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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
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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
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MHACKS
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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