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Tuesday, January 20, 2015 — 3
physics, math and engineering.
Likewise, 100 Chinese students
from SJTU come to the Uni-
versity each year to complete
degrees in the same fields.
The University has engaged
in extensive medical research
collaboration with Peking Uni-
versity, so Schlissel’s tour there
will largely revolve around its
Health Science Center in Bei-
jing, which houses the Uni-
versity’s Joint Institute for
Translational
and
Clinical
Research.
“U-M has many significant
engagements in China, and
this trip will allow the presi-
dent to learn more about those
engagements firsthand, and to
meet and build relationships
with the leaders of our partner
institutions,” said James Hollo-
way, vice provost for global and
engaged education in a press
release.
Holloway will travel to China
with Schlissel.
University President Emerita
Mary Sue Coleman first trav-
eled to China in 2005, three
years
into
her
presidency.
Developing
the
University’s
relationship abroad was a major
theme of her presidency, exem-
plified by presidential trips to
India , Ghana, South Africa and
Brazil.
Kenneth Lieberthal, a senior
fellow in public policy at the
Brookings Institute and for-
mer University political science
professor, said in January 2008
that engaging with China was
a way to gain a deeper under-
standing of its culture, econo-
my and global impact.
Lieberthal was part of a task-
force, commissioned by Cole-
man, to determine efforts for
using University resources to
help improve the University’s
understanding of China.
Currently, China is home to
almost 5,000 University alumni
and 200 study abroad students.
In the 2007-2008 academic
year, LSA’s academic theme was
“China in the World.”
“China is going to be a major
force in the 21st century and
so I think it’s very important
for our students to be exposed
and to understand the culture
and the politics and the current
issues in China,” Coleman said
in an October 2007 interview
with the Daily.
the evening of its launch. The cre-
ation of the hashtag and the subse-
quent movement gained national
media attention and inspired simi-
lar movements on other college
campuses.
Law Prof. Martha Jones, co-
director of the Law School’s Pro-
gram in Race, Law & History
and an associate professor in the
Department of Afroamerican and
African Studies, said in an inter-
view with The Michigan Daily that
she was not on campus when the
movement began, but followed the
events via social media.
“I recall vividly setting my Twit-
ter to the hashtag, so I could keep
up with the hashtag, and I remem-
ber seeing the photographs of all
the postings on the posting wall,”
she said. “Those still, to me, are
some of the most powerful images
of the movement.”
As part of the Martin Luther
King, Jr. Day demonstration, BSU
made seven demands of the Uni-
versity administration and chal-
lenged officials to respond within
seven days. According to the BSU
website, the demands would give
the group “an equal opportunity to
make change” on campus. Shortly
after, weekly discussions between
the BSU and the University admin-
istration
commenced.
During
these meetings, plans to address
every demand were developed.
Dean of Students Laura Blake
Jones was present during the
weekly meetings between the BSU
and administration. In an inter-
view with the Daily, she discussed
some of the work that has been
done since discussions with the
BSU began.
“Progress was made with every
single one of the demands, and
several of the demands have been
completely rectified,” Dean Jones
said. “For example, the Bentley
documents have been digitized
and stricter Race and Ethnic-
ity requirements have been imple-
mented.”
Last
April,
University
offi-
cials and the BSU co-authored a
press release outlining how each
of the seven demands was to be
addressed. Dean Jones referred
the Daily to the press release when
asked about the progress made to
address every demand thus far.
Among the seven, four demands
have been completely remedied,
she said.
The BSU was granted $60,000,
for funding a variety of student
groups on campus, an increase
from the $37,000 previously allo-
cated to the organization.
The University also approved
Intergroup Relations courses to
count toward the Race and Eth-
nicity distribution requirement,
increasing the classes in credit
value from two credits to three.
Seven colleges within the Univer-
sity adopted IGR courses as classes
fulfilling the Race and Ethnicity
requirement.
The
administration
also
addressed
emergency
funding
for students with financial need,
which the BSU demanded the
University increase. By launch-
ing a survey, the University deter-
mined that available funds had
not been exhausted. As a result,
several University units, including
the Office of Student Life and Cen-
tral Student Government, created a
central website to raise awareness
about available emergency funding
options for each school and college.
Lastly, officials digitized Bent-
ley Historical Library documents
with information on the Black
Action Movement of the 1960s. A
long-term plan for digitizing the
remaining documents is currently
in development by the Bentley
Library.
Talks to address affordable
housing are ongoing, though eve-
ning and weekend bus service has
increased as of May 2014. The Dean
of Students Office has also allocat-
ed funding for students for whom
transportation is an issue. Discus-
sions on increasing minority enroll-
ment and building a new Trotter
Multicultural Center on Central
Campus are also continuing.
Greenfield said developing a
business and architectural plan for
a new Trotter is difficult when the
committee responsible for doing
so comprises students and faculty
who lack the resources necessary
to move the project forward, a chal-
lenge which has impacted many of
the proposed initiatives.
Overall, Dean Jones said the
initiatives implemented so far are
helping move the University closer
toward tangible results.
In an interview with the Daily,
E. Royster Harper, vice president
for student life, said it is normal to
feel like progress is slowing down
at this point in the planning pro-
cess.
“They have been meeting weekly
and biweekly and doing the planning
for the new cultural center,” she said.
“This is more long-term work, so it’s
going to naturally feel slower than
actually making the decision to have
(a new multicultural center). We’re at
the working phase.”
Harper also said the decision to
allocate money for the new Trotter
Multicultural Center lies in Uni-
versity Provost Martha Pollock’s
office, and will be budgeted once a
plan for the new facility is finished.
Students and faculty are expected
to finish planning by the end of the
semester.
“There is no expectation for the
students and faculty to have all
the resources they need to actu-
ally build a new Trotter,” Harper
said. “What we’re asking students
and faculty to do is help with the
planning. You don’t know what
resources you’ll need to execute the
plan until the plan is finished being
made.”
The BSU and University admin-
istration agree that the demand
for a 10-percent representation of
Black students on campus has been
the most difficult to address.
“By the time we received the
demands, admissions decisions
had already been delivered,” Jones,
the dean of students, said. “At that
point, we decided we needed to
focus on yield, making phone calls
and sending e-mails to students
of color who had been admitted,
really encouraging them to accept
and enroll.”
Dean Jones also said the admin-
istration has hired Kedra Bishop to
serve as associate vice president for
enrollment management to further
address minority enrollment.
Greenfield thinks the admis-
sions office should focus on target-
ing urban communities — where
students tend not to apply to the
University — to raise minority
enrollment on campus.
“Instead of focusing on race
and some of the cultural back-
grounds of students, admissions
should focus more on geography,
and highly concentrated minority
areas or even SES status,” he said.
“They’re going to have to start
considering innovative admissions
techniques.”
Voters in the state of Michigan
banned the consideration of race,
among other characteristics, in
admissions with a 2006 ballot ini-
tiative.
Aside from continuing to col-
laborate — the administration and
BSU are currently scheduling meet-
ings for the winter semester — both
groups are developing future events
and plans. The BSU is currently
planning a leadership conference to
help increase post-graduate oppor-
tunities for students of color. The
BSU hopes the event will include
professional networking events and
speakers. Details for the conference
are projected to be released some-
time this term.
In December, University Presi-
dent Mark Schlissel announced
his intention to release a campus
diversity plan and to host a lead-
ership breakfast for various com-
munity members Feb. 18 focused
on developing a strategic plan for
diversity at the University.
Many agree #BBUM and the
movement that followed had a
significant impact on the Univer-
sity and will be remembered by the
University community for years to
come.
“It definitely provoked a lot of
listening and thought,” Prof. Jones
said. “I was thrilled and so proud of
our students for so creatively and
so eloquently bringing this move-
ment not only to our campus audi-
ence, but to a national audience.”
She also said #BBUM will serve
as a prime example of student
activism to which younger Wolver-
ines can aspire.
“BBUM will be linked to a long
chain of the history of activism on
this campus,” she said. “It has left
a challenge for students on this
campus. How are you going to
leave your mark? What do you care
about, and what are you going to do
about it?”
“Be understanding and be open
minded,” Greenfield said. “Don’t
allow your social circle to be your
end-all-be-all. Consider what oth-
ers have to offer.”
Dean Jones said the work will
continue.
“We all need to keep working
on this together,” Dean Jones said.
“We have to keep the momentum
going, keep the support going, and
keep the lines of communication
open.”
given out by sponsors of the event.
One of the prizes, sponsored by
Thiel Audio Products, offered
NetworkedIn, FoodCompass and
Snooze You Lose, three different
teams, $1,000 to continue devel-
oping their hacks. If the winners
were to continue pursuing their
projects,
representatives
from
Thiel said their cash prize could
increase to $5,000.
The top three winners, selected
by a panel of judges, were Draw
Anything, which placed first,
DataWave, which placed second,
and Haptic Feedback Suit, which
placed third.
Rackham students Olivia Walch
and Matt Jacobs, developers of
Draw Anything, used Wolfram
Alpha to program an application
that allows an individual to snap
a picture of any object and config-
ure a step-by-step instruction on
how to draw it.
Walch said her MHacks vic-
tory was unexpected, particularly
because her app was more algo-
rithm-based.
“I also love designing iOS apps,
so that was the software part of it,
and I just figured these awesome
people are doing amazing hard-
ware things that I could never do,”
Walch said. “So I thought when
you do something more theoreti-
cal — I mean they’ve got a Nerf
gun — we don’t have a chance.”
MHacks is the first competi-
tion of its kind in the nation and
has inspired several other college-
based hackathons in recent years.
Representatives from a similar
hacking competition at Stanford
University called TreeHacks were
in attendance and planned to fly
the winning team from MHacks
to their hackathon at Stanford.
This is a common practice at
hackathons, and MHacks prac-
tices a similar method to draw
students, both national and inter-
national, according Zwick.
“We bring in talent from
around the country and even out-
side of the country,” Zwick said.
“We have people from as far as
South Africa this time around. It’s
a building marathon so they can
build whatever they want. Most
use computer science and others
engineering, but it’s more about
making connections and, you
know, learning how to think in the
hacking way.”
Individuals don’t necessarily
have to have their teams fixed or
even their projects planned out;
organizers of MHacks provide a
networking session for those still
looking to join or build a team.
Chris
Bradfield,
a
gradu-
ate student from University of
North Carolina, Chapel Hill, was
one of these students that just
showed up. He said, aside from
convenience, he came to MHacks
because he wanted to experience
programming. He did not have a
team three hours before the hack-
ing began, but said he was willing
to work by himself or loosely with
another team.
“I just want to do something
back-end web development,” he
said. “When you go to a website
you see the front end, everything
behind it, that makes it work.
Really, I just hope I get a team I
can work with. That’s what I’m
here for, the other people. But I’m
not just going to ditch it if I don’t
get a team, though.”
Zwick said people without a set
group or people with no coding
or hackathon experience can still
find MHacks to be a valuable event
to attend, as the aim of MHacks is
to teach and inspire.
“Individuals leave here know-
ing a lot more than what they
came in with,” Zwick said. “I’ve
known people who’ve come here
never ever coding before in their
life and leaving having made an
iOS app, and I think that’s pretty
incredible.”
Jacobs and Walch, members of
the winning team, said their next
plan is to continue developing
their app and participate in other
hackathons, including TreeHacks
and Seoul Global Hackathon,
which fully sponsored the three
winning teams’ trips to the inter-
national competition.
“No expectations going into
this, so all these things that are
now on the table are on the table,”
Walch said.
Conrad Kramer, a previous
winner, gave a short speech at the
closing encouraging participants
to continue working on their ideas.
Kramer and his team, who had
won MHacks III, further devel-
oped their now best-selling iOS
app, WorkFlow. The app now has
over 100,000 downloads and won
the Editor’s Choice in the Apple
App Store.
“Do not drop your projects,”
Kramer said. “Build an awesome
product.”
BBUM
From Page 1A
CHINA
From Page 1A
white social workers not to fall prey
to a savior complex that often leads
to racist behaviors and mindsets.
“I think that it’s important to
remember that, for me, I see myself
in doing whatever work I do out of
a fundamental self-interest,” Bell
said. “I do that out of a way to try to
reclaim my humanity.”
Owusu warned against the use
of body cameras as a method for
curbing police brutality. He said
while it will increase accountabili-
ty of the problem, it risks normaliz-
ing the behavior and desensitizing
the community to violence.
He also lauded social media’s
impact on bringing to light some of
the injustice of police brutality and
rallying support for victims of it.
“There’s a lot of talk about how
online activism isn’t meaningful
as opposed to traditional means of
protest, but I think in conjunction
to traditional protest, that’s what
helped galvanize people in terms of
Michael Brown and the Eric Gar-
ner killings,” Owusu said. “I think
this is especially true when the
media is sometimes uninterested
in covering these stories or does it
opportunistically.”
Several
University
learning
communities sponsored the 28th
annual “Circle of Unity” gathering,
featuring musical performances
and slam poetry to feature the lit-
erature and art that came out of the
Civil Rights era.
Local artists Joe Reilly and
Julie Beutel performed original
compositions as well as spirituals
from antebellum Black communi-
ties. The Michigan Gospel Chorale
also performed the Black National
Anthem.
At the end of the event, students
stood at the podium to finish the
statement “I have a dream…”
Rackham student Dan Green,
also in the School of Social Work,
was one of the event organizers,
and said the University community
should learn about the ideals and
values Martin Luther King embod-
ied.
“I think learning what his beliefs
actually were is very important,”
Green said. “It’s more than what
you see in movies and on posters.
There’s so much more to Dr. King
that should be learned about.”
Green hoped the event inspired
and challenged those in attendance
to be the change they wish to see on
campus.
“There’s a lot of work to be
done,” he said. “Everyone needs
to be a part in order to make that
change happen.”
The Black Volunteer Network
also hosted their annual Martin
Luther King Jr. Day program for
21 high school students to discuss
King’s leadership and the current
state of activism, while encourag-
ing them to apply to the University.
The day began with the students
listening to the symposium’s key-
note address, which this year was
given by Marc Lamont Hill, host
of HuffPost Live and BET News,
as well as a political contributor to
CNN.
Hevhynn Jackson, a senior at
University High School Academy
in Southfield, Mich., said Hill’s lec-
ture inspired her to become more
socially active.
“I thought his speech entirely
was really amazing and really
spoke to me about how I need to get
active and if I want to see a change
I have to start making the change,”
Jackson said.
The BVN event also examined
academic, social and professional
life at the University, including
information on financial aid and
scholarship options.
LSA senior Asia Bond, who is the
BVN’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
co-chair, said the point is to inform
visiting students about the Univer-
sity and the application process.
“We just want to give them the
opportunity to come to Michigan
seeing what it’s like, seeing that
it’s not that far from home but you
can still attend this University. And
to meet us most of all, to get that
one-on-one experience, that’s hav-
ing someone who can be a mentor
somewhat,” Bond said.
Immediately
following
the
keynote,Honors College residential
assistants hosted their sixth annu-
al peer-group discussion.
LSA senior Colin McWatters,
an event organizer, said the goal
of the discussion was to discuss
the influence of recent nationwide
social movements on student lives,
including those against police bru-
tality and for statewide same-sex
marriage recognition.
“It’s important to focus on the
impact of the problems, so we’re
not just having conversations for
five or 10 years and so we’re actu-
ally doing something,” McWatters
said.
Students discussed how social
justice could be used to build a
more tolerant and diverse commu-
nity for all different types of indi-
viduals.
LSA sophomore Matt Sehrswee-
ney spoke of his perspective on the
fight for social justice as a straight
white male. He said it really “hit
home” when he saw 1,000 students
rally to call for the firing of former
Athletic Director Dave Brandon,
yet only 200 students participate in
the die-in to protest police brutal-
ity in December.
“If I wanted to I could ignore
those issues and I could be fine
my whole life, but so many people
can’t,” he said.
Rackham
student
Channing
Mathews told the group how her
friend heard white students mock
students and the event during the
die-in. Though Mathews spoke of
some of the discouragement she
felt after hearing about the encoun-
ter, she said by speaking to other
like-minded individuals, including
Sehrsweeney, she feels more hope-
ful.
“Even listening to Matt just
made me feel a lot better than I’ve
felt in the past eight months,” she
said, turning to Sehrsweeney.
The University’s MLK Sympo-
sium hosts a variety of social jus-
tice themed events throughout the
month.
— Daily Staff Reporters Alyssa
Brandon, Tanya Madhani, Gen-
evieve Hummer and Anastassios
Adamopoulos contributed reporting.
MLK
From Page 1A
MHACKS
From Page 1A
ines will need to stop the high-
flying scoring duo of Myles Mack
and Kadeem Jack, who average 14.7
and 12.8 points per game, respec-
tively.
Mack, a 5-foot-10 guard, is a
potential defensive match for
freshman guard Muhammad-Ali
Abdur-Rahkman if Albrecht and
Walton are entirely unable to go.
The injuries, Beilein acknowl-
edged, have flipped Michigan’s
status in the Big Ten — the Wol-
verines were among the confer-
ence’s “hunted” teams following
a Final Four appearance in 2013
and a trip to the Elite Eight the
following season.
“We’re certainly hunters for
the rest of the year,” Beilein said.
Beyond newfound opportuni-
ties for players like Lonergan,
along with Abdur-Rahkman and
fellow freshman guard Aubrey
Dawkins, the injury void creates
an obvious opportunity for soph-
omore forward Zak Irvin to step
up.
This year, according to Beilein,
Irvin has seen consistent growth
as a passer, rebounder and defend-
er. Tuesday night represents a
prime opportunity for the 6-foot-
6 swingman to take the next step —
as Beilein said Monday, LeVert’s 19
shots and 39 minutes per game are
now there for the taking.
RUTGERS
From Page 1A