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THE EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK with WALTER NOWINSKI
table__ _ _ _ _ _ s_ A look at the big news events this week and how important they really are. Conveniently rated from one to10.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - The Michigan Daily
An ArchitSpeak primer
It's over your head lArchitecture Column
4B-SB WHEN ALL THAT WORKING OUT DOESN'T WORK OUT
Football players can lead exciting lives even if they don't
make it to the NFL.
6B WHEN SUMMER JOBS GO BAD
Some summer jobs that look great on paper turn out to be
less than thrilling once you're there.
WE WERE OFFENDED...
REALLY
Lunch at the PIKE fraternity
came with an unexpected per-
formance last week when a
young woman entered the frat,
stripped down and started
10 masturbatingon the couch. The 0
frat boys said they were offend-
ed by the display - so offended
it took them 30 minutes to call
the police.
BRITISH RESOLVE
Fifteen British sailors were
detained by Iran last week after
allegedly sailing into Iranian
waters. As a show of strength,
a spokesman for Prime Minister
t0 Tony Blair said Britain will be 0
"upping the ante a bit in terms
of what we're saying" if the sail-
ors are not released.
DANCE MARATHON
TURNS 10
Dance Marathon celebrated its
10th anniversary last weekend as
scores oftstudents stood for 30
hours to raise money for Motts
10 Children's and Beaumont hospi- 0
tals. The $351,060 raised for the
wealthy hospitalswill fund pro-
gramslike horseback riding and
airplane ridesfor sick children.
SACKING FELLOW
WOLVERINES
Two Wolverines were kicked
off the football team last week
after they allegedly assaulted
a student in west Quad. with
players tackling students in the
10 hallways, perhaps coach Lloyd
Carr needs to consider keeping
the team locked up in study hall
fora few more hours everyday
- as a matter of public safety.
FUNDING WITH A CATCH
Bya razorthin margin, House
Democrats attached a deadline
for withdrawal to an emergency
funding bill for the Iraq war.
President Bush has vowed
10 to veto any bill that includes
a timeline for withdrawal -
despite thefact that funding for
the war will run out next month.
0
Unierit
esnacks.]
STAY THE COURSE
Sen. John Edwards announced
last week that he will continue
to campaign for the Demo-
cratic nomination for president
despite the return of his wife's
10 cancer. Unfortunatelynfor
Edwards, it took an announce-
ment of cancer to capture the
media spotlight form Obama
for a day.
PERSON OF THE WEEK
KARL ROVE
rule 28: No one will Disgraced after Republicans lost control of Congress last fall,
take you seriously political strategist and presidential aid Karl Rove found himself
if you're wearing a at the center of a looming constitutional crisis last week after
Hawaiian shirt. rule Congress approved subpoena's seeking Rove's tes-
timony. Invoking executive privilege, the presi-
books is fun until your dent said he will not allow Rove to testify about
the politically-motivated firings of eight former
student account gets U.S. prosecutors under oath.
frozen. rule 30: It's If Rove can't devise a
warm out. Clothing scheme to shift public
your dog no longer attention away from
serves a function himself and this scandal,
besides cruelty. there might not be much
left of the political party he
- E-mail rule submissions to worked so hard to build after
TheStatement@umich.edu the 2008 election.
n the world of architecture,
especially in academia, there is
an alternate language that dif-
ferentiates the neophytes from the
virtuosos. Architectural rhetoric
often exploits common English for
its own purposes, but words are just
as easily created from scratch. This
transition can be quite confusing,
and those outside the architecture
circle have an even greater dis-
advantage. Many times, interlop-
ers are baffled when they stumble
across a design review because they
come in thinking that they will hear
about buildings and leave pondering
the existential nature of phenom-
enological paradigms. The kicker
is that the architects were talking
about buildings the entire time.
While architecture students may
laugh at the cryptic jargon imposed
on them throughout school, I find it
incredibly frustratingthatarchitects
are unable or unwilling to speak
clearly about their studies to those
FOOTBALL
From page 5B
Acho says one of her challenges is
making some of the football players
realize that their future may not rest
on the gridiron. Instead, her job is to
ensure that those who can't cut it in
the NFL find success elsewhere.
From the moment a recruit steps
on campus, Acho said she tries to
engrain the Michigan culture in
him. She makes a point to meet with
the student and his family, show
them the academic facilities and
reiterate her emphasis on his even-
tual graduation.
"When they get here, they under-
stand what's expected," Acho said.
"You're not going to just come here
and play football. This is Michigan;
it just doesn't work that way here."
Acho heads the University's Ath-
letic Academic Success Program,
which is designed to keep athletes
on pace to graduate and find success
once their eligibility expires. In her
seven years at the University, Acho
has been instrumental in the aca-
demic success of football players.
From her office in the Ross Cen-
ter, Acho moderates the academic
side of a football player's time at
Michigan. She works directly with
the campus's larger academic advis-
ing program and coordinates the
athlete's schedule if there is a con-
flict or change of interest.
Acho has networked with various
programs on campus to ensure the
best possible learning environment.
outside of the discipline. Architec-
tural lingo began as an attempt to
succinctly describe the physical
world, but it has since mutated into
an incestuous conglomeration of
esoteric terminology.
Sure, many subjects need their
own jargon to describe things
unique to their field, but architec-
ture affects us all. Experts should
speak about it frankly and candidly.
Even professional architects have
trouble relating their ideas to cli-
ents. So in my final column for the
Daily, I will attempt to bridge this
language gap by defining some of
the key words found in ArchiSpeak.
Here goes nothing.
Space: To the surprise of many,
architects don't think they construct
buildings. They're thinking about
creating space, the interior volumes
that people simply call "rooms."
Buildings are merely the inconve-
nient consequence of space-making.
Through various advising meetings,
activities and appointments with the
Career Center, Acho does what she
can so that the players to have every
possible opportunity to succeed.
"Ultimately, in terms of achiev-
ing their goals and graduating, we're
doing that," she said.
Acho has also put in place the 3.5
and 4.5-year graduation program so
that the players can get their degree
in line with the end of the season.
Working in constant communi-
cation with Michigan coach Lloyd
Carr, Acho takes on the responsibil-
ity of the players' success.
She meets with the coaching staff
every Monday to give a full report on
the players' academic progress.
"I've been working 'with coach
Carr for a long time, and he's
extremely supportive if I'm having
any issues with players to follow up
right away with them," Acho said.
"I'm very lucky that way. I don't
know if everyone in the country has
that kind of support."
AFTER COLLEGE
Even with specialized career
counseling, many students flounder
when they're thrust into the real
world.
A year after John Becker walked
onto the Michigan football team, he
walked off.
"I knew I wasn't going to have a
career in professional football no
matter what, so I needed to walk
out of there with my degree," Becker
said. "My parents were paying my
way, so I had to make sure I wasn't
Aperture: A wall with windows
sounds so banal. A mass punctu-
ated with apertures seems formally
intriguing. Hint: They're the same
thing.
Spatiality: The shape of a room.
Architects have a penchant for add-
ing the suffix "ality" to every word
they use, even though a shorter
word may suffice. It gives architec-
tural discourse a certain amount of
complexiality.
Built Environment: When
everything around you is manmade,
you are within the built environ-
ment. When everything around you
is natural, you're probably much
better off.
Urban Fabric: Not to be taken
literally - don't think Jeanne-
Claude's orange curtains in Central
Park. Urban fabric describes the
nature of a city due to the relation-
ships of its constituent buildings.
Basically, it's whatyou see when you
walk down the street.
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g their money away." weapons research for the University
en though he put his studies of Denver for the next seven years
graduated a semester early before returning to trucking.
rith an aerospace engineer- "I didn't necessarily love the driv-
e, the real world turned out ing aspect of it so much," Becker
arder than Becker thought. said. "I always thought I could give
ed to get a job in his field, it a shot to run it as a business."
His business, White Rider Truck-
ing based out of Denver, has about
at to do when five trucks. Theyhaulbuildingmate-
rial, mostly through Colorado and
lost of your the rest of the mountain states.
Looking back, he made a reason-
tbl able compromise. After all, it's ulti-
mately only the very lucky few that
on the field. don't end up adjusting their dreams
until they fit reality. When Becker
was searching for a job after college
he went through the same search
only met failure. Becker most graduates do, though it was
terviewing for a position at probably a little easier with an engi-
tor Company and the Senior neering degree than it is for many
p on a Friday. He received liberal arts majors. Other football
letters in the mail the fol- players are at a comparative disad-
londay. vantage compared with the other
few prospects, he became a University graduates, just because
wvet. the players might not have had the
raye wanted to drive a truck time to make their degree their
Becker said. "Being unable top priority. Becker was a walk-on,
ne to get a job in my field, I which meant it might have been less
'Well, I can get a job doing emotionally taxing for him to walk
paid to see the country."' off at the end of the day and focus on
kids don't dream of being a engineering. It couldn't have been as
If you told the football team easy though, for the star players.
Materiality: What a building is
made of, except more abstract. See
concrete, think monolithic expres-
sion of solid planes.
Intentionality: An architect's
intent is what they tried to do, and
their intention is what they tried to
accomplish. Their intentionality is
what they were thinking about when
they intentionally obscured their
original intent in order to achieve
what they intended. It usually has
somethingto do with spatiality.
Glazing: Why not just say win-
dows? Perhaps architects think that
the allusion to donuts will make
their designs more appetizing.
Fenestration: Doors and win-
dows. It's not exactly thrilling, but
the term defenestration refers to
the act of throwing someone out of
a window.
Building Membrane: Architects
also like to take terms from other
disciplines and use them as their
own. Obviously taken from biology,
a building's membrane is the skin of
its structure, or the outer walls.
Architectonic: Even though
the definition of tectonics already
relates to building and construction
- the science or art of construct-
ing materials - architects like to
include the prefix "archi" wherever
possible just to make sure everyone
knows thatthey are still important.
Stereotomy: Involves the carv-
ing out of space from a solid. Ever
wonder what turns a pumpkin into
a Jack-O-Lantern? Now you know.
Orientated: A pretentious alter-
native to "oriented." It's one of my
pet peeves. I looked them up in the
dictionary, and they mean the same
thing. Why use extra syllables?
Sexy: What architects like to say
aboutanythingthattheythink looks
good, or well, sexy. Anything and
everything. A model of a building
can be "sexy." A drawing of a build-
ing can be "sexy." I guess we needto
get out of the studio more.
coached all three players, pushed his
players toward good grades in a way
that might make Carr look lax.
"If you didn't go to class, you
didn't play," Bergeron said. "And he
had the graduate assistant coaches
make sure that we went to class."
Betts can remember occasions
when his old coach would pull play-
ers aside to discuss their classroom
performance. If one of his players
struggled with academics, Schem-
bechler would take an active role in
getting that player to succeed in the
classroom, Bergeron said.
After all, Schembechler had to
makehis players realize that a Michi-
gan education was just as important
as a victory on the field - one is ulti-
matelyfleetingand one makes the dif-
ference between earning millions on
Wall Street and hoping for the mana-
gerial promotion at McDonalds.
Forthosewholeavethefootballfield
behindlike NormBetts,BobBergeron
and John Becker, the gridiron memo-
ties never leave - but neither does
their college degrees. And the combi-
nation itself, they say, is invaluable.
"The discipline I learned being
on the football team and going to
school at the same time are things
that I've carried with me through-
out my career," Betts said. "It taught
me the life skills that taught me to
be successful."
The NFL provides a dream life,
which Bergeron, Betts and Becker
never reached. But the three found
success off the field.
And to them, that makes it all the
more satisfying.
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nd up hauling frozen food
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s, you might stand a chance
tackled.
r drove trucks outofDenver
t a year. And then the engi-
offers started rolling in.
irked doing automotive and
SEEING OFF THE VICTORS
Today, if an athlete is falling
behind in class, Acho and Carr will
do what they can to nudge him
along. But in bygone days, the nudge
toward academic success was more
like a shove. Bo Schembechler, who