w w w w
-lw_
-w-
-,Iw
w
qw
w
- -- I. - .. - 0S
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - The Michiganua4y AG3
ANSWERS
rule 63: Just
because your
roommate
leaves the gold-
fish on a low
shelf doesn't
make it fair
game. rule
64: With only
a few excep-
tions, emoti-
cons should
be left to sixth
graders. rule
65: Drunk dial
propositions are
acceptable;
drunk dial texts
are not.
A look at the big news events this week and how important they really are. Conveniently rated from one to 10.
HAPPY DAYS, VETERANS DAY
Although you might have skipped right over it like Sweet-
est Day last month, Sunday was Veterans Day, maybe the
only day that America cares about veterans. In a rush of
holiday spirit, President Bush expressed hisgratitude to
the veterans of the war in Iraq by extendingtheir tours of
duty and offering wounded veterans a stay at the lovely
Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
WHAT DOES NASA STAND FOR AGAIN?
Landing Wednesday in Florida, the space shuttle Dis-
covery completed alsv-day mission to repair a portion
of the International Space Station. In a recent poll, most
respondents weren't surprised that the historic repair
went successfully; they were instead stunned that NASA
still exists. Big black emptiness is only worth America's
time iftthe Soviet Union or Lance Bass is involved.
GOD AND GIULIANI As if Rudy Giuliani needed to
bolster his image as a shady politician, his long-time friend,
business partner and employee Bernard Kerik was indicted
last week on charges of fraud and corruption. In Giuliani's
4 defense, evangelical preacher Pat Robertson, who
endorsed Giuliani last week, contended
that even God would cater to organized k
crime, as long as He could lower
taxes and end abortion rights.
- E-mail rule submissions to
TheStatemnent@umich.edu
MagazineEditor:AnneVanderMe,
AssociateMagazineEditor: Jessica
Vosgerchiar
EditorinChief:KarlStamnpf
Maaginditor. nil cy Blom
Phoo Editor Emma NolanAbaia
Designer:BridgetO'Donnel
Coverphoto:ZacharyMeisne
APPARENTLY, PAUL IS NOT DEAD
Moving from a joke candidate to a significantly wealthier
joke candidate, Republican presidential candidate Ron
Paul raised more than $4 million in a single day from
6 roughly 37,000 Internet donors last week. In related
news, roughly 37,000 libertarians wasted their money in
a futile effort to destroy the federal government.
NOT EVEN THE CHILDREN ARE SAFE
After discovering that it contains a chemical that con-
verts into the date rape drug GHB when ingested, a
>. Chinese-made children's toy, Aqua Dots, was recalled
4 last week. Authorities warned that although the pick-up
line for the product, "Super designs, Super fun!" may be
tempting, watch out for creepy men turningto slip the
moldable beads into your drink.
A STUDENT REVOLUTION, JUST NOT HERE
As one of the only opposition forces to Venezuelan
President Hugo Chdvez's increasingly oppressive gov-
ernment, 80,000 students turned out for a protest
8 in Caracas last week to voice their opposition to 69
constitutional amendment proposed by Chavez. Makes
you feel good to know that at least somewhere students
Ycare.
ERSON OF THE WEEK
POPE BENEDICT XVI
In a week marked by
Pakistani Martial Law and
a collapsing U.S. stock
market, it's hard to imag-
ine that the pope would
make headlines.
But that's what hap-
pened last week when
Benedict XVI received
King Abdullah of Saudi
Arabia at the Vatican.
Decked out in their
respective stately robes,
the two leaders clasped
$1 ,268 hands and spoke cordially
S,438 about the need for inter-
faith co-operation in what
$2,248 was the first meeting ever
$1,218 between a sitting pope
and a Saudi king.
$1,428 While the pope did not
win all he wanted in terms
$1,698 of protections for Saudi
Arabia's embattled Chris-
$728 tian population, the king's
$418.gift to the pope of a sword
means Saudi Arabia's 1.5
million Christians at least
have one less weapon to
November 21, 2007 fear.
" The good news is it doesn't make
any difference what you major in as
an undergraduate at the University.
Ten years later no one is going to
care. A Michigan education is only
the start down a long road of a life-
time of education, and that's the rea-
son it doesn't make a difference.
. In the past, most Michigan presi-
dents have either sailed off to other
Universities - Harold Shapiro or
Lee Bollinger - or retired and disap-
peared or died. I'm still here.
@1 chair a lot of committees. I some-
times call myself a professional chair-
person.
" I viewed my own role as much
more strategic leadership. In other
words, focusing more on what the
University could and should become
10, 20, 30 years out, recognizing that
these are institutions that, while they
serve the needs at the moment, also
have a responsibility to preserve their
capacity to serve the future.
" It's very hard to predict the future.
This operation has an awful lot of
balls in the air. I'm on at any point in
time a dozen efforts - commissions.
Some go splat. Some bounce.
To work in this kind of activity,
you have to be able to tolerate
the occasional failure.
* We had the opportunity to take on
a contract from the federal govern-
ment to link a number of universities
to what were at that time a number of
very unusual super computers scat-
tered about the country.
We called it the internetwork.
You can see where I'm headed.
That was the Internet. That's
an example of leadership that
you just cannot anticipate.
. Some of the themes I'm working
on right now are, ironically, the same
things I talked about in my inaugura-
tion speech in 1988. They are changes
in our world caused by globalization,
by changes in demography, by tech-
nology. They are continuing to be the
three drivers of change in our soci-
ety.
" I wish I could have written Thom-
as Friedman's book 10 years before
he did. He gets paid quite a lot per
speech, and I usually buy my own
lunch.
" The transition (from president to
faculty member) was a transition
from delegation to execution. When
you're president, or dean, who can
say, "Wouldn't it be great if some-
one did, this, that or the other," and
someone will try it out. In my role
now, they'll say 'Well, why don't you
do it.' I've learned how to make coffee
and get airplane tickets and do a lot
of things I didn't have to do as presi-
dent.
* We practice engineering the same
way we did a century ago. We pre-
tend that an undergraduate educa-
tion is good enough to be an engineer.
We pretend that U.S. engineers are
the best, so therefore we don't need
to worry about engineers in China or
India and so forth.
I believe engineering must go
through the same transition that
medicine and law did and become
a graduate professional school.
! There are perhaps as many as 250
million people (worldwide) that will
be ready for a college education by
2010. We would have to build a uni-
versity the size of the University of
Michigan every week to meet that
need. The next question is how you
meet that need, because if you don't
have an education you're kind of out
of it. Your personal welfare depends
on it.
* Any institutions that last a long time
have a kind of mythology about them,
whether events or people or buildings
or fight songs. And those mythologies
take on a life of their own and begin to
shape the institutions into what they
are. And part of the challenge to lead
institutions is to figure out what that
mythology or saga is. If you build on
it, you're generally successful. If you
don't understand it, or don't care
about it, you're in trouble because
these institutions last for hundreds
of years. They're like big ocean liners.
You can't just turn them around fast.
The
chairman
From his corner office on the second floor of the Duderstadt Building on North
Campus, former university president James Duderstadt might not be at the helm
of the University anymore, but he's changing the world of higher education just
the same. Here, Duderstadt talks about some of his committees and projects, the future
of the University and how he learned about the little things - like buying plane tickets
- since he left his office in the Fleming Building
- As told to Kelly Fraser
They keep on going.
" The University's role, when it has
been successful, has always been that
as a pathfinder, a trailblazer. In other
words, we're best when we try and do
things that are different. We're good
at that. We're not very good about
following. If we see someone else
doing something interesting and
try and imitate them, we some-
times fall flat on our faces.
" The University throughout
its history has been a public-
private hybrid. It's had a pub-
lic character, but yet had the
aspiration of excellence more
characteristic of an elite private
institution.
M Student activism on cam-
pus has had kind of a
change-the-world
attitude. That's
good. But when
they take over
your office in
the Fleming
Administra-
tive Build-
ing, it can
be kind of a
hassle. Stu-
dents have
the capacity,
sometimes,
to sense
issues that
people who
have been
around
too long
just can't
sense.
0 I think
Michigan
will be the
university
that figures
out how to
go to 20 to
30 years as
a privately
supported
public univer-
sity.
I
C R A 7\/ SJ L E Only available through the Computer Showcase
http://showcaseitcs.umich.edu
Sale ends
-------------- i