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 michigandaily.com N E WS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 S U D O K U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 OPINION.......................4 CL ASSIFIEDS.................6 ARTS.............................7 SPORTS.........................8 NEW ON MICHIGANDAILY.COM Former football player faces civil suit MICHIGANDAILY.COM/BLOGS GOT A NEWS TIP? Call 734-418-4115 or e-mail news@michigandaily.com and let us know. WEATHER TOMORROW HI: 10 LO: 1