michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Friday, January 9, 2015
CELEBRATING OUR ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIFTH YEAR OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
ZACH MOORE/Daily
Rackham student Sandra Periord performs opera singing in the Concerto Competition in Hill Auditorium on Thursday.
THE FINAL NOTE
State receives poor
marks for college
affordability in
nonprofit’s report
By JACK TURMAN
Daily Staff Reporter
In a series of report cards
published earlier this week by
youth advocacy group Young
Invincibles, the state of Michi-
gan’s investment in higher educa-
tion ranked as one of the lowest
nationwide.
The report cards ranked Mich-
igan as the third worst state in
the country based on five metrics
— tuition, state appropriations
average, average burden on fami-
lies, financial aid for students and
higher education as a priority in
the state government.
Michigan was one of 31 states
to receive an “F” in appropria-
tions for higher education fund-
ing. It also numbered among 47
states that spend less per student
today than they did before the
recession in 2008.
In an interview Thursday, Tom
Allison, policy and research man-
ager at Young Invincibles, provid-
ed several reasons for Michigan’s
ranking. He cited the fact that the
state has cut its state appropria-
tions per student by 27 percent
over the past few years, which is 7
percent higher than the national
average at 20 percent.
Republican
Governor
Rick
Snyder’s
administration
cut
higher education funding by 15
percent in 2011, his first year in
office. After the decrease his
administration has incremen-
tally increased higher education
funding by 3.1 percent in 2012, 2.2
percent in 2013 and 6.1 percent in
2014.
Snyder’s office did not return
requests for comment on the
ranking Thursday.
Allison added that the state
awards fewer dollars than the
national average, which is over
$6,000 per student. Michigan
allocates about $4,500 per stu-
dent.
In an interview Thursday,
Donald Heller, dean of the College
of Education at Michigan State
University, noted a few factors as
possible reasons for why the state
ranked poorly on the report card.
He cited the two major recessions
of 2002 and 2008 in the state as
possible influences.
“The cut in state funding
which has caused the universi-
ties to raise tuition very rapidly,”
Heller said. ” The relatively high
See COSTS, Page 3
Larry Collins to
be sworn in Friday
after year-long
search process
By EMMA KINERY
Daily Staff Reporter
There’s a new chief in town.
After
a
year-long
search,
Monday marked the first day for
Larry Collins, Ann Arbor’s new
fire chief. He will be officially
sworn in at a ceremony on Fri-
day.
Collins succeeds former Chief
Chuck Hubbard, who retired in
January of 2014 after serving as
chief since 2011. Prior to that,
Hubbard had been a firefighter
in Ann Arbor for almost three
decades. Ann Arbor Police Chief
John Seto has overseen the fire
department for the past year.
Collins’ starting salary is set
at $122,000 a year, an increase
from the $104,549 he received at
Brevard County Fire Rescue, his
previous job.
Collins has experience serving
at two other fire departments.
He spent 30 years with the Day-
ton Fire Department in Ohio,
retiring as its director and fire
chief in 2008. Collins was also
fire chief of the Brevard County
Fire Rescue in Florida from 2009
until he departed in September.
Florida
Today
reported
his leave, noting differences
between Collins and his superior
regarding how the fire depart-
ment should operate.
“You can use the term fired,
but really what it was an amica-
ble separation on the part of both
parties,” Collins said in an inter-
view with The Michigan Daily.
Collins said that he had been
hired under a progressive man-
ager in Brevard, and the assistant
manager who succeeded him
MOOCs taught by
University profs.
have reached 1.5
million students
By CARLY NOAH
Daily Staff Reporter
Three years ago, the University
was one of four founding partners
of Coursera, a digital platform
that hosts Massive Open Online
Courses, or MOOCs, which allow
individuals from across the world
to take academic courses online.
Though a relatively new idea in
higher education at the time, now
15 University professors teach
courses on the platform and have
reached a collective 1.5 million
students worldwide, according
to the University’s department
of Digital Education and Innova-
tion.
For University students and
faculty, MOOCs have been a key
example of digital education’s
growth and change both on cam-
pus and beyond — one that’s been
met with both enthusiasm and
caution.
University Prof. Scott Page,
who teaches complex systems,
political science and econom-
ics, taught the University’s first
MOOC, Model Thinking.
“At the time, no one knew what
would happen — how many peo-
ple would take the course, how
much work it would be… (I) did
it because I thought it would be a
learning experience and because
I believe in the material I’m
teaching,” Page said. “(The Uni-
versity) wanted a social science
course that was easy to decom-
pose into models that did not rely
on much copyrighted material.”
Page said he thought the ben-
efits of online courses were vast
and could be altered to fit a wide
range of students.
“The benefits everyone men-
tions are retrievability and scale,”
Page said. “Once it’s taped, you
can access the course anytime
and anywhere. And you can have
hundreds of thousands of stu-
dents — I’m nearing three-quar-
ters of a million.”
Page
added
that
MOOCs
helped improved his own skills as
an educator.
“I found that there was an
enormous benefit from going
through the process of construct-
ing the lectures,” Page said. “I
became a better teacher and
thinker. Also, it’s really a thrill
to interact with people globally,
even if only electronically.”
While many professors and
individuals in the higher educa-
tion community like Page have
responded to MOOCs with enthu-
siasm, research also shows that
See CHIEF, Page 3
MCKENZIE BEREZIN/Daily
Susan Caulfield, associate professor of history, gives a lecture on topics about 19th century African-Bahian families
for a lecture series held by the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies at Tisch Hall on Thursday.
LET’S GET HISTORICAL
ACT loses contract
for standardized
testing in Michigan
high schools
By GENEVIEVE HUMMER
Daily Staff Reporter
The state of Michigan will
no longer require high school
juniors take the ACT. Begin-
ning in spring of 2016, the
SAT is the state’s new exam of
choice.
On Wednesday, the Michi-
gan Department of Education
and Department of Technol-
ogy, Management and Budget
jointly announced that all stu-
dents attending high school in
Michigan take the SAT in place
of the ACT.
The state requires that a col-
lege entrance exam and a job
skills test, which evaluates stu-
dents’ possible career oppor-
tunities, are provided free of
charge to all high school stu-
dents.
These tests are competitively
bid every few years and ranked
by a joint evaluation commit-
tee made up of the MDE, the
DTMB, a high school principal,
a local school superintendent,
a testing and assessment con-
sultant from an intermediate
school district and the vice
president from a Michigan
community college.
The College Board, which
administers the SAT, won the
three-year contract with a $17.1
million bid, $15.4 million less
than the next bidder, the ACT,
and was rated higher by a ten-
point margin.
The shift to the SAT will be
an adjustment for high school
students, teachers and admin-
See MOOCS, Page 3
See SAT, Page 3
SPORTS
36-year-old served
three seasons as
Harbaugh assistant
while at Stanford
By MAX COHEN
Managing Sports Editor
Michigan football coach Jim
Harbaugh made his first coaching
staff hire official Thursday morn-
ing when he named D.J. Durkin
Michigan’s defensive coordinator
and linebackers coach.
“D.J. is one of the top young
defensive coordinators in foot-
ball, and I look forward to having
him work with our student-ath-
letes,” Harbaugh said in a state-
ment.
Durkin, 36, comes to Michi-
gan after spending five years at
Florida, where he was the team’s
defensive coordinator and line-
backers coach for the previous
two seasons, as well as special
teams coordinator and defensive
ends coach for three years before
that. Durkin and Harbaugh have
worked together before, when
Durkin was Stanford’s defensive
ends coach and special teams
coach from 2007-2009 and Har-
baugh was the head coach.
“Reuniting with Jim at the
University of Michigan is an
opportunity that I could not
See HIRED, Page 3
Mich. gets
low grade
for higher
ed. costs
GOVERNMENT
ANN ARBOR
New fire chief to employ
innovative approach in A2
ACADEMICS
Massive Open
Online Courses
progress at ‘U’
Switch to SAT to have low
impact on ‘U’ admissions
EDUCATION
D.J. Durkin
hired as ‘M’
defensive
coordinator
INDEX
Vol. CXXIV, No. 44
©2015 The Michigan Daily
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CL ASSIFIEDS.................6
ARTS.............................7
SPORTS.........................8
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