia.
The magazine mentioned the busloads of stu-
dents who traveled to Washington in April to rally
for the University's admission policies hearing as an
example of student activism.
But not everyone who went to Washington sup-
r
Photo Illustration by MICHAEL PIFER/Daily
ported the University's side.
In previous years, when the University has been
selected as a top activist campus, illustrations of
student activism tend to focus on liberal causes
such as last year's anti-war rallies and the campaign
to end the University's labor contract with Nike due
to the company's labor conditions.
"Everyone thinks that you have to be a liberal or
progressive to be an activist, but I disagree," said
LSA junior Bobby Raham, who describes himself
as a conservative activist.
"Being an activist is making a difference by
standing up in what you believe in," he added.
Sweetland Writing Center and RC Prof. Helen
Fox spoke at last year's advocacy day addressing
student activism.
"The norm is not to question and accept how
things are so students who protest tend to be pro-
gressive because the norm is conservative," said
Fox, who graduated from University of California
at Berkeley - another campus recognized for its
student protests against the Vietnam War in the late
1960s.
Raham, who helped organized last week's rally
on the Diag in support of American forces in Iraq,
See ACTIVISM, Page 3
Each fall weekend, groups of high
school athletes come to the University
to spend time with their potential team-
mates and coaches in NCAA-sanc-
tioned "official visits."
The time is designed as a chance for
the high school seniors to gain a feel
for campus and the academic and social
climate of the University. But for some
recruits the visit weekends are an
opportunity to experience another
aspect of college life - parties and
drinking.
Conduct rules are rarely dictated
explicitly to recruits and lack of com-
munication between coaches, hosts and
recruits creates an environment of few
guidelines and unknown consequences.
LSA freshmen Eric Tannenbaum, a
wrestling team member, recalled his
official visit to the University last fall.
"(The coaches) said nothing about
drinking. They told us nothing about
behavior or conduct. The guys on the
team took us out to parties," Tannen-
baum said.
The NCAA's "Guide For The Stu-
dent-Bound Athlete" contains a section
outlining the policies for official visits
but makes no statements concerning
alcohol.
None of the six athletes interviewed
were told explicitly by coaches or their
hosts that drinking while on the visit
"I don't remember
being explicitly told
not to drink. The
coaches said 'anything
in moderation:
- Ellen Van Clere
Diving team member
was forbidden. The hosts are in charge
for the vast majority of the visit.
LSA freshman and diving team
member Ellen Van Clere only remem-
bered vague instructions from the
coaches.
"I don't remember being explicitly
told not to drink. The coaches said
'anything in moderation.' Hosts could-
n't drink, but we did go out "Van Clere
said.
Freshman swimmer Annie Stein had
a similar experience. "There were no
guidelines. The coaches don't promote
drinking but they leave it as a personal
decision," Stein said.
The Athletic Department's media
relations refused to comment and
referred all questions to the individual
coaches.
Matthew Anderson, the head
Women's Water Polo coach, described
his official visit itinerary.
"We want to have them come in on a
See RECRUITS, Page 3
New labor agreement may
help domestic automakers
compete in foreign market
Bush's energy
proposal gets
mixed reviews
By Andrew Kaplan
a Daily Staff Reporter
By Tomislav Ladika
Daily Staff Reporter
The country's largest automakers may have a bet-
ter chance of competing with their foreign counter-
parts, thanks to a tentative labor agreement reached
by the United Auto Workers and the country's third-
largest automaker Sunday.
Just hours after the midnight expiration of the
previous four-year labor contract, UAW President
Ron Gettelfinger announced the deal with Daimler-
Chrysler AG's Chrysler Group at a press confer-
ence early yesterday morning.
Union negotiators could not strike a simultane-
ous agreement with General Motors Corp. and
Ford Motor Co., but the deal with Chrysler will
serve as a framework for agreements with the other
major auto manufacturers, Gettelfinger said in a
will occur.
The deal, which observers said was unusual for
how quickly it was reached, could allow the strug-
gling Big Three automakers to contain their labor
costs, helping them compete with foreign carmak-
ers from Japan, Korea and Europe. United States
car sales have been down this year and in August
the Big Three claimed their lowest monthly market
share ever, at 57.9 percent.
"Unlike in the past, the companies are on the
same side. They have a common enemy, which is
the Japanese transplants," said Gerald Myers,
adjunct University professor of organizational
behavior and human resource management.
Details of the agreement were not released, but
preliminary reports indicate that UAW workers will
likely compromise on wage and pension increases.
In 1999 UAW secured 3-percent wage increases, a
Just over a month after an energy blackout left six million
Michigan residents and 70 percent of the state's manufacturing
facilities in the dark, President Bush traveled to the Monroe
power plant to gather support for his energy policy yesterday.
His ideas were met with mixed reactions on campus and in
Congress.
During his speech, Bush cited the need to upgrade power
plants - such as the one in Monroe, one of the nation's largest
coal-fired power plants - which would help in job creation.
"When we talk about environmental policy in this Bush
administration, we not only talk about clean air, we talk about
jobs," Bush said during his 11th trip to Michigan since his
election.
According to the National Audubon Society, several of the
I