0 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Wednesday, April14, 2010 - 3A * The Michigan Daily michigandailycom Wednesday, April 14, 2010 - 3A NEWS BRIEFS E EAST LANSING, Mich. MSU to end retiree health benefits for newly hired staff Michigan State University says it will stop providing retiree health care benefits to new faculty and staff members but will honor cov- erage for current employees. University President Lou Anna K. Simon announced the change yesterday. She says it takes effect July 1. The university says the move is a response to rising health care costs and "constrained revenues." It says Michigan State is the only Big Ten university that still offers retiree health benefits to new hires. Simon says the university will honor the health care provisions of its collective bargaining agree- ments. WASHINGTON obama says China following through on Iran penalties President Barack Obama says China is already following through on what he says is a sincere consid- eration of tough new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program. China has sent representatives to New York for discussions at the United Nations aimed at imposing new sanctions. That does not guar- antee Chinese support for sanc- tions, but Obama seemed pleased. Obama says China is concerned about the economic effects of new sanctions since Iran is an oil exporter and holds trade relation- ships with nations around the globe. But Obama says words and promises among nations have to mean something, and he says the world is growing more convinced that Iran's nuclear program is out of bounds. REYKJAVIK, Iceland Sick airline crew cause emergency landing in Iceland An American Airlines flight with 145 people on board made an emergency landing in Iceland on yesterday after five crew members * became ill, apparently from chemi- cal fumes in the cabin. American Airlines Flight 49 traveling from Paris to Dallas-Fort Worth landed safely at Keflavik Airport just after 1345 GMT (9:45 a.m. EDT). Airport spokesman Fridthor Eydal said mechanics and civil aviation investigators were examining the plane to find the cause of the problem. "They were apparently having some sort of problems with some sort of fumes in the cabin," said spokesman Tim Smith of American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp. Frodi Jonsson, an official at the airport's fire department, said the fumes might be traced to boxes in the hold containing plane parts with oils and liquids. He said the cargo would be examined in an investigation. "There was nothing unusual going on," he told the Icelandic National Broadcaster when asked whether he suspected a terrorist attack. PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti First Lady makes surprise visit to Haitian captial First lady Michelle Obama made a surprise visit yesterday to the ruins of the Haitian capital, a high-profile reminder that hun- dreds of thousands remain in des- perate straits three months after the earthquake. The first lady and Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, took a helicopter tour of Port-au- Prince, where many people are still homeless, before landing at the destroyed national palace to meet President Rene Preval. They later talked with students whose lives have been upended by the disaster and walked along a vast, squalid encampment of families living under bed sheets and tents. "It's powerful," Obama told reporters. "The devastation is definitely powerful." A number of past and present world leaders have visited since the earthquake, including for- mer presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. -Compiled from Daily wire reports FIRESIDE CHAT From Page 1A students with disabilities requires students who identify as disabled to "step forward." "If you come, you can get it," Harper said. "We need to figure out how it occurs before because some- times what happens is that students don't want to put (their disability)on their application material. There's such a fear that there's going to be negative consequences to it, so peo- ple are silent. Then it makes it diffi- cult to do the proactive piece." LSA sophomore Sarah Rabinowe, meanwhile, discussed the difficul- ties students with learning disabili- ties face if they want to apply for classes that would serve as a sub- stitute for the LSA foreign language requirement. All LSA students are required to take four semesters of a foreign language. However, if students show documentation that they have "extreme difficulty" learning a lan- guage, and if students receive a score on the Michigan Language Aptitude Test that shows they have a lan- guage learning disability, they may petition the University's Academic Standards Board for a language sub- stitution. In an e-mail interview after the fireside chat, Rabinowe wrote that there needs to be more involvement from the University's Services for Students with Disabilities office in the process of obtaining a language substitution. "The issue is that there's a failure model set up where there is a waiver process that goes through the For- eign Language Waiver Committee (FLW), a subcommittee of the LSA Academic Standards Board," she wrote. "It's done through the advis- ing department, rather than the disability department and only one person from the disability depart- ment is on the committee." She added that the Academic Standards Board has requirements that she says are impossible to meet. Rabinowe said the board often ques- tions the legitimacy of a student's disability or says that the language a student is taking is merely too dif- ficult for he or she and that he or she should try another one. "You have to try, that's fair enough, a foreign language before you can apply for your waiver," she said. "The problem is, they often require that you try, withdraw, fail (and) show you can't succeed in more than one language." By the time students complete the process of obtaining a language sub- stitution, their grade point average and other academic standards have suffered, Rabinowe said. "By then you are no longer com- petitive for certain graduate schools, for many different programs, fel- lowships and scholarships," she said. "People lose their scholarships over this issue." Ideally, Rabinowe wrote, she'd like the Academic Standards Board to be more understanding of stu- dents with disabilities. "What I'd like to see happen is that there would be the consider- ation (for people with) these dis- abilities," she wrote. "If they've had these accommodations for years, had a foreign language waiver throughout their education, and/or a preexisting medical documenta- tion that says you have a disability, that (should) be a proper indication of your ability. Not to fail a language at the University of Michigan. Evi- dence of a disability should be proof enough." Coleman answered Rabinowe's apprehensionsby saying the Univer- sity is working hard to be a welcom- ing place for all students. "Often times with the silent dis- abilitiesifyou'renotinawheelchair, people say, 'Well, what do you really need?' " Coleman said. "We've been very active in trying to get mental health issues to the fore and trying to say, 'Look, this is a part of normal issues that people have. We're not going to discourage people because of this."' Another topic that came up was the University's impending Smoke Free Initiative - scheduled to take effect in July 2011 - which has been a topic of debate across campus that students pointedly questioned Cole- man about it at the fireside chat yes- terday. Students accused Coleman of initiating the smoking ban without transparency and without student input. Coleman denied the charges and defended the policy. "I disagree with your premise completely that we haven't been transparent," Coleman responded to the students who raised the issue. She said smokers and non-smok- ers alike were consulted when the decision was made to implement the ban. She encouraged anyone who wanted to get involved in the process to speak with the task force created to help initiate the smoking ban. "We've had lots of people involved, and we want to find ways to be sensitive (to people who smoke)," Coleman said. "We're not telling you, you can't smoke. We just don't wantyou to smoke on campus." MSA From Page 1A states that MSA should appoint a rep- resentativeto the smokinginitiative's Student Life Subcommittee in an effort to gain more information about the ban. LSA junior Graham Kozak, the president of the College Libertar- ians, helped draft the resolution. Kozak said at the meeting that he is frustrated with University officials - especially University President Mary Sue Coleman - who he says did not request enough student input before deciding to implement the initiative. In a press release and columns in The Michigan Daily, members of the College Libertarians have iden- tified Coleman as having an appar- ent conflict of interest due to her position on the board of Johnson & Johnson - a company that manu- factures and markets smoking ces- sation products. Kozacksaid ifthe allegations prove to be true, they could have large impli- cations as Coleman is compensated for sitting on the company's board. He said the main reason for the resolution and the accusation of Cole- man's conflict of interest is that there is not enough information provided to campus about the origin of the Smoke Free Initiative. "We want to see what informa- tion the University has gathered in order to implement the plan and how the students and faculty stand on the issue," Kozaksaid. University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said in an interview yes- terday thatColeman's position on the board of the company doesn't consti- tute a conflict of interest. "We are absolutely confident that there is no conflict of interest with President Coleman with her service onthe Johnson& Johnsonboard," he said. Fitzgerald added that the company does not make the types of smoking cessation products recommended by the medical community. "The medical community tells us that the most effective medical inter- ventionto help people stop smoking is the prescription cessation product," he said. "Johnson & Johnson simply does not make any prescription cessa- tionproduct." In addition, Fitzgerald explained that the University has not yet deter- minedif,whentheSmokeFreeInitia- tive is implemented, it will subsidize smokingcessation products or simply negotiate a discounted rate. Fitzgerald added that with imple- mentation of the ban more than ayear away, the University is still finalizing the details. "We're still more than a year away from implementing this policy so there are many details to be worked outjustlikeallthesubcommittees are stillatworkdeterminingthebestpos- sible wayto implement this policy for this campus," he said. He continued: "Subcommittees will report back by this fall ... leaving plenty of time for people to under- stand what that implementation plan would be." LSA senior Jonathan Slemrod, former president of the College Liber- tarians, said at the meeting last night that the resolution is about transpar- ency and obtaining information about the ban. "The resolution has nothing to do with if you agree with the ban or not," he said. He said very few students have been involved in the process, add- ing that the 1,500 students who were contacted for input on the ban do not accurately represent the 40,000 stu- dents on campus. Kozak said that he hopes that through MSA, the administration may recognize students' opinions on the issue. He added that students may benefit from tryingto maketheir voices heard. "Whether the University listens or not, I think we as a student body have something to gain," he said. MSA PASSES RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF LEO At last night's meeting, MSA unanimously passed a resolution to establish solidarity with the Lectur- ers' Employee Organization, which is in the middle of negotiating a new contract with the University. LEO represents about 1,300 lec- turers on the University's three cam- puses - with 900 members on the Ann Arbor campus, according to the resolution. Currently, the University is pro- posing an increase in health care premiums by 240 and 300 percent for part time lecturers, which would result ina large pay cut, according to the resolution. LSA Rep. John Oltean, an author of the resolution, said MSA is crucial in inspiring cam- pus-wide support for University lecturers. "Lecturers make up 30 per- cent of our college education time," Oltean said in an interview after the meeting. "We need to look out for our lecturers so that we can receive the quality educa- tionthat we want." RESOLUTION TO CREATE GOVERNMENTS COUNCIL A resolution was unanimously passed at last night's Michigan Student Assembly meeting to create a Michigan Student Gov- ernments' Council that would promote a unified student voice afross all University of Michigan campuses. This resolution, drafted by MSA Rackham Rep. Michael Benson, is intended to encourage discussion between the Ann Arbor, Flint and Dearborn studentgovernments. "(The Student Governments' Council is) nothing overly complicat- ed,butsomethingwherebyindividual student governments can reach out to each other and have a collaborative dialogue," Benson said. The three student governments are members of the Student Asso- ciation of Michigan, which addresses issues within the state. One of the main purposes of the Student Governments' Council is to "encourage and facilitate open com- munication" between the campuses, according to the resolution. Benson said in an interview before last night's meeting that all the cam- puses are onboard for more cohesion and governance so thatthey can tack- leissues together. "To be able to speak as a single council, it is now all the students at the University of Michigan speaking with a single voice on a single topic," Benson said. Benson said all three campuses need to have a mode for students to address the University administra- tion and Board of Regents. Owen Agho, current student gov- ernment president at the Univesity's Flint campus, said at the meeting last night that the resolution would ben- efit all University students. "We will have a place to come together to talk about all different issues thataffectall campuses,"Agho said. "We need a place for all Michi- gan students to come together and work together in a practical manner." Since MSA passed the resolution, Agho said the Flint and Dearborn campuses will now follow suit. - Daily News Editor Kyle Swanson contributed to this report. MEXICO From Page 1A versity's International Travel Oversight Committee, said the violence has risen to such a level at the border that it is now "extremely dangerous" to travel in the area. "We've read State Depart- ment reports and spoke with council officers in Mexico, and on the basis of that review, we've decided it is too dangerous for students to go on University- sponsored activities," Godfrey said. Much of the violence stems from ongoing fights between drug cartels that are vying to control drug trafficking routes. "This has been going on for a number of years, but in recent months the head of one car- tel was killed in the fight and another was arrested, and now they're fighting for control of the territory," Godfrey said. According to Godfrey, the areas are "unstable" and "unpre- dictable" - citing large fires in the middle of the day and an instance where two mechanical engineering graduate students from the Technological Insti- tute of Higher Learning of Mon- terrey were shot to death during crossfire between Mexican sol- diers and drug gangs. The State Department's travel warning is effective until May 12. University students may still travel to central and southern Mexico for University programs. However, undergraduates must have their trip approved' by their dean or an advisor and must submit a consent form signed by a legal guardian. Uni- versity faculty members plan- ning to lead a student trip in central or southern Mexico must also obtain approval from their dean. According to Godfrey, the travel ban has caused two stu- dent groups that were planning to visit Mexico, in May and June to make new trip arrange- ments. One was a bus trip that planned to start its tour in Mexico City and then contin- ue into northern Mexico. The other - a Global Intercultural Experience for Undergraduates group, which takes University students on trips abroad - was planning to visit both sides of the Mexican border. The GEIU group will now stay in Tuscan; Az. Godfrey said the travel ban will continue indefinitely until the situation improves. "That's anyone's guess as to how long that will be," Godfrey said. "For the near term it looks like it will remain unstable, There is very little that is predi- cable now." Accordingtothe State Depart- ment travel warning, more than 2,600 people were killed just in Ciudad Juarez in 2009. Mexi- can officials also report that there were more than 16,000 car thefts and 1,900 carjackings the same year. The University last issued a travel ban to Mexico in April 2009 when the H1N1 virus first surfaced. The University then lifted the travel restrictions in May, which Godfrey said was because the virus moved into' the United States. As for the current travel ban,, Godfrey said the University is' going to keep an eye on the situ- ation. "We're going to watch it: closely and when it resolves: itself we'll lift the suspension," he said. Are You Considering a Career in Health? Consider the advantages of earning a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is offering an exciting opportunity to become a public health professional specializing in the prevention and control of disease, particularly chronic disease. 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In an interview with The Mich- igan Daily yesterday, Coleman expanded on her remarks, prais- ing both Steward for his work at the University and saying she looks forward to what Rosa will be able to do once he arrives on campus. "I was just so compelled by his vision and the way in which he had thought about an art muse- um that is part of an academic set- ting," Coleman said. "Many of the ideas that he has relate to getting academic departments involved." Coleman added that the reno- vated museum will allow Rosa to continue to innovate at the muse- um. "It's just a terrific opportunity for Joetocome in and really make a big statement about the Univer- sity of Michigan in the art world," she said. In a statement released yester- day, Rosasaid he was excited tobe coming to the University. "I am thrilled and honored to be given this wonderful oppor- tunity to lead the University of Michigan Museum of Art into the future at this very special time in its history," he said in a statement. Prior to his current position with the Art Institute of Chi- cago, Rosa was a curator the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, a curator at the Heinz Archi- tectural Center at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. He also worked as the chief curator at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. and as the director of the Columbia Archi- tecture Galleries in New York. Rosa has curated more than 30 exhibitions and written 14 books, including works that have appeared in Architectural Design, Assemblage, Casabell, Oculus, Praxis and Progressive Architecture.