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©2004 The Michigan Daily
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Ann Arbor, Michigan Vol. CXIII, No. 136
.Plymouth Road medians proposed
Plan offered to City Council would
install traffic medians on busy street
near spot where two students killed
By Mona Rafeeq
Daily Staff Reporter
Five months after two University students were
killed at a busy intersection on Plymouth Road, the
city is taking action to increase safety measures in
that area.
Officials from the city Engineering Department
have outlined a proposal to the Ann Arbor City
Council that would install traffic precautions on Ply-
mouth Road.
The plan suggests installing grass medians run-
ning down the middle of Plymouth from Murfin
Avenue to Nixon Road, a span of about seven and a
half miles, as well as the possibility of a traffic light
at the intersection of Plymouth and Traverwood
Drive, pending a survey. The council has not yet
voted on the plan, and it is unknown when they plan
to do so.
The section of the road discussed in this plan
prompted intense scrutiny in November after
engineering students Teh Nannie Roshem Roslan
and Norhananim Zainol were killed by a vehicle
while crossing Plymouth on their way home from
attending an evening prayer at the Islamic Center
of Ann Arbor.
City Councilmember Jean Carlberg said she likes
the idea of the traffic medians because they allow
pedestrians to wait in the median to check for traf-
fic before crossing the next two lanes safely to the
other side.
"The traffic medians provide refuge for pedestri-
ans crossing the street and are also aesthetically
pleasing," Carlberg said.
The department's immediate plans call for con-
structing 12-foot-wide traffic medians in the center
lane of the five-lane Plymouth Road. Chief Engineer
Homayoon Pirooz said the medians would cost a
total of $120,000 to $130,000.
Pirooz said the department proposed the plan to
the City Council as "a traffic-calming method."
"There are also medians now within the limit that
are not used. We thought it would not only be safer if
the asphalt medians were converted to grass, but it
would look better too," he said.
Lighted pedestrian crosswalks and a reduction of
speed limit from 40 to 35 miles per hour would also
See TRAFFIC, Page 10
Budget to lead
to tough choices
" over summer
The
world
at his hands
By Donn M. Fresard
and Alison Go
Daily Staff Reporters
Faced with a looming $20 million
budget deficit predicted for the next
fiscal year, the University has been
taking strides to avert a budgetary cri-
sis without significantly raising tuition.
Last month, University President
Mary Sue Coleman announced that
she planned to accept Gov. Jennifer
Granholm's proposal that would
keep tuition increases at 2.4 percent
in exchange for a reduction in state
cuts from 8 to 2
percent.
Tuition for
undergraduate state
residents is $7,895
a year. Assuming a
2.4 percent or less
increase, tuition
next year will be
$8,084. - the low-
est tuition increase
in at least 15 years.
While the drop in
state appropriations
last year was offset
by a 6.5 percent
tuition increase, the
expected 2.4 per-
cent tuition hike will not make up for
next year's projected budget deficit
caused by the substantial cut in funding
from the state.
"Thirty years ago, the state provided
70 percent of the funding for instruc-
tion at our Ann Arbor campus," Cole-
man said. "Today, we receive less than
30 percent of our instructional funding
from the state. The burden of the cost
of education has dramatically shifted
from state support to student tuition."
Despite these cuts, last year's tuition
increase was the lowest among Michi-
gan public universities. Overall tuition
rate growth over the last five years has
also been the lowest in the state.
In order to balance the budget, Cole-
man said the University would be
forced to reduce spending.
"We're looking at every nook and
cranny of the University to see what
we can do without and how we can
save money," she said.
Although the severity of the budget
deficit will require the University to
make cuts in virtually every depart-
ment, Coleman said academic depart-
ments will be relatively safe, while
administrative areas will bear the brunt
of the budget shortfall.
In the past year, Coleman said the
University has eliminated more than
300 administrative positions, reduced
its travel budget, overhauled its pre-
scription drug plan and reduced utility
costs. Beginning in 2005, the Universi-
ty's health bene-
fits plan will also
be restructured,
which Coleman
said will further
increase savings.
To compensate
for rising tuition
* s costs, Coleman
said the Universi-
ty has taken steps
to ensure that stu-
dents are still able
to pay for their
education, consis-
tently offsetting
tuition hikes with
equal or greater
increases in centrally budgeted finan-
cial aid. This year there was an
increase of 8.3 percent in financial aid,
compared to the 6.5 percent raise in
tuition.
The University also raises large
amounts of money through private
donations and endowments that go
toward financial aid.
"Private fundraising is always
important because without that kind of
fundraising, we just can't generate
enough money from the state and
tuition alone," Coleman said.
The University will kick off a new
capital campaign on May 14 to raise
money for scholarships, fellowships
and endowed professorships from pri-
vate donors, Coleman said.
Coleman predicted this will be the
largest such campaign in the Universi-
See BUDGET, Page 10
JEFF LEHNERT/Daily
Rackham student Christopher Landau collaborates with Engineering students to make his group's mechanical sculpture at a Mechanical Engineering Seminar In
the Media Union on North Campus yesterday.
Stu ents w1 receive bills in e-mal
By Ashley Dinges
Daily Staff Reporter
The University will cut down on its use of paper
beginning this fall. In an e-mail sent to all students
late Wednesday night, the University's Office of Stu-
dent Financial Operations announced that beginning
in June, billing statements will be sent to students
electronically via e-mail.
Jim Middlemas, University cashier and assistant
manager of Financial Operations, said the changes
were put in place for various reasons, including
requests from parents after their students began e-
mailing them the bills.
"Basically, we want to get the bills out to you folks
as soon as possible and give you the possibility of
picking it up at your leisure. Let's face it, the world is
going electronic, and being able to pull up the bill
anywhere in the world is amazing," Middlemas said.
The University will send out both paper and elec-
tronic notifications for the spring and summer terms,
but will switch solely to electronic billing in Septem-
ber.
Since December 2002, students have been able
to pay bills electronically through Wolverine
Access. The new changes only affect the actual
billing statement.
"We generate a paper bill currently. Students, for
one reason or the other, tend to not keep them, lose
them or misplace them," Middlemas said.
He added that the change should be relatively easy
for students to handle, because they only need to
specify who receives the statement.
"Basically the students don't have to do anything,
except we will have the ability to let students sign up
a guest to receive an e-mail and receive access to the
bill. They're going to have to name the individual and
direct them to sign up for it" Middlemas said.
But students will not have to worry about a guest
having access to their Wolverine Access account. The
billing statements will be kept on a separate server,
and guests will not have access to anything except
the statement.
Individuals whom the student chooses to access
their statement will not use a University-issued uniq-
name and will have to use a separate system, and
"The bills will be residing on a secure server. Stu-
See BILLING, Page 10
ECONOMY
Survey: A2 businesses face high costs
Research symposium
marks end of Brown
theme semester
By Jonathan Cohen
For the Daily
Maria Thompson, chief executive officer of TJ
Technologies Inc., is one of many city business
owners who said she had trouble starting up her
enterprise in Ann Arbor a few years ago. Thomp-
son said the city should be more aware and con-
ducive to small businesses.
Owners like Thompson and Scott Leopold of
Leopold Brothers Brewery said they felt neglect-
ed by the city early on in their careers. They,
along with other established and new business
owners across the city, expressed concern with
+-p rent hnrcinu andr narking in a -urvv cn..
"This is an expensive place to maintain a busi-
ness. You have to work hard through the many
city policies and regulations," he said.
He said the rent he pays is not as high as that of
businesses located on State Street, which he said
have to pay $10,000 or more per month.
Telemaco added that the city denied him
approval to change the sign outside his door
because the area on East William Street is consid-
ered a historical district.
College Shoe Repair owner Pat Brown has
been in town 60 years longer than Telemaco and
has similar concerns. College Shoe Repair is next
door to NYPD.
"It's a1most imnossible to keen aoin2. It is
Costs of business
Local business owners express strengths
and weakness of A2 business environment
Out of about 180 owners surveyed, 44 per-
cent responded that taxes and costs of busi-
ness in city were too high.
Ten percent said they believed a lack of
parking in the city hurt business.
Twenty-three percent credited proximity to
By Lindsey Paterson
Daily Staff Reporter
LSA senior Lindsey Petersen said
growing up in northern Michigan,
she always had a negative image of
Detroit. Her perspective changed
this term when she traveled to
Detroit with her Psychology 317
class to work with children at Latino
sity's Brown v. Board of Education
50th Anniversary Commemoration
theme semester.
Student research projects illuminat-
ed the impact of the Brown case on
Detroit schools, Hispanic and Asian
American communities and other
areas of education such as tutoring
inner-city children.
"The main purpose of (the sympo-
i
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r