' SEX TOY TALK C How a trip to the Safe Sex the Stearns Co Cti * Store became a journey s home for thou through sexual literacy. uniq SEE OPINION, PAGE 4A (1b4e 1Nidc~igan &iIa.1j Ann Arbor, Michigan Thursday, October 15,2009 michigandaily.com MICHIGAN FOOTBALL Rodriguez backs off GPA claims PHOTO COURTESY OF TOM COPT Bruce Wasserstein (third from right) stands with fellow Daily staffers in 1966 during an emergency meeting over a disagreement with the Board in Control of Student Publications. Wasserstein dead at 61 Daily alum revolutionized the world of mergers Notion that team had highest GPA ever not based on data, official says By MATT AARONSON and JACOB SMILOVITZ Daily News Editors Michigan head football coach Rich Rodriguez distanced himself yesterday from an assertion he has made in the past that this year's team had the program's "highest GPA ever recorded." Rodriguez said in a statement posted yesterday on the Athletic Department's website that he made the claim "several" times in the past. The most notahle among them was during his Aug. 31 press conference in which he defended the program against a Detroit Free Press story that alleged the team violated NCAA rules regard- ing practice time and offseason workouts. "They're working hard in ath- letics, and they're working hard in academics," Rodriguez said at the press conference, discuss- ing his players' work ethic on and off the field. "And they've showed that in the balance, in that endeavor, in the way they've recorded the highest GPA ever recorded." He added: "And as a coach, I am very, very proud of them." Readthe University's responsetothe Daily's infimationrequestonour website, richigandaily.com. After the press conference, The Michigan Daily request- ed, through the Freedom of Information Act, the cumula- tive grade point average for the men's football team for every year since they won the NCAA National Championship in 1997. According to a report in the Free Press published online today, the Detroit paper made a similar request. Both informationrequestswere denied. "No responsive records exist," Patricia Sellinger, the University's Freedom of Information Act coor- dinator, wrote in the response to the Daily. In a recent interview, Kallie Michels, associate vice president for communications for the Uni- versity, said that Rodriguez used the unconfirmed metric as a way to motivate the team. "The goal was to motivate his team," she said, adding thatRodri- guez felt his players could accom- plish their "personal best" if they were "motivated academically." Rodriguez had requested the data, but Michels said University officials "don't calculate that kind of stuff." Instead, when Rodriguez requested the data, officials from the University's Academic See RODRIGUEZ, Page 7A By NICOLE ABER In finance, DailyStaffReporter Wasserstein is perhaps best Bruce Wasserstein, whose savvy known for decision-making and pragmatic developing a disposition lead him on a trail of more aggres- successes from the University's sive strategy campus and The Michigan Daily in mergers and newsroom to the loftiest positions acquisitions WASSERSTEIN on Wall Street, died Wednesday at - now termed the age of 61. the "hos- Wasserstein, the chairman and tile takeover." But for those who CEO of Lazard, an investment worked in the Daily newsroom in bank, was first hospitalized Sun- the mid-to-late 1960s, Wasserstein day due to an irregular heartbeat, was known for his shrewd report- according to the Associated Press. ing, strategic and brilliant mind The cause of death is still not and jumbled appearance. known. Born in Brooklyn on Dec. 25, 1947, Wasserstein - who started his career as a lawyer - quickly became a Wall Street luminary by the early 1980s. He brokered one of the biggest deals of the 20th cen- tury: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts's takeover of RJR Nabisco, a deal canonized by thebook "Barbarians at the Gate." He also facilitated the industry-altering Morgan Stanley- Dean Witter and AOL-Time War- ner mergers. Long before his days of billion- dollar dealmaking, Wasserstein attended the University of Michi- gan for his undergraduate edu- cation and served as the Daily's executive editor from 1966 to 1967. As a reporter and editor, Was- serstein covered numerous top- ics during a tumultuous time on campus and at the Daily. Accord- ing to Mark Killingsworth - the Daily's editor in chief from 1966 to 1967 - Wasserstein's most notable coverage was of the University's response to a subpoena from the House Un-American Activities Committee in September 1966. That coverage, according to Killingsworth, demonstrated the underlying intelligence that would be Wasserstein's trademark for the rest of his life. "He was a very hard-headed, See WASSERSTEIN, Page 7A UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL PUBLIC GOES PRIVATE New center to reexamine 'U' ventures now under one roof child advocacy process Law School received $5 million from U.S. * Children's Bureau By LAURA BRUNNER For theDaily Today, the laws and systems gov- erning how cases involving a child's well-being are handled vary from state to state. But that could all soon change with the establishment of a new center at the Law School, which officials say will overhaul the way child advocacy operates in this country. The University's National Quali- ty Improvement Center on the Rep- resentation of Children in the Child Welfare System was created after the Law School received a $5 mil- lion grant from the U.S. Children's Bureau of Health and Human Ser- vices. The new center will focus on reconstructing, improving and standardizing child advocacy pro- grams nationwide. Don Duquette, a clinical pro- fessor of law at the University and director of the Law School's Child Advocacy Clinic, will lead the new center, which will partner with the American Bar Association, National Association of Counsel for Children and KidsVoice - a child A advocacy group. Duquette and two other profes- said. However, this is not necessar- sors will work at the center and ily true for cases in Michigan and focus on the entire child welfare other states. system, including all public and In each case, attorneys and private services that protect chil- guardians want the child pro- dren from abuse and neglect - tected, but it's difficult to balance like psychologists, counselors and competing interests, Duquette said. Child Protective Services. Sometimes a child is taken from a Duquette said the center will act home for too long and is hurt that as a pioneer in the field, which until way. Other times, the child is left in a home where abuse or neglect is still present. "There is a huge division and Center could not a general consensus,"'Duquette r h* said. "We are going to want to tease reshape nation's out what differences there are in e r hone of these cases versus the oth- The project's end goal in to come welfare system. to a conclusion ahout the ost effective means of balancing these competing interests. Duquette explained they hope to now has not had widely accepted accomplish this by meeting three norms. goals of the grant. "For the field it's quite exciting," First, they plan to change the he said. "I am really excited about structure of the child advocacy this project." system across the country. Sec- The center will analyze the out- ond, the research team will look comes of each kind of case and into the discipline and standard- assess the difference in standards ization of child advocacy law and, across states, with the goal of find- finally, categorize and publish the ing what is most effective and best empirical data found in their clini- for children. cal trials. Currently, in some states, like "This project will allow us to Washington, a guardian who is not be creative in designing .mod- a lawyer must be appointed to each els of child advocacy that seem child under 12 years of age to work promising and then to run dem- with the child's attorney, Duquette See ADVOCACY, Page 7A With one-stop shop, Michigan Venture Center hopes to encourage startups By JILLIAN BERMAN Daily NewsEditor In hopes of spurring more inno- vation from faculty and research- ers, the University is launching the Michigan Venture Center, a "one-stop hub for University of Michigan technology," according to Jim O'Connell, the associate director for business formation at the University's Office of Technol- ogy Transfer. The aim of the center isto bring faculty inventors closer to venture capitalists and entrepreneurs who can help them turn their inven- tions into viable startups. "The University has a tremen- dous number of technology oppor- tunities," O'Connell said. "We have a chance to license those out to big companies that are out- side the state, but when there are opportunities to create companies or jobs inside Michigan, we like to do that." "We want to make sure those things don't pass us by," he added. O'Connell said that though the center brings together resources that already exist at the Universi- ty, the move makes the office more "high profile." That will encour- age, he said, faculty inventors to start businesses who might not have considered doing so other- wise. He added that the center's goal See VENTURE, Page 7A MORE SOUP FOR YOU - . t ~ame JAKE FROMM/Daily At Hollander's, a specialty store in Kerrytown, Barb Gibson demonstrates how to make buttercup squash soup with the help oftstore employee George Rodgers yesterday. The event was part ofna series oflcooking classes throughout the fall in Kerrytown Shops. WEATHER HI: 42 GOTA NEWS TIP? TOO W LU33 Call 734-763-2459 ore-mail TOMORROW L: 3 news@michigandaily.com and let us know. 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