Friday, September 16, 2005 News 3 'U' hospital chief resigns THF4 ", -vLjs :" -Ro-TTERN BERG V MAuO C. ... FAGE 8 Opinion 4 Sports 10 From the Daily: safety or liberty? Football takes on cross-town rival rl~ir aiI One-hundredfourteen years ofeditorialfreedom www.michandaiy.com Ann Arbor, Michigan Vol. CXV, No. 148 ©2005 The Michigan Daily Class rating we siteback up again By Anne VanderMey Daily Staff Reporter Advice Online, a website that rates University professors according to student survey results, is back online after years of technical difficulty. The website, which is run by the Michigan Student Assem- bly, compiles data from more than 400,000 surveys and gives professors ratings from 1 to 5 on issues ranging from the overall quality of the course to the weight of the workload. "Taking into account that some people just fill it out ran- domly, it gives you a good general guide." MSA Vice Presi- dent Nicole Stallings said. The original website suffered from a variety of problems, mostly owing to the fact that it had been created in 1995, using software that would be considered antiquated today. "We had to completely gut it and start it from scratch," said MSA webmaster Judy Yu. Yu said she spent the better part of the summer working on the site, and that she expects the new version to be much more stable. The site has been up and running for several weeks without any major glitches, Yu added. Students are greeting the new website with enthusiasm. "It would probably be really helpful in determining what classes I would take," LSA senior Wendy Lee said. But Lee also expressed concerns that the data could easily be skewed by people with extreme opinions about courses. Some professors also have questions about the site. Susan Douglas, chair of the communications department, said she felt some elements of the survey could be misleading, such as the significantly higher ratings teachers get from students in See ADVICE, Page 7 Dinner to benefit West Africans By Jacqueline E. Howard Daily Staff Reporter After a bad harvest, Niger, a poverty-stricken West Africa country, is said to be losing about 15 people a day to hunger. Students at the University are invited to eat dinner to help. The Michigan Graduate Student Association is hosting a relief dinner to raise money for the victims of the Niger fam- ine. The Michigan Student Assembly International Student Affairs co-chair Mohammad Dar said MSA has put forth money for the dinner. "We're coordinating with other student groups to have an event in which students can find out more about what's going on in Niger," said MGSA member Mohammad Khalil. The Muslim Law Students Association and Students of Color of Rackham are also helping with the organization of this event. They invited Michigan State University Prof. John Staatz to speak at the dinner, which will be from 6 to 9 p.m. in the assembly hall of the Horace H. Rackham Building. Khalil said the organizations sponsoring the dinner haven't forgotten about devastation here at home caused by Katrina. "Now that Katrina happened, donators can choose for their money to go towards either Niger aid or hurricane relief," See AFRICA, Page 7 Niger Fundraiser About 15 people a day die from hunger in Niger. 3.5 million people in the country are in danger of dying from starvation. Students can register for the dinner by e-mailing khalilm@umich.edu and reserving tickets. A $10 donation is requested and will be given to Niger or the victims of Hurricane Katrina depending on the donor's request k I Hill dining center approved New facility will serve residents of MoJo, Stockwell, Alice Lloyd and Couzens residence halls By Ian Herbert Daily Staff Reporter The creation of a new, multi-purpose dining facil- ity will force students on the Hill to change the way they are used to eating starting in 2008. Yesterday, the Board of Regents approved a $65 million project to attach a new Hill Dining Center to Mosher-Jordan Residence Hall and renovate the dorm at the same time, a change that at least for two years will have students displaced to other areas. University spokeswoman Julie Peterson said the plan includes placing students in Northwood III, but the University has housed undergrads in the family housing dorms on North Campus for the past two years now, often with complaints from the families who live there with young children. Peterson added that it will be especially critical this year for the admissions office to hit its goal of admitting 5,400 to 5,500 new freshmen. In each of the last two years, the University has overshot that goal by about 500 students. Even when the renovations to Mosher-Jordan are complete, there will be fewer beds than there are now, University Housing Director Carole Henry said. The dining center will be used for four of the five dorms on the Hill - Mosher-Jordan, Stockwell, Alice Lloyd and Couzens - but only students living in Mosher-Jordan will be able to reach the dining facility without going outside. After seeing a pre- sentation by the architects, Goody Clancy & Associ- ates, the regents voted to approve the project. Work will begin as soon as the students move out of the dorms this April. "These projects are terrific examples of renovat- ing student residential space so it connects more seamlessly to our students' learning environment and enhances the overall quality of student life," University President Mary Sue Colman said at the meeting. The dining center will be attached to Mosher-Jor- dan and will look out onto Palmer Field. The design includes large glass windows and two levels. Henry said the ground floor will be a traditional, but mod- ern, dining hall equipped with food stations offering students a wide variety of options, such as pizza, stir-fry and hamburgers, on any given night. Citing a University Housing survey of 2,400 students, Hous- ing spokesman Alan Levy said the emphasis would be on preparing the food in front of students and See HILL, Page 7 THE STALE-ING WALL IKE H fULSDUS/ Daily Artist Belli Uu stand In front of her sculpture entitled "Breadth" located in the Alice Uoyd dining hall. LIu was asked to do a site-specific work and wanted to create a piece that related to what happened there. The work took over seven hours to put together and will remain in the dining hall until September 30. Students raise money for Katrina victims By C.C. Song Daily Staff Reporter Although Michigan is 1,000 miles away from New Orleans, faculty and students on the University campus have been trying their best to help the vic- tims of Hurricane Katrina. The Red Cross, working with the Michigan Student Assembly, has raised a total of $56,000 through bucket drives at football games. MSA is also planning service trips through the Edward Gins- berg Center for Community Service and Learning to affected areas over fall, winter and spring breaks. The fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha is working on projects to help the victims in Lousiana. "I've heard people talking about (going to New Orleans), although it is not final. But if it's realistic, we'll do it," said Adrian Reynolds, an Engi- neering senior and the relief effort coor- dinator for Alpha Phi Alpha. Beginning with bucket drives on the Diag and on North Campus, Alpha Phi Alpha raised about $2,000, Reynolds said, and the fraternity plans to contin- ue holding bucket drives. The money collected will go to the Red Cross, but Reynolds mentioned he would like to raise money to go toward rebuilding houses in New Orleans as well. Aaron Rubens, a junior at Tulane University in New Orleans, was not in New Orleans when Katrina hit. Rubens had planned to study abroad this semes- ter but cancelled his plans and came to the University of Michigan, where he has friends, so he could help with relief efforts in New Orleans. "We've been putting a lot of money into the relief," Rubens said, adding that he and his friends have put nearly all of their own money into the fund and aren't sure how they will survive themselves. "But we're doing this because we really care about the people." Along with three other Tulane friends not from Michigan - Kevin Land- er, Stephen Richard and Adam Hawf - Rubens started the New Orleans Louisiana Hurricane Fund. It has col- lected about $23,000 at the University of Michigan through individual donors and T-shirt sales. The group has been The group has been selling T-shirts with the slogan "OSU sucks, but hurricanes blow." selling T-shirts with the slogan "OSU sucks, but hurricanes blow." NOLA is offering more than monetary support to those affected by Katrina. "A lot of people in New Orleans are uneducated, and they will need help to open bank accounts and to find jobs," Rubens said. One of NOLA's focuses is on affected public schools. "We are going to adopt a public school, providing them with monetary help and mentors," Rubens said. "We want to encourage people to come down during spring break to become mentors." The public school that NOLA is planning to adopt is locat- ed in New Orleans's Ninth Ward, one of the area's most impoverished districts, Rubens said. Faculty at the School of Social Work are also contributing to relief efforts in New Orleans. They are collecting items for a silent auction, which started on Sept. 5 and will end on Sept. 19. "I think we are all concerned, being in the School of Social Work," Terri Torkko, an official at the School of Social Work, said. "We are concerned about the students and the infrastruc- ture (in New Orleans), which has been totally destroyed. We're concerned with how it's going to affect the victims." Faculty and businesses in Ann Arbor have donated most of the items in the silent auction, including gift certificates for restaurants. Richard Tolman, assis- tant dean of the School of Social Work, is offering to take the top eight bidders to Dominick's for lunch. Two tickets to the football game against Eastern Michigan University are also being auc- tioned; the auction will end on Sept. 15 at 5 p.m. The list of items can be found See KATRINA, Page 7 Congress encourages schools to regulate textbook prices By Margaret Havemann Daily Staff Reporter LSA sophomore Barbara Patterson was excited when she thought she would save money this year by using her roommate's biology textbook from last year. She was outraged - but not surprised - to find out that her professor had required the newer edition, which was only slightly different from the old version, but more expensive. Patterson said she wished the University would do something to help students combat rising textbook nrices. In many instances. nrofessors don't realize report from the Government Accountability Office, ing limits on what Congress's investigative staff organization. to substitute my jud In the report, the GAO said today's students are just not capable of paying three times what students paid in 1986 for going to tell profess textbooks. The report added that prices are still climbing 6 percent « . . a year - more than double the Universities should rate of general inflation. bee odto "Universities should be encour- enCOuraged aged to implement numerousi options to address textbook implement numerous affordability," Congress recom- options to address mended in an August amendment address books to use, he said, "would be dgment for the professor's, and I'm doing that. The University is not sors what textbooks to buy." But a university-imposed cap on a book's price or a limit on the number of books allowed per course are steps that some universities have taken to ease the financial burden on students. Jennifer Libertowski, spokes- woman for the National Asso- ciation of College Stores, used