The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Tuesday, February 14, 2012 - 3
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Tuesday, February 14, 2012 - 3
NEWS BRIEFS
LANSING, Mich.
Mich. unions sue
over state worker
pension changes
A coalition of state employee
labor unions sued the state of
Michigan yesterday, saying recent
changes to the funding of the
employees' retirement systems are
unconstitutional,
The suit filed in Ingham Coun-
ty Circuit Court challenges a law
approved by the Legislature and
signed late last year by Gov. Rick
Snyder.
The law requires employees
who choose to remain in the state's
defined benefit or pension plan to
contribute 4 percent of their com-
pensation toward the system.
HOOPA VALLEY INDIAN
RESERVATION, Calif.
Magnitude-5.6
quake strikes rural
Northern Calif.
A moderate earthquake struck
Northern California's coast yes-
terday afternoon, rattling nerves
around the Oregon border but
yielding no immediate reports of
major injuries or damage, officials
said.
The magnitude-5.6 quake
struck at 1:07 p.m. about 18 miles
inland in an unincorporated part
of Humboldt County, the .U.S.
Geological Survey said. The epi-
center was a rural area near the
small community of Weitchpec
* on the Hoopa Valley Indian Res-
ervation, about 240 miles north of
San Francisco and about 60 miles
south of the Oregon border.
The temblor was widely felt
within a 100-mile radius, accord-
ingto the USGS website.
CARACAS, Venezuela
Opposition party
selects Chavez's
political rival
Youthful state governor Hen-
rique Capriles won Venezuela's
first-ever opposition presidential
primary Sunday by a wide mar-
gin, emerging as the single candi-
date who will try to end President
Hugo Chavez's 13 years in power.
Capriles, the 39-year-old gov-
ernor of Miranda state who
describes himself as a center-left
progressive, faces a tough task
in ousting Chavez, a charismatic
campaigner with a loyal following
and the full powers of the state to
back his candidacy in Oct. 7 elec-
tions.
Opposition election chief Tere-
sa Albanes announced the prelim-
inary results, saying that Capriles
won about 62 percent of the vote,
beating Zulia state Gov. Pablo
Perez by a margin of more than 30
percentage points.
Chavez's opponents lined up
to vote in many areas, surpassing
most expectations with a turnout
of about 2.9 million ballots, cast
out of Venezuela's 18 million reg-
istered voters.
ZAGREB, Croatia
On Valentine's day,
a museum about
broken hearts
What becomes of a garden
gnome hurled in fury at a wind-
screen during a stormy breakup?
Or a teddy bear that was once
a Valentine's Day present? A
wedding dress from a marriage
gone awry? An ax that smashed
through household furniture?
All are on display at the Muse-
um of Broken Relationships in the
Croatian capital, each with writ-
ten testimonies telling tales of
passion, romance and heartbreak.
On Valentine's Day, the muse-
um sees its visits almost double.
"The objects that are here rep-
resent all the stages of a breakup.
and how people go through love,"
said Drazen Grubisic, a designer
and artist who co-founded the
museum in 2010 in the Croatian
capital.
"We might say it's a love muse-
um, just upside down," he said.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports
RENOVATION
From Page1 -
NORTH CAMPUS
COMPUTER SCIENCE AND
ENGINEERING BUILDING
TOBE RENAMED
In a communication to the
regents, Slottow and David
Munson, dean of the College of
Engineering, recommended that
the regents formally change the
name of the Computer Science
and Engineering Building on
North Campus to the Bob and
Betty Beyster Building.
Slottow and Munson wrote
that the achievements of Uni-
versity alum J. Robert Beyster
merit the honor, citing his work
in both the private sector and
his philanthropic contributions.
Beyster founded the engineering
research company Science Appli-
cations International Corpora-
tion, which aims to apply science
and technology in innovative
ways, and employed 43,000 at
the time of Beyster's retirement
in 2004, according to the SAIC
website.
According to the communi-
cation, -Beyster recently made a
contribution of $15 million to the
College of Engineering to sup-
port research and academics, as
well as establish a graduate-level
fellowship.
"Funds will be used in part
to create the J. Robert Beyster
Computational Innovation Grad-
uate Fellows Program to support
research in a variety of fields
linking high-performance com-
puting, networking, and storage
to applications of societal impor-
tance," Slottow and Munson
wrote.
UNIVERSITY INVESTS IN
NEW FUNDS
As a part of an effort to diver-
sify and expand the University's
investments, Slottow informed
the regents of the University's
additional commitment of $80
million to funds previously
approved by the regents. These
investments do not require addi-
tional voting, since the regents
had already approved each fund's
initial investment in the past.
The additional funds cover a
variety of sectors includingsecu-
rities, natural gas exploration,
renewable energy and develop-
ing market companies, according
to the communication.
In a separate communication,
Slottow wrote that the Univer-
sity is seeking approval from the
regents to invest $10 million in
a real estate fund in Asia. The
fund's principal investment is a
joint partnership project with
the Chinese government to build
office buildings, shopping cen-
ters and transportation hubs.
"This commitment offers the
University an attractive oppor-
tunity to invest in a project in
China that has been significant-
ly de-risked due to its almost
completed status," Slottow
wrote.
SITE
From Page 1
of the Ann Arbor community,"
Reed said. "Beyond education,
however, we want a2energy to
be a call to action and a means
to do so."
Rebecca Filbey, project man-
ager at Clean Energy Coalition,
said information provided on
the website will promote active
participation in sustainable
practices.
"The whole point of the (sus-
tainability) program is to be
able to address promoters, rent-
ers, landlords, business owners
or property owners across the
city to make them more aware
of the impact of energy use
in the home or in properties,
and the importance of taking
action to reduce energy, to start
to consider renewable energy
opportunities," Filbey said.
Filbey added that homeown-
ers should work to improve
insulation in their homes
to prevent air leakage and
decrease energy usage.
"We're not just talking about
a small piece of the pie," she
said. "This is a really big impact
as far as energy use all togeth-
er."
City Councilmember Sandi
Smith (D-Ward 1) said resi-
dents contribute to the majority
of the city's energy waste.
"Sixty percent of our energy
use in consumption is residen-
tial and we need to help our
residents understand that there
are ways to save money, invest
in improving their house, and
here are some tools to that
effect," Smith said.
Smith added that commer-
cial owners are presented with
financing options, such as the
Property Assess Clean Energy
program, to alleviate the costs
associated with making their
properties more sustainable.
PACE programs seek to pass
legislation to help individual
communities maintain energy
efficiency, according to the
PACE website.
Andrew Brix, energy pro-
grams manager for Ann Arbor,
said City Council's goal is to
make Ann Arbor carbon neutral
and use 100-percent renewal
energy. He added that the new
website is a component of the
city's long-term sustainability
goals, and is primarily intended
to function as an informational
tool.
"Part of it is for folks to
know what they can do," he
said. "The website by itself is
not going to get us to climate
neutral, but it's a piece of the
puzzle. It's also a mechanism
for having a conversation."
Due to the city's diverse
population of residents, com-
muters, students and busi-
ness owners, Brix said the
site provides many different
approaches to sustainable liv-
ing that apply to a wide range
of circumstances.
"Everyone's going to have
slightly different needs and
different opportunities in
terms of what they can do, and
were trying to get people to the
solutions that work for them."
SOUTH AMERICA
From Page 1
agreements similar to those that
will be discussed in Brazil.
"When we started looking at
Latin America, it became very
apparent that some of our best
relationships were with Brazil,"
Coleman said. "We have quite a
few interactions with the health
sciences and with scientific
research, (and) in some of the
social science areas."
Coleman said she usually
travels to areas where the Uni-
versity has already.established a
presence in an effort to strength-
ening existing relationships.
"One of the things that we do
before Iever take an internation-
al trip is to look at where faculty
have programs, where students
are going - (I ask) 'where can I
strengthen the ties?"' Coleman
said. "Where can we think of
some new programs that would
provide new opportunities for
our students?"
Mark Tessler, the Univer-
sity's vice provost for interna-
tional affairs, said eight senior
faculty members from a variety
of departments will accompany
Coleman on her trip in an effort
to represent the University's
academic diversity. He said the
faculty members who will travel
with Coleman have not yet been
determined and added that the
number may fluctuate.
"It's possible that if there's
someplace that she can't go, that
her schedule will be too full, that
one or two members of the del-
egation will go off and represent
Michigan in conversations with
these other (institutions)," Tes-,
sler said.
A primary part of the trip to
South America will be to work
with national foundations and
institutions in Brazil that will
help proposed programs mature
and receive the funding they
need. Tessler said one of the
main goals of the trip would be
to assess the needs and priorities
of partner universities in Brazil.
"We view this partnership as
very reciprocal," Tessler said.
"It's not just what we want to
do - it's what makes sense for
the people we're working with
there. This is a process of evolu-
tion as we hear more about what
makes sense for them."
Tessler said faculty members
would serve as guides on the
trip and also meet privately with
their counterparts in Brazil,
Chile and Peru to work on pro-
grams in greater detail. He cited
health sciences, natural resourc-
es and the environment, sustain-
ability, diversity and political
science as likely areas of focus
for Coleman and the delegation.
"There's a possibility that
this will lead to more students
from Brazil applying to come to
Michigan - we expect that to
happen," Tessler said.
Tessler added that students
would begin to see the benefits
of the president's trip in the
form of new programs that will
be introduced in 2013 or later,
as well as through a potential
influx, of Latin American stu-
dents on campus in Ann Arbor.
Melinda Matice, a lecturer in
the University's English Lan-
guage Institute who led a group
from the Global Intercultural
Experience for Undergraduates
program to Brazil in 2010, said
she hoped the University will
be able to attract students from
Brazil to study at the University.
Matice specifically cited a
new program from the Brazilian
government to provide 75,000
science and engineering schol-
arships for students to study
abroad,,adding that she believes
the University should try to
attract a great number of such
students.
"It would be lovely to bring
some of those (science, tech-
nology engineering and math-
ematics) scholars here," Matice
said. "I would like to see a much
more vested interest in Brazil in
both directions, but that seems
to be a remarkable program
right now."
While Matice was unable to
comment specifically on Cole-
man's trip, the said the Universi-
ty was supportive when Matice
was organizing her GIEU trip.
She added that student groups
at the University - particularly
the Pantanal Partnership, an
organization that developed a
school in Mato Grosso, Brazil
and works to cultivate educa-
tional and health programs in
the country - are helpful in pro-
viding opportunities for Univer-
sity students from a variety of
disciplines.
"There's so much diversity,
(and) not just biodiversity (in
Brazil), but also what goes on in
the urban areas - it's an excit-
ing place to have a connection
with," Matice said. "They're
poised to make a lot- of chang-
es, and it would be nice to see
the University take part in all
of those areas of growth and
change."
SACUA
From Page 1
and said there was a necessity
to emphasize that the commit-
tee does not support intimida-
tion by students or faculty.
"I feel we should be neu-
tral," Larsen said. "We should
endorse the principle that, of
course, we should not have
intimidation."
A paragraph was initially
included in the document that
suggests that the community
views Dibbern's accusations
against her adviser, Engineer-
ing prof. Rachel Goldman, as
false.
"(The committee's) support
of free and open debate comes
in light of widespread false
accusations of intimidation
directed at the faculty at large,
and one faculty member in par-
ticular," the paragraph stated.
"We call on such innuendo and
defamation to end, in order that
a dignified exchange of ideas be
restored."
Members of the committee
said they felt this paragraph
was inflammatory and moved
to strike it. The committee also
unanimously voted to adda sen-
tence to the end of the revised
statement which reads: "We
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also call on all parties to put
forward only claims that can
be documented with reason-
able evidence, in order that a
dignified exchange of ideas be
encouraged."
COMMITTEE
MEMBERS DISCUSS
UMHS INVESTIGATION
FINDINGS
SACUA chair Kate Barald
also presented a statement
responding to the Universi-
ty's recently released internal
investigation of the alleged
child pornography possession
by former medical resident Ste-
phen Jenson at UMHS.
"It is expected by Senate
Assembly that the University
will use this incident to care-
fully consider the recommen-
dations of the Senate Assembly
Resolution 122311-2 on report-
ing criminal activity in the
most expeditious and effective
manner," the statement read.
The statement refers to a
previous resolution, passed by
electronic vote on Dec. 23,2011,
which encouraged the Univer-
sity to develop more efficient
criminal reporting methods.
The committee unanimously
voted in favor of affirming the
resolution.
After reading the statement
aloud, Barald said increased
communication and effective
protocol in reporting incidenc-
es are essential in cases regard-
ing UMHS.
"(The statement is) in the
spirit of trying to encourage
education, information about
reporting lines that every sin-
gle person in the University to
have in their cognizance as they
begin to face such issues."
DUDERSTADT
PRESENTS ON
THE UNIVERSITY'S
BICENTENNIAL
Former President James
Duderstadt opened the meet-
ing to present plans for the
University bicentennial in 2017.
SACUA invited Duderstadt to
discuss the funding challenges
of state research universities, as
well as elaborate on the impor-
tance of faculty in celebrating
the 200-year anniversary of the
University's founding.
"We are not a hospital, we
are not a hotel, we are not a pro-
fessional football franchise,"
Duderstadt said. "We are one of
the great learning institutions
of the world, and this reality
should dominate any event such
as a bicentennial.
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