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SEE TH E B-SI DE, I NSI DE SE
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Thursday, December 3,2009
michigandaily.com
FREE FALL
MICHIGAN PROMISE SCHOLARSHIP
Students,
' 'teamto
lobby for
Promise
Both parties stand upto $4,000 toward tuition over
the course of four years, as deter-
to lose if program is mined by the student's score on
the Michigan Merit Exam, which
not reinstated is taken in high school. This year,
96,000 students would have been
By NICOLE ABER eligible for the awards at a cost of
Daily StaffReporter $112 million to the state - 6,172 of
which attend the University's cam-
Students and - administrators pus in Ann Arbor.
SAID ALSALAH/Daily
Michigan guard Zack Novak dives after the ball in the team's 62-58 loss to Boston College last night in Crisler Arena. The loss marked Michigan's third in a row, and another
in which the Wolverines shot poorly from outside, netting just 9 of 34 three-point shots. For more on the game, see Sports, Pages 5A and 8A.
CAMPUS COMPUTING
Officials: CTools won't shut
down again neartermsend
are combining resources to forge
a stronger lobbying effort to push
state lawmak-
ers just enough NOTEBOOK
to reinstate the
MichiganPromise Scholarship-a
popular, merit-based program cut
from the state budgeton Oct. 30.
Their efforts advocating for an
already-killed state program have
a renewed sense of vigor of late,
brought on by Michigan Gov. Jen-
nifer Granholm's recent push to re-
heat the debate over funding the
scholarship.
Both students and University
administrators have a stake in
bringing the scholarship back.
Without it, students stand to lose
tuition funding that they and their
families were counting on. For the
University, which has pledged to
fill the tuition void for students
with demonstrated financial need,
the program's elimination carries
a hefty price tag - one sure to fur-
ther complicate an already delicate
budget picture for the next fiscal
year.
The Promise Scholarship
awards Michigan college students
COMBINING EFFORTS
In a series of speeches at col-
leges and universities across the
state - includinga stop at Eastern
Michigan University in Ypsilanti
last week - Granholm called upon
studentstocontactctheirlegislators
about the program.
About two dozenUniversity stu-
dents traveled to the event atEMU
in a bus paid for by the Office of the
Vice President for Student Affairs.
Student groups like the Michi-
gan Student Assembly's Commit-
tee on External Relations and the
LSA Student Government collabo-
rated with the Office of Student
Affairs on providing transporta-
tion, according to Jason Raymond,
chair of MSA's Committee on
External Relations.
"We've been able to come to a
mutually beneficial position where
clearly the University and the stu-
dents have a shared goal in terms
of bringing the Promise Scholar-
ship back, so it would be crazy for
us not to combine our resources,"
See PROMISE, Page 7A
System crashed
last semester after
course evaluations
0 went paperless
By ANNIE THOMAS
Daily StaffReporter
Ldst winter term, the night
before the end of classes was may-
hem for students in the Fishbowl,
Undergraduate Library and other
computing sites across campus.
After administrators went
paperless with course evaluations,
and made them only accessible on
CTools, the website crashed and
students couldn't access their lec-
ture slides and notes on CTools to
study for finals.
But this semester, officials say
students can rest easy.
Yesterday, in an interview with
the Daily, University officials out-
lined their plan for ensuring that
CTools doesn't crash during finals
time. They cited updates to soft-
ware and alarger server as improve-
ments that will allow students to fill
out course evaluations on CTools
without overloading the site.
John Williams, executive direc-
tor of Digital Media Commons,
said that the issues that occurred
between April 18-22 this year were
not caused because something in
the system "broke," but, rather,
because the core services that
CTools has provided over the last
three years had expanded dramati-
cally.
He addedthe biggest factor inthe
crash were very quick, high-volume
spikes in the website's usage, that
occurred in a matter of seconds.
"We didn't anticipate these very
short, very high spikes in load
because the system is being used in
ways that we've never seen before,"
Williams said.
Williams said that "a post-mortem
analysis" began immediately after
See CTOOLS, Page 3A
CLASSROOM CLICKERS
'U'mulls Qwizdom alternatives
Students, faculty say
clicker isn't meeting
classroom needs
By CAITLIN HUSTON
Daily StaffReporter
Soon it may be time to power off
the Qwizdom clicker system for
good and make way for new tech-
nology.
Instructional Support Services
and the LSA Student Government
have been researching replacement
options for the student response
remotes used in lectures at the Uni-
versity, most of which are for sci-
ence and engineering courses.
The reasoning behind these
changes comes from multiple prob-
lems ISS has encountered with the
Qwizdom system, which has been
in place for about three or four
years.
These problems include multiple
technical bugs within the system, a
lack of reliability in storing grades
and Qwizdom's incompatibility
with Apple computers and Win-
dows Vista.
The set-up of the system also
does not allow professors to navi-
gate away from the Qwizdom
slides.
"It kind of discourages profes-
sors from using YouTube, or using
video clips or audio clips," said
Laura Hlebasko, vice chair of the
LSA Student Government's Advi-
sory Committee to ISS.
Student feedback from online
evaluations was also taken into
account with the selections, which
prompted ISS to look into systems
that offered options other than a
See QWIZDOM, Page 3A
UNIVERSITY RESEARCH
Chronic pain study gets $1.8M
University alum Sam Zell responds to a question during a news conference on Dec. 20, 2007.
Zell resigns as Tribune CEO
Researchers are better use.
The husband-and-wife team
using herpes to of Neurology Profs. David Fink
and Marina Mata are looking into
develop treatments ways that a modified strain of
HSV might help patients suffering
By JAMES LEE from chronic pain associated with
For theDaily nerve damage.
Fink said the project used a
Cold sores may be a nuisance herpes simplex viral vector to
this time of year, but two Univer- carry genes to malfunctioning
sity researchers are working on sensory nerves that continue to
putting the herpes simplex virus signal pain despite the lack of
- the culprit behind cold sores - to other tissue injury.
Also the chair of the Department
of Neurology, Fink said the human
nervous system carries electrical
signals for pain along a specific
pathway connecting pain-sensing
nerve endings to the brain. Con-
ventional pain treatments rely on
opiates like morphine to interact
with opiate receptors along this
pathway, thereby inhibiting the
brain's perception of pain.
The problem, Fink said, is that
"opiate receptors are found in a lot
See STUDY, Page 3A
University alum and
philanthropist will
stay on as chairman
By JILLIAN BERMAN and
JACOB SMILOVITZ
Daily NewsEditors
Sam Zell, a prominent Univer-
sity alum whose philanthropic
efforts can be felt throughout
campus, stepped down today as
CEO of the bankrupt and much-
troubled Tribune Company.
Zell will keep his seat as chair-
man of the company.
The company's board of direc-
tors named Randy Michaels, the
company's current chief oper-
ating officer, as the next CEO.
Michaels was also elected to the
board.
in an internal e-mail writ-
ten by Zell and obtained by The
Michigan Daily, Zell wrote that
the board of directors made the
change in leadership upon his
recommendation.
Zell also wrote in the e-mail
'that by remaining as chairman,
he will continue to provide "stra-
tegic oversight and vision to the
company's management team."
"During the last two years,"
Zell wrote, "we've achieved a
seismic shift in Tribune's focus
and culture - we're moving in
the right direction and into the
New Year with energy and opti-
mism."
In 2007, Zell positioned him-
self to become chairman of the
See ZELL, Page 7A
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