Daily Columnist Tommaso Pavone sits down with MSA's first openly gay president, Chris Armstrong, for a frank discussion. ) PAGE 4A be 13Icigan 40a Im Ann Arbor, Michigan Wednesday, March 31, 2010 michigandaily.com MSAs first openly gay president sworn in SMALL SLICE OF THE BIG HOUSE Armstrong said his * election shows any student can embody 'spirit of Michigan' By ELYANA TWIGGS Daily StaffReporter "Work hard, be true, go blue," said former Michigan Student Assembly President Abhishek Mahanti last night in the Assem- bly Chambers, before yielding his position leading campus's leading student governing body to LSA junior Chris Armstrong. Business School junior Jason Raymond, Armstrong's running mate, was also sworn in as MSA vice presi- dent. Elected in a landslide victory last Friday, LGBT Commission Chair Chris Armstrong of MFor- ward is now the first openly gay MSA president - a fact he said he hopes will have large impli- cations not only for the LGBT community on campus, but also for the greater University com- munity. Armstrong said he hopes that being gay and holding a position as assembly president will dem- onstrate that any University stu- dent can represent the "spirit of Michigan." In an interview with The Michigan Daily yesterday, Arm- strong recalled how he did not expect to ever be elected MSA president, after hiding his iden- tity throughout high school and staying out of the public eye. He admitted that he only came out to a few friends and his parents by the end of his senior year in high school. Elected at the end of his fresh- man year to be a MSA represen- tative, Armstrong said he was "impressed" by the other repre- sentatives and the atmosphere of the MSA Chambers, but never thought he was capable of hold- ing such a leadership position as a gay man. Over the past three months of campaigning and forming MFor- ward, Armstrong said he became even more sure of himself that he was ready to fulfill the role as president, despite his sexual iden- tity. "I think that slowly over the course of the campaign that broke down," he said. "It shows that MSA can do anything." After serving two years as chair of MSA's LGBT Commis- sion, Armstrong has made a name for himself within the commu- nity. His work in bringing the Mid- west LGBT Conference to cam- pus next year came from his work with the Victory Fund - a See ARMSTRONG, Page 7A University Police reported yesterday that Michigan Stadium was vandalized this weekend when a strip of the block 'M' on the 50-yard line was stolen. The incident was reported by stadium staff at 11:30 a.m. on Monday. Diane Brown, spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety, said the stolen strip was a 6" by 4' piece on the edge of the M' and that there was some damage to the surrounding area. Damages are estimated at approximately $1,000 to repair the affected area of the field. There are no sus- pects or leads, but the incident is under investigation. University Police are unsure how someone was able to access the field. Robinson, the man with te pen Post columnist, 'U' alum won Pulitzer Prize for coverage of 2008 election By JILLIAN BERMAN ManagingNewsEditor ARLINGTON, Va. - University alum Eugene Robinson's house was bustling on a humid afternoon late last summer. His nephew was relaxing on the couch, while his wife, Avis, and a friend were chat- ting and working in the kitchen. Like most in the Washington area in August, the household was pre- paring for a vacation. But unlike many Northern Vir- ginia residents, Robinson was also preparing for a television appear- ance. Later that evening, Robinson would be criticizing Sarah Palin's approach to health care reform as a guest on MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann." Robinson, a regular guest on "Countdown," is also a twice- weekly columnist for The Wash- ington Post. He's addressed a wide range of topics - from the recently passed health care bill to racial profiling. But Robinson wrote one C ON T INUI NG SERES set of columns that got him more attention than usual - his cover- age of the 2008 presidential elec- tion for which he won the Pulitzer Prize, journalism's most presti- gious award. "It was psychedelic, it really was," Robinsonsaidofwinningthe award in an interview last sum- mer. "I never thoughtthat a career was in any way invalidated if you didn't have a Pulitzer because it's See ROBINSON, Page 7A UNIVE RSIT Y ADMINIS T RAT ION 'U' officials say lecturer layoffs possible next year JAKE FROMM/Daily Delon Allen and other students from the O.W. Holmes School in Detroit create paper mache hands for Fesitfools yesterday. Festifools collaboration offers a new type of expression for blind students Provost says cuts to personnel may come in the future if state funds continue to fall By KYLE SWANSON Daily News Editor Though it's been a routine prac- tice in past years for the University to lay off lecturers due to a lack of interest in certain classes, this year some units within the University are considering laying off lecturers strictly asa cost-savings measure. The layoffs are one option being consid- ered by budget officers in some LSA depart- ments, who are preparing responses to KYLE SWANSON scenarios that involve cut- Coverinrh ting 1, 3 and 5 All iilrion percent from their unit's budget for the next fis- calyear. Such exercises are normal, but the means by which some are suggesting meeting the potential cuts in unit funding are not as rou- tine. Asked about the situation in an interview with The Michigan Daily last week, University Provost Tere- sa Sullivan said she didn't have cen- tral plans to lay off lecturers. "Right now our plans don't include - from this office - they don't include layoffs," Sullivan said. "But we're a very decentralized place, and what we end up doing is See LECTURERS, Page 3A A2 officials face off for state Senate seat Students from Detroit public school helped create puppets yesterday By ALEXA BREEDVELD Daily StaffReporter Every spring, University under- graduate students enrolled in the Lloyd HallScholars Programbuild floating puppets that are paraded down Main Street in April for Fes- tifools. The project has an obvious artistic purpose, but it has a phil- anthropic one as well. Yesterday, eight visually impaired students came to Ann Arbor from the O. W. Holmes Elementary School in downtown Detroit to help build the puppets. Ruth Marsh, a Lloyd Hall Schol- ars Program staff member, said the Festifools parade is part of a class called Art and Public Spaces, which aims to bring artto the pub- lic of Southeastern Michigan. "The breadth of the course is to get the community involved, and to make the art accessible to everyone," Marsh said in an inter- view yesterday. "This is one of our outreaches to the community." Prof. Mark Tucker, who works with the Lloyd Hall Scholars Program, said Festifools is a col- laboration between the scholars program and the local community. "Four years ago we started Festifools, and we close down Main Street for an hour (for the parade)," Tucker said. "University students design these giant pup- pets, and people from the commu- See FESTIFOOLS, Page 7A State Reps. Byrnes, Warren make bid for 18th district seat By BETHANY BIRON Daily StaffReporter Come the Aug. 3 state primary elections, Ann Arbor voters will see two familiar names on the ballot. State Sen. Liz Brater (D-Ann Arbor) will be forced to step down from her current position next year due to term limits, allowing contenders State House Speaker Pro Tempore Pam Byrnes (D-Lyn- don Twp) and State Rep. Rebekah Warren (D-Ann Arbor) to vie for the State Senate's 18th district seat this-November. Byrnes said that if elected to the Senate seat, she will expand on initiatives that she has pushed for in the House but that didn't have enough time to come to fruition. "With term limits, we just get started with various policy issues and then we're cut off," Byrnes said. "And there's just so many more things that I want to see accomplished with my vision for what I'd like to see for Michigan to be back on the right track. We need to have this long-term vision about the quality of life here at Michi- gan." Warren echoed Byrnes's senti- ment of hoping to be a member of the state Senate as a way to expand See ELECTION, Page 7A WEATHER HI:74 GOTANEWSTIP? Call 734-763-2459 or e-mail TOMOR ROW LO: 52 news@michigandaily.com and let us know. NEW ON MICHGANOAILY.COM Wale, Clipse and Big Sean at the Power Center. 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