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Opinion 4A
Alison Go wants
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Arts SA Avery Hopwood's
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Sports 8A Cagers set to take
on Buckeyes
One-hundred-fifteen years ofedntorialfreedom
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www.rmch/zrandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Vol. CXVI, No. 72
@2006 The Michigan Daily
O J
'U '
expects jump in funding
Percentage change in state funding
$ r
6.3%
4 2%
Whispers in Lansing say governor
will propose an increase in funding to
higher education by 2 percent today
By Gabe Nelson
Daily Staff Reporter
University officials have their fingers crossed.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm is expected to announce
today a proposed budget for fiscal year 2007 that
would boost higher education funding by about $30
million, or 2 percent.
If Granholm makes the proposal and the Legislature
approves, it will mark the first time during the tenure
of University President Mary Sue Coleman that state
funding to the University has increased.
When Coleman became president in 2002, the
state's allocation to the University was $363.6 million,
down 1.6 percent from the previous year. Since then,
the state has slashed the University's allocation three
years straight. Last year, it fell to $316.3 million, $50
million less than it had been only four years before.
Coleman told the LSA Student Government in a
meeting last month that she considers the budget cuts a
detriment to the state as well as to the University.
"The days where people didn't need to worry about
higher education to get a job are over," Coleman said.
"Even in the car industry, it's over."
If the state keeps cutting funding for higher edu-
cation, the state's most talented students will go else-
where, Coleman said.
"I will keep arguing for the University, because I
honestly believe there's no better way the state can
invest their money than in higher education," she
said.
While the possibility of an increase has enthused
administrators, they remain concerned about the accu-
racy of the reports about the increase, said Cynthia
Wilbanks, University vice president for government
relations.
"People are optimistic, but we have to be pretty cau-
tious about these things," Wilbanks said.
A spokesman for Granholm said he could not com-
See FUNDING, page 7A
4
p12003 2004
2001 2002 1 -
-1.6% T
2%
2005 2006
2007*
-2% -1.4%
-4 f-
-12 -
-11%.1
*The expected increase for state funding next year
Groups
:
Hotline
too little,
too late
Phone line for reporting
hate crimes comes months
after alleged urination
incident
By Mariem Qamruzzaman
Daily Staff Reporter
The University has installed a new
centralized phone line for victims of
hate crimes, but some minority stu-
dent groups say the administration
isn't doing a good enough job pub-
licizing the phone line or combating
hate crimes on campus.
The Division of Student Affairs
launched the line, 615-BIAS, last
week.
"Quite a few students said they
were really confused about where to
report such incidents," Dean of Stu-
dents Susan Eklund said.
Eklund said administrators
assumed students knew to report
crimes at the Office of Student Con-
flict Resolution or other places on
campus.
"We realized they didn't know,"
Eklund said.
According to Stephanie Kao, co-
chair of the United Asian American
Organizations, the phone line should
have been created sooner.
She said it should have been up
and running well before allegations
surfaced last September that two
white students had urinated on two
Korean students in a racially moti-
vated incident.
Muslim Students' Association
Vice President Wajeeha Shuttari
said the phone line could have been
useful years ago.
"It's unfortunate that we didn't
have these services available when
they were needed," Shuttari said.
"(But) this is an example that the
University is trying to improve the
current conditions of the campus."
Although an e-mail was sent to
students last week, many didn't
know about the phone line.
Shuttari said the administration
should clarify that the phone line is
not for emergencies, but is intended
for students to voice their concerns
to the University.
Eklund wanted to refrain from
calling the phone line a hotline
because "it's not the same as dial-
See HOTLINE, page 7A
Dorms still far
from complete
wireless coverage
Students resort to
personal routers for wireless
Internet access in dorms
By Michael Kan
Daily Staff Reporter
Malfunctioning outlets, limited
portability and tangled wires too
short to reach across the room - this
is the scene many students grapple
with when they try to connect to the
Internet in their dorm rooms.
"It would be nice to have wireless
and not have to go through all the
crap at the beginning of the ---
"It's hard to get a signal one floor
above or below me," Jim said. "Most
wireless routers that are used don't
transmit through walls, so the stu-
dent is limited to their room."
Another drawback is that the speed
of the Internet decreases as more
users connect.
Housing prohibits personal rout-
ers because if everyone outfitted
their room with wireless, the differ-
ent signals would interfere with each
another because of the close proxim-
ity between dorm rooms.
"It's a rotten problem," Loesch
said. "That's why it's so important to
- -- do a site plan."
year when only one outlet
plug works and you have to
get a hub," said LSA fresh-
man Ciera Blodgett, who
lives in Mary Markley Res-
Third in a three-
part series about
wireless coverage
at the University
Western Michigan Uni-
versity, which touts one of
the most wired campuses in
the country, did not install
wireless in dorm rooms
Rese Fox, the Michigan Progressive Party's presidential candidate, and vice presidential candidate Walter
Nowinski discuss plans for the March elections at the MPP convention last night at the Michigan Union.
S4M defector to run for
president with new party
idence Hall.
But don't expect wireless coverage
anytime soon.
With funding low and other expen-
sive renovations already in the works,
University Housing is steering clear
of what would be a costly endeavor to
outfit the residence hall rooms with
wireless Internet access.
Over the next four years, Housing
plans to install wireless access in
the lounges and study areas of four
residence halls. Housing has already
started with West Quad and will
move on to Mosher-Jordan.
However, while Housing regularly
receives requests from students to
begin installing wireless in the dorm
rooms, funds for such an improvement
would come at students' expense,
said Beth Loesch, Housing's director
of information technology.
Each wireless router costs about
$1,000, Loesch said.
"We generate our own expense
from room and board," she said.
"Right now we can't justify making
the students pay that much more."
Some students have decided to
install their own home wireless rout-
ers at the cost of $50 to $100, despite
residence hall rules that prohibit
them.
Engineering sophomore Jim
Stermer has his own wi-fi system
in his dorm room. But he said the
performance of conventional wire-
less router is severely limited in its
coverage. It is also lacking in secu-
rity capabilities, because could allow
any computer with a wireless card to
access his network.
because of the costs.
"We put wireless in for the lob-
bies, study areas, but we did not
put it in the actual rooms because it
would have doubled our costs," said
George Kohrman, assistant director
of WMU's network operations.
But at other universities like Har-
vard, Dartmouth and Carnegie Mel-
lon, where the majority of students
use laptops, wireless Internet is avail-
able in the dorms.
Basically a 4 million square-foot
wi-fi hotspot, Carnegie Mellon adopt-
ed wireless Internet in 1994 and began
installing it in its dorms in 2001.
Although it has a much smaller
campus than the University, with a
total student body of about 10,000,
many of the undergraduates live in
the 36 dorms, which make up about
half of the buildings on the campus,
said Lawrence Gallagher, manager
of data communications at Carnegie
Mellon.
Gallagher would only say it was a
fairly expensive endeavor for Carn-
egie Mellon to outfit the rooms with
wireless. Along with the costs of
buying the wireless routers, the uni-
versity also removed utilities from
the rooms in order to make way for
the installation. But the operation
was no more difficult than installing
wireless in a typical academic build-
ing, he said.
"Doing it in the dorms was a big
benefit to the students," Gallagher
said. "We didn't want them to use
their laptops in an academic build-
ing or a library and not be able to go
home and do their work."
Rese Fox and
running mate Walter
Nowinski to take on
dominant party
By Dave Mekelburg
Daily Staff Reporter
Students 4 Michigan will have to
prepare to face one of its own in the
Michigan Student Assembly presi-
dential elections next month.
The Michigan Progressive Party
announced its first slate of MSA can-
didates last night after a party conven-
tion in the Michigan Union. MSA
Rep. Rese Fox, who ran for her cur-
rent seat with S4M, will run for presi-
dent. Her running mate will be Walter
Nowinski, the founder of the party.
MPP will attempt to unseat the
currently dominant S4M, which
announced its candidates last week.
During her tenure as an MSA
representative, Fox has been seen
as a maverick of S4M's progres-
sive faction. She clashed with the
party leadership and MSA Presi-
dent Jesse Levine over a_ proposal
to spend $20,000 on a pilot chapter
of Public Interest Research Group
in Michigan - a darling of progres-
sives that Fox supported until the
assembly's leaders killed it last year
- and a Ludacris concert that cost
the assembly $15,000 more than
originally expected.
Because she is already a visible
presence on the assembly, Fox could
bring credibility to an MPP slate that
is otherwise largely composed of
outsiders. Before Fox's nomination,
See MPP, page 7A
Former 'M' football player pleads no
contest to charge of indecent exposure
Former 'M' football player
likely to receive five years of
probation for felony
cent exposure last month.
His plea is part of a bargain with prosecutors,
who agreed not to prosecute Harrison for two more
charges of the same crime.
tiple women on the 1300 block of Minerva Street in
December 2004.
Craig Lee of the Ann Arbor Police Department
apprehended Harrison in the early morning of Dec.