IE3Wednesday, April 16, 2014 // The Statement I2Wdneda, Aril16 204 / Te-Satmen 7E Dear readers, Of the 43,710 students on this cam- pus, we're featuring 12 in our issue as The Statement's 2014 Students of the Year. Deciding our Students of the Year was a tough call. After all, the Universi- ty of Michigan is a huge institution that houses remarkable talent, empathy, and above all, rich and powerful stories from each of the students enrolled. Our Wolverines don't play small games. We're big-hearted, big-voiced. We use our vocal chords. We stomp our feet. We dream. We spark change. The Statement staff is tremendously proud to feature our Students of the Year in this semester's final issue. From film- makers to social movement leaders to entrepreneurs to arts visionaries, these students cannot be reduced to a bullet pointed list of simple accomplishments. Rather, they're multi-dimensional, pas- sionate and inspire us to be better lis- teners, informers and students of the world - not simply of the classroom. Congratulations to our 2014 Students of the Year. We hope their stories moti- vate you to ignite even greater change and awe across this campus. Enjoy the issue. Sincerely, Carlina Duan Magazine Editor COVER BY AMY MACKEN S "As an active, participating student at the University of Michigan who has friends here, who lives here as a social being, seeing needs that are unmet is where I seek action," Public Policy junior Carly Manes said. Even during a casual conversation, Manes' dark blue eyes will light up as she smiles and questions you intently on your day. Deep-seated empathy is what pushes Manes to fight for the rights of marginalized voices - both outside and within the University. Raised in a small city in New York, Manes felt content with the way society was before comingto the University and said she was "complicit in the system." She realized after arriving to campus how dangerous conservative thinking could be for marginalized groups. "I didn't realize fully until I came to college how harmful that was to soci- ety and how that's not the society that I want to be a part of, the kind of com- munity that I want to live in or be a part of," she said. Through her presidency of Students for Choice, a pro-choice student orga- nization, Manes' accomplishments include placing condoms in the vending machines across University residence halls, organizing the second Abortion Speak Out event in the country and per- suading University Health Services to offer national brands of barrier contra- ception for free. "Carly had basically remade the group," said Sophia Kotov, current pres- ident of Student of Choice. "She made Students for Choice this really, really cool thing I was really excited to be a part of" As a freshman living in East Quad, Manes took on the role of a self-pro- claimed "condom-queen." She kept condoms in her room and distributed them to her floor whenever someone was in need of one. She later realized that there had to be a better mechanism to distribute condoms to students. As of Aug. 2013, condoms have been sold in 14 residence hall vending machines due to Manes'efforts. "It was a need that was previously unmet and if we hadn't advocated for it, it would still be an unmet need for stu- dents," Manes said. Carly Manes: Though Manes called the Abortion Speak Out her "most proud" accom- plishment, she received threats from pro-life activists on its Facebook page prior to the event. As a result, Manes took precautions to ensure the space would be as safe as possible by hiring security guards and researching the University's code of conduct at public events. "I think recognizing that the work that we do as a student group is a con- troversial topic," she said. "We talk about sex, people don't like young peo- ple talking about sex and that's just a reality of our world." Aside from her work in Students for Choice, Manes is perhaps best known for her CSG presidential bid as the forUM party nominee. During her term as a CSG assembly representative, Manes said she saw flaws in CSG and said she believed it only catered to a few groups on campus. By running for pres- ident, she hoped to address these gaps and bring to light how student govern- ment had the potential to better each student's University experience. "I had the passion, I had the back- ground and I had the skills to make it where all students could thrive and be a better community for all," she said. Though their campaign ultimately was not successful, Manes' running mate, LSA junior Pavitra Abraham, believes Manes will not stop trying to make student life as fulfilling as pos- " sible for the student body. "Carly's next step very much is going to include a lot of the things that were on our (election) platform and continue to make this campus a more inclusive, safe space for everyone," Abraham said. "She cannot function if she's not doing activism or making the world the better place, that's just her personality," Kotov added. BY DANIEL WASSERMAN On April 2, a few days before the Final Four, Engineering graduate student Jordan Morgan was sup- posedtobe ona plane to Dallas. That was the plan, anyway. But as consolations go, an acknowledgement from the Presi- dent of the United States, Barack Obama, isn't too bad. "I want to congratulate Jordan," Obama said, before mentioning Morgan's undergraduate degree in engineering and the master's degree in manufacturing engineering that Morgan will receive next month. "That's the kind of student-athlete we're talking about." Obama was visiting Ann Arbor in attempts to rally support for increas- ing minimum wage, an issue which hit close to home for Morgan. "I'd like to take my manufactur- ing education and really commit to making a difference within urban communities, to find awayto imple- ment sustainable manufacturing that would provide livable wages, not just minimum-job wages, but actually address the issue of the cor- porate structure of most companies in the United States, where you've currently got a majority of workers fighting for what's left - the scraps," Morgan said. His talk is big - a daunting chal- lenge, it seems, but Morgan lays itall out smoothly. He knows a thing or two about being doubted. After committing to Michigan as a high school junior in Decem- ber 2007, Morgan had to listen to experts and fans alike say that he didn't belong in Ann Arbor. Even though the Wolverines, at the time of his pledge, hadn't made an NCAA Tournament in nearly a decade, it was a near-consensus that his size and athleticism were better suit- ed for his next-best offer, Central Michigan. Morgan faced the same ques- tions - welcomed them, even, to prove a point - until the day his playing career ended. Time and again, Morgan answered his doubt- ers, to the tune of 120 starts in a program-record 140 games played, a 62.7 percent field goal mark - also a Michigan record. Now, a month away from graduation, Morgan has won more games - 118 - than all but two Wolverines. What he gave up in stature - he wasundersized innearlyeverygame he played, often by three-to-four inches and thirty-to-forty pounds - he compensated for by being the smartest and hardest worker on the floor. Never consumed in individual statistics, his prize accolade was being named first-team All-Big Ten Defensive last season. He recently signed with an agent and plans to play professionally, likely overseas. He'll leave Michigan not as a superstar, but with a legacy. Follow- ing in the line of Zack Novak and Stu Douglass, Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr., Morgan will be the last player that we can point to and say, 'He laid the foundation for what is now an elite-level basketball pro- gram. "In the last five years, I've really changed the way I want to go about my life," Morgan said. "I'm so differ- ent than when I got here. As a per- son, ny focus on life is so much less about myself than when I got here." While the Wolverines will play on without him, Morgan's time rebuilding in the state isn't over. When his professional playing career is over - when that is, not even he knows - he'll return to the town that raised him to embark on a challenge much larger than resur- recting a fallen basketball program. "Being from Detroit, seeing all the hurt - it's so barren in some areas, so many homeless people, high school students not valuing education - it's hard to see all that and understand why," Morgan said. "But then, when there's no type of economy to support really anything in these communities, that leads to struggle." "That would be the main focus of anything I do," he said. In thatjourney, too, he's bound to hear from the critics again. They'll tell him, 'You can't,' but, just like he did so often these past five years, he'll answer with humility, a smug grin and powerful results., LSAseniorNkemEzurike istheall-time leading scorer in the women's soccer pro- gram and has been a leader in its rise from a Big Ten bottom feeder to a national con- tender. Last month, she was drafted by the Boston Breakers, a member of the National Women's Soccer League. But perhaps the best way to describe Ezurike is with how she reacted to being named one ofThe Statement's Students of the Year. "I feel honored - there are alot of great students at this school, and a lot of people around me that helped me do it," Ezurike said. It may not sound much different from how many recipients would acknowledge the award, but this rings true consistent- ly: Ezurike is a player of few words, and almost none of them are about herself. Ask her about a goal, and she will credit the player who had the assist. Ask her about the offense, and she will credit the midfield. Ask her about a win, and she will credit someone else. When she arrived at the University in the fall of 2010, she entered a program at the beginning of what seemed to be at the beginning of a long roadto recovery. Mich- igan Head Coach Greg Ryan had come from coaching the U.S. Women's National Team, but his team didn't have the talent he needed to compete on a Big Ten level. In Ryan's first two years, before Ezurike joined the team, the Wolverines went 10-19-10 and had scored one or no goals in 29 of 39 games. To regain relevance, the team needed to tie together several pieces, and Ezurike, whose name means, "What I have is great- er than anything else," was the knot. Her accolades and numbers speak for themselves:the all-time leader in goals (49) and points (118), four-time All-Big Ten for- ward, 2013 first-team All-American. After she graduates in May with a degree in Eco- nomics and International Studies, Ezurike will begin training professionally. It takes more than just numbers to lead a teamback to prominence,which Michigan achieved last season with an Elite Eight .finish. To get that far, you have to have competitors, of which Ezurike was one of the fiercest. Off the field, she is shy, quiet and mild- mannered. But when the game starts? "She just becomes Nkem," Ryan said in October. "She becomes that other Nkem that everybody loves to see on the field." Her competitiveness showed in games last year when she would get visibly upset with herself for missing the net. Other times, she would get angry with an official for a call - as she would with anything that got in the way of winning. "It's really funnycto me because she's not like that at all off the field," said Kinesiol- ogy freshman Madisson Lewid, the team's forward, in October. "She's such a jokester, and she's always so calm. She's a complete- ly different person on and off the field." "It was really tough because (Ezurike) is sometimes too hard on herself," said her mother, Christie, in October. "When the team is not doing well, she gets really down. When that hap- pened, she was disappointed. She was a little bit hard on herself, but she bouncedback." In the middle of a scoreless streak in 2012, Ryan went to lunch with Ezurike and encouraged her to ease some of the pressure. If she kept try- ing the goals would come, he told her. Soon, they did - and Ezurike start- ed rolling once again. Last season, Ezurike broke the school's all-time scoring record on Oct. 20 vs. Purdue, with her mom in town from Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia to see it. She downplayed the record in the weeks leading up to that game, but she knew as soon as she scored that she had it. She was mobbed by her teammates, then after the game, she went over to the oppo- site sideline to get a hug from her mother. That moment left Christie beam- ing. "She's a great daughter," Christie said thatday."When she comes home, you know she's home because every- thing will be taken care of." For four years, home was the Michigan soccer program. And now, thanks in large part to Ezurike, the program is taken care of.