4A - Wednesday, January 16, 2013 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 9 e IC * an ,al Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. E-MAIL MAGGIE AT MAGATHOR iaUMICH.EDU MAGGIE MILLER 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com MELANIE KRUVELIS and ADRIENNE ROBERTS MATT SLOVIN EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS* MANAGING EDITOR ANDREW WEINER EDITOR IN CHIEF kAINC UP bURlNG BReaMK: JAdNC, t/P AT SCHOOL: Be perfec. o pressure. 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. FROMTHE DAiLY Purely partisan Right-to-work and Pure Michigan don't mix T he Pure Michigan logo has done great things for Michigan's travel and tourism industry. However, to promote the fact that Michigan is now a right-to-work state, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation has attached the Pure Michi- gan logo and brand with advertisements touting the passage of this legislation. The branding was prominently displayed in a full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal on Jan. 8. The text of the advertisement cites the legislation as a "once-in-a-generation trans- formation (that) has Michigan poised to become a preferred place to do business ... the perfect storm of opportunity, resources and passion is Pure Michigan." While business opportunities in Michigan should be promoted, MEDC should not have politicized Pure Michigan, a brand solely dedicated to encouraging tourism. The Pure Michigan brand started as an advertising campaign in 2006, with the goal of branding Michigan as a travel destina- tion. Pure Michigan was created by Travel Michigan, a division of the MEDC. MEDC is a state-funded economic development corpo- ration. While Travel Michigan does receive funding from the MEDC, right-to-work has no association to the Pure Michigan logo. Under right-to-work laws, employees cannot be forced to pay union dues in any work place. Right-to-work was quickly passed in Decem- ber without public hearings. In a December poll, 51 percent of Michigan voters. did not support this legislation. Right-to-work is a polarizing issue in the state, and it's too soon to determine whether or not it will bolster economic activity. The advertising decision completely chang- es the meaning of the Pure Michigan brand and sets a dangerous precedent. In 2011, the MEDC reported that the Pure Michigan tour- ism campaign generated $1 billion of revenue for businesses in the state. This was accom- plished without the mention of polarizing leg- islation passed in Michigan. The addition of an anti-union agenda to Pure Michigan could sti- fle the tourism campaign when the two have nothing to do with each other. It's important- for Michigan to advertise business opportunities. However, this can be done without the use of specific, partisan leg- islation. MEDC should focus on the Michigan Business Tax, the educational opportunities available and the vibrant cities Michigan has to offer. Although economic investment in Michi- gan should be encouraged, branding right- to-work as "Pure Michigan" as a potential answer to this challenge is deeply misguided. The decision abuses the bipartisan and uni- fying nature of Pure Michigan by giving it a political agenda and unfairly flaunts an image of Michigan at the cost of the tourism indus- try. In doing so, the advertising decision not only taints the Pure Michigan brand, but also uses taxpayer dollars to promote an unpopu- lar and polarizing decision. n the end, it boils down to this: How many elbow patch- es is too many? Can Iwear an elbow-patched sweater under- neath a jacket with elbow patches? Do short-sleeve shirts come with elbow patch exten- JOSEPH sions? Let's HORTON get serious - can my actual elbows be graft- ed with patches? If so, could I be on the reality show, "I Gave Up My Skin For Suede," or star in an episode of that long-running academic fashion series, "Say Yes To The Tweed?" As a new semester arrives - as I step in front of a new class - how do I look like I know what I'm doing? It's my second year as a lecturer in the English Department Writing Program. Before that, I was a gradu- ate student instructor. Before that, a graduate student. Before that, an undergraduate. As an undergradu- ate, I looked forward to the first day of a new term. I wasn't always pleased to be back at school, but I was thrilled to have at least one day where nothing seemed required of me. Sit, introduce myself, play some terrible name-game, look over the syllabus. Consider my schedule - is a five-day weekend possible? Be physically present in the room and deal with everything else later. First days are easy. It is not, let me say, the same for teachers. The first day of class is huge. Let's put aside for the moment the work that's gone into the syllabus - plan- ning four months of classes is like squeezing all your worldly posses- sions into a carry-on bag and then jamming it wheels-first into an over- head bin. When I enter and amble to the front of the classroom, I must introduce myself. The voice inside my head says, be brief and be clear. Explain your qualifications, your background. Don't brag, but be con- fident. Don't oversell yourself, don't undersell the material. Be delightful and welcoming and witty and acces- sible. Do not rant about reality tele- vision. Do not be an insane person. Be perfect. No pressure. Now ask members of the class to introduce themselves. What ques- tions beyond the obvious (name, major, year in school, hometown) allow a thoughtful and interesting human being to appear thought- ful and interesting? How can I ask a group of strangers to share a part .of themselves so soon - do I say it's a leap of faith? I usually go simple, asking for favorite books and mov- ies. Harry Potter and anything Channing Tatum prove big winners. (What house, then, would suit Chan- ning? My money's on Hufflepuff.) Or I use the standard, I-give-you-a- ticket-right-now-where-would-you- like-to-go vacation query, where Europe and warm islands always do well, with Florida an honorable mention. (And what-is the Michi- gander obsession with Florida?) After that, the easy part's over. How do I begin to build a place where everyone feels comfortable to share their ideas, take intellectual and cre- ative risks and trust their peers to do the same? At this point, I'm just praying I don't trip over myself, spill coffee everywhere and collapse in a weeping mass of damp tweed. I Judging by the amount of advice out there, I'm not the only teacher mindful of first day dynamics. Guidance from our own excellent Center for Research on Learning and Teaching includes the basics: "Learn students' names and use them ... Be expressive and enthusi- astic ... Be open to helping students with problems ... " The Center for Teaching at vanderbilt University notes that first days can be calendar commodities: " ... several of your students may be 'shopping' for a schedule the first week of classes." Carnegie Mellon University's first day survival guide speaks directly to me: "More formal attire commu- nicates expertise and confidence, less formal attire communicates approachability." So then, a suit jacket with jean shorts? Too creepy? An expressive tuxedo with enthusiastic pajama pants? Woody Allen glasses and at least six intel- lectual scarves? A good class finds itself, settles in, grows together I know there's no formula for the perfect first class. A good class finds itself, settles in, grows togeth- er. I know first impressions aren't everything but they are something. We who survive Michigan winters know better than most that ice can be broken in a day, but it only melts over months. Suffice to say that I - and I sus- pect many other teachers - care deeply and sweat freely when pre- paring for this first day, a day that at its worst seems like equal parts audition and open house. But the day I'm not nervous, not excited, not willing to try again is the day I quit teaching. The stakes are too high and the rewards too great to do otherwise. First days matter. Sorry, yes. A question in the back? Well, that's kind of you to say. I do have splendid elbows. - Joseph Horton can be reached at jbhorton@umich.edu. EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Kaan Avdan, Sharik Bashir, Barry Belmont, Eli Cahan, Jesse klein, Melanie Kruvelis, Patrick Maillet, Jasmine McNenny, Harsha Nahata, Adrienne Roberts, Vanessa Rychlinski, Paul Sherman, Sarah Skaluba, Michael Spaeth, Derek Wolfe SETH WOLIN I Funding to flourish The value of a liberal arts education, partic- ularlyone inthe humanities, is currentlyques- tioned in the United States. What's in question is not the contentofaliberal arts educationper se, but rather its usefulness in society. Just last October, Florida Gov. Rick Scott expressed this concern to the Sarasota Her- ald-Tribune. "If I'm going to take money from a citi- zen to put into education, then I'm going to take that nroney to create jobs. So I want that money to go to degrees where people can get jobs in this state. Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists? I don't think so," he said. Scott's remarks spark an interesting ques- tion in political philosophy: What are the vital interests of the state, and, more gener- ally, of society? Surely, the promotion of eco- nomic growth through investment in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education can be counted amongst those interests. Another might be upholding the rule of law, since this advances the objective of security and civility that are necessary to conduct business. Economic growth, security and civility are vital to the state because they're valuable in promoting human flourishing. Human flour- ishing, in all of its diverse and wonderful forms, is the real goal of the state. We don't create jobs for the sake of jobs, enforce laws for the sake of laws or invest in technology for the sake of technology. We do all of these things for the sake of human flourishing. With the goal of human flourishing in mind, one might ask what a liberal arts edu- cation has to offer. The answer is a world of good. Activists, poets, playwrights, politi- cians and artists trace the development of their identities back to experiences in the liberal arts. Where would Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. be without his engagement in theol- ogy? How about David Foster Wallace, Ter- rence Malick or Lawrence Lessig without earlier immersion in philosophy? These are people whose art and ideas enrich our lives in ways beyond the discovery of theorems or development of devices. These are people whose output can't be measured in terms of dollars, but in terms of their power to strike at the very core of our being. Of course, not every English major is the next Arthur Miller or Susan Sontag. But this doesn't mean every student of 19th century French poetry or ancient philosophy is gam- bling to become the next great literary theo- rist or Plato scholar. Rather, the experience of a liberal arts education lends itself to all kinds of fields that require a broad-minded, human- istic approach to one's life and career. Skeptics may accept all the assertions about the value of a liberal arts education but continue to deny resources to these dis- ciplines in a turbulent economy. However, in terms of job prospects, the numbers don't support the idea that a liberal arts degree is significantly less viable in today's job market. A recent study from Georgetown University reports an unemployment rate of 9.27 percent. for recent liberal arts graduates, compared to a rate of 7.8 percent for STEM discipline grad- uates. That's a difference of only 1.47 percent. The idea that liberal arts majors don't find jobs is pernicious and flat-out wrong. We need to abandon the concept that we're only worth what we've been taught in the past and embrace an attitude that values the person we may become in the future. Doing so means changing our discourse surround- ing the liberal arts. It means giving up our obsession with how an art history major will function in society and instead discovering how she will flourish. Seth Wolin is an LSA sophpmore. CHECK US OUT ONLINE Keep up with columnists, read Daily editorials, view cartoons and join in the debate. Check out @michdailyoped and Facebook.com/MichiganDaily to get updates on Daily opinion content throughout the day. DEREK WOLFE|IE 7' Justice failed for Swartz 4 The world is small, but the Inter- net makes the world infinitely small- er. This became even more apparent to me when I learned of the recent Jan. 11 suicide of Internet activist Aaron Swartz. He was prosecuted by the federal government for down- loading nearly four-million articles from the online academic journal database, JSTOR, which charges extremely high fees for scholarly, articles. Unfortunately, the possi- bility of a 35-year prison sentence proved too much for Swartz to bear. Swartz is a testament to the importance of Internet freedom. Despite his huge impact on the Internet, he's much less famous than Mark Zuckerberg, who's constantly criticized for the ever-changing pri- vacy settings of Facebook. Swartz was a co-founder of Reddit, a site where users post thousands of articles, videos and pictures with the hope that others will find them of interest. Over this past winter break, I became a more active Reddit user, posting a couple of links daily. While it was quite humbling to realize that my humor may not be consistent with the rest of the world, I was reminded how awesome it is to share and converse with others in a society that's domi- nated and funded by the wealthy - an indisputable fact regardless of party affiliation. Not to say we're oppressed people, but the fact that the government pursued Swartz for trying to release documents that arguably should have been public in the first place is troubling. The amazement generated by websites like Reddit is where our society's problems lie. Why should sites like Reddit, which promote the interaction of people, be consid- ered a triumph? Shouldn't they be an expectation? I, like many others, spend a lot of time on the Internet and have noticed the huge influence of large corporations cloudingthe web. Seri- ously, how annoying is it to be forced to watch a 45-second advertisement in order to watch a one-minute online video? Of course, I didn't know Swartz; however, I feel like he would've hated big companies shelling out millions of dollars to advertise, con- sidering censorship would surely follow suit. Swartz was also strongly against the Stop Online Piracy Act that galvanized national debate in 2012. When the bill was ultimately shot down he said, "It was really stopped by the people; the people themselves - they killed the bill dead." It was clear then that Swartz valued the power of the masses and the ability the Internet has to rally everyone together. Glenn Greenland of The Guard- ian summed up the significance of Swartz's life and the state of our society nicely in a Jan. 12 article. He said, "Swartz was destroyed by a justice' system that fully pro- tects the most egregious criminals as long as they are members of or useful to the nation's most powerful factions, but punishes with incom- parable mercilessness and harsh- ness those who lack power and, most of all, those who challenge power." I had never heard of Swartz before his death. At first the only reason I found it of interest was because I like the website he helped create. But after reading more about him I learned that he's considered a modern day civil rights activist who fought hard for the sanctity and purity of the Internet. He cherished the public good and remains impor- tant despite his lack of fame. What needs to be taken away from his life, however, is that we should not take our freedom, espe- cially on the Internet, for.granted. Because the reality is that there are people out there who are trying to take it away from us. The Internet connects people - we need to keep it that way. Derek Wolfe is an LSA freshman. 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.