The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Thursday, January 23, 2014 - 3A
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Thursday, January 23, 2014 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
KALAMAZOO, Mich.
Sheriff: Doctor
'erratic' before
disappearance
Adoctorbehavedstrangelyand
erratically with colleagues and
others in the hours before her dis-
appearance, southwestern Mich-
igan authorities said Wednesday,
adding that it's a complicating
factor in a month-and-a-half-old
case with few clues.
Kalamazoo County Sheriff
Richard Fuller said during a news
conference that Kalamazoo doc-
tor Teleka Patrick told colleagues
on Dec. 5 she was going to Chi-
cago to visit a relative. But she
told another colleague she need-
ed money and a ride to a nearby
hotel.
Fuller said she walked inside
the hotel, looked around and
appeared to want a room but
never requested one. She asked
for a ride to the hospital, where
she was a psychiatric resident, to
pick up some things. Once there,
she said she would not be return-
ing to the hotel, and the driver
saw her get into a car and drive
away, the sheriff said.
FLINT, Mich.
Cold pushes back
opening of Flint
ice skating rink
It's so cold in Flint that officials
are pushing back the planned
openingof a new outdoor ice rink.
The Flint Journal reports
that Kettering University offi-
cials planned to open the rink at
Atwood Stadium on Wednesday
but delayed the event until 6 p.m.
Friday due to extreme cold and
staffing issues.
According to the National
Weather Service, it was 8 degrees
around midday Wednesday in
Flint after dropping as low as 10
below zero earlier.
Once open, the rink will be
open from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on
Wednesdays and Fridays and
from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays.
Admission is free.
SALT LAKE CITY
Protesting Utah
student pays
tuition in $1 bills
A University of Utah student
says he paid his tuition bill with
2,000 one-dollar bills as a silent
protest against the rising cost of
college.
Luq Mughal brought a metal
case full of greenbacks to the
school Tuesday, the deadline for
payment. He says he collected the
cash from several banks.
Mughal tells The Salt Lake
Tribune he spends weekends
working to pay for his electrical
engineering degree.
The 21-year-old says he gets
a discount because his father is
a faculty member and acknowl-
edges his situation is far from the
worst on campus.
LONDON
UK charges two
women with terror
offenses
British police say two women
have been charged in relation
to funding terrorist activities in
Syria.
Amal Elwahabi, 27, and Nawal
Msaad, 26, were arrested on Jan.
16.
Msaad was detained at Lon-
don's Heathrow Airport as she
prepared to board a flight to Tur-
key. At the time, officers said they
had seized a large quantity of
cash. Elwahabi was arrested later
that day in northeast London.
Police said Wednesday that
both British women have been
charged with arranging funds
which "they knew or had reason-
able cause to suspect" would or
might be used "for the purposes
of terrorism."
Metropolitan Police added that
the charges relate to terrorist
activity in Syria, specifically.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports
BOARD
From Page 1A
Members of the board were joined
by Coleman; Provost Martha Pollack;
Tim Slottow, executive vice president
and chief financial officer and Sally
Churchill, vice president and secretary.
Ora Pescovitz, executive vice presi-
dent for medical affairs and University
Health System chief executive officer;
E. Royster Harper, vice president for
student life and Jerry May, vice presi-
dent for development also contributed to
some of the sessions.
Leaders in higher education on the
East Coast facilitated sessions in New
York with the University's attendees.
These leaders included Bill Bowen,
Princeton University president emeri-
tus; Peter Salovey, president of Yale
University; Edward Miller, retired exec-
utive vice president for medical affairs
at Johns Hopkins University and Mike
Johns, retired executive vice president
for health affairs at Emory University.
In addition to these sessions, the
board attended two development events,
one at Lincoln Center and a breakfast
Friday morning designed to engage
younger alumni. Both were paid for by
Office of Development funds, totaling
about $90,000, according to University
spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald.
Bowen led the regents in a session
centered on digital learning -which was
one of the chieftalkingpoints duringthe
California trip last year as well.
In an interview with the Daily, Bowen
said institutions like the University
should not be concerned with online
courses - like Massive Open Online
Courses - threatening traditional resi-
dential approaches to higher education.
"The situation is very different at a
place like the University of Michigan,"
Bowen said. "Michigan is going to be just
fine whatever they do or don't do in this
area over the few years. I have no doubt
about that."
Bowen, who co-authored "Cross-
ing the Finish Line: Completing Col-
lege at America's Public Universities,"
said online courses have the potential
to increase college completion rates
and decrease the time it takes to earn a
degree. However, Bowen said the ben-
efits of online courses might be greater
for institutions struggling to bump up
completion rates than mature institu-
tions like the University.
Aside from discussing MOOCs, Bowen
said his conversation with the regents
included a variety of topics on the fron-
tier of digital education, including meth-
ods for harnessing technology in the
University's classrooms. Bowen and
the board talked at length about taking
advantage of the large amounts of data
that will be assembled from university
courses with online components.
Bowen added that the board and
administrators asked good questions,
especially in regards to pressing chal-
lenges such as intellectual property or
preventing the privatization of data col-
lected.
"There are people at Michigan who
are working very creatively on how to
use this data appropriately," Bowen said.
In the fall, Pollack initiated a series
of town halls to seek input on the Uni-
versity's approach to digital and engaged
education.
Regent Andrea Fischer Newman (R),
chair of the Board of Regents, said the
University is most concerned with inte-
grating technology into learning. New-
man added that she agreed with Bowen's
assessment that MOOCs might not be as
much of a priority for the University.
"I think we will look at all opportuni-
ties, but initially we are most concerned
with the best use of technology for our
current students on campus," Newman
said.
Last year in California, the regents
met with Dan Russell, a Google research
scientist leading Google's MOOC port-
folio. He recommended the University
begin with a small investment in MOOCs
and see where it goes, before deciding
whether or not to adopt the platform in
full force.
"Historically, once upon a time, uni-
versities were threatened by the intro-
duction of low-cost printed books,"
Russell said in a January 2013 interview.
"They survived that. That seems incon-
ceivable now. When we look back at this
time 20 years from now, universities,
I predict, will still be around and we'll
have the same sort of 'you're kidding'
response. 'How could they think this
could destroy the University?"'
If the regents expressed uncertainty
about MOOCs in their meetings with
Russell last winter, questions regarding
the future of MOOCs have not yet been
fully answered.
"What stood out to me the most is we
really don't know where it's headed,"
Newman said. "There's a lot of experi-
mentation going on. The University is
heavily engaged in that. I don't think
anyone has the answers at this time.
Obviously everyone is looking for the
magic bullet, but it's just not there."
In what Newman described as "the
best session we had," the board also met
with Miller and Johns Thursday.
Though the board did not meet with
any hospital officials last year in Cali-
fornia, Coleman said the conversa-
tion became especially pertinent as the
implementation of the Patient Protec-
tion and Affordable Care Act takes place
this year.
"Everybody is curious how the ACA
is going to impact academic health sys-
tems," Newman said.
Miller said the influx of patients
would be more gradual than many peo-
ple think, as sign-ups trickle in more
slowly than expected.
"People thinking there was a tsunami
of patients who were going to come into
the system - that's not goingto happen,"
Miller said.
Miller said academic health systems
must try to control costs and potential-
ly move away from the fee-per-service
model, which emphasizes quantity rath-
er than quality of service.
He added that the board was most
interested in exploring the differences
accounted for by geographic region
between the University of Michigan
Health System, Johns Hopkins and
Emory based on regional differences.
The board used the session to consider
the reputation of UMHS, particularly in
relation to the merits or downsides of
acquiring or aligning with other hospital
groups.
"We are interested in alliances with
other hospitals and practice groups and
these are all things both Hopkins and
Emory are also doing," Newman said.
In December, UMHS announced an
agreement with Allegiance Health, a
health system based in Jackson, Mich.
While UMHS will initially serve as the
system's parent company, it will eventu-
ally absorb the system.
Miller said though he has seen a trend
of consolidating community hospitals
into larger health systems, an academ-
ic health system should only pursue
acquisitions or agreements when the
institution is financially stable and an
agreement could bring benefits to both
institutions.
"You strengthen the core," Miller
said. "You strengthen the main hospi-
tal, recruit great leaders. That's how you
improve your overall reputation."
In a separate meeting, the board also
met with Salovey for a session themed
"Excellence in Higher Education."
Through Yale's Office of Public
Affairs, Salovey declined an interview
for this article.
In an interview before the trip, Cole-
man said Salovey's talk would focus
on a range of broader issues, including
affordability and educational quality.
Though diversity on campus was a
part of Salovey's talk, it did not sur-
face on the agenda of other sessions.
According to University spokesman
Rick Fitzgerald, Salovey's conversation
focused on broader themes of diversity
in higher education, rather than specifi-
cally related to the University.
While Newman said she was not pres-
ent for the last portion of Salovey's talk,
she did not think the #BBUM campaign
was discussed during the trip.
In an e-mail sent to students and fac-
ulty during the trip, Pollack announced
a list of initiatives designed to combat
the concerns raised by the #BBUM cam-
paign.
Rather than pinpointing initiatives
or methods the University should be
copying, Newman said the trip's ses-
sions were designed to allow the board
to learn what's going on at institutions
outside of the University.
She also said these types of conver-
sations are especially important as the
board searches for the next university
president.
"I think as you are searching for a new
president, it always informs your think-
ing and knowledge base as you're talking
to people," Newman said. "This was a
learning session. This was an opportu-
nity to explore and learn. It's kind of like
going back to school. You never want to
be too insular."
LEGISLATION
From Page 1A
healthcare, others choose not to due to
misgivings about HealthCare.gov. When
the site first went live in October, glitches
in the system lead to difficulty in login and
long wait-times afterward.
Rackham student Juliana Stebbins,
who is involved in ACA outreach, said
although the site is now running smooth-
ly, the initial rollout scared people away.
"At first people were not proactive
about going out and getting insurance
because it was intimidating or they just
didn't really understand it," Stebbins said.
"Now it's because it's broken and it's con-
fusing. You're hearing all this negative
publicity about it, and it just deters the
process even longer."
Students have also been trying to edu-
cate the community about Michigan's
new Medicaid expansion - known as the
Healthy Michigan plan.
Michigan is one of 25 states to expand
Medicaid. Unlike other states, Michigan
has delayed the process until April of this
year. At that time, Medicaid will become
available for most people age 19 to 64 who
make less than $15,000 a year. Stebbins
said a big challenge on Healthy Michigan
education was getting past the stigma that
Medicaid is only for the sick.
"When people think of Medicaid they
don't really associate themselves with it
because it used to be really limited to a
certain demographic and a certain popu-
lation - disabled, blinds, children," Steb-
bins said. "Being a working adult, people
just don't assume that they fall into that
category, but now they do."
Stebbins added that Medicaid would be
the ideal plan for students older than age
26, who legally can no longer be insured
under their parents' plan. It will be cheap-
er than University plans, and studentloans
are not counted against you when calculating
aninsurancepremium, Stebbinsadded.
A Jan. 13 New York Times article
reported only 24 percent of people ages
18 to 34 are choosing an ACA healthcare
plan. Since insurance plans rely on healthy
individuals to contribute to keep premi-
ums down, costs are likely to increase
if younger demographics don't enroll in
greater numbers. Rheingans attributed
the low percentage of young enrollees to
the tendency of young people to wait until
the last minute.
"Young people are notorious for doing
things at the last minute," Rheingans
said. "Now that people are hearing that
the website is working, people are saying
'Okay I'll go on, but I don't have to go on
until March 31.'So you know young people
aren't going to go on until the end of Feb-
ruary or March."
Even so, some young people may not
want health insurance through the ACA,
or at all for that matter. A December Gal-
lup Poll reported that said a majority of
people aged 18 to 29 disapprove of the
ACA, and fewer than a third of the unin-
sured members of this age group would
sign up for insurance through the act.
The Public Interest Research Group in
Michigan has created a health insurance
guidebook for young people, and is work-
ing with the University, Eastern Michigan
University and Washtenaw Community
College to get information out to students.
Stebbins said before open enrollment
ends, her organization plans to set up
tables around campus where students can
come and talk about insurance. Whatever
method is used, Stebbins said "the young
invincibles" - people who think they
don't need insurance - are an issue that
needs to be addressed.
This year, individuals will pay $95
per adult or 1 percent of taxable income,
whichever is greater, for remaining unin-
sured, according to the Michigan Depart-
ment of Insurance and Financial Services.
These fines increase to $325 or 2 percent
of income in 2015 and $695 or 2.5 percent
of income in 2016.
"I think that when people get stuck
with a fine, the tax penalty, that may
change their attitude," Stebbins said. "I
don't know what it's going to take to get young
people enrolled in health insurance, but it's a
really bigproblemifthey don't."
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RESOLUTIONS
From Page 1A
body's hurting alot because of that."
one of these resolutions, co-spon-
sored by the University and Indiana
University delegations, supports
federal efforts to promote tuition
equality at Big Ten schools for undoc-
umented youth.
The University's Board of Regents
passed measures to implement tuition
equality in July. The board revised
residency guidelines at the University,
making undocumented resident stu-
dents eligible for in-state tuition costs.
Music senior Ellie Kirn, CSG com-
munications director, felt that the
convention's most important discus-
sion had to do with the Affordable
College Textbook Act, which ABTS
supported. The correlating resolution
endorses the "open textbook publishing
model," under which digital copies of
textbooks are published for free online.
She added that the student govern-
ment representatives will bear these
issues in mind later in the year when
the ABTS delegates head to Washing-
ton, D.C. as part of "Big Ten on the
Hill," where they will get the chance
to discuss policy with federal officials.
Kirnsaidthethree-dayeventwas also an
outlettocomparebureaucraticprocesses.
"Michigan is the only school with-
out a student sitting on the Board of
Regents," Proppe said. "It'll never
happen - it's in the Michigan state
constitution - but (the other schools)
were offering ideas to increase the
power of student government and
make the student voice more promi-
nent at Michigan."
CANCER
From Page 1A
fraction of cells act as seeds
of the tumor, Wicha said.
Cells in this state, known
as epithelial-mesenchymal
transition, are dormant but
can spread to other organs
in the body.
The process of these cells
spreading is called metas-
tasis, and studying this
process has been a key com-
ponent of the research find-
ings. The previous dearth of
research on the dormant
cells within the process
of metastasis has posed a
challenge to researchers
trying to find new treat-
ment options.
"As a matter of fact, in
breast cancer, we sometimes
have women that go out ten
or 15 years and we think are
cured, and then the cancer, it
turns out, was hiding in the
bone," Wicha said.
Moreover, the new find-
ings show that these exact
same cells have the capac-
ity to switch states, causing
them to not only look differ-
ent under the microscope,
but also turn on different
genes in the cell.
When the cells enter the
mesenchymal-epithelial
transition state, they can
no longer invade tissues
but they can grow and
reproduce into malignant
tumors.
The tumor microenviron-
ment enables these cells to
flip back and forth between
the EMT and MET-states,
researchers said. While the
cells' plasticity seems to be
the reason that they are able
to flip between two states,
the reason for the cells' abil-
ity to switch states at any
given time is unclear.
"We're very interested in
studying whether things like
stress that may change some
of the proteins or hormones
in your body may actually
cause the cells to change
their state and come out of
dormancy," Wicha said.
While this research tar-
gets breast cancer stem cells,
other research laboratories
around the world have con-
firmed that similar stem
cells are present in other
forms of cancer.
The center is currently
in the midst of early-stage
clinical trials on drugs that
target EMT-state stem cells.
Wicha was confident these
drugs will eventually target
dormant EMT-state cells in
patients.
"What's been very grati-
fying is to be able see the
research we're doing in
the laboratory now direct-
ly move into the clinic
and hopefully benefit
patients with cancer,"
Wicha said.
RESTAURANTS
From Page1A
rediscover some of the old ones like
Gratzi," Magnini said.
Lucia Lagoy, assistant manager
at Cafe Zola, said the nature of Res-
taurant Week welcomes new cus-
tomers, especially wallet-conscious
students.
"It's a great opportunity for peo-
ple to come to our restaurant who
are interested in it but have other
favorite spots and might not try it
because they weren't sure about the
cuisine or you know they just want-
ed to get a sampling of our food
without committingtoafulldining
experience," Lagoy said.
Restaurant Week provides a
way for restaurateurs to experi-
ment with their menu offerings.
Cafe Zola featured a new menu and
assessed their customers' reactions,
Lagoy said.
"It was good for us to have sort
of a trial run in that sense, workthings
out, see what people liked, to see what
was really popular,"Lagoysaid.
Although Restaurant Week is
centered on noshing, Wanke said
it's also a way to bring the commu-
nity together and entice visitors to
come downtown during the frigid
winter months.
"It's a great exposure where the
public gets to come in and see us
and maybe didn't even know we
existed," Wanke said. "It's a good
community thing for restaurants
throughoutthe areato join together
and showcase what we all offer at a
reasonably priced point."
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