Monday
September 22, 2003
@2003 The Michigan Daily
Ann Arbor, Michigan

One-hundred-twelve years ofeditori/freedom

TODAY:
Rain and iso-
lated thun-
derstorms
throughout
the day.

H 71
Tomorrow:

Vol. CXIII, No. 15
FOR

wwwmichigandailycom



HOPE AND

Friends and relatives
of cancer patients,
victims and
survivors hold
candles at the
Candle Lighting for
Hope and
Remembrance.
DAVID TUMAN/Daily

REMEMBRANCE

Reports of
mold spread
0n campus

Ceremony
comforts
survivors
ofcancer
By Ivo Furman
For the Daily
Cancer patients and their loved
ones gathered at the University's
Comprehensive Cancer Center on
Friday night to spread a message of
hope and support during its sixth
annual candle-lighting ceremony.
"This is a ceremony of unique joy
and sorrow, a place for people to
share their grief and move on with
their cancer journey," event coordina-
tor Sue Wintermeyer-Pingel said.
The centerpiece of the Candle
Lighting Ceremony for Hope and
Remembrance was a series of
speeches by the "Voices," a group of
patients, families and medical per-
sonnel that described the "cancer
See CANCER, Page 7A

yEmily Krarc

Students who start sniffling every
time they enter their dorm room may
have something other than their room-
mate's dirty laundry to blame.
Facilities and Operations spokes-
woman Diane Brown said the University
Department of Occupational Safety and
Environmental Health has this month
seen an abnormally high number of
reports of mold, which can trigger aller-
gic reactions in some people.
Most reports come from residence
halls and office space, because those are
spaces where people spend prolonged
periods of time, said Pamela Barker,
manager of OSEH's Occupational Safe-
ty and Community Health division.
Barker said there are no government
regulations regarding at-risk mold con-
centrations. "It's variable because it
affects different people differently" she
said. "It depends on a person's suscepti-
bility."
The National Center for Environmen-
tal Health website lists possible mold
reactions including stuffy noses, itchy
eyes and wheezing. More severe reac-
tions can include fever and shortness of
breath. The level of reaction depends on

DAVID TUMAN/Daily

Rosalee, Alisa and Darren Melugin wait their turn to speak Friday night at the Candle Lighting for Hope and
Remembrance at the University's Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Drinking becoming more risky.

- Sources: Washtenaw County
and the University.
individual sensitivity.
Brown said multiple University divi-
sions, such as OSEH, Plant Operations,
Housing and the hospital, are responsi-
ble for small mold clean-ups. This
decentralized system means no aggre-
See MOLD, Page 7A
Sally Ride
urges grls
to talke up
science
By Evan McGrvey
and Tamara Stevenson
Daily Staff Reporters

Police hand out more
alcohol-related tickets
this year
By Alison Go
Daily StaffReporter
Drinks may still be free at Universi-
ty parties, but the risk and penalty for
alcohol-related citations are on the
rise. There has been an 18-percent
increase in alcohol-related citations
since last year, the Ann Arbor city

clerk's office reported.
According to Doris Ehnis, Ann
Arbor's chief deputy clerk, there were
244 citations issued on Labor Day
weekend, the busiest weekend for
authorities, while only 207 citations
were given out the same weekend last
year.J
"The numbers were amazing. This is
the largest docket we've ever seen,"
said Ehnis.
"The number of (minor in posses-
sion) tickets is definitely up from last
year," said Diane Brown, Department

of Public Safety spokeswoman.
Ehnis attributes the large amount of
citations to more students lured by
higher temperatures and consecutive
football games played at home this
season. "If there is a home game and
nice weather, we're in trouble."
In response to this increased student
traffic, the Ann Arbor Police Depart-
ment, in line with DPS, has heightened
police presence during peak party
hours. "There are an extra 10 officers
on weekends patrolling the streets for
the sole purpose of curbing alcohol

violations," said Bob West, assistant
city attorney of Ann Arbor. "Every
year at the beginning of school, the
police put together Party Patrol to
make an impact at the start of the
year."
These measures run from the begin-
ning of the fall semester until late
November - or the last football game,
Ehnis said.
Neither Ehnis nor West attributed
the rise in citations from last year to an
increase in the number of police offi-
See DRINKING, Page 7A

MARIA SPROW/Daily

Students who
attend large
auditoriums
for lectures
have a tough
time
maintaining
their
attention on
the speaker,
which new
innovations
by professors
seek to cure.
NICK AZZARO/Daily

'U'warehou se sells
unwanted equipment
By Karen Schwartz
Daily Staff ReporterI *

Rob Hoffman is looking for
chairs. The University's chief
media engineer walks past rows
of gray file cabinets and piles
of blackboards and bookshelves
on his way to a cluster of mis-
matched chairs.
Hoffman is one of more than
1,400 customers a month who
journey to the University's
Property Disposition on Baxter
Road to look for bargains on
everything from furniture to
computers.
Property Disposition, where
University departments send
surplus property, gets an aver-
age of six truckloads a day from
campus and is home to about
$300,000 worth of equipment at
any given time, Property Dispo-
sition Manager James Day said.
Hoffman, who has bought

New technology tries to
spice up outdated lectures

SHUBRA OHRI/Daily
A Property Disposition employee is reflected in a mirror next to
warehouse shelves that hoid used equipment at discounted prices.

A number of math and engineering
student groups volunteered their time
Saturday to help out with the Sally Ride
Science Festival, which drew the first
American female astronaut in space to
the North Campus Diag.
A group of 1,000 middle-school-aged
girls and their families took part in the
festival, which Ride created. This year's
event marked the second year in a row
that the traveling festival came to Ann
Arbor.
The festival was designed to support
and encourage girls interested in the life
sciences and math. The day's activities
exposed the girls to a variety of scientif-
ic fields through demonstrations and
workshops.
According to Ride, the festival's
keynote speaker, research has shown
girls' interest in math and science drops
off severely in the middle-school years.
"We know that lots and lots of girls
going into middle school start to drift
away from (math and science), and we're
trying to take the approach that science
is really cool," she said.
Ride spoke briefly about the February
Columbia shuttle explosion during her
keynote speech. She served on the board
that investigated the disaster and recently
submitted its report to NASA.
"It's going to take NASA a while to
recover," she said.
The next shuttle flight will likely
take place early next summer, Ride
said. "NASA will bounce back
stronger than ever."
Among the groups helping out
were the University's Solar Car
Team, the Society of Automotive
Engineers' Baja Team and the Soci-
ety of Women Engineers.
Engineering senior Maggie Hayes
volunteered at the event for the second
year in a row.
"The Sally Ride Festival is great
because the girls get to learn about the
different application of science,"
Hayes said.
Before introducing Ride, Cinda-Sue
Davis, the director of the University's
Women In Science and Engineering Pro-
oam .rad th inned the festiv11ahlld

U New technologies add
interactive features to keep
students engaged
By Adam Rosen
Daily Staff Reporter
A generation ago, students did not have the luxu-
ry of attending lectures armed with hourly-updated
Course Tools notes, on-line discussion group post-
ings or even Powerpoint presentation slides.
So has the lecture, the long-cherished tool of
higher education, been rendered obsolete in the
face of modern technology?
Engineering freshman Austin Maxey said he
feels that lectures have become outdated.
"You can get everything online," Maxey said.
"When you print lecture notes off the Internet, you
have everything the professor is going to say."

"Lecturing is a tool like any other - it is good for
covering large amounts of material, and it can moti-
vate students to learn," Kaplan said.
But he added, "(lectures) are not suited to stimu-
lating higher-level thinking, and it's hard to get
feedback to see what is being absorbed by the stu-
dents. You are assuming that everybody is learning
on the same page."
LSA senior Blake Postma had similar criticisms.
"Lectures are just boring. Personally, I don't really
go," Postma said.
In attempts to further engage students in their
lectures, the Physics Department has instituted a
system called "Peer Response" that allows for stu-
dents to provide their lecturer with feedback several
times throughout the course of the lecture.
Physics Prof. Tim McKay regularly utilizes
this system with his large introductory physics
lectures.
Throughout his lecture, McKay will often ask

computer
equipment
and furniture
for television
studio sets at
the ware-
h o u s e
before, said
shopping at
Property
Disposition
is cheap. He
remembers
buying
chairs for

Bargain
Property Dispos
University equipm
The warehouse
Road, is open Mo
to 6 p.m., Tuesday
days from 12:30 tc
Thursdays from 8
N Call 764-2470 c
www umich.edu/

In addition to being a good
place for bargain hunting, Hoff-
man said there is also an ele-
ment of intrigue. "It's just an
interesting place to go to
browse and see the unusual
types of equipment that show
up here,"
hunting he said.
Among
sition sells surplus the stranger
ent at low prices. items Day
has seen
,at 3241 Baxter are skele-
ndays from 12:30 tons from
s and Wednes- the Med-
o 4 p.m., and ical School
to 11:30 a.m. n pr
and per-
or visit s o n a 1
~-ofa/PropDisp/ effec ts
such as a
Alwo od e n

even used to sell jewelry," he
said, referring to items
bequeathed to the University in
people's wills.
"I don't know where it's from
- the private things that are left
behind that eventually wind up
here, that's probably the weird-
est stuff you see," he said. "Peo-
ple clean out offices and they
put it on the truck and they
come out here, but every now
and then we get some strange
things, personal things, I'm
pretty sure the University didn't
issue that."
University departments with
surplus items call Property Dis-
position and get a delivery date,
fill out the appropriate forms,
and then the surplus is picked
up and taken to the warehouse,
where items are tagged with bar
codes and priced based on cur-
rent market rates, past experi-
P~t ad m ntinr nri ,' n

prices as low as $8.
"It is used furniture, but often
it's in good shape," he said.

sculpture of a pair of horns with
flowers carved in between
them, which he keeps near his
j -I-