The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Tuesday, January 18, 2011- 5A RODRIGUEZ * From Pagel1A "I'm really hoping it brings a sense of hope," Aren wrote. "Some sense of life goes on." Aren added that he is very thankful Rodriguez thought of the * Salvation Army. "He was very gracious when he donated," Aren wrote. "(He) gave the best wishes to anybody who might be encouraged or might ben- efitas a result of the proceeds." LSA senior Max Aidenbaum attended Saturday's event and said he doubted whether the items had more value because Rodriguez once owned them. "I guess (it's) just for the humor aspect, not really for added value in terms of a keepsake that brings back good memories," Aidenbaum said. Farmington Hills, Mich. resi- dent Jack Kramer, who won a Uni- versity of Michigan Golf Polo for $130 at the auction, said he was happy to beat out other attendees in a close bidding race. "I'm not sure if it was worth the price, but it was worth the pride," Kramer said. "It'll be kind of cool out on the golf course with a little story behind it." Toledo, Ohio resident Elaine Covert said she was happy to be at the event and was impressed Rodri- guez chose to donate the items. "I think it was a classy way for him to exit," Covert said. MLK From Page 1A the initiative to end injustice. "Some of us have had the oppor- tunity and therefore, we can live a better life," she said. "But we have to always think about those who do not have (opportunities) and we have to do whatever we can, wherever we are, to make life bet- ter for all of us." Sherrod said it's time for people to come together regardless of skin color and cooperate to enact change. "We may be different colors, but when you pull the covers off, we are all justhuman beings who have the capacity to love, the capacity to work together, the capacity to make where we live the best place in the world," she said. LSA junior Justin Baerwolf, who attended the event, said, for him, the speech was a Call to action, and inspired him to get involved in the greater University community. "I thought she did a really good job of applying it to more than just the civil rights movement," Baer- wolf said. "I'm not really involved in a lot of student (organizations), and I'm going to go home and probably immediately work on building my college experience to be more than just about serving myself." At a separate event yesterday, Berry, a sociologist and author, discussed the power of King's MESA-Trotter House celebrates 40 years of community on campus Vice Provost Lester Monts announces $10,000 donation to multicultural center By PAIGE PEARCY For the Daily A large group of students, alumni, faculty and guests gath- ered Sunday to celebrate the anniversary of the Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs and the William Monroe Trotter Multicultural Center. Since their founding, MESA and the Trot- ter House have aimed to promote acceptance and multicultural development by informing and supporting University student organizations. By mid-afternoon on Sunday, about 70 people joined the anni- versary celebration at the Trot- ter House on Washtenaw Avenue. Visitors were greetedby the sound of jazz music to celebrate the com- mencement of the year-long com- memoration. Multiple speakers, singers, rappers and students expressed their gratitude and reflections about the organization and the center at the event. Evans Young, LSA assistant dean for undergraduate educa- tion and the opening speaker at the event, said that throughout the center's 40-year history, there have been two constant factors - challenges working with "very limited budgets" and the dedica- tion of community members. "In the face of those budgets and just by the nature of the peo- ple involved, a history of very cre- ative staff, students and faculty engaged in making this a home for students of color at the University of Michigan," Young said. MESA and the Trotter Mul- ticultural Center started in 1971 after the Black Action Movement sponsored demonstrations at the University. The series of events prompted awareness of a need for a campus organization for black students in which impor- tant issues could be addressed. In 1981, the organization expanded to include students of all races and ethnicities. Lester Monts, the University's senior vice provost for academic affairs, said at the event that stu- dent protest was "very effective in bringing about change" during MESA and Trotter's beginnings. Monts ended his address by donating $10,000 of his office's budget to MESA and Trotter House's newly-established annual fund. Henry Johnson, vice president emeritus of Student Services at the University, told the audience of the progress the organization has made to achieve its current position on campus. "I think the corner has been turned and Trotter House is beginning to fulfill its mission as a multicultural programming site," Johnson said. MESA aids numerous student organizations including- events organized by sorority Delta Tau Lambda - a traditionally Latina sorority that represents all women of color. LSA sophomore Guadalupe Ayala, a member of Delta Tau Lambda, said she decided to attend Sunday's event to support her sorority sister who spoke on the student panel. Ayala said she also wanted to show her appre- ciation for MESA helping the sorority with multiple events and programming. "(Trotter House is) a place where we can come and actually be heard and supported to put up our events on campus," she said The University of Michigan Gospel Chorale, formerly the Uni- versity of Michigan Black Gospel Choir, performed at the event, and was followed by reflections from faculty and students involved with MESA. LSA senior Jessica Perez spoke on a student panel that discussed the influence MESA and the Trot- ter House have had on students' lives and the future of the organi- zation. "I think it's time for MESA- Trotter, especially with this 40-year mark, to see where they have come from but not to stop," Perez said. "There's a lot of hard issues just waiting (to be addressed) ... and I think it's time." Rackham student Kya Man- grum said she came to the event not knowing much about MESA's or the Trotter House's history. "I was really impressed by the sense of community here - the sense that people felt at home here," Mangrum said. "It was enlightening, and I think it's going to encourage me to come visit more." JED MOCH/Daily An auctioneer at the Salvation Army in Wayne, Mich. auctions off former Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez's Michigan apparel on Saturday, Jan.15, 2011. rhetoric to affect change. The rea- son King's speeches were inspira- tional, Berry said, is that he would spend hours critically thinking about his words in order to deliver them effectively. "It's amazing to me that we don't think about King as a great thinker, we think about him as a man of faith," Berry said. "But have you ever read the letter from the Birmingham jail where he cites and crosses out and corrects his own stuff from his own mind? This is a thinker." Berry also spoke about the role of technology in today's society. According to Berry, while the current generation may be more technologically advanced than their elders, younger people lack wisdom. Because of this, she said it is the job of the older generation to guide the younger generation. "Some of us (elders) are so frus- trated with you, but it is our job to go, 'Yes, it should be your call to go forward faster than I can go, but not so fast,"' Berry said. Engineering freshman Trebec- ca McDonald said Berry inspired her to think critically about her ideas and the importance of King's message. "I thought she did a really good job at trying to make us think and trying to open our minds, so we not only look at (King's) speeches and memorize the words for how powerful they were, but to actu- ally know that they had meaning and that they were a thought pro- cess," McDonald said. She said she thought Berry's message will also help her in her learning process. "It will impact (my studies) because it will help me to not take things at face value," McDonald said. "Especially in the College of Engineering where you have to do problem solving and you have to kind of think outside of the box." In addition to Sherrod and Berry's speeches, the symposium also featured several lectures and activities throughout the day, including performances on the Diag in an hour-long event titled "Circle of Unity." University alum Robin Gold- berg, the event coordinator, said the festivities were developed so that students could engage in civil rights issues and talk about how they impact their future. "The event is meant to give peo- ple and groups a chance to express their hopes for the future and dis- cuss their experience of the civil rights movement," Goldberg said. The symposium also included a poetry slam titled "We the Peo- ple." The performance featured Ann Arbor native Angel Nafis, who discussed her experiences growing up as "an African Ameri- can girl in a predominantly white society." Actress Val Gray Ward also spoke at the event, narrating historical events and struggles in the civil rights movement. "I definitely think that the arts are a way of impacting the com- munity positively," Ward said in an interview after the show. PANHANDLING From Page 1A discussions into policy. "We'll need to involve the Uni- versity community," Briere said. "Every year there is something like six or seven thousand new University members, and these are people who have no long-term ties to Ann Arbor ... they aren't familiar with what's common." The task force plans to remedy this problem by annually supplying information to the public, speifi- cally new students at the Univer- sity, so that they are informed about how to respond to panhan- dlers without offering money. Briere said the task force has also recommended that information on panhandling in the city should be provided at the University's new student orientation, in the Uni- versity's student handbook, on the University and city of Ann Arbor websites, as well as displayed in State Street store windows. Briere described the internal struggleofindividualsapproached by panhandlers - whether to dis- cuss housing, food and addiction treatment options with them or simply give them money. Often people choose to give money with- out understanding that, for many panhandlers, addiction is usually the real problem, she said. There are a number of pro- grams in Ann Arbor and the sur- rounding area, Briere said, like Dawn Farm - a shelter for alcohol abuse - and programs through the court system to ensure addicts get help instead of jail time. "People who are feeling sorry for someone who says, 'I'm hun- gry, I'm homeless, I need a bus ticket out of here,' may think they're providing .something, but they're really only providing money so somebody can feed their addiction," she said. While some panhandlers pres- ent signs claiming hunger and homelessness, Briere said holding a sign-doesn't necessarily mean an individual has a problem finding food or shelter. Many panhandlers make more than $100 a day, and have their own residences, Briere explained. "It's not about being homeless: Most panhandlers are not seeking money because they need to pay the rent," Briere said. According to Briere, many pan- handlers have shelter available to them, but choose to" avoid these locations because they have rules the panhandlers are unwilling to follow.. She added that one contributing factor to the panhandling problem is the increase of panhandlers coming from beyond Ann Arbor. Collaboration with local mer- chants is another goal of the task force. Calling the police is one option, but conversation between store' owners and panhandlers about solicitation laws and ensuring that customers aren't being bothered is another way to improve the situation, Briere said. She said this also requires cooperation between neighbor- ing businesses and their clients - something that happens more on Main Street than on State Street and South University Avenue. "The businesses are less orga- nized, less interactive - or so I understand from speaking with them ..." Briere said. "It's going to be interesting to change that out- reach between the businesses so they work with each other." Maggie Ladd, chair of the origi- nal panhandling task force and a current member of the present task force, said the task force did a good job the first time in reduc- ing the amount of people giv- ing money to panhandlers. But because businesses in the area have changed over time, there's a need to revitalize the distribution of information on the-issue. "I think that when the task force stopped, perhaps we didn't continue distributing that infor- mation as well as we could have," said Ladd, who is also the execu- tive director of the South Univer- sity Area Association. This time, however, the task force faces a new issue. In 2003, the city had community policing in place, which involved having police officers on bicycles in the downtown area during both the day arid night. And while police officers on call are still available, Ladd said the city needs to find a substitute for the community patrol part of the program. "By virtue of losingthose, we've lost a lot of the ability to do that enforcement ... These community police officers were there all the time, and they interacted with the panhandlers, they knew them and so that's the piece I feel personally is missing." Sgt. Mike Lance of the Ann Arbor Police Department said the removal of officers was due to a reduction in personnel with the AAPD losing more than 100 staff members in recent years. However, the University's Department of Public Safety has University police officers patrol Central Campus during the sum- mer months. Sales and solicitation of any kind in a University build- ing or on campus grounds must be given written permission, accord- ing to.article 9, sections 1 and 2 of the University Regents' Ordinance. DPS spokeswoman Diane Brown said that while University Police could issue a citation for violation of the Regents' Ordi- nance or arrest panhandlers if they became aggressive, in most cases, officers simply ask them to move along. In certain situations, Brown said, officers ask panhan- dlers to leave University grounds. REGENTS From Page 1A the University's research funding, totaling about $750 million in fis- cal year 2010 - an increase of 14.7 percent from the preceding year. Additionally, the University received $301.1 million in federal stimulus funds to be used in fis- cal years 2010 and 2011. Accord- ing to the report, the stimulus money has funded more than 547 research projects at the Univer- sity. University President Mary Sue Coleman said in an interview last month that the University has a strong relationship with the fed- eral government. "Throughout my whole career I've been at a number of research universities and Michigan is the one, I think, that takes advantage of the fact that our faculty have a partnership with the federal gov- ernment to do research - some of it's basic, some of it's more applied," Coleman said. REGENTS TO APPROVE $1.5 BOARD TO CONSIDER $2.5 MILLION UPGRADE TO ISR MILLION UTILITY TUNNEL BUILDING RENOVATION The regents will also deliberate about $4 million worth of cam- pus construction projects at their meeting Thursday. Among the projects to be con- sidered is a $1.5 million improve- ment to the fire suppression system in the existing Institute for Social Research building, colloquially called Wing One. In a communication to the regents, Tim Slottow, the Univer- sity's executive vice president and chief financial officer, wrote that the new fire suppression system will allow for an addition to the ISR building to be built without a fire separationhwall between the addition and the existing struc- ture. The regents approved the tSR addition in July 2010. If approved, the project will be funded by both the ISR and the Office of the Provost. The installa- tion of the system is expected to be completed in the spring of 2012. The regents are also expected to green light a $2.55 million project to renovate utility tunnels beneath Central Campus under Huron Street. This project will renovate 500 feet of the tunnels, in addition to replacing120 feet of the tunnels, according to Slottow's communi- cation to the regents. Slottow wrote in the communi- cation to the regents that this new project is part of a series of refur- bishments to utility tunnels that distribute power to campus from the University's Central Power Plant. "In 2006 a master plan for tun- nel infrastructure renewal was developed that prioritized a series of tunnel projects, and several have been completed," Slottow wrote. If approved, construction on the tunnels is estimated tobe complet- ed in winter 2012, and funding will come from University Utilities. °i LIKE THE DAILY ON FACEBOOK THE DAILY'S LAST MASS MEETING Bea Otiu Sea .liffJumping . SpectacularSunsets SER ICES 1.800.648.4849 Are you a sophomore with a passion for the environment? Apply for the Graham Institute's Undergraduate Sustainability Scholars Program by January 19, 20111 Each year, 25 high-achieving undergraduate students from diverse majors are accepted to this 11-credit, interdisciplinary sustainability leadership program. In addition to earning a sustainability certificate, scholars enjoy special access to, and funding for, field-based sustainability experiences. Details and application at www.graham.umich.edu. GRAHAM INSTITUTE JAN. 20 AT 7:30 P.M. 420 MAYNARD ST.