Tuesday, April 4, 2006
News 2 Jury rules
Moussaoui eligible
for death penalty
GATORS CHOM PA bRUINS, WIN TITLE ... SPORTS, PAGE 10
Opinion 4
From the Daily:
Listen to SOLE
Arts 8 Tsotsi is a
triumphant passage
into manhood
One-hundred-sixteen years f editorialfreedom
www.mzihigandady.com Ann Arbor, Michigan Vol. CXVI, No. 105 42006 The Michigan Daily
Thursday the
new
Friday?
Not anymore
Push back those weekend
plans: Administration considers
scheduling more Friday classes
to better utilize facilities
By Ashlea Surles
Daily Staff Reporter
No one will be saying thank goodness it's
Thursday anymore.
The University is considering redistrib-
uting courses more evenly throughout the
week, scheduling more classes on Friday to.
better utilize facilities.
There are significantly fewer classes on
Fridays than any other weekday. Twelve per-
cent of classes are held-on Fridays, compared
to 22 percent each Monday through Thurs-
day.
Phil Hanlon, associate provost for aca-
demic and budgetary affairs, said the low
percentage of Friday classes indicates an
underutilization of University facilities.
In the face of budget constraints, the
University is trying to remedy this, Hanlon
said.
Most University buildings are powered 8
a.m. to 5 p.m. five days a week, but are actu-
ally used far less than that - especially on
Fridays.
"The cost of maintaining our facilities is
one of the things that increases most in our
budget," Hanlon said.
Hanlon said part of the University's strat-
egy for managing the budget crisis is a more
efficient use of facilities. If the University
schedules classes proportionally throughout
the week, it would justify powering facilities
evenly.
Class scheduling is largely dependent on
when faculty want to teach and when stu-
dents want to take classes.
"Faculty are asked directly while students
are asked indirectly through class enroll-
ment," Hanlon said.
Faculty and students generally avoid
scheduling Friday courses, so the provost's
office is considering offering financial or
special incentives to departments and col-
leges that schedule more classes on Fridays.
The change would inhibit the three-day-
weekend lifestyle many students, especially
upperclassmen, have adopted. Many stu-
dents see Thursday night as another night to
party.
As a result, low attendance and enrollment
levels plague Friday courses.
In one French 102 course last semester, an
average of 17 percent of students were absent
on Fridays, compared to 6 percent for the
three other days of the week.
Art History Prof. Rebecca Zurier said she
noticed lower attendance in her History of
Art 102 class on Friday but said the trend
has not prompted her to change her syllabus
to accommodate students.
In an extended exchange with Zurier
last semester, one student complained that
too many of the assignments in her 400-
level course required studying over the
weekend and thus interfered with seniors'
See FRIDAYS, page 7
ANGELA CESERE/Daily
LSA freshman Pert Weisberg, dressed as Uncle Sam, stands yesterday beside a poster of mug shots collected at an antiwar protest last month. Activists
tried to give the FBI the pictures Friday in protest of domestic wiretapping, but authorities refused to accept them.
FBI on mugs: Thanks, but nothanks
Activists tried to hand
over their own mug shots as
'pre-emptive' strike against
domestic surveillance
By Becky Kollar
For the Daily
Uncle Sam, an FBI agent and even Presi-
dent Bush himself made an appearance in
downtown Ann Arbor Friday afternoon
- in character form, of course.
As a continuation of an antiwar rally on
the Diag two weeks ago, protesters from
the American Civil Liberties Union and
Michigan Peaceworks gathered outside the
Ann Arbor Federal Building on Friday to
turn over 176 mug shots of willing antiwar
activists to the authorities in a symbolic
pre-emptive strike against domestic sur-
veillance.
Authorities, though, refused to accept
the photographs.
FBI Special Agent Dawn Clenney said
protesters were informed ahead of time
that their mug shots would not be received
by officials.
Clenney applauded the protesters for
exercising their First Amendment Rights,
but said the FBI has no need for the pho-
tos.
"It's not necessary, because we are not
trying to surveil those people," Clenney
said.
Determined protesters mailed the pack-
age of mug shots to Director of Homeland
Security Michael Chertoff shortly after the
rally Friday evening.
Phillis Engelbert, Michigan Peace-
works's executive
director, said the«
FBI's refusal to "W e hope to
accept the photos ta
has not discouraged message tha
protesters. who
"To us it doesn't oppose
matter to whom the president's fo
photos go - the mes- P
sage is the same," policies are r
Engelbert said.
"We hope to send and will not
the message that b domestic
people who oppose bet
the president's for-
eign policies are
not afraid and will
not be silenced by Executiv
domestic spying."
The protest was
sparked by evidence that the FBI's Joint
Terrorism Task Force and the National
Security Agency has been infiltrating paci-
fist organizations, activists said.
One such organization, the Thomas Mer-
ton Center in Pittsburgh, recently learned
its group has been under FBI investigation
since 2002, said director Jim Kleisser, who
spoke at Friday's event.
"Because of our position against the Iraq
war, we have been under investigation,"
Kleisser said. "But if they spied on every-
t
n
re
watch 180 million or so Americans."
Michael Steinberg, legal director of
Michigan's chapter of the ACLU, also
addressed the protesters.
"We are in a
Constitutional cri-
send the sis," Steinberg said.
people "These people are
peopleengaged in free
he speech. They are not
terrorists."
reign Steinberg said the
ACLU will continue
lot afraid to fight domestic
surveillance.
be silenced "Dissent is the
,,in "purest form of patri-
otism," he said.
The ACLU has
- Phillis Engelbert two University chap-
ters, an undergradu-
director, Michigan ate branch and a Law
Peaceworks School branch.
The ACLU filed
suit against the NSA on Jan. 17 in an
attempt to halt the spying, calling for a full
investigation into the legality of the issue.
"Anybody engaged in dissent now has a
legitimate fear that they are being spied on
in the name of national defense," Steinberg
said. "That is un-American."
Michigan Peaceworks has employed
more than 30 University interns since its
creation.
Members of the "Turn-Yourself-In"
guerrilla theater troupe and nearly 80 free-
See FBI, page 7
Applications from
it'l students up'
U.S. State Department's
streamlining of visa process
likely increased international
applications to grad schools
By Kelly Fraser
Daily Staff Reporter
When Rackham student Proj Ghosh first
applied for a visa to the United States in his
home country of India six years ago, it was
typical for prospective travelers to line up to
wait outside the visa office a day ahead of
time. Ghosh and his family alternated hold-
ing a place in line through the night to ensure
that he would get the visa he needed to go to
graduate school.
To improve the experience of international
graduate students, the U.S State Department
has streamlined the visa process, signifi-
By the numbers
1 International grad school applica-
tions rose 11 percent in 2006.
R Applications dropped an average of
23 percent each year between 2003
and 2005.
* As of March 26, Rackham had
received 7,292, up from 6,575 at this
point last year
cantly decreasing the time it takes to process
applications.
This effort is one of several factors that
have led to a national jump in international
graduate applications at universities.
The number of graduate school applica-
tions by international students to American
Universities has bounced back this year after
See APPS, page 7
one opposed to the Iraq war, they'd have to
Panelists
discuss free
speech vs.
hate speech
Panelists deliver impassioned
speeches about media's role in
stereotypes, significance of racism
and trek toward change
By Leah Graboski
Daily Staff Reporter
AARON HANDELSMAN/Daily
Neva U, secretary for the Shooters' Allance for Firearms Rights, speaks with the winner of
the College Libertarians' gun giveaway, University alum Laura Dodd, last night.
Gun giveaway shoots
for ownership rights
Panelists hashed out controversies over the
media's representation of minorities last night in
Hutchins Hall at the Law School.
TOMMASO GOMEZ/Daily
Rackham student Mohammad Khalil, a doctoral candidate in Islamic Studies, speaks at a panel yesterday about the
I
-- -44 -T - .r......... ant]. T-..-I a ..1...-. T..,T..-.
i i