The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com News WednesdaySeptember 10, 2008 - 7A CAMPUSROOST From Page 1A to the on-campus additions. "In Angell Hall, there'll be a sea of brown chairs, and then a white CampusRoost chair," Traut said. Along with 200 of the chairs, the trio put up large banners across campus, handed out free T-shirts, and slid fliers under residential doors. The intense marketing cam- paign has used about $4,000 of the organization's $25,000 budget, Bornhorst said. The company is funded by a grant it won last year in a compe- tition called RPM 10. Sponsored by the College of Engineering and local venture capital firm RPM Ventures, the competition pro- * vided the students with free office space, legal counsel and other assistance for a year, along with the start-up cash. Bornhorst now serves as the fledgling company's chief execu- tive officer. Sanka is chief informa- tion officer, and Traut, who wrote most of the code for the site, is chief technical officer. Bornhorst said he and Sanka originally dreamed up a "one-stop- shop website for student hous- ing" in entrepreneurship classes last year, but when the plan fell through, the team had to switch focus. And that change of focus resulted in CampusRoost. If the site works as its creators hope, those chairs might soon be put to use. The site has already gained notoriety on campus, most- ly because of the unorthodox mar- keting campaign. "As soon as the name Cam- pusRoost comes up, people say, 'Chairs, chairs, you do the chairs,"' Bornhorst said. "Either they got one themselves, or one of their friends got one." The site itself is unorthodox in its own right. Each roost page has space for "roostmates" to describe their house or apartment, their collective interests and the class- es each person is taking. There is also a posting wall and a checklist of activities the roost wants to be involved in, including parties, con- certs, study groups, bookclubs, and to "Just Chill." Organized into neighborhoods, the site is linked to Google Maps and users are automatically con- nected with with all roosts within one block of them. In a dormitory, it's all rooms in their hall. The site uses a feature called "chirps" to broadcasts a message to the user's roostmates, friends, neighbors or any combination of the three. Suggested chirps on the site include, "let's go out for din- ner," "pickup bball," or "natty light anyone?" But the marketing isn't just gen- erating buzz - it's drawing users. The founders said yesterday that though the site still had less than 1,000 members, it's growing by between 100 and 150 users a day. So far, about two-thirds of the users live off campus, Bornhorst said. "I'd say on South Campus, it's now become a usable entity," he said. "We're still pushing for adop- tion in the dorms, so people are joining pretty fast down there, too." The trio plans to target more students living in residence halls by approaching resident advisors, Traut said. "I think the idea of CampusRoost is somethingthat your average RA would be looking for," he said. "His job is to open up the doors and get all the students to meet each other and talk and just basically commu- nicate, and that's exactly what our site is. It's like an open door policy, but on the internet." The trio said they aim to "coex- ist" rather than compete with established social networking sites like Facebook because they think their site's mission differs from that of other sites. "IthinkFacebookisgreat atwhat it does, and that's keeping track of your existing friends," Bornhorst said. "We're really looking to help you meet new people -- to help you expand your boundaries." So far, Traut said, students are using the site differently than they do Facebook. "When you plan an event on Facebook, usually it's a formal thing. It's happening a week in advance," he said. "On our site, you've having a lot of chirps go out for, 'Does anyone want to watch TV tonight?' That would never happen on Facebook -- it just wouldn't be useful to make a Facebook event," Traut said. "So we're actually bringing that func- tionality in where Facebook falls short." The team is considering expanding beyond chirps, but they're not sure which direction to go next. "One thing we would like to see is people using this for stuff we haven't thought of yet," he added. "I think that'd be really cool." But they're pleased with how people are using it sd far. Traut said the site has already helped him meet new people. He said he chirped a party invitation to his friends last weekend, and six peo- ple he'd never met showed up. 0 "I asked them,youknow,'What's up guys, why are you here?"' Traut explained. "And they said, 'I got a chair, I signed up for the site, and then I got a chirp saying I should come to this party."' ANGELA CESERE/Daily Jason Duvall, a graduate student instructor for the Program in the Environment, waits for his Behavior and Environment discus- sion section to arrive ina Dana Building classroom. GREEN From Page 1A "We're much more connected than we were ten years ago," Erb Institute student Angela Flood said. "Now what happens with increased communication is that a person in Chinawitnessingpollutionis ableto take a picture and post it and write about it on the Internet and groups all over the world are able to see it." Environmental interest has also proven an efficient way of boosting consumer consciousness, Flood said. "It's not just about reducing cost but about creating value," she said. "The consumer consciousness has also shifted due to globalization. This is a lot like what happened during the Vietnam War - as soon as people saw pictures from the war, they were more conscious of what was happening:' Technology's ability to bring is- sues from all corners of the globe to light has encouraged the green movement among students. "With globalization, people are starting to realize the extent of envi- ronmental damage. The impact of our individual actions are more visible to us,whereastenyearsago,wewouldn't have reallyknown,"Floodsaid. Others say that this interest has been gaining popularity as going green becomes trendier and offers more opportunity for businesses. "There are more and more ex- amples of how sustainable business can be a win-win and can be sexy," said Brent Morgan, a third year stu- dent in the Erb Institute. The Erb Institute offers a dual MBA/MS program through the Business School and the School of Natural Resources and Environ- ment. "Part of it is clearly a shift in fo- cus in discipline - it's more look- ing ahead than looking behind," said Steven Wright, faculty director for education in the Center for Sus- tainable Systems. Wright said this new phase in en- vironmentaleducation brings issues of sustainability to the forefront. The job market in civil and en- vironmental engineering has been strong in the last two years, Wright said, and during that time he has had more callsofrom former students in the field looking to recruitcurrent students after they graduate. "A lot of work in the environ- ment is legislation driven;" Wright said. "When demand is down rela- tive to supply of engineers, then people stop going into engineering. But then it takes time for them to go through the educational system so once enrollment drops, engi- neering companies in general need more engineers by that time." . Palm's popularity has Dems scrambling Some strategists question Obama's aggressive attacks By PETER WALLSTEN and JANET HOOK The Los Angles Times The emergence of Sarah Palin as a political force in the presiden- tial race has left many top Demo- crats fretting that, just two weeks after their convention ended on a emotional high, Barack Obama's campaign has suddenly lost its stride. Obama has responded aggres- sively this week to Palin's presence on the Republican ticket, using television ads and campaign rallies to attack her contention that she is a political reformer who will take on the Washington establishment -- a role Obama has long claimed as his alone. But some Democrats are now worried about the perils of Obama's strategy, saying that his campaign, instead of engaging the Alaska governor, should avoid any move that draws more attentionto her and could enhance her appeal among the white, blue-collar vot- candidacy. A series of new polls suggest that Palin has given a major boost to John McCain's campaign, excit- ing the GOP base, winning over white women and erasing Obama's lead. Concern among Democrats was high enough Tuesday that Sen. Richard Durbin, D-IlL., one of Obama's strongest supporters, felt it necessary to cite historic polling data at a lunch of Democratic sena- tors to convince them that post- convention "bounces," such as the one that has followed last week's GOP convention, have often faded in past elections. To reassure nervous lawmakers, Durbin also reviewed Democratic registration gains this year in key battleground states. Still, Democrats expressed anxiety about the new challenge suggested by the recent surveys showing McCain has gained ground among independent vot- ers and women, who could decide the race in states such as Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Vir- ginia. A new Wall Street Journal/ NBC News poll released Tuesday, for instance, shows that McCain is now winning white women 52 percent to 41 percent after having that crucial category just a month ago. "Whenever you see that kind of movement, you ought to be con- cerned; you ought to try to address it," said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., a strong Obama backer. David Bonior, the former Michi- gan congressman who managed Democrat John Edwards unsuc- cessful presidential bid, called the new poll findings a "real con- cern," adding: "We can't lose white women and expect to do well in this race." OneDemocratic operativefamil- iar with the campaign's delibera- tions worried that the "freshness, newness and aura around Barack has been eclipsed. The campaign has been knocked offstride." Another explained that Demo- crats expected Palin to "have the opposite effect" and drag McCain down, and added, "Whenever there is conventional wisdom in Washington, and it's wrong, that shakes people up." The two Democrats, like oth- ers interviewed for this story, requested anonymity in order to speak about internal campaign strategy. Obama over the last two days has begun vigorously attacking governor and has tried to tarnish her image as a political maverick and reformer, highlighting, for example, her initial support for the "bridge to nowhere." One new TV ad released this week accuses Palin of "lying" in claiming to have killed the $398 million link between Ketchikan and its island airport. McCain has ridiculed the project as an egregious example of the kind of pork-barrel spending he has long fought. Palin has made her opposition to the federally funded bridge a staple of her stump speech, even though she defended it in her 2006 campaign and did not kill it until it was clear that Congress would not pay for it. Also,, Obama and his aides have started using increasingly aggres- sive language in recent days to denounce Palin's and McCain's attempts to cast themselves as the harbingers of change. The typically even-keeled Obama on Tuesday night invoked an old cliche and accused Repub- licans of trying to put "lipstick on a pig" in their adoption of the change mantra, noting that not long ago McCain had tried to present himself as the candidate HEALTHCARE From Page 1A "If we continue to have this kind of trend (in health care costs), then the academic, the core mission of the university, will be impacted," she said. "We won't be able to pro- vide some of the researchers and quality faculty that we do." The University brought in Hewitt & Associates, a consulting firm, to examine the current state of health care coverage at compa- rable higher education and health care institutions. In its comparison between the University and 27 other competi- tive universities including Brown University, Northwestern Univer- sity, and the University of Virginia, the consulting firm found that the University's health care plan for employees and retirees is "greater than those of university and health system peers, both in terms of the quality of benefits offered and in the amount of the University's financial contribution." Thomas said the funds saved from taking some of the cost burden off the University can now be used to "keep student tuition affordable and to have the ability to invest in other programs to support our aca- demic mission." By sharing the costs with its employees, the University can pre- serve the quality oftheir healthcare coverage as opposed to reducingits quality to shave costs, as other com- parable universities and companies have done, Thomas said. The mechanics of how to orches- tratethe costshiftwillbe examined by the newly-formed Committee on Sustainable Health Benefits, which is set to begin meeting later this month. The committee includes various heads of University departments, like Marty Eichstadt, Director of the Benefits Administration office, and professors, like the committee's chair Kyle Grazier, a professor of Health Management and Policy in the School of Pub- lic Health. The committee hopes to make a recommendation to the University administration by the end of December. The University's executive offi- cers will decide which recommen- dations to implement in the spring of 2009. Changeswill affect faculty and staff health coverage starting in January of 2010. One major concern of Univer- sity officials is that faculty and staff members on the lower end of the pay scale will struggle to pay the increased share of health costs. "The question is how to spread that burden across different mem: bers of the community," said David Potter, chair of SACUA, the facul- ty's top governing body. Potter said the University should consider tying the health care premiums to salary levels, so that lesser-paid faculty are not being disparately affected by the new policy. "We have to be aware of the fact that these increases will have very different impacts depending on where somebody is situated in University," he said. Potter said SACUA will meet with Laurita Thomas in the next few weeks to discuss the chang- es and hold an open forum about it at a Senate Assembly meeting. Thomas said the administra- tion is "very concerned about our staff on the lower-end of the pay scale" and that the com- mittee has been asked to give the University leaders recom- mendations that "specifically address" the impact on lower- wage employees. David Reid of University Human Resources said the Uni- versity might consider using a tiered system in which the pre- mium's reduced, or give those employees a supplement from the University to offset the cost of the premium. University officials also announced the formation of the Committee to Study Vesting Options for the Retirement Sav- ings Plan in hopes of lowering retirement plan costs that also put a heavy strain on the University's total operating budget. In addition to the shift in the health care cost ratio, Thomas said that the University has imple- mented several other programs in an attempt to reduce high health care costs. One such program, ActiveU!, aims to increase participation rates of faculty and staff in physi- cal activities, as a prevention strat- egy. The University also uses a pre- scription drug management pro- gram, providing faculty members with high-quality prescription drugs at a reduced price. ers who remain cool to Obama's been virtually tied with Obama in Palin for decisions she made as of experience. MsA Berkeley tree-sitters end From Page 1A the construction project." Th ner y 2 year long protest resolution will be voted on dur ing next Tuesday's meeting. to r- Redwoods cut down to make room for athletic complex By RICHARD C. PADDOCK The Los Angles Times BERKELEY, Calif. - Four tree- sitters whohadhoped to save agrove of trees at the University of Califor- nia, Berkeley, ended their long-run- ning protest yesterday and gave up their perch at the top of a 90-foot redwood after workers erected a scaffold to bring them down. The protesters surrendered to police at the top of the seven-story scaffold, where they were hand- cuffed and escorted down the structure's stairs to the applause of hundreds of onlookers, some of whom voiced support for the four men's cause and others who appeared happy the 21-month pro- test was finally over. Hours later, the redwood was cut down, paving the way for con- struction of a $125 million athletic training facility on the site next to the campus' Memorial Stadium. "We are extremely pleased that this tree-sit has ended," said Vice Chancellor Nathan Brostrom. "Today'soperationwasbrilliantboth in the design and the execution." Protesters had occupied trees in the L5-acre grove since Decem- ber 2006 in an effort to block the university's plans to build on the site. Over the course of the protest, hundreds of people spent time in the trees, some for days, some for months. Thoseinvolved arguedthat the trees, many of them85-year-old oaks, should be preserved because the grove was one of the few natu- ral areas on the campus. After a state appeals court ruled Thursday that construction could go forward, the university moved quickly to cut down more than 40 trees, isolating the four remaining tree-sitters in the redwood. Yesterday morning, a company hired by the university began erecting the scaffold and by early afternoon had reached the tree- sitters' platform about 70 feet off the ground. The four men then climbed even higher into the tree as workers and campus police dis- mantled the platform and threw the men's bedding and other pos- sessions to the ground. Meanwhile, UC Berkeley Police Chief Victoria Harrison rode up in a basket suspended from a crane to speak with the men. Harrison said later she had encouraged the tree- sitters to end their protest peace- fully and walk down the scaffold, rather than endanger themselves and the police by resisting arrest at the top of the tree. "I talked to them a lot about coming down with some dignity," she said. If the protesters had not surren- dered, Harrison said workers would have continuedbuildingthe scaffold until police were able to seize them. The police chief said the four were easy to talk to and that by the end were bantering back and forth with her. She described them as "very skilled individuals" who knew how to maneuver in the treetops. on the ground, protest leader Eric Eisenberg, who goes by the name Ayr, announced that the protesters had reached an agree- ment with the university and said officials had committed to finding new ways to work with the com- munity on land-use issues. But Brostrom, who spoke to the tree-sitters by cell phone, said later that the university had made no such deal to persuade them to come down. The university already is committed to the goal of improv- ing relations with the community, he said. The four tree-sitters will be charged with trespassing and vio- lating a court order. At least one may be charged with battery for assaulting a worker during an earlier tree-trimming operation. Both Sohini and Benson urged members of the assembly to talk to students to try to gauge their positions. "[This is] a chance for us to voice the students' opinions on the construction process," Sohoni said. TEXT MESSAGE TROUBLE Only 23 percent of the student body has signed up for text message safety alerts, said Bret Chaness, chair of the Campus Safety Com- mission. This is less than half of the average at universities and colleges with similar alert systems in place. He emphasized the importance of signing up for the University's text-message and email emer- gency notification system, which launched in March. He pressed MSA representatives togetinvolvedsigningupmorestu- dents. APPOINTMENTS MSA appointed students to 26 various committee positions by block vote. Eight justices were named to the CentralStudent Judi- ciary, the judicial branch of the student government, which hears cases involving student groups or violations of MSA's constitution. The judiciary also hears appeals in cases of election disputes. LSA Rep. Paula Klein was also named City Council Liason. ROBBERY From Page 1A T-shirt,jeans and a black baseball hat. Sergeant Matt Lige of the Ann Arbor Police department declined to commtnt on the incident, saying it is still under investigation. Some residents of the student-, dominated neighborhood said they weren't surprised to hear about the crime. "This is a big party street," said LSA junior Greg Sturgeon, who lives on Oakland Avenue. "People know that people are being drunk and stupid, (and) irresponsible." Sturgeon said the house he lives in has been robbed twice in the past year. LSA junior Mike Kelmenson, another Oakland Avenue resident, said the lack of street lighting on the block concerned him. "It's really dark -- like there's no lighting," he said. "You can't even see people in front of you." Anyone with information about the crime is asked to call Univer- sity Police at 763-1131 or the Ann Arbor Police Department tip line at 996-3199.