Harper identified several promi-
nent University issues.

Last 
February, 
the 
U.S. 

Department of Education Office 
for Civil Rights announced they 
would investigate the University 
for its handling of allegations 
of sexual misconduct. In Jan. 
2014, The Michigan Daily first 
reported former kicker Brendan 
Gibbons’ permanent separation 
from the University for violating 
the Student Sexual Misconduct 
Policy, which drew wide criti-
cism of the University’s response 
policy to sexual assault on cam-
pus.

Last year, the student-led 

#BBUM 
movement 
attracted 

widespread attention on Twit-
ter. Through tweets, students 
discussed challenges faced by 
Black students at the University. 
As part of the campaign, mem-
bers of the Black Student Union 
and the administration have dis-
cussed changes to the Trotter 
Multicultural Center as one way 
to improve minority experiences 
on campus.

“What I think about a lot is 

sexual assault on campuses, 
diversity and inclusion,” Harper 
wrote. “The steady but too low 
numbers of students of color. 
Also issues of high risk drink-
ing.”

Harper also wrote that her 

undergraduate education at the 

University and desire to share 
her own experience led her to 
her current position.

“I did my undergrad work 

here,” Harper wrote. “It was 
everything I needed, plus stuff 
I didn’t know I needed. I have 
a passion and love for young 
people & want them to have that 
kind of experience, so they can 
change the world.”

However, Harper also wrote 

that her job is not without chal-
lenges, 
such 
as 
considering 

the needs of multiple parties, 
especially if they are in conflict 
with one another. She noted 
the necessity finding a balance 
between transparency and rights 
to privacy, as well as individual 
freedoms and the interests of the 
community at large.

According to Harper, the bal-

ancing act is why problems in 
student life take a long time to 
get fixed, even if the administra-
tion places a priority on finding a 
solution for the problem.

“Big myth: If I care, a problem 

would be fixed NOW,” Harper 
wrote. “Many problems are more 
complicated & involve many 
people.”

Harper described a day at the 

Student Life office as a consis-
tent exercise in prioritizing and 
stressed the importance of keep-
ing the work moving.

“Every day is balancing the 

important with the urgent,” 
Harper wrote. “We have to be 
proactive in keeping important 
work moving. It doesn’t matter 

what the schedule is.”

Finally, Harper also listed 

several ways the students can get 
involved and have a voice at the 
University, such as volunteer-
ing at the Ginsberg Center and 
attending events through the 
Center for Campus Involvement.

In an e-mail to the Daily, 

LSA senior Katie Szymanski, a 
UMSocial Media intern, wrote 
that the staff of UMSocial, 
which handles the University’s 
social media accounts, usually 
does not participate through 
their personal accounts to let the 
community participate instead. 
However, Szymanski said she 
felt inclined to tweet a question 
during Friday’s chat.

“I felt like this topic regarding 

student life and campus com-
munity really spoke to what I’m 
going through as a senior at the 
University of Michigan,” Szy-
manski wrote. “At one point, 
I joked about being indecisive 
about graduate school and looked 
at Royster for her response. She 
responded with ‘Tweet it at me!’ 
It almost felt like I was talking 
with one of my own friends.”

The next #UMichChat will 

take place in February, with 
Republican Gov. Rick Snyder 
and Thomas Zurbuchen, pro-
fessor of space science and 
aerospace engineering and the 
associate dean for entrepre-
neurship. The topic will focus 
on innovation, entrepreneur-
ship and the state of Michigan’s 
future.

might not be realistic.

“This is not a reflection on 

Snyder, but it takes a lot of money 
to make a viable run for the 
White House,” he said.

Hutchings also noted that 

several 
high-profile 
Republi-

cans such as Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, 
Rand Paul and possibly Marco 
Rubio have already established 
themselves as candidates in the 
race and locked up key donors. 
The 2012 Republican candidate 
Mitt Romney also stated his 
intention to run to a group of 
donors last week.

He said he felt it was already 

too late for Snyder to launch a 
successful campaign, and since 
Snyder has not been actively 
seeking donors, he most likely 
will not run.

Nonetheless, as the country 

gears up for the 2016 race, sev-
eral aspects of the governor’s 
record have received prominent 
attention. Snyder won reelection 
in 2014, carrying 51 percent of 
the vote in what was expected 
to be a close race against his 
Democratic counterpart Mark 
Schauer.

As 
governor, 
Snyder 
also 

passed a right-to-work bill that 
allows employees to retain their 
jobs without needing to join a 
union, a policy few other GOP 
governors have been able to 
accomplish.

However, since Republicans 

in Congress have attempted to 
dismantle portions of the health 
care reform laws passed under 
the Obama administration, Sny-
der’s policy record could also 
become a source of scrutiny.

Richard Hirth, professor of 

health management and policy at 
the University, said Snyder might 
face opposition in a Republican 
primary based on his admin-
istration’s 
Healthy 
Michigan 

Plan. The plan, which expanded 
Michigan’s Medicaid program, 
has been touted as an early suc-
cess, enrolling over 400,000 
low-income Michiganders since 
April, but also places Snyder in 
contrast to the prevailing GOP 
standpoint on highly contested 
federal healthcare legislation 
such as the Affordable Care Act.

“Since he was so instrumental 

in the Healthy Michigan plan, it 
will be hard for him to run com-
pletely away from it,” Hirth said. 
“He can still oppose the (federal) 
health care law broadly as a mat-

ter of principle to appeal to vot-
ers who oppose the law.”

After Romney lost the 2012 

presidential election, Hirth said 
the GOP would be less likely 
to support a candidate such as 
Snyder, who has arguably taken 
a more moderate approach to 
health care reform. As governor 
of Massachusetts, Romney pio-
neered a plan with similar facets 
as the ACA.

However, if Snyder made it to 

a general election, Hirth said he 
may be able to win some level of 
bipartisan support.

When the Healthy Michigan 

Plan passed in December 2013, 
Snyder requested federal waivers 
that allowed the state to receive 
federal funding for the plan while 
avoiding 
adoption 
of 
certain 

requirements under the ACA. 
However, Hirth was skeptical 
Republicans would accept a candi-
date who took the middle-ground 
approach to health reform.

“I don’t think I’d want to be 

him making that argument in 
most Republican primaries,” he 
said. “If he somehow got through 
the primaries, I think he could 
play that as a responsible, mid-
dle-ground approach.”

Statement Editor Ian Dilling-

ham contributed to this report.

SNYDER
From Page 1A

TWITTER
From Page 1A

3-News

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Monday, January 12, 2015 — 3A

NEWS BRIEFS

SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich.
Parked pick-up 
truck explodes

Authorities say they are inves-

tigating an explosion in a pickup 
truck parked in the driveway of a 
home near Detroit.

Oakland County sheriff’s depu-

ties say nobody was in the vehicle 
at the time of the Saturday morn-
ing explosion. The blast signifi-
cantly damaged the truck and 
sent debris across the Springfield 
Township home’s yard and drive-
way. 

The explosion also shattered a 

window on the home but nobody 
inside was hurt.

Deputies are working with 

state and federal law enforcement 
officials to determine the cause or 
motive of the blast.

WASHINGTON, D.C. 
Court case could 
foil government 
suits over job bias

The Supreme Court could put 

the brakes on the Obama admin-
istration’s 
growing 
crackdown 

against companies facing claims 
of discrimination against women, 
minorities and other protected 
groups.

Justices will hear arguments 

Tuesday in a case that considers 
whether employers can defend dis-
crimination lawsuits by asserting 
that government lawyers did not 
try hard enough to settle claims 
before going to court.

Companies 
are 
complain-

ing increasingly about the Equal 
Employment Opportunity Com-
mission’s 
“systemic 
litigation” 

program, which turns individual 
complaints of bias into high-stakes 
class-action cases on behalf of doz-
ens or even hundreds of workers.

The enforcement strategy has 

netted over $100 million in legal 
judgments and settlements from 
more than 50 companies since 
2011, including $20 million from 
Verizon Inc. to settle allegations 
that the company unfairly fired or 
disciplined hundreds of disabled 
workers for missing work.

PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia
AirAsia black boxes 
may be recovered

While Indonesia’s navy said 

divers had not yet found the black 
boxes from the AirAsia plane that 
crashed into the Java Sea two 
weeks ago, searchers on Sunday 
honed in on intense pings detect-
ed amid a growing belief that the 
devices will soon be recovered.

“The two are close to each other, 

just about 20 meters (yards),” 
Soesilo told reporters. “Hopefully, 
they are the cockpit voice recorder 
and flight data recorder.”

Officials said earlier Sunday 

that two separate pings had been 
detected.

Tonny Budiono, team coor-

dinator at the Directorate of 
Sea Transportation, said in a 
statement that the signals were 
intense in one area, and that the 
recorders were believed to be 
lodged there beneath wreckage. 
If divers are unable to free it, all 
of the debris will be lifted, the 
statement said.

—Compiled from 
 Daily wire reports

for the disease.

Though 14 percent of U.S. 

adults suffer from chronic kidney 
disease, which can eventually lead 
to end-stage renal failure, Saran 
said awareness of the condition 
is low in comparison to illnesses 
such as diabetes or heart disease.

“We need more awareness; we 

need people to practice primary 
and secondary prevention,” he 
said. “Less than 20 percent of 
those diagnosed with the dis-
ease are aware of their low kid-
ney functions.”

To prevent the chronic con-

dition, Saran also noted the 
importance of monitoring kid-
ney function patients coming 
in and out of the University of 
Michigan Health System. Pri-

mary prevention, which involves 
screening for risk factors, is the 
first step toward overcoming 
this challenge and accelerating 
the decline in the incidence of 
the disease.

“Non-communicable diseases 

such as these need early atten-
tion,” Saran said. “We need to 
take action sooner.”

Saran said transplants and 

dialysis have helped keep peo-
ple with chronic kidney disease 
alive longer, which is why fewer 
people are reaching end-stage 
renal disease. Even so, the pool 
of patients diagnosed with the 
chronic disease is not declining. 
In Ann Arbor, dialysis units have 
been cropping up increasingly in 
the last three years.

“The pool of sick people still 

continues to increase,” Saran said. 
“A chronic disease does not go 
away.”

KIDNEY
From Page 1A

Abbott, an adjunct professor of 
chemistry and biology at the Uni-
versity of Lethbridge in Canada 
and research scientist at Agri-
culture and Agri-Food Canada; 
and Harry Gilbert, biochemistry 
professor at Newcastle Univer-
sity in the United Kingdom, col-
laborated on the study.

With studies currently under-

way, the researchers hope the 
Bacteroides 
thetaiotaomicron 

bacterium can be developed into 
a therapeutic for people with 
diseases such as Crohn’s.

Abbott said distinguishing the 

bacteria’s relationship with sugar 
compared to yeast was an impor-
tant step in moving forward.

“On the surface of the human 

intestines, there are sugars that 
are very similar in structure to 
what you find on yeast, but there 
are dedicated pathways in this 
bacteria for digesting human 
sugars and for digesting yeast 
sugars,” he said. “(This) suggests 
that the relationship that bacte-
ria has with the human host is 
very different from the relation-
ship it has with yeast.”

In their study, the research-

ers tested their findings on 
mice, whose digestive tracts are 
similar to those of humans. To 
do so, they fed the mice Zinger-
man’s bread; the company pro-
vided 50-percent yeast-leavened 

breadcrumbs as food samples for 
the mice.

“Mice don’t have any androg-

ynous bacteria already in their 
gut so we can put what we want 
and … the quantity and genetic 
composition that we want,” 
Martens said. “So instead of put-
ting one human bacteria on top 
of hundreds of species of mouse 
bacteria already there, there’s 
nothing there. We know exactly 
what the physiology of the sys-
tem is.”

Gilbert and Martens teamed 

up after attending a conference 
together in 2009, where Gil-
bert became interested in one of 
Martens’s previously published 
papers on fungal cell molecules 
and intestinal cell walls.

“It really kind of started as a 

light discussion over a beer or 
two at conference and a few sim-
ple experiments and those few 
simple experiments turned out 
to be really interesting,” Mar-
tens said. “A lot more detailed 
studies came after that.”

Martens and Abbott said they 

were pleased with the study’s 
results.

“Everyone 
who 
becomes 

a researcher, you know, your 
whole career or your mission 
is to do something that actu-
ally makes a difference so if, in 
some small way, this study can 
lead to a therapy for people suf-
fering from intestinal diseases, 
that would be very rewarding,” 
Abbott said.

ZINGERMANS
From Page 1A

enthusiasm 
about 
the 
new 

appointment.

“Somebody of this caliber, we 

could’ve only wished for. It’s like 
Christmas – we got it!” Brow 
said.

Both Collins and his col-

leagues said they look forward 
to changes and improvements in 
store for the department.

“For years we’ve needed this 

type of leadership to make suc-
cession plans, and I think that 
he’s going to be able to get us 
going in the right direction,” 
Brow said.

In an interview with The 

Michigan Daily, Collins said he 
wants to involve members of the 
community in the process.

“I’ve got to get in and get my 

feet on the ground,” he said. 

“I’ve got to get a better under-
standing of the community, the 
department and its needs.”

“I think at that point in time 

what we do is we sit down and 
(compose) a strategic and a 
master plan to guide us into 
the future based upon changes 
in demand, based upon fiscal 
resources, based upon training 
needs and those kinds of things 
… We want that to be an open 
process.”

At the ceremony and recep-

tion, Collins said he considers 
Ann Arbor to be a world-class 
city, adding that the AAFD could 
become a world-class depart-
ment to match it. He said he feels 
privileged to lead the organiza-
tion, though he still maintains 
ties to Ohio, where he served at 
the Dayton Fire Department for 
thirty years.

“And remember: go Bucks,” he 

said.

FIRE CHIEF
From Page 1A

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