Thursday, February 9, 2006 i Rv; STRUGES£ COMPT WI ,.Rf _ N;A T( 1\e..,R TH SAT Opinion 4A Alison Go wants podcasted lectures Arts SA Avery Hopwood's play comes to Mendelssohn Sports 8A Cagers set to take on Buckeyes One-hundred-fifteen years ofedntorialfreedom -rn-rn---- 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.