4A - Monday, January 31, 2011 The Michigan Daily -- michigandaily.com 4A - Monday, January 31, 2011 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom e it igan 4a Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com DANIEL GOLD E-MAIL DANIEL AT DWGOLD@UMICH.EDU twikery*twitter @thebeatles @egyptppl E5The Beatles Egyptian People @egyptppl You say you @thebeatles We all want to want a revolution? change the world. RT@egyptppl 20 minutes ago via the web You say you want a revolution? 1 minutes ago via unknown 0 0 STEPHANIE STEINBERG EDITOR IN CHIEF MICHELLE DEWITT and EMILY ORLEY EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS KYLE SWANSON MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. Detroit vs. the suburbs City and neighbors must co-manage water system Due to a recent decision made by Oakland County and neigh- boring suburbs, the city of Detroit may be hung out to dry. Last Wednesday, Oakland County made a federal request to implement a new oversight structure for the Detroit Water and Sewer- age Department. The department has recently come under heavy scru- tiny from state and national leaders due to its history of corruption and mismanagement. Though the department has been mismanaged, the city of Detroit should remain in control of the department. Detroit and its suburbs must agree to share oversight of the department in order to ensure an equal share of authority and financial liability. Life is full of evaluations 0 Early last week, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing met with regional leaders about the status of the city's Water and Sewerage Department, according to a Jan. 27 Detroit News article. The meeting took place after Oakland County filed a federal lawsuit calling for a new over- sight board for the department. The Detroit Water Department has been criticized for its lack of oversight and longstanding corrup- tion. Control over the department has come into question after it played a central role in former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's racketeering conspiracy indictment. Oakland County's proposed board would replace the current oversight committee that's composed of seven members, who are appointed by the mayor, with a five member board including Detroit's mayor and representatives from dif- ferent counties in Southeast Michigan. The Detroit Water Department has been mismanaged under former oversight commit-_ tees, so the concerns being voiced by groups from the suburbs aren't completely unfound' ed. The city of Detroit controls ulti mil- lion-dollar department that supplies water to nearly all Southeastern Michigan. Any problems with the department affect a wide range of people, and Detroit leaders need to acknowledge there are problems that need to be addressed within the system. While representatives from Oakland County and other suburbs are correct in recognizing that things must change at the water department, taking away power from Detroit isn't a viable plan. Detroit bears the financial burden for the multi million-dollar department, and the proposed change would leave the city with that liability but give offi- cials no authority over the functioning of the system. The suburbs and the city of Detroit must come to a compromise that holds the department's leaders to a higher standard, yet also allows Detroit to have a central role in its operation. The new water system should include input from regional municipalities, but the current state House bill being considered unfairly allocates authority. Oakland County and other suburbs that use Detroit's water need to have an influence in the department's decisions,but House Bill 4112 lets too much power rest in the hands of the suburbs. A compromise on this issue is in the best interest of the water depart- ment, And it will foster a spirit of cooperation between the different suburbs and the city of Detroit. There is progress to be made in the infra- structure of Detroit, but stripping city officials of authority in that decision isn't the way to go about it. Detroit needs to work its way back to being a hub city in Michigan, and regional cooperation will help make that happen. or eminently understand- able reasons, arguments and proposals about undergradu- ate course selec- tion, grading and other related issues tend to dominate this editorial page (e.g. Viewpoint: Abolish letter grading, 12/5/10; Viewpoint: Test NEILL our GSI's before MOHAMMAD they test us, 12/12/10; Jeff Wojcik: Not enough course guidance, 1/4/11; Eric Szkarlat: Attendance (not) mandatory, 1/19/11; Jeff Wojcik: Test drive your class 1/17/11). I can certainly see the value in wantingto improve and refine under- graduate instruction at the Universi- ty. It's an important topic now more than ever. The Chronicle of Higher Education cited a recent study that found only six of 10 American under- graduates will see their performance on a standardized skills test - the Collegiate Learning Assessment - improve over the course of a four- year bachelor's degree. If there are recurring and unnecessary barriers to student achievement at the Uni- versity, then we certainly ought to be addressing them. That said, it's difficult not to read a disingenuous subtext into - just to piekone example - Jeff Wojcik's proposal for "the incorporation of Michigan Student Assembly's Advice Online right into the course guide, so you can make informed choices about how helpful and dif- ficult your professors might be." The implication, presumably, is that simply knowing the course subject, its content and the various factors that will go into the grading process for a course aren't enough to make a decision. That's all covered by the syllabus you're handed on the first day of class. The risk, if I under- stand this implication correctly, is getting stuck with a GSI or profes- sor who will give you a lower grade - ignoringyour work ethic and your aptitude - than someone else. And,. of course, you're here to get good grades, if not for your own sake, then for your parents' or your future employers'. Here's where I should make a con- fession: I've written three different drafts of this column. The first time, I drew on my teaching experience at the University to write a column fitting a company man to the bitter end. I said that grades are assigned anonymously whenever possible, departments make every effort to ensure consistency across sections and between semesters, GSI's make every effort to address serious grade complaints or grievances, and so on and so on. The second time through, I wrote it satirically: Since course evalua- tions are themselves a type of grade - a grade that you give to your pro- fessor or GSI, which will go into their "permanent record" and are typically requested when apply- ing for academic positions - what recourse do they have? If you're will- ing to believe that there are instruc- tors who give their students unfair grades, don't we have to also account for students who give their ivustruc- tors unfair evaluations? I would love to know what particular kind of hell would be unleashed if instructors got to consult a similar rating scale and admit students to their courses and discussion section accordingly. In the end,:I settled on a different track and my point is this: Shopping for an instructor who you think is going to give you a better grade - for reasons that are completely dis- tinct fromyour effort and talent - is self-defeating. Not because the set of assumptions you make in doing so are implausible on their face - even though they are - but because it ignores a basic fact of life: "Grades" don't end with college. Someone is going to be evaluating you and your work, in some fashion or another, for the rest of your life, and you will rarely, if ever, get to pick who those people are. Thinking that the key to your academic record rests in pick- ing the easy courses and instructors over the "hard" ones fosters an illu- sion of control over your life that is never going to stand up under any other conceivable set of circum- stances after leaving the University. Shopping for an instructor is self-defeating. You might leave Ann Arbor and end up working for a boss you don't like. You might get an unwarranted negative performance review that leads to a missed promotion. You, might open your own business, only to have a few unreasonable custom- ers poison its reputatio -Simething will happen, inevitably, and there won't be any opportunity to appeal: No department chair, no dean of stu- dents. You might even go into teaching and get an unfair course evaluation. Wouldn't that be something? -Neill Mohammad can be reached at neilla@umich.edu. 0 0 EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Aida Ali, Will Butler, Eaghan Davis, Michelle DeWitt, Ashley Griesshammer, Erika Mayer, Harsha Nahata, Emily Orley, Harsha Panduranga, Teddy Papes, Roger Sauerhaft, Seth Soderborg, Andrew Weiner 0 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor. Letters should be fewer than 300 words and must include the writer's full name and University affiliation. We do not print anonymous letters. Send letters to tothedaily@michigandaily.com SEND LETTERS TO: TOTHEDAILY@MICHIGANDAILY.COM Students aren't receptive to department accommodations TO THE DAILY: The Daily's article about class enrollment (Students Struggle to Enroll in 'U' Courses, 01/27/2011) contained a rather whopping misrepresentation about alleged enrollment problems in my department - Communica- tion Studies. Because we're a very popular concentration, students do sometimes have trouble getting into our classes. But just before the start of this term, we saw that we were facing enormous enrollment pressures, so the department added several sections to our more over-subscribed classes, an additional seminar and numerous faculty added extra seats to their upper-level seminars for a total of more than 150 additional spots. Yet, as evidence of our alleged unrespon- siveness to student needs, you cited an LSA student, who claimed to have had "major issues" trying to enroll in our courses. While she said she got into COMM 101 and 102 "by luck" - an enrollment procedure with which I am unfamiliar - she had "no chance" of get- ting into COMM 211. In fact, the student was notified that two additional sections had been created specifically forthis class, bothofwhich fit with her schedule. They were, however, on Thursday evening and Friday morning, times that I realize can interfere with preparation for, or recovery from, a night out at Rick's. The student chose not to enroll in either of these sections, so it's indeed wise that she "wouldn't file a complaint." She did volunteer, however, that she "would consider giving the comm department some constructive criticism." As a chair who watches approximately 15 faculty handle nearly 1,500 students a term, all I can say is "looking forward." Of course it's very frustrating when stu- dents cannotgetinto classes they want or need. Our department actually cares about this and to allege that we shut students out when just the opposite occurred is to do an injustice to a very hard-working faculty and staff. Susan Douglas Department of Communication Studies chair TIMOTHY HALL | A burdensome ban 0 SIMON BORST E-MAIL SIMON AT SIMKAL@UMICH.EDU The campus-wide Smoking-Free Initiative has been ers to pick up the habit. , a source of controversy since President Mary Sue Cole- This, however, isn't simply a question of morality. man penned it on her Johnson & Johnson stationary set Michigan's unemployment rate is one of the worst - owing to the totalitarian manner in which it became in the country because the states's economy was one law, the size of the demographic it will affect and how of the hardest hit by the recession. We're part of an University officials propose to enforce it. Though the era in which students share desks and teachers find validity of the law is debatable, I wish to address two other jobs. With this in mind, how can any gratuitous recent developments regarding the smoking ban: the spending be justified? More specifically, how can the idea of enforcing laws with "peer pressure" and the most prominent public university in Michigan spend $240,805 allotted for its implementation. - $240,805 on the implementation of an executive order A quote from St. Thomas Aquinas - made famous by with shaky foundations and a proposed enforcement Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his "Letter From a Bir- battalion of student-nares? Schools all over our state mingham Jail" - asserts that "any law that degrades are cutting positions and programs, but we're adding a human personality is unjust." Though King uses this salaried overseer to manage what, exactly? Enforcing passage to support his argument against segregation, this new law? No, they've left that up to us, the stu- it very much applies to the situation at hand. In King's dents, who out of hundreds of other schools, chose to circumstances, his interpretation is that a law passed spend four years at the University, expecting to find by those in authority, enforced by the same authority the welcoming atmosphere it claims to provide. and that degrades the human personality of those it Keeping in mind that what Mussolini did to Italy will be applied to is unjust. was considered legal in his day, and Egyptian civil- In July 2011, the University will place the burden of ians protesting the dictatorial, nearly 30-year rule of enforcing this initiative on us, the students. What is President Hosni Mubarak is a punishable offense, let peer pressure but a means of unjust influence? What us not dote on the justness of this smoking initiative. is the use of unjust influence but a degradation of We know by now that injustice is a natural byproduct human personality? For our own officials to encour- of government, deliberate or not. However, the fact age the practice of peer pressure is something that I that the ban has caused University officials to institute will never understand and would never expect anyone a policy of peer pressure on our campus and to spend else to. The people hired to manage the University, an $240,805 of our ever-diminishing budget, is grounds institution I trust to hold the best wishes of its students for revocation of this initiative, or at the very least, a in mind, hope to separate our campus and reduce us serious reformation. to mere whistleblowers-and bullies, through the very same practice of peer pressure that caused many smok- Timothy Hall is ans LSA sophomore. 0 0 s