4 - Tuesday, September 25, 2012
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The manufacturingillusion
I
4
TIMOTHY RABB
JOSEPH LICHTERMAN and ADRIENNE ROBERTS
EDITOR IN CHIEF. EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS
ANDREW WEINER
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.
FRMTHEDALY
Internet opens education
Take advantage of free online courses
The University, along with 32 other leading colleges around
the world, is bringing college-level courses to millions of
interested individuals for free. Using Coursera as a plat-
form to host nearly 200 interactive massive open online courses, the
institution are opening up higher education and making world-class
instruction accessible to more than one million students across 196
countries. The University's initiative to participate in this program
is commendable, and more universities should follow suit and offer
open access to educational resources.
Coursera is a social entrepreneurship com-
pany founded in April by two computer sci-
ence professors at Stanford University hoping
to revolutionize the educational landscape
through an online network of freely acces-
sible college courses. These courses range
from thearts and humanities to engineering
and the hard sciences. The online accessibil-
ity of higher education has become a signifi-
cant focal point for institutions and students,
as they are accessible to all and serve as a
complement to traditional university courses.
As a nation that emphasizes higher edu-
cation and a globally competitive workforce,
the need for affordable and accessible higher
educationis more important thanever. Unfor-
tunately, college is becoming more expensive,
with a growing number of students unable to
keep up with rising tuition costs. Now with
Coursera and a working Internet connection,
anyone can freely take classes from ten of
these topuniversities. The program offers not
only high-caliber education to the public, but
it's also intended to complement the course-
work of college students by working with
partnering institutions to establish accred-
ited certification programs for to incentivize
students to complete courses
The certification program is one of two key
factors that make Coursera unique amongst
other similar programs. The second is Cours-
era's focus on student interaction with the
information through corresponding assign-
ments. This underlying pedagogical phi-
losophy of retrieving, reconstructing and
rewarding what has been taught is thought
to foster long-term retention and spur fur-
ther learning. In this way, Coursera is able to
bridge the current gap between high-qual-
ity education and easy access that has only
served to frustrate universities to this point.
With every increased tuition dollar, more
and more students are kept from receiv-
ing a higher education. Universities should
continue to use resources like Coursera to
break down such barriers and make higher
education a reality for more people around
the world.
Both parties are making an
economic promise they most
likely won't be able to keep.
Since the 2012
presidential
campaign really
started gettiwg
going almost a"
year ago, we've
heard candi-
dates from each
side of the ticket JAMES
make their case BRENNAN
to solve our
economy's cur-
rent woes. Democrats argue for
government investment in infra-
structure, education and new ener-
gy. Republicans, as expected, take
the opposite position, hoping to end
the country's fiscal and employment
problems with sweeping tax cuts
and deregulation. However, there
is a common thread between these
two opposing arguments - manu-
facturing jobs.
Since pulling ourselves out of the
Great Depression while simultane-
ously winning the Second World
War, America has prided itself on the
,creation ofconsumergoods. But with
the advent of globalization, free trade
and a new world economy, manufac-
turing has fallen off a cliff. In 1978,
more than 19 million people in the
U.S. were employed in manufactur-
ing, specifically. In 2010, that num-
ber dropped to 11.7 million. The auto
industry has been hit just as hard, as
the United States now only produces
approximately five percent of the
world's automobiles.
Candidates have taken full politi-
cal advantage of the situation. Man-
ufacturing plays an integral role in
the campaigns of both President
Barack Obama and Republican
candidate Mitt Romney. Romney
gave a speech-turned-commercial
before last year's State of the Union
address inside a factory in Tampa,
Florida. Earlier in the summer, the
Obama team produced an ad in,
which a worker described how Bain
Capital shut down his factory under
Romney's direction.
Manufacturing is a soft spotfor
Americans, especially for so many
middle-income people who fear
being laid off. These people - who
work low-skill jobs for a moder-
ate income - are the people really
depending on the outcome of this
election. They are the undecided
voters who will ultimately make the
difference in who our next president
will be; voting for who they believe
will "bring back manufacturing
jobs." Sadly, both candidates are sell-
ing a fake product.
Take a look at China, the United
States' biggest economic competitor.
In terms of labor, China is essentially
the opposite of what we as a country
have attempted to be over the last 70
years. Chinese labor laws and safety
regulations are virtually non-exis-
tent. Furthermore, they've slapped
foreign products with unreasonable
tariffs, so while they take jobs from
the United States, they also deter
their 1.3 billion person population
from buying American goods.
Here's the hard truth: the manu-
facturing jobs that have left the
United States are likely never com-
ing back. We would all love to see
the abandoned factories that poli-
ticians speak in front of once again
hum with workers and the produc-
tion of goods that are now exclu-
sively labeled "Made in China."
Unfortunately, this isn't going to
happen. The vast majority of goods
produced in the world take mini-
mal skill to create, and to a busi-
ness owner, a worker in China is
the same as a worker in America.
The difference is that the Chinese
worker will cost.pennies on the dol-
coming back
without change
of policy.
Barring a Chinese revolution and
the immediate overhaulof labor laws
and regulations, goods will continue
to be far less expensive to produce
overseas. Lowering taxes on busi-
nesses may help slightly, but our
rates are already among the lowest in
the world. Tariffs of our own could
help to break even with Chinese
costs, but starting a trade war with
the people lending us money to make
our society livable is not exactly an
ideal diplomatic situation. If either
party would like to offer a real solu-
tion to our current economic crisis,
they should look elsewhere. The
increased necessity for energy-effi-
cient products of all shapes and sizes
could be the next economic boom -
a sector requiring high-paying jobs
and some good old American inge-
nuity. In reality, clean energy could
likely be what the dot com explosion
was of the 1990s. That is, if govern-
ment and private industries play
their cards right. But if America
keeps bluffing on this idea of con-
sumer manufacturing jobs coming
back as our big winner China will be
the one to hit the jackpot while we go
poor playing the penny slots.
- James Brennan can be
reached at jmbthree@umich.edu.
lar in a less safe (and less expensive)
factory. Sure, shipping will go up,
but the cost of production will be a
minute fraction of what it was.
The jobs aren't
4
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
Kaan Avdan, Sharik Bashir, Eli Cahan, Nirbhay Jain, Jesse Klein,
Melanie Kruvelis, Patrick Maillet, Harsha Nahata, Timothy Rabb, Adrienne
Roberts, Vanessa Rychlinski, Sarah Skaluba, Michael Spaeth, Gus Turner
NIRBHAY JAIN |IEPI
Unto stories, major impact
KEVIN MERSOL-BARG, YONAH LIEBERMAN, LUZ MEZA, SANJAY JOLLY ,EWPOINT
Lead by example, President Coleman 4
How do we know what we do about the
structure of the cell? Many people take this
knowledge for granted, because it's diffi-
cult to understand how this was discovered.
In doing so, the general public has ignored
the great men whose work made these dis-
coveries possible. Too often the public -has
embraced a monumental discovery such as
the structure of the cell, but neglected to
embrace the people behind the magic. Their
stories deserve to be told.
One such magician is Jacob Schaefer, a
doctor and professor at the Washington Uni-
versity in St. Louis. Schaefer is considered a
frontrunner for the Nobel Prize and visited
the University this Friday for a Biophysics
Seminar series. Schaefer is a champion of
nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy
-I'm sure organic chemistry students just
shuddered. NMR, despite its unwieldy
nature, is probably the single most powerful
tool available to any chemical-based research
field, including all forms of chemistry, bio-
physics and biochemistry. In fact, the same
technology that powers NMR also powers
the more familiar Magnetic Resonance Imag-
ing.machines used by physicians worldwide
to diagnose diseases. NMR gives research-
ers unparalleled access into the structure of
even the smallest biomolecules. And Schaefer
made it even easier to see into the microcosm.
His work is indispensable to modern chemis-
try and biophysics, akin to developing a magi-
cal tool to look into the cell.
In 1976, he paired together two tech-
niques to revolutionize the way NMR works.
Cross-polarization magic angle spinning
is essential to many fields of biochemistry.
This rare technique can be applied to solids,
including native tissue samples. It is used in
protein determination and other structural
discoveries of key biomolecules. Metabo-
lomical studies, which is the analysis of
small molecules in order to profile cells and
determine disease diagnosis and prognosis
and, incidentally, the field of research I
am in with the Ramamoorthy group - is
also dependent on CP-MAS. By focusing on
the sensitivity of low gamma nuclei, which
takes much longer to detect, and increas-
ing the resolution of the spectra by spinning
samples at the magic angle of 54.7° - the
angle of the Cube behind the Michigan
Union - radical new insights into the struc-
ture of the human body at a molecular level
have been reached. The increase in clarity
of a molecule is equivalent to a jump from
analog transmission to a 1080p HD feed.
Schaefer looked into the abyss of molecular
geometry and saw a way out.
Schaefer also devised a second technique
to enhance solid-state NMR. In 1989, he
invented rotational-echo double resonance.
With this technique, the distance between
nuclei can be measured to within a couple of
angstrom, which is much more accurate than
the X-ray diffraction technique used in DNA.
This technique has wide-reaching applica-
tions in biology and in material sciences. Dr.
Schaefer himself used this technique to dia-
gram distances between complex molecules
and other intact substances - including a
structural definition of bacterial cell walls
- such as the peptidoglycan outer wall, pro-
tein-DNA complexes, intact bacteriophages,
which include viruses that can be used as
antibiotics against diseases such as leprosy
and cholera. It can even reveal the structural
distances of human cells and tissues.
You maybe wonderingwhyyou should care
about someone who has basically made fan-
cier ways to look at a molecule. His advances
moved NMR from the physical realm to :the
biological and chemical realms. His tech-
niques are being used in medicinal microim-
aging, pushing the realms of a MRI beyond
what we have now, thus helping to create a
world where we can see into the very atom-
ic structure of a person. His techniques are
being used in labs at the University of Michi-
gan to look at the structure of bone. We can
now see what a bone looks like in its native
state. We can see the atomic structure of a
bone, thanks to Jacob Schaefer. He himself is
pushing the bounds of his field. Even at the
age of 75, this remarkable man is developing
ways to look at the cell, one atom at a time.
He's essentially mapping the cell wall.
His story was told on Friday. It's now time
for us all to listen in.
Nirbhay Jain is an LSA sophomore.
Dear President Coleman, dents in a powerful demonstration
We, the Coalition for Tuition of what could be. We invited you,
Equality, call on you to put a stop President Coleman, as well as four
to tuition discrimination against other leaders of your administration.
undocumented Michiganders. For To our dismay, only Dean of Students
too long, the University has made Laura Blake Jones tookup our offer.
higher education inaccessible to But your students did. More than
a targeted group of young people. one hundred students gathered on
These Michiganders come to the the Diag. Leaders, representing eight
country at a young age by no accord of the 17 student organizations in the
of their own. With their neighbors, Coalition, spoke eloquently about
they attend kindergarten, theygrad- why their groups support 'tuition
uate from high school, they apply to equality. President Coleman, we
the University of Michigan. Theyare wish you could have seen it.
in every way a part of their Michigan Standing on the steps of a library
communities. However, the Uni- they never got the chance to use, in
versity treats them differently than graduation caps and gowns, Julio
their neighbors. It forces undocu- Garibaldi and Xochitl Cosselyon,
mented students to pay out-of-state who are undocumented, spoke about
rates while their neighbors pay in- their dreams for higher education.
state tuition. It forces neighbors who Julio had always dreamed of getting
grew up together to now see each into Eastern Michigan University
other as different. It forces young - and when he received his accep-
Americans to forgo their dreams of a tance letter, his father promised to
better life through education. paythe out-of-state tuition. Butthen
Maria Ibarra is one of these stu- his father's business went under and
dents. She is undocumented and he had to pull out of the only school
aspired to a University education. he ever wanted to attend.
At age 9, she and her mom arrived Julio challenged us to keep fight-
in Detroit, and since then Maria has ing for tuition equality because he
distinguished herself as the ideal knows how much the other public
University student. She graduated universities look up to Michigan's
from high school at the top of her flagship campus. He knows, just as
class. However, nine digits, or the you know, President Coleman, that
lack thereof, prevented her from tuition equality at the University of
attending her dream university - Michigan will affect far more stu-
this one. Crushed, she persevered dents than just those privileged
and graduated as valedictorian from enough tobe accepted into our Uni-
the University of Detroit Mercy this versity: He knows it will bolster
May. She's undeniably Michigan enrollment of low-income, first-gen-
material - among the leaders and i eration students at a time when those
best - but may never be a Wolverine. numbers are plunging downward.
And Maria isn't alone. This past President Coleman, your actions
Tuesday, CTE hosted a graduation have consequences - openly advo-
ceremony for undocumented stu- cating for tuition equality will
strongly encourage other universi-
ties to do the same. As the leader
of an institution that firmly stands
against discrimination and in favor
of diversity, you must take steps to
adopt tuition equality or risk run-
ning the University into moral ruin.
President Coleman, we want to
work with you to make the Univer-
sity a beacon of possibility, a place
accessible to all who merit it and
an institution governed by ethical
policy. Already, more than a dozen
states have adopted tuition equal-
ity. We appreciate the effort your
administration has made in the
working group on tuition equality;
however, President Coleman, you
must do more.
President Coleman, we ask you to
express support for tuition equality
on the public record - so as to hold
you accountable for your words.
President Coleman, we ask your
administration to make its efforts 4
to address tuition equality, includ-
ing our working group, as trans-
parent as possible - so as to hold it
accountable for its actions.
We look forward to the day
when the University treats every
Michigander fairly, a day when
undocumented students in high
schools across this great state
can say with certainty: a Univer-
sity education is more than just a
dream - it's areality.
Until then, President Coleman,
we students will lead on an issue on
which you have yet to do so.
Kevin Mersol-Barg, Yonah
Lieberman, Luz Meza and Sanjay
Jolly are representatives for
Coalition for Tuition Equality.
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