w. 4A- Thursday, February 12, 2009 Inioll The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com C 4e MIC41*pan wily Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@umich.edu GARY GRACA ROBERT SOAVE COURTNEY RATKOWIAK EDITOR IN CHIEF EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position oftthe Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. Rackham's mistake Graduate policy change hurts quality of programs G oodbye to the exclusivity of Ph.D. programs at the Uni- versity and hello to strained resources - the days of small class sizes and hours of face time with professors could be long gone. With a new continuous enrollment system in place, Rackham Graduate School will admit more students but leave funding unchanged. The plan ignores the true purpose of gradu- ate school, emphasizing an expedient graduation rather than the gradual process of thorough research. With this policy in place, the University needs to concentrate more resources so that the quality of a graduate education does not suffer. I suggested that we have a talk show together called 'Pallin' Around With Sarah and Bill." - Bill Ayers, commenting on his idea for a collaborative video show, in a letter to Alaska governor Sarah Palin, as reported yesterday by CNN. HARUN BULJINA E-MAIL HARUN AT BULJINAH@UMICH.EDU- Obama's Stimulus Plan a I A low-budget Valentine Set to begin as early as fall 2010, the con- tinuous enrollment system will include already-admitted students and increase enrollment by almost 30 percent. Under the policy, students will have to register each semester to retain an "active" sta- tus until degree completion. Even during periods of detached study, students are required to register and pay tuition to stay in the program. The new policy serves the interests of Rackham more than those of students. Though a decrease in tuition rates is being hailed as a welcome change, this won't real- ly effect graduate students because most of them have at least part of their tuition covered by the University. What the pro- posal will achieve is a higher completion rates that will give Rackham a comparative advantage in recruiting. It also argues that if students retain "active" status, the change will reduce administrative work in dealing with the changing needs of Ph.D. students. But a decreased hassle for the administra- tion and a better reputation does not mean a more efficient system for students. The problem is that the Rackham execu- tive board is trying to streamline graduate programs that demand flexibility. Though the board intends to solve a valid problem - unsatisfactory graduation rates - it will create new problems in the process. The new system will essentially put more stu- dents into programs not yet designed for such numbers. Students will face a higher student- professor ratio and consequently less individualized attention. In this case, a higher enrollment puts quality at risk. Such a change is not ideal for students investing money and years of their lives into a pro- gram - a program meant to facilitate their independent research, not corner them into speeding up the process and compete for time with their professors. The opportunity to do research abroad without constraint is a crucial component of graduate study. It is a time when detach- ment from the University is often part of the experience. Students who spend extended periods of time studying abroad should not have to deal with continuous registration nor bear the financial burden of paying tuition. Rackham's vague inten- tion to provide University services while abroad does not warrant the added pres- sure on students to finish their degrees. The goals of the continuous enrollment system must remain open to evaluation to ensure that the interests of students are being met. Rackham needs to pro- vide enough faculty and resources for an increased number of students to get the same quality education in graduate school. With the economic fate of our country uncertain, it seems like the perfect time to redirect our energy to celebrating love, companionship and romance. But the product place- ment orgy that is Valentine's Day doesn't really lend itself toward saving money.R According to a ROSE 2009 report done AFRIYIE in conjunction with the National Retail Foundation, Americans plan on spending $14.7 bil- lion dollars this Valentine's Day. That same report revealed that the average woman will spend $85 and the average man will outspend her almost 2 to 1 on candy, jewelry and a night on the town amounting to $156. While some supporters of chivalry will be pleased, Iam a little concerned. While the plight of college students isn't exactly dominatingrecession cov- erage, that doesn't mean that students will be unaffected by our country's fis- cal changes. Many here at the University, myself included, are in the process of saving money to compensate for our meager to nonexistent internship income and the time gap between our graduation dates and first full-time paychecks. Then there is the matter of opportuni- ty cost. If some of us were not wasting our shrinking discretionary income on chocolates, expensive gifts and cards, we might have a little extra for Spring Break, summer travel or our favorite charity or non-profit organization. Valentine's Day can't take all the credit for what Eva Illouz cited in Consuming the Romantic Utopia, a book that documents the history of romance and capitalism in the U.S. as the "romanticization of commodities." This phenomenon is about how build- ing and maintaining our romantic relationships is centered on spending money and how advertising and mass media has reinforced this concept. Dinners. Movies. Coffees. Think about it: When was the last time you went on a date that did not involve anyone spending money? Perhaps I would need to spend an entire column covering gender stereotypes, relation- ships and money, but it's worth noting that mixing money and relationships can sometimes become a minefield of problematic expectations. To consider heterosexuals, we all have that shady female friend who only dates men who can foot the bill every time they inter- act. On the flip side, everyone has that equally shady male friend who equates each dollar he spends on a woman with a sexual act he hopes to receive that same evening. Considering all this, I think it's time for us to accept once and for all that you don't need money to be romantic. And I have some ideas on a few free ways you can spend Valentine's Day that will only cost you a little effort, creativity, openness and the desire to show someone you care. Cards. Last year, 57 percent of people bought cards for Valentine's Day, according to the National Retail Federation. Instead of buying a card, climb fully into the 21st century and e-mail one. Websites such as somee- cards.com provide really funny, witty e-cards for Valentine's Day. I almost fell off my chair at card titles like "Blow jobs are like flowers for men" and "I hate Valentine's Day unless you would like to be my date." The websites also allow you to create your own cards - for free. Events. One of the benefits of being on a college campus are the many free and low-cost events that are going on all Saturday long, as well as leading up to Valentine's Day. Meeting the needs of singles, couples and people of all different colors and cultures, the online events calendar provided by the University and arborweb.com has many free events featured, like movie viewings and concerts. Gifts. If you insist on buying some- thing, put it toward a good cause. Websites like organicstyle.com sell organic roses and allow you to donate You don't need to shell out cash to be romantic. five percent of the purchase prie to your favorite charity. You can also buy fair trade chocolates through the site. Non-profits also need love, too. You can give a gift donation to organiza- tions that are working overtime in the wake of the recession such as Feeding America, a non-profit that feeds 25 million low-income adults, children and seniors annually. Don't be afraid to give yourself on Valentine's Day - literally. Wake up next to your partner naked, tied in a bow. Then proceed to take full advantage of the fact that Valentine's Day falls on a Saturday. Spend a good amount of the day in: talking, blow- ing through your DVD collection, cuddling and cooking your own food. Just don't forget to pick up some free condoms from UHS this Friday. And, in the words of someecards.com "have a fiscally but not sexually conservative Valentine's Day." - Rose Afriyie is the Daily's sex and relationships columnist. She can be reached at sariyie@umich.edu. 6 I I I LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor. Letters should be less than 300 words and must include the writer's full name and University affiliation. Letters are edited for style, length, clarity and accuracy. All submissions become property of the Daily. We do not print anonymous letters. Send letters to tothedaily@umich.edu. GARY GRACA I IEWP I Defending print journalism Obama's scapegoats Print newspapers aren't dead. I say that knowing today's front page story (Money woes hit Student Pubs., 02/12/2009) about the financial woes of The Michigan Daily - and more broadly, the University's Student Publications - can be easily misinterpreted as another example of print journalism's inevitable demise. I also say that as someone who has no emo- tional attachment to print newspapers. I've never bought a newspaper subscription. I don't curl up on a couch every Sunday to read an encyclopedic- size The New York Times. And, honestly, I don't. read any print newspapers except the ones dis- tributed on campus, like The Michigan Review, The Michigan Independent and the Every Three Weekly - all of which I read religiously. So why, then, didh Iproclaim that we should stop newsprint's funeral procession? Because the supposedly common knowledge that print newspapers are dying is a gross generalization and a poor reflection of what's happening in the media world. The situation, as I see it, is as multi-faceted as the thousands of print newspapers that exist in this country. We've just minimized that com- plexity into a single, fictitious catchphrase: No one reads news in print. Sure, many print newspapers are sinking rap- idly. The Times is the poster boy of that fall from grace. Even though its website is one of the most visited on the Internet, it has still been forced to borrow against. its 52-story, Renzo Piano- designed headquarters and defile its front page with advertising - all because it can't generate the same kind of revenue online it once made from its print product. Close behind the Times are many other big city or national newspapers. The Tribune Co. - which owns the Los Angeles Times, Chi- cago Tribune and Baltimore Sun, among other newspapers - has already filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The Detroit Free Press is cutting back its home delivery to three days a week. And the Christian Science Monitor has already made the leap to being an online-only newspaper. The rapid online shift these newspapers are undergoing makes sense. These papers primar- ily offer news that is intended for a large, het- erogeneous audience. The Internet is the ideal medium for that. Compared to expensive home delivery subscriptions, it's simply a faster, cheap- er and more convenient way to get information to all of these people while understanding that almost no two consumers are alike. That's not the situation for local and, especial- ly, college newspapers. These publications have closed, captive audiences in which a print paper is still an effective medium. Why? Because it is still a convenient way to spread information. Take, for example, The Michigan Daily. The Daily's greatest strength is that it offers news about the University of Michigan that no one else can offer. Because it exists in print for free, students pick up a copy on their way to class and leave it on the seatnext to them in lecture, where another person picks it up, leaves it somewhere else and continues the chain. As long as students go to class and are then bored in class, the print version of the Daily can be effective. The same thing goes for The Michi- gan Review, The Michigan Independent and the Every Three Weekly. The New York Times doesn't have that same advantage. That doesn't mean michigandaily.com can'tbe just as effective, if not more effective, than the print version of the paper. It can be - but for dif- ferent reasons. It can offer expanded resources and different types of content the print Daily can't, including video and audio content, as well as resources like an events calendar, entertain- ment guide, crime map, real estate guide and a host of other useful tools. And that's the type of content we've been adding to the site so students have one central resource to turn to for information about this campus. While we build up the site, we also want to know what you, as readers, want to see. What do you want from the Daily and its website? How do you want it presented? How can we serve this campus better? Ultimately, that's why we're putting this paper together. Andnomatter what the formatyou can be sure of this: The Daily will continue to lead the campus conversation every day and provide students with the vital information they need to get the most from this university. Gary Graca is the Daily's editor in chief. Executive pay has been in the news a lotlately. First, the CEO's of the Detroit's Big Three auto- makers hypocriti- cally flew private jets into Wash- P ington to ask for federal bailout funds. Then it was discovered that many executives working for fed- erally bailed-out banks received PATRICK huge bonuses in ZABAWA 2008 - the year their banks almost failed. So on Febru- ary 4, President Barack Obama capped executive salaries at $500,000 for all firms receiving "extraordinary assis- tance" from the government. Though hailed by many as a move in the right direction, the decision has many nega- tive far-reaching effects. For starters, it sets up the precedent that making scapegoats and limiting their freedoms is the correct course of action for future government policy. Limiting executive pay compensa- tion was an unnecessary step for the federal governmentto take in the first place. The stockholders of these com- panies are very upset at the pay pack- ages being given at the expense of their companies' performance. Many of them are now insistingthat they have a vote on executive pay packages. In the past month, such corporate conglom- erates as Intel Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., and Occidental Petroleum Corp. have all given shareholders a vote on their executive pay policies. Besides, it is the stockholders who know how their company is running and what kind of reward its executives should receive based on their performance. A limit of $500,000 seems to commu- nicate to executives that their perfor- mance doesn't matter - whether the company fails or flourishes, their pay will be the same. And for many executives, $500,000 is an awfully low salary. Author Holly Peterson, in an article for The New York Times entitled "You try to live on 500K in this town" says many execu- tives in Manhattan who earn $2 or $3 million end up with no money left at the end of the year. She says that to many executives, a salary reduction to $500,000 "means taking their kids out of private school and selling their home in a fire sale." And while private schools may sound like a luxury, many parents choose to send their children to them out of care for their children's education. Obama himself sends his daughters to a private school where tuition is upward of $20,000 per child per year. At the same time, a salary of $500,000 restricts executives from using chauffeurs, whose pays range between $75,000 and $125,000 per year. Chauffeurs are essential for cor- porate executives because running a company is a 24/7 job and executives need to be available at all times in case of company emergencies. Obama is the same; whether or not the country is failing, he needs to always be available, including on the road. The country, just like any company, needs to have its chief executive always available. Who's to say that his ability to have a chauf- feur - and therefore be available to han- dle crises on the road - should be taken away if the country isn't doing well? Sadly, one of the reasons executives are getting such harsh treatment is because they are being used as scape- goats for the country's current finan- cial crisis. While they may have had a part in it, there are other causes such as private investors and government poli- cies that have gone unpunished. Now, new corporate executives hired after. the crisis will have restrictions placed on them due to something they had nothing to do with. But it's easier to restrict executive pay across the board than admit that there may have been other causes of the financial crisis. What's more is that salary caps are setting a dangerous precedent for future economic policy. There will certainly be an increasing number of companies receiving government aid as the $789 billion economic stimu- lus bill moves through Congress. The government may soon want the these companies receiving stimulus funds to ensure that their executives don't get "overpaid" by restricting their pay Caps on executive padysetdangerous precedents. to some arbitrary level. Government would thenbe restricting the freedoms of both these executives to earn a wage worth their work and the companies to hire better executives at a higher price. Worse yet is that government is targeting a small group of people who cannot fight back. Corporate execu- tives are a minority group of people because there are so few of them. And as minorities, they have no voice if they are harassed. Right now, their lifestyles are being overturned at the hands of the majority and in the name of justice. Making a small group of people a scapegoat and then punishing them is not a sign of good leadership but an omen of bad thingsto come. Should this precedent be applied on agrander scale - as any stimulus plan would likely demand - freedom will become less and less available to American com- panies. Let's hope the Obama admin- istration stops restricting American citizens' freedoms and starts extend- ingthem. - Patrick Zabawa can be reached at pzabawa@umich.edu.