investments. It allows the Uni-
versity’s endowment to invest 
in and finance startups with 
technology licensed through 

the 
University’s 
Office 
of 

Technology Transfer.

“From the Investment Office 

point of view, the purpose of 
MINTS is to generate return for 
the endowment because that’s 
what we do,” Castilla said.

MINTS is beneficial to Uni-

versity 
investments 
primar-

ily because it helps diversify 
the University’s endowment. 
MINTS typically invests in 
smaller companies and in their 
early stages while much of the 
University’s endowment lies in 
bigger companies.

Castilla said the MINTS ini-

tiative not only aims to make 
money but also to help com-
mercialize 
technology 
and 

products like Atterocor’s drug. 
MINTS strives to make sure 

that cutting-edge, worthwhile 
technology 
doesn’t 
remain 

stuck in the lab.

“If we have a drug and we 

think it can treat adrenal can-
cer, we need a way to get it 
out to the world and that costs 
money,” Castilla said. “You 
have to raise financing, you 
have to get investors, you have 
to do FDA trials.”

MINTS serves as a way to 

back University entrepreneur-
ship, to diversify the Uni-
versity’s endowment and to 

commercialize University tech-
nology.

“There aren’t many universi-

ties that have such a program,” 
he said. “We’ve had calls from 
other 
universities 
that 
are 

interested in MINTS, but there 
aren’t a lot of universities that 
have a similar program at this 
point in time.”

rate of tuition in the first place 
and the relatively low grade of 
spending by the state on schol-
arships means that Michigan 
is a fairly unaffordable state for 
higher education for most stu-
dents.”

Due to both the recessions and 

the recent cuts in state funding, 
Heller said Michigan universities 
have resorted to tuition increases 
to maintain their budgets.

“One of the reasons that 

tuition has went up so much in 
the last 12 years is because the 
state was cutting funding for the 
institutions,” he said. “The ratio-
nal response on the part of insti-
tutions is to raise tuition.”

To combat the higher tuition 

prices, Heller said MSU has 
tried to increase financial aid 
and scholarships to students, an 
approach the University has also 
championed.

However, he noted the diffi-

culty for many state universities 
with limited resources to take 
this approach for every student.

Allison said the report card is 

not meant to discredit the qual-
ity of education in each state, but 
rather to allow each student to 
see how state governments pri-
oritize higher education in their 
budgets.

“The idea here is that we want 

to provide this context and to 
inform students of the impor-
tant role the state budget plays, 
but then also use this as a tool to 
advocate for better state invest-
ment,” he said. “We don’t want 
this research to just exist in a 
bubble.”

pass up,” Durkin said in a state-
ment. “We had some great times 
working together at Stanford, 
and I look forward to producing 
great results at Michigan.”

In his final year at Florida, 

Durkin’s defense was ranked 
No. 15 in the nation in yards 
allowed, giving up 329.8 per 
game. The previous year under 
Durkin, Florida’s defense was 
No. 15 in the country in scoring 
defense, allowing 21.1 points per 
game.

Durkin 
replaces 
former 

defensive 
coordinator 
Greg 

Mattison, 
though 
multiple 

reports have said Mattison will 
stay on Harbaugh’s staff work-

ing under Durkin.opportunity 
that I could not pass up,” Dur-
kin said in a statement. “We 
had some great times working 
together at Stanford, and I look 
forward to producing great 
results at Michigan.”

In his final year at Florida, 

Durkin’s defense was ranked 
No. 15 in the nation in yards 
allowed, giving up 329.8 per 
game. The previous year under 
Durkin, Florida’s defense was 
No. 15 in the country in scoring 
defense, allowing 21.1 points per 
game.

Durkin 
replaces 
former 

defensive 
coordinator 
Greg 

Mattison, 
though 
multiple 

reports have said Mattison will 
stay on Harbaugh’s staff work-
ing under Durkin.

did not believe in the direction 
that Collins was taking the fire 
department.

“I’m not saying he did a bad 

job,” Brevard County Manager 
Stockton Whitten told Florida 
Today last September. “It was 
just philosophical differences.”

In a November press confer-

ence, Seto expressed confidence 
in Collins’ selection. Collins has 

a master’s degree in operations 
management from the University 
of Arkansas, a bachelor’s degree 
in public safety management 
from Franklin University and an 
associate degree in fire-rescue 
administration 
from 
Sinclair 

Community College.

Collins said he plans to make 

Ann Arbor’s fire department 
more progressive, but has not 
been in the job long enough to 
pinpoint necessary changes.

“I will recommend changes 

that I think are appropriate for 

moving us forward, making us a 
top notch fire department in the 
state, perhaps in the midwest 
part of the country,” he said.

Ultimately, Collins said he is 

committed to keeping all Ann 
Arbor citizens safe. He added that 
the fire department makes no dif-
ferentiation between students, 
citizens and elected officials.

“Our job is to provide good, 

basic fire and life safety protec-
tion to anybody and everybody 
in the community and folks that 
visit here as well,” he said.

istrators.

Joe Greene, the principal of 

North Farmington High School 
in Farmington Hills, Mich., was 
relieved the state came to an 
agreement regarding standard-
ized testing.

“We are just pleased that the 

state made a decision, that we 
actually have a clear picture of 
what we’re aiming at, and now 
we can use that to guide our work 
going forward,” Greene said.

The College Board has prom-

ised to begin providing free SAT 
preparation materials to Michi-
gan high schools this spring.

Greene said that he wasn’t 

worried about the students at 
his high school transitioning to 
a new standardized test because 
he believes the school has made 
improvements in the last few 
years that have prepared their 
students for any type of test.

“In talking with my staff and 

my colleagues, we really believe 
that the work we’ve been doing in 
the last two years, to align with 
the Common Core and to align 
our instruction and the learn-
ing we’re causing to really create 
student achievement, it almost 
doesn’t matter what test we put 
in front of our students, we’re 
going to have them ready for it,” 
Greene said.

However, the change from the 

ACT to the SAT has some high 
school students worried that it 

will negatively affect their col-
lege admissions prospects.

Clara Kaul, a junior at Com-

munity High School in Ann 
Arbor, 
said 
the 
discrepancy 

between the ACT and SAT comes 
down to personal preference.

“There’s pretty mixed feelings 

because they’re two different 
tests, and there are people who 
do much better on one than they 
do on the other. Some people are 
for it, because it means they get 
to take the test they did better on, 
some people are against it, some 
people are like, ‘Oh, now I have to 
study for a different test.’”

Despite these worries, the 

revamped SAT, debuting in 2016, 
may alleviate the situation.

The College Board website 

said the focus of the SAT rede-
sign is to create an exam that bet-
ter predicts college performance.

The new exam will include an 

optional 50-minute essay, a read-
ing section, a written language 
test and a math section.

Other notable changes include 

removing the penalty for an 
incorrect answer, limiting mul-
tiple-choice questions to four 
options instead of five and creat-
ing a test that rewards students 
for extensive classroom experi-
ence rather than the ability to 
reason.

These changes make the SAT 

more similar to the ACT, accord-
ing to The New York Times, 
though it will take a few years to 
see if it is a better indicator of col-
lege readiness.

In spite of existing differences 

between the two standardized 
tests, the University does not 
foresee that the state’s decision 
to shift to the SAT will affect 
admissions.

“UM has long accepted either 

ACT or SAT scores with admis-
sion applications, so there is no 
immediate impact at UM from 
this change by the state,” Univer-
sity spokesman Rick Fitzgerald 
wrote in an e-mail.

Michael Bastedo, director of 

the University’s Center for the 
Study of Higher and Postsecond-
ary Education, said one thing that 
will likely change after Michigan 
high schools begin offering the 
SAT is that the percentage of 
University applicants submitting 
the SAT will increase.

Currently, the College Board’s 

website says that 33 percent of 
first-time freshmen applicants 
to a university submit the SAT, 
while 79 percent submit the ACT.

Greene said he is uncertain 

how this shift will impact state 
universities, but expects it to be 
similar to the transition his high 
school will face.

“For the last several years the 

state schools have been used to 
going off the ACT and have been 
using that significantly for Mich-
igan students,” Green said. “Now 
they’re going to have to make a 
shift, but most in-state schools, 
to my understanding, have been 
accepting the SAT for a while, so 
I think this will be a transition, 
but like us they will accommo-
date and move forward.”

3-News

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Friday, January 9, 2015 — 3

DETROIT
Hundreds of Mich. 
schools close amid 
another day of cold 

Hundreds of Michigan schools 

closed Thursday as the state faced 
another day of dangerously cold 
temperatures and braced for more 
snow. Icy and snowy roads were 
blamed for four traffic deaths in 
the Lower Peninsula.

Detroit Public Schools and 

many other southern Michigan 
districts 
canceled 
classes 

Thursday, and some were already 
announcing plans to close again 
Friday.

Overnight 
temperatures 

dropped to minus 7 at Benton 
Harbor and minus 6 at Coldwater 
and 
Marshall, 
the 
National 

Weather Service said. Thursday 
afternoon’s readings reached only 
into the teens or single digits, with 
Drummond Island and Pellston 
hitting 18 degrees.

CLARION, PENN.
Two dead in 
18-vehicle pileup 
on Penn. highway

Two people died and nearly 

two dozen were injured in an 
18-vehicle crash during a snow 
squall in western Pennsylvania 
that left drivers with little vis-
ibility.

Authorities said the chain 

reaction 
pileup 
happened 

Wednesday afternoon in white-
out conditions on Interstate 80 in 
Clarion Township. Nine trucks, 
several of them tractor-trailers, 
and nine cars were involved in 
the crash in the highway’s west-
bound lanes, state police said. At 
least one of the trucks was car-
rying hazardous material, but no 
leaks were found, a county offi-
cial said.

Two people died after leav-

ing their vehicles. One was 
struck and the other collapsed 
and died of internal injuries 
while looking for his children, 
who had been ejected, Shaffer 
said. The children were found 
unharmed.

CHICAGO
O’Malley to decide 
on presidential bid 
by the spring

O’Malley says he’ll decide on 

presidential bid by spring Mary-
land Gov. Martin O’Malley says he 
will decide by spring whether to 
seek the Democratic nomination 
for president in 2016.

O’Malley spoke Thursday at 

the University of Chicago’s Insti-
tute of Politics. He says he’s “very 
seriously considering running in 
2016.”

But the outgoing governor 

says that first he’s going to take 
a few months to get his family 
situated back in their hometown 
of Baltimore. He says he’ll also 
likely give some talks around the 
country.

O’Malley tells The Associated 

Press he’s not waiting for former 
Secretary of State Hillary Rod-
ham Clinton to announce wheth-
er she’ll run.

The former U.S. senator and 

first lady is considered the lead-
ing contender for the Democratic 
nomination even though she has 
yet to declare herself a candi-
date.

YEMEN
U.S. says Al Qaeda 
trained Said 
Kouachi

A senior U.S. official says one 

of the two Kouachi brothers sus-
pected of carrying out the Char-
lie Hebdo attack trained with al 
Qaeda in Yemen. Said Kouachi, 
34, spent a “few months” being 
trained in the small arms combat 
and marksmanship skills used in 
the Wednesday attack, said the 
official. U.S. intelligence officials 
said they are still trying to deter-
mine if the al Qaeda cell ordered 
the attack, which left 12 dead.

—Compiled from 
 Daily wire reports

NEWS BRIEFS

COSTS
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SAT
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CHIEF
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HIRED
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residential students — those 
who take classes in-person at a 
university— aren’t entirely sold 
on the concept. The primary 
target for MOOCs are often 
students who are not currently 
enrolled at a traditional college 
campus.

Christopher Brooks, a School 

of Information research fellow, 
has done extensive MOOCs-
related research and is a mem-
ber of DEI’s USE Lab, which 
studies instructional technolo-
gy. Brooks said while he’s found 
that a majority of students find 
value in MOOCs offered by their 
institution, more than a third 
still indicate they’re unsure of 
the benefits.

“There has been significant 

debate as to the value of MOOCs 
for 
students 
in 
traditional 

higher education,” Brooks said. 
“This uncertainty is reflected in 
the student body.”

He said the format and struc-

ture of these courses remain in 
an experimental phase.

“(MOOCs) 
are 
constantly 

changing, are being pushed 
and pulled in various ways — 
from large public universities 
like Michigan showcasing the 
breadth of programming, to 
private venture capital-backed 
corporations like Coursera, to 
quasi-governmental organiza-
tions that deal with workplace 
training,” he said.

However, Brooks predicted 

that within the next five years, 
MOOCs will become a regular 
part of public universities.

Some critics worry MOOCs 

might lead to the downfall of 
traditional college campuses in 
the future. Still, Dan Russell, 
one of Google’s top researchers 
who met with the University’s 
Board of Regents when they 

traveled to California in 2013, 
said the courses are not intend-
ed to displace four-year institu-
tions.

“Historically, once upon a 

time, universities were threat-
ened by the introduction of low-
cost printed books,” Russell said 
in a 2013 interview with The 
Michigan Daily. “They survived 
that. That seems inconceivable 
now. When we look back at this 
time 20 years from now, uni-
versities, 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?’”

Citing an experiment cur-

rently underway where resi-
dential MBA students give 
virtual office hours for MOOCs 
on finance, he said the Uni-
versity’s ability to incorporate 
online courses could also pro-
vide opportunities for tradi-
tional students to both teach 
and learn.

For 
University 
professors 

who don’t currently incorpo-
rate MOOCs in the classroom, 
like John T. Lehman, ecology 
and evolutionary biology pro-
fessor, there’s also caution that 
MOOCs be created and pre-
sented in a way that students 
find the course beneficial and 
relevant to their educational 
growth.

Lehman said for them to be 

useful, they must be tailored to 
fit the needs of students.

“Digital education is a term 

with a cultural meaning that 
is changing rapidly,” Lehman 
said. “I think of it as part of the 
continuum of technologies to 
aid learning that includes spo-
ken and written language, the 
printing press, radio, televi-
sion, etc. The key is to recognize 
what it can deliver best, such 
as repetitive low-stakes learn-
ing exercises, to many students 
asynchronously.”

MOOCS
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FUND
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THE 
DAILY

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ACCEPTING 
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TIONS 

IN EVERY 
SECTION.

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