A tribute to the
best of our middle school years
The B-side
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Ann Arbor, Michigan
Thursday, September 25, 2008
michigandaily.com
CAMPUS SAFETY
Crime alerts
now headed
to your inbox
Officials worried change will allow students to learn
about incidents earlier and more
that campus didn't consistently.
"We recognized that it was not
learn about crimes only creating more work for others,
but it also was not consistently for-
quickly enough warded on a timely basis," Brown
said. "This will allow us to get out
By JULIE ROWE the information about significant
Daily StaffReporter crimes in a more timely, efficient
and effective way."
In an effort to make sure stu- The University's Administrative
dents, faculty and staff receive alert Information Services department
e-mails in a timely fashion, the (MAIS) gave University Police
University has reworked its crime access to e-mail addresses for the
alert distribution system. Everyone entire Ann Arbor campus - about
with a University e-mail address is 80,000 people, MAIS Assistant
expected to get an e-mail within Director Beth Farrell said.
four hours after an alert is issued, Before, the e-mails were slow
officials said. going out because the alerts, sent to
Until now, whenever a crime every individual in the University's
occurred on or near campus, Uni- large database, were sent at the
versity Police spokeswoman Diane same time.
Brown would send ane-mail to the Farrell said MAIS started looking
deans and heads of each college into ways to enable mass crime alert
and department and ask them to e-mailing in January. She said the
forward the alert to University stu- shooting incident at Virginia Tech
dents and employees. in April 2007, which left 32 people
TheCampusSecurityAct,passed dead and many others wounded,
in 1990, requires universities to made the efficient dissemination of
alert students of violent crimes on crime alerts a high priority.
or near campus. MAISimplementednewsoftwar+
However, many people didn'tget and worked with pre-existing spam
these e-mails until hours after they filters and virus detectors to make
were originally sent, Brown said. mass crime'alert e-mails possible.
Others never got them at all. "It was a more difficult job than
The Department of Public Safety one might think," Brown said.
will now send e-mail crime alerts "We're very appreciative that
directly to all University students they've found a way to make this
and employees. Brown said this work."
MAX COLL NS/Dail'
Brown Jug waitress Sarah Bennett reaches for a liquor bottle in the baserent at the South University watering hole, which has hired a bar auditor to reduce losses.
COUNTING EVERY LAST DROP
Local bars hire
company to stop
flow of free alcohol
By LINDY STEVENS
Daily StaffReporter
If Aaron Boillat is in Ann
Arbor, don't bother schmoozing
your waitress in hopes of getting
a free drink at the bar this week-
end. Boillat owns a franchise
of Bevinco, an alcohol auditing
company that accounts for every
drop of beer and liquor that gets
spilled or poured for free in cam-
pus bars.
According to Boillat, about 20
to 25 percent of the alcohol used
by a bar is lost due to spills or
unaccounted alcohol sales in any
given week. Boillat said he can
save ovners an average of $1,600t
per week by weighing and count-
ing every bottle in the bar's inven-
tory.
Soit's not hard to see why plac-
es like The Brown Jug, The Blue
Leprechaun, Caf6 Felix and the /
aut/ BAR, have all hired Bevinco
to discreetly catch bartenders,
who overpour shots or give away
drinks in hopes of making bigger
tips.
Boillat said his work usually
helps bar owners cut losses to less
than five percent of their weekly
supply in about one month. Dave
Root, manager of The Brown Jug,
said Boillat's work has limited the
bar's losses to about three percent
- or less than $100 in lost inven-
tory - every week.
He added that $100 in lost
inventory actually translates to
several hundred dollars in lost
profits on draft beers or mixed
drinks that sell for three or four
dollars apiece. Still, he said, loss-
es that low are almost unheard of
among most local establishments.
"It's not a big deal to come up
two or three percent short, and
actually, that's really, really good,"
Root said. "A lot of places in town
are at 92 percent and happy just to
get to 95 percent."
The secret behind Boillat's suc-
cess is that most bartenders don't
know he's taking stock of what
they're mixing until they've been
caught. Boillat doesn't go into
bars until after last call, once all
tabs have been cashed and doors
locked for the night.
Equipped with a laptop and
a few precise measuring scales,
Boillat usually gets to work at
about 5 a.m.,- and starts count-
ing and weighing every bottle
of wine, keg of beer and fifth of
liquor the bar has on hand.
"We compare sales to usage to
make sure that everything that
was used was rung up, and then
anything that wasn't, we show
the owners a report highlighting
See AUDITS, Page 8A
INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS
ISR helping start
institute in Qatar
Joint research GLOBAL LEARNING
project the latest
Socialist presidential candidate visits campus
in series of global
ventures for 'U'
By CHARLES GREGG-GEIST
Daily StaffReporter
In a move reflecting the Univer-
sity's efforts to increase its inter-
national presence, the Institute
for Social Research has started a
five-year partnership with Qatar
University in Doha, Qatar. The goal
of the joint program, which started
earlier this month, is to help the
foreign school establish a social
research institute.
Mark Tessler, the University of
Michigan's vice provost for inter-
national affairs and the project's
principal investigator, said Qatar
is becoming a major player in the
global education market.
"Ibelievethesocialresearchinsti-
cute that we will help Qatar Univer-
sity to establish will quickly become
one of the very best in the Middle
East, and will carry out studies and
research of great value to Qatar and
the Arab world more broadly," Tes-
sler wrote in an e-mail.
The goal of the project is to make
the Social and Economic Survey
Research Institute (SESRI) an
organization capable of conducting
world-class studies on its own, said
co-principal investigator David
The University has joint programs
and partnerships with several
colleges around the world.
0 Shanghaiiiao Tong
University(China) &
College of Engineering
* Weizmann Institute (Israel) & Life Sci-
ences Institute
* Peking and Tsinghua
Universities (China) &
Center fon Chinese Studies
0 Peking Universityt(China)& Institute
for Social Research
f Qatar University(Qatar) & Institutefor
Social Research
sOURCE:UNIVERsITYOFMICHIGAN
Howell, assistant director of the
Center for Political Studies at ISR.
"Some places kind of sweep in
and do surveys and then leave,"
he said. "The long-term goal is for
them tobe self-sufficient."
"We don't even know what
we're going to do yet," he added.
"This is an extremely interdisci-
plinary activity, rather than being
just political science or psychology
or engineering. It involves people
from a variety of disciplines, which
is really where science is going."
The partnership is funded entire-
See QATAR, Page 7A
In speech at League,
White slams Wall
Street bailout plan
By JILLIAN BERMAN
DailyStaffReporter
Though he might not pack stadi-
ums and high school auditoriums
like fellow presidential hopefuls
Barack Obama and John McCain,
Social Equality.Party presidential,
candidate Jerry White still hopes
to give the two major candidates a
run for their money.
White visited campus last night,
sharing his views on the nation's
financial crisis in a speech to a
crowd of about 35 at the Michi-
gan League. Congress is currently
working on a $700-billion of legis-
lation to bail out Wall Street firms.
White criticized the negotia-
tions,saying a bailout would reward
those he blamed for the crisis.
"There is $700 billion being
donated by the Treasury to the
wealthiest bankers on Wall Street,"
White said. "Our party has the
answer to the crisis - one that
begins with the masses of work-
ing people, not with aristocracy on
Wall Street."
In an interview after the event,
White said he is running to provide
a political alternative to Obama and
McCain, both of whom support the
bailout.
"Both of them are preparing
to issue a joint statement urging
the passage of what would be the
greatest theft of public assets in the
history of the country, to bail out
financial speculators at the direct
expense of working people," he
said. "We're running in order to
make the case for a socialist alter-
native. If the resources of the coun-
try have to be mobilized to avert
a financial catastrophe, then the
great financial institutions should
be put under the public and demo-
MAX COLLINS/Dail
Socialist Equality Party presidential candidate Jerry White spoke about the Wall
Street financial crisis in the Michigan League yesterday.
cratic ownership of the working
people."
White, who was invited to
campus by the Students for Social
Equality, said he's been met with
substantial opposition from the
political establishment. During his
speech, he cited an effort by the
Illinois Democratic Party to keep
him off the state's ballot. He said
he also wouldn't be on the ballot in
Michigan.
White said he has nowhere near
See SOCIALIST, Page 7A
NT RcA t URtA L SPOR[ S
LSA council votes to condemn IM scoring policy
Officials: resolution
calling rules sexist
won't dictate change
By MATT AARONSON
Daily StaffReporter
LSA Student Government
passed a resolution Wednesday
night condemning the University's
co-ed intramural sports policies
for sometimes awarding females
more points than males in compe-
titions.
The vote passed with 12 in favor,
four against and four abstaining.
Though the body passed the
resolution, it will likely amount
to little more than a symbolic ges-
ture, with recreational sports offi-
cials saying they plan to keep the
rules in place regardless.
Jan Wells, associate director of
recreational sports, saidbefore the
meeting that the resolution would
have nobearing on the University's
intramural sports policies.
"We are not governed by the
LSA government," she said.
The resolution, sponsored by
LSA sophomores Steven Benson
and Stephanie Baum and LSA
junior Kim Buddin, argues that the
University's recreational sports
department is not mandated to fol-
low the guidelines suggested by
the National Intramural-Recre-
ational Sports Association.
The resolution cites an excerpt
from the Federal Title IX legisla-
tion, which says "No person in the
United States shall, on the basis of
sex, be excluded from participa-
tion in, be denied the benefits of,
or be subjected to discrimination
under any education program or
activity receiving Federal finan-
cial assistance." It also cites the
University's nondiscrimination
policy.
In the less competitive tier of
intramural soccer games at the
University, a goal scored by a
See SCORING, Page 8A
WEATHER HI: 76
TOMORROW LO: 54
GOT A NE WS TIP?
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