The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Thursday, December 1, 2011 - 3A
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Thursday, December 1, 2011 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
LANSING
House panel OKs
bill to allow more
charter schools
A state House committee'
approved a measure yesterday
that would allow for more pub-
lic charter schools in Michigan,
and supporters said they believe
it could gain final passage by the
end of the year.
The Republican-led House
Education Committee voted
11-6, mostly along party lines, in
favor of the legislation, which
would end some numerical and
geographical limits on char-
ter schools. The bill, narrowly
approved by the Republican-led
Senate in October, now awaits a
vote on the House floor.
"We're confident, but I don't
want to make it sound like a done
deal," said Dan Quisenberry,
president of the Michigan Associ-
ation of Public School Academies,
which represents charter schools
in the state.
DALLAS
Checklist from
Apollo 13 spaceship
sells for $388,375
A checklist used by Apollo 13
commander James Lovell to make
calculations that helped guide the
damaged spacecraft home has
been sold at auction for $388,375.
Dallas-based Heritage Auc-
tions sold the checklist yesterday
as part of a batch of U.S. space pro-
gram artifacts being offered dur-
ing its "Space Signature Auction."
The checklist was sold to an
anonymous collector. The pre-
auction estimate for the checklist
was $25,000.
Michael Riley, senior histo-
rian at Heritage, says that with-
out the checklist, the crew would
not have known their position in
space.
On April 13, 1970, an oxygen
tank exploded as the spaceship
was four-fifths of the way to the
Hazing persistant
problem for Fla.
marching band
An Egyptian woman shouts slogans at a protest in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, yesterday. Egypt's military rulers are
taking credit for the strong turnout in the country's first parliamentary elections since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak.
U.S. students warnedto
avoid protests in Egypt
Death of Florida
A&M drum major
believed to be
result of hazing
MIAMI (AP) - Two decades
ago, the now-ousted director of
the Florida A&M band warned in
a letter about the dangers of haz-
ing among the famed "Marching
100" ensemble, saying "it would
be very difficult for the univer-
sity and the band should someone
become killed or hurt."
In the following years, how-
ever, hazing seemed to become
a bigger - if not a more public -
problem. Police investigated sev-
eral serious cases and students
were arrested. Anti-hazing work-
shops were held. Dozens of band
members were suspended. Uni-
versity officials and the march-
ingband community were keenly
aware of the persistent hazing,
yet it continued and is believed
to have played a role in the death
this month of a 26-year-old drum
major, Robert Champion.
Champion's death started a
blame game of sorts, with the
historically black college in Tal-
lahassee firing its band director,
Julian White, accusing him of
"misconduct and/or incompe-
tence." In turn, White released
more than 150 pages of docu-
ments showing that he warned
the university for years about
what was going on.
The chair of the Board of Gov-
ernors, which oversees Florida's
public universities, wrote a letter
to FAMU trustees Tuesday saying
it would investigate whether the
university administration took
appropriate action to address
White's concerns.
A former band member told
The Associated Press on Tues-
day that White looked for ways to
eradicate a culture of hazing that
existed in many instrument sec-
tions of the band. White invited
band members to anonymously
report hazing and even had police
come along on some away games,
former drum major Timothy Bar-
ber told AP.
In 2001, trumpeter Marcus
Parker was paddled so severely
that he ended up hospitalized
with kidney damage. White had
police escort the trumpet section
off the field to be interrogated to
show he would not tolerate haz-
ing, Barber said.
About a dozen people pleaded
guilty to a misdemeanor and
received probation in that case,
though it's not clear what actions,
if any, the university took to pun-
ish them.
After the arrests, White
approached Barber for help in
getting rid of hazing. One area
he focused on: A white wall in
the band's practice field where
nicknames for the instrument
sections were prominently dis-
played. Becoming a member of
these groups - the clarinets
were known as "The Clones"
and the tubas were the "White
Whales" - meant becoming part
of a tradition and a band that has
played Super Bowls, the Gram-
mys and presidential inaugura-
tions.
But some sections had their
own violent initiation rituals.
White bought buckets of white
paint and asked Barber to cover
up the section nicknames on the
wall.
"Tim, we have to find a way
to eradicate these subsections of
the band," Barber said White told
him. "Cover the names so they
see this is not somethingsupport-
ed by the band staff."
Three American
students arrested in
protests near Tahrir
Square last month
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -
Every year American colleges
and universities send more
than 270,000 students to study
abroad and more of them are
choosing unconventional des-
tinations, which in places like
Egypt can entice students to
ignore well-meaning warnings
from back home and plunge into
the political upheaval in the
streets.
"I think the temptation is
there, to wrap up in a keffiyeh
and try to look like any other
Egyptian revolutionary, to feel
a little exhilaration from a kind
of danger you don't get in Amer-
ica," said Wittney Dorn, 20, of
Appleton, Wis., who is studying
at the American University in
Cairo.
Universities have been repeat-
ing the importance of striking
the right balance between safety
and cultural immersion after the
Nov. 20 arrest of three Ameri-
can students during the protests
near Tahrir Square, the Cairo
roundabout that has been the
epicenter of the Jan. 25 uprising
against ousted President Hosni
Mubarak.
Dorn said in an email from
Cairo that she's been follow-
ing the advice she got from
both from American University
and her home college, St. Olaf
in Northfield, to avoid crowds,
political demonstrations and
Tahrir Square specifically. '
"It's not a brilliant idea to go
exploring an area where people
are being killed, despite how
tempting it may be to watch his-
tory unfold before one's eyes,"
Dorn wrote.
A survey earlier this month
from the nonprofit institute
of International Education
found more than 270,000 U.S.
students studied abroad dur-
ing the 2009-10 school year,
up about 4 percent from a year
earlier. Most went to western
Europe: Britain, Italy, Spain
and France. But the survey
found increasing numbers in
less traditional destinations;
Egypt, for example, hosted
1,923 Americans, up 8 percent.
Web site aids Mich.
WASHINGTON e s po uai
U.S. lawmakers jobless population
against training
* Iraqi police force
Democrats and Republicans
are joining together in harshly
criticizing a State Department
program for training Iraq's police
force.
Lawmakers at House Foreign
Affairs ' subcommittee hearing
yesterday said it was a waste of
money to spend nearly $900 mil-
lion in the 2012 budget year on
Iraqi police training.
They cited an October report
from a U.S. government watch-
dog that said the training pro-
gram lacked focus, could become
a "bottomless pit" for U.S. dollars
and may not even be wanted by
the Iraqis.
That audit also found that only
about 12 percent of the money
actually will go to helping the
Iraqi police. It said most will pay
for security and other items such
as living quarters for trainers.
VATICAN CITY
Pope seeks end to
death penalty
Pope Benedict XVI voiced
support yesterday for political
actions around the world aimed
at eliminating the death penalty,
reflecting his stance as an oppo-
nent of capital punishment.
He made the comments dur-
ing his weekly public audience
to participants at a meeting
being promoted by the Catholic
Sant'Egidio Community on the
theme "No Justice without Life."
He said he hopes "your deliber-
ationswill encourage the political
and legislative initiatives being
promoted in a growing number of
countries to eliminate the death
penalty."
Benedict, like his predecessor
Pope John Paul II, has appealed
for commutation in a number of
death penalty cases, many in the
United States.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports
Pure Michigan
Talent Connect
launched yesterday
LANSING, Mich. (AP) - State
efforts to better match Michi-
gan residents with "tens of
thousands" of unfilled jobs will
include a new website offering
workers and employers one-stop
shopping for career planning,
job openings and education and
training, Gov. Rick Snyder told
The Associated Press.
The GOP governor will dis-
cuss the Pure Michigan Talent
Connect website today when
he delivers a special message
on developing talent at Delta
College in University Center
near Saginaw. It's the fifth pol-
icy address of his first year in
office. Earlier speeches focused
on changes he wants to see in
education, local government,
health and wellness, and infra-
structure.
The new Talent Connect web-
site, which went live yesterday, is
designed to create a central hub
that can help new workers and
those trying to get back into the
job market assess their skills,
evaluate the return on invest-
ment for an education or train-
ing program, browse careers and
connect with mentors.
"It's really about creating a
website, a web environment,
where people can go through
and ... and find out good infor-
mation about connecting talent
with jobs and careers, and giv-
ing people better tools to build
their career on," Snyder told the
AP. "We have tens of thousands
of open positions in Michigan
and ... we're not necessarily
turning out people with the skill
sets to match up with those."
The governor's recommenda-
tions for developing talent are
aimed at lowering the state's
double-digit unemployment
rate. Although the resurgent
domestic auto industry is help-
ing Michigan add jobs faster
than many other states, it's tied
with Mississippi for the state's
third-highest jobless rate at 10.6
percent, behind only Nevada
and California.
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