I
he Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Monday, November 15, 2010 -- 3A
EWS BRIEFS
ORT HURON, Mich.
aughter charged
or stabbing parents
The 17-year-old daughter of
wo Michigan stabbing victims
nd two other teenagers were
'harged yesterday with multiple
urder counts in the small-town
ttack that killed the girl's father
nd seriously wounded her moth-
pr.
Tia Marie-Mitchell Skinner
nd Jonathan Kurtz and James
reston, both 18 and from Avoca,
were charged at the St. Clair
ounty Jail with open murder,
attempted murder and conspira-
y. The open murder charge gives
prosecutors the option to amend
it to first-degree murder.
Police said two intruders
in Halloween masks climbed
hrough a window Thursday night
and attacked Paul and Mara Skin-
ner in their Yale home as they lay
in bed. Tia Marie-Mitchell Skin-
ner, the couple's adopted daugh-
ter, was in the home along with a
visiting son in his 20s.
Police do not believe the son
was involved in the attack.
PHOENIX
Ariz. voters legalize
medical marijuana
in close vote
By a narrow margin, Arizona
voters have given their OK to legal-
ized medical marijuana for people
with chronic or debilitating dis-
eases.
The decision makes Arizona
the 15th state to approve a medical
marijuana law. California was the
first in 1996, and 13 other states and
Washington, D.C., have followed
suit.
Proposition 203 won by just
4,341 votes out of more than 1.67
million ballots counted, according
to final tallies Saturday.
Approval came as somewhat of a
surprise after the measure started
out losing on Election Day by about
7,200 votes.
The gap gradually narrowed
until it surged ahead during Fri-
day's count by more than 4,000
votes. Saturday's final count was
841,346 in favor of the measure and
837,005 opposed.
JACKSON, Miss.
FBI: M-an believed
dead arrested on
kidnapping charges
A man who was declared legal-
ly dead 16 years ago in Mississip-
pi was arrested yesterday in the
kidnapping of a slain Las Vegas
girl whose body was found in the
woods of central Louisiana, the
FBI said.
FBI spokeswoman Sheila
Thorne said Thomas Steven Sand-
ers was arrested early yesterday at
a truck stop in Gulfport, Miss. The
arrest capped a massive manhunt
in a bizarre case that stretched
across the country.
Court documents obtained
by The Associated Press show
Sanders abandoned his family in
1987 and was declared dead by a
Mississippi court 1994. He lived
unnoticed for years despite being
arrested several times.
Sanders, 53, was wanted in the
kidnapping 12-year-old Lexis Rob-
erts, whose skeleton was found
by hunters early last month. Her
31-year-old mother, Suellen Rob-
erts, is missing. Officials say she
is not a suspect in her daughter's
death - and they hope she has not
met with foul play.
ATHENS, Greece
Socialists win two
largest cities in
mayoral elections
Greece's governing Social-
ists have won mayoral races in
Greece's two largest cities for the
first time in 24 years, extending
gains in local government elec-
tions.
Socialist-backed mayoral can-
didates Giorgos Kaminis and
Yiannis Boutaris won in the capi-
tal Athens and the northern city
of Thessaloniki, interrupting a
streak of conservative victories
dating back to 1986.
Prime Minister George Papan-
dreou praised yesterday's result as
a vote of confidence in his auster-
ity program ahead of an inspec-
tion by EU and IMF officials on the
implementation of a rescue loan
agreement worth eurotto billion
($150 billion).
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports.
TU'REHANSHAR-MAN/Dail )
The Food Gatherers pantry on Friday. The organization is working to address an increase demarnd for "heir servies.
GATHERERS ON
A MISSION
Food Gatherers, the largest food bank in
Washtenaw County, is working to fight a
138-percent spike in demand
ENROLLMENT
From Page 1A
Nina Grant, director of Multi-
Ethnic Student Affairs, said that
while University officials are
pleased with the number of under-
represented minority students who
are offered admission, they have
been working over the past year to
increase the number that accepts
admission.
In the past few years, even as
the number of underrepresented
minority students who accept offers
of admission has risen, the number
who actually enrolled has decreased
-a trend that has changed lhisyear.
As part of the effort to reverse
this, Grant said MESA met with
members of the office of the Pro-
vost, the Office of Undergraduate
Admissions and the Center for Edu-
cational Outreach each month dur-
ing the 2009-2010 academic year to
provide students with a way to "con-
nectto the recruitmentefforts."
When asked whether or not she
was pleased with the level of diver-
sity on campus, Grant commented
on the relative nature of the word.
Diversity, Granttsaid, "is like cold. If
Igrew up inFlorida and I'mhere, it's
freezing cold to me, but if I'm from
the Midwest this is a pretty good
day. So I think diversity is a rela-
tive term-it's basedon somebody's
experience and exposure."
Nonetheless, Grant stressed
her approval of the "strong com-
mitment" by students, faculty and
administrators to increasing diver-
sity. "It makes me proud to be part
of an institution that has that level of
commitment," she said.
Andrea Hernandez, a third-year
law student and co-chair of the Lati-
no Law Students Association, sug-
gested that to increase thenumberiof
accepted underrepresented minority
students who choose to enroll, the
University might consider offering
more application fee waivers, schol-
arships and financial aid.
"I don't doubt that everyone is
working hard," Hernandez said,
"but the bottom line is that minori-
ties are still in the minority, and we
still have a long way to go in achiev-
ing a more diverse student body."
LSA senior Samantha Martin,
the Black Student Union spokes-
person, echoed Hernandez's sen-
timents, saying she would like to
see more results from the Uni-
versity's efforts to attract under-
represented minority students.
Martin said that while numbers
have increased since last year, the
general trend over the past several
years has been a downward one.
Martin also discussed the need
for better efforts to retain under-
represented minority students once
they decide to enroll.
"I still see a lack of attention to
those students as they come in,
and a lack of active retention," she
said. "Many people I knew when I
came in aren't here now, and that's
a problem."
Martin suggested that retention
could be improved with a greater
effort to educate students about
racism on campus. She said many
courses that fulfill LSA's race and
ethnicity requirement do not ade-
quately address racism and cited
this as a possible contributing factor
to bias incidents.
LSA junior Alys Alley, co-chair of
the Native American Student Asso-
ciation, said NASA works hard to
recruit and retain American Indian
students at the University through
programs like Michigan Indian Stu-
dents Achieving Great Educations.
As part of the program, high
school seniors are invited to spend
a day with NASA members, who
take them around campus, explain
the financial aid process and offer
suggestions for writing application
essays.
Since Michigan voters passed a
ballot initiative in 2006 that banned
affirmative action, Alley said that
NASA has had a tough time attract-
ing students to the University.
"Proposal 2 really hindered the
University's abilityto recruit under-
representediminority students sowe
now have to get creative," she said.
in addition to an increase in
underrepresented minority stu-
dents, the University also had the
largest enrollment in its history
this year. Students, professors and
officials said they felt having more
students enrolled at the University
might harm the campus environ-
ment, particularly in terms of hous-
ing and one-on-one interaction
between students and faculty.
University President Mary Sue
Coleman said the spike in enroll-
ment "isn't a planned increase in the
student population," according to a
September article in The Michigan
Daily.
"We've been working on trying
to shrink a little bit and some years
we've been more successful then
others in holding the line," Cole-
man said in the article. "I mean, I'm
thrilled that so manypeople wantto
come to the University of Michigan,
but we also have to be very cogni-
zant of the experience students get
and we want that to beaa good expe-
rience. "
Associate English Prof. Susan
Najita echoed Coleman's sentiments
saying she noticed an increased
demand in freshman English semi-
nars this semester, resulting in more
waitlisted students and more stu-
dents being turned away from sc-
tions.
If more students are to be
enrolled at the University, she said,
tuition money should be spent on
educational resources. But she said
she also approves of the increased
student body size because it serves
to "democratize access to educa-
tion."
"I'd be happy if they opened it
even further," she said.
Paul Kessenich, assistant pro-
fessor of mathematics, said he
and other faculty members in the
mathematics department have also
noticed an increase in demand for
courses, and suggested the increase
may be hurting the quality of stu-
dents' educations.
"Sometimes getting 25 people
to listen at the same time versus 32
people - it's just seven more people
- but it can be an issue, and it has
been for some of our instructors,"
Kessenich said.
LSA junior Lisa Blaskwski said
she supports the idea of reducing
enrollment.
"It reflects positively on the Uni-
versity if we have these high stan-
dards," she said:
Apurva Lingnurkar, a first-year
graduate student in chemical egi-
neering, said he also supports a
reduction in enrollment because it
puts undergraduates in larger aca-
demic programs at a disadvantage.
Lingnurkar said he wouldn't like
to see the University recruit too
many more students "because then
it becomes theArizona State model,
where you get as many students as
possible in order to make money."
By DAVID BUCCILLI
Daiiy Staff Reporter
in a warehouse three miles
north of the Michigan Union, a
committed group of volunteers
distributes more than 9,000 meals
to 43,000 Washtenaw County
residents.
The meals are prepared at Food
Gatherers, the primary food bank
in Washtenaw County, where
more than 5,000 volunteers work
to alleviate local hunger. Mary
Schlitt, the Food Gatherers's
director of development, said stu-
dent volunteers and University
programs like the School of Public
Health play a considerable role in
assisting the organization.
Since 2006, the number of
the bank's food recipients has
increased 138 percent, and more
than 14,000 children receised
emergency food last year,
according to Schlitt. Facing that
increased demand, Food Gather-
ers is working to meet it.
Aunt Millie's, known for its logo
of a silhouette of a woman serving
a loaf of bread, donated and deliv-
ered 2,400 loaves of Butter Top
Wheat Bread Friday morning to
Food Gatherers.
At the warehouse on Friday,
Greg Fanslau, branch manager for
Aunt Millie's bakeries, said Aunt
Millie's was "very happy to give
the donation and help out in any
way possible."
In addition to businesses,
government programs like the
Michigan Agricultuiral Surplus
System - a partnership between
food banks, the state government
and farmers - donate to the food
bank. Last week, the MASS gave
thousands of apples to Food Gath-
erers.
Zingerman's i)elicatessen
founded Food Gatherers in 1998
to help feed hungry people in Ann
Arbor. 'Fhe warehouse was origi-
nally located in an abandoned
slaughterhouse but the large
amount of donations quickly filled
the building to capacity, Schlitt
said. In 1997, Food Gatherer's
expanded its services to all of
Washtenaw County.
Beyond the entrance of the
warehouse, sits an exotic display
of foods that includes canned rat-
tlesnake, buffalo, elk and alligator
as well as blueberry pizza topping,
octopus and squid. It's an "exotic
museum," Schlitt said, explaining
tha these donated foods aren't
given to the public.
In addition to the more bizarre
foods, the warehouse is full of
nonperishable foods, including
cans of chili, sweet corn, beans
and applesauce stacked out of eye-
sight.
Every year, nearly 5 million
pounds of food travel through the
warehouse doors and into hungry
mouths.
While a lot of the food is donat-
ed from the United States Depart-
ment of Agriculture and Federal
Emergency Management Agency,
Food Gatherer's also purchases
food in bulk.
Though the USDA is one of
their largest donors, Schlitt said
donations were down this year,
which required the organization
to push for more local donations
and purchase more food to meet
the connrnnuity's needs.
According to Schlitt, Food
Gatherer's receives emergency
boxes of food from Washtenaw
County's Employment Trairning
& Community Services to give to
residents who have "hit rock bot-
torn" and dont "have any food in
the pantry."
One ETCS box contained pasta,
applesauce, milk, cheese, canned
meats, and more.
"Lots of stable foods." Schlitt
said. "Nutritious. Ready-to-eat."
'fwo rows of shelves remained
partly empty, and Schlitt said
they hope to fill the space with
donations from food drives Food
Gatherers will host with Kroger,
Busch's Fresh Food Market and
Whole Foods Market in the
upcoming weeks. According to
Schlitt, more than 15 Ocommunity
programs work with Food Gather-
erls.
Next to 25 trays stacked with
onions, workers sorted through
produce like squash, cauliflow-
er and organic bananas. A man
walked by pushing a cart of large
blue barrels given to local business-
es to display for food donations.
A large walk-in cooler contains
perishable goods like strawber-
ries, cheese and pre-packaged
meals from local businesses.
Schliti said Fiood Gatherers
has a 24-to 48-hour turnaround
period to empty and restock the
goods because of their short shelf
life and space constraints.
"We are basically at capacity,"
she said.
Toward the back of the ware-
house is a shopping pantry, like a
mini-market, where agencies are
given credits and are allowed to
purchase goods for people with
specialized diets - including veg-
etarian and gluten-free - that
they assist.
They can also purchase treats
for children, like bags of candy or
boxes of Razzle Blue Blitz Fruitby
the Foot.
While the sweets are popular,
Schlitt said the main mission is
to provide healthy food for the
needy.
"41ur belief right now is not only
to feed people but to feed people
nutritious foods," Schlitt said.
"We feel that investing in people's
health is a great investnent into
the community,"
More than 100 new reps.
make way to Washington
F m F
208 E. Washington St. Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 997-7030 www.salonxicom
F t'ring Producls by
-RS
MMOK U
Freshmen members
of Congress adapt to
new career and life
on Capitol Hill
WASHINGTON (AP)-- Where
to live? Whom to hire? What's a
voting cardard and where are the
bathrooms?
More than 100 nembers of
Congress arrive in Washington
this comingsweek for the first time
since winning election, trading
the loftiness of camrnpaign speech-
es for mundane lessons in how to
do their new jobs.
It's freshman orientation oin
Capitol Hill, and the larger-than-
usual class of 2010 is getting a
crash course oi how to navigate
the next two years.
Talk of changing the nation's
direction? That's oiln the back
burner for now. The newly elec ted
House members -85 Republi-
cans, a meager nine Democrats
_- need actual directions around
their new workplace. The Senate
is having its own orientation at
the same time.
Instead ofAmericanexception-
alism, his election night theine,
Rep.-elect Tim Scott, R-S.C., is
focused on Washington's excep-
tional rental prices.
"Nothing here is affordable,
is what I've learned," says Scott,
who migit share an apartment
with classmates.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.,
told supporters in his victory
speech that lie would "stand
strong in the epic battle that we
have in front of us to take back
our country." But come today,
Kinzinger will be looking for a
one-bedroom apartment, setting
up an interview with a prospec-
tive chief of staff and figuring out
whether he wants to deal with a
commte or live within walkinng
distance of the Capitol.
Even before the freshmen learn
laNw making, theyll be figuring out
how to live with a new set ofrules,
cnstOmms and rituals. Here to help:
an array of congressional commit-
tes and veterans, and a constella-
tion of foundations and lobbyists.
The second-ranking Republi-
can, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia,
had a 144-page book in the mail
to new members within hours of
Electioni Day. "Hit The Ground
Running" explains the nuts and
bolts of setting up a cnmgressio-
nal office, hiring staff, mnanaging
the office budget and being an
employer. It also offers some gen-
eral rules of the road.
"Do: G(et answers for any ethi-
cal questions you may have if you
are in doubt," according to the
manual, ai updated version of
one originally sent out by former
House Republican leader Dick
Armey, R-Texas.
"Don't: Completely disappear
from the public" between Elec-
tion Day and the new Congress.
"Even though you won't take
office until annuary, many of your
constitunts mwill view you as their
irebnimer of Congress."