Lesbian,” “Humid Pitch” and
“Experimental
Love.”
Addi-
tionally, she was once a contrib-
utor to the editorial collective
Conditions, a feminist literary
journal.
Clarke
has
worked
very
closely with other Black femi-
nists and served on the board
of New York Women Against
Rape. In 2013, she earned the
Kessler Award for outstand-
ing contributions to the field of
LGBTQ studies.
During the lecture, Clarke
emphasized
the
importance
of
being
a
“troublemaker,”
encouraging others to speak out
against injustice even if doing
so is unpopular. In this vein,
she
acknowledged
William
Trotter — for whom the lecture
series and the University’s mul-
ticultural center is named — as
a Black, radical troublemaker
of his time, adding that she was
pleased to be the first of many
speakers in the lecture series
honoring his legacy.
Clarke also stressed the need
to not merely solve the prob-
lems of race, classism, sexism
and homophobia, but to create
an open forum for discussing
these issues.
“I would say that the Trot-
ter Center should be a space
where it is indeed possible to
act, speak, write and think,”
she said.
To illustrate the need for
creative thinking in the face
of deep political issues, Clarke
mentioned
Audre
Lorde,
a
Caribbean-American
writer,
feminist and lesbian, who she
said was loyal to both poetry
and feminism.
Clarke began her lecture
by reading a poem that Lorde
wrote, called “Sister, Morning
Is a Time for Miracles.” Clarke
said Lorde’s poetry attempts
to facilitate ongoing dialogue
about Black women and the
injustice
committed
against
them. She added that U.S. cul-
ture rejects Black culture no
matter what Black people do to
gain approval.
She isolated one of her favor-
ite
Lorde-written
passages
to highlight the road to mak-
ing amends: “In order to come
together, we must recognize
each other,” she read, later
reflecting that “this can take a
strikingly contemporary view-
point.”
“Lorde uses blackness, femi-
nism and lesbianism to make
her voice heard, and her voice
to make blackness, feminism
and lesbianism heard,” Clarke
added.
Engineering
freshman
Suzy Haupt said the perspec-
tives
Clarke
brought
forth
were unique and subsequently
enlightening.
“We come here to get a schol-
arly education,” she said. “But
I also think it is important to
hear things from different per-
spectives and grow culturally.”
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, February 11, 2015 — 3A
The study’s lead author,
Nicholas Osborne, a vascular
surgeon at the University of
Michigan Health System’s Car-
diovascular Center, said he was
interested in finding whether
or not there was a benefit to
participating in a program such
as ACS-NSQIP.
“What you can take from the
study is that hospital quality
has gone up across the board
during the time period that we
looked at,” Osborne said. “All
hospitals improved but that
improvement wasn’t more so in
hospitals that are in NSQIP.”
NSQIP was developed by the
Department of Veterans Affairs
during the 1990s to evaluate
surgical practice in VA hospi-
tals. Private hospitals even-
tually expressed interest in
adopting the program, which in
1999 was piloted at several pri-
vate institutions, including the
University.
The study’s authors said the
lack of relative improvement
could be due to the failure of
institution’s to use the report
cards to change surgical pro-
cedures.
“This is a good example of
why we need to look at the
data,” Osborne said. “I think
the future of quality improve-
ment will be affected by this
study because it encourages
hospitals to participate in not
only a data report, but to par-
ticipate in a quality collabora-
tive.”
Public hospitals in the state
of Michigan previously partici-
pated in both ACS-NSQIP and
a regional collaborative called
the Michigan Surgical Qual-
ity Collaborative. In 2012, the
state pulled out of ACS-NSQIP,
and hospitals its hospitals now
only participate in MSQC.
Unlike ACS-NSQIP, MSQC
brings together surgeons to
analyze the report cards and
brainstorm
strategies
for
improving hospital care.
Justin Dimick, chief of the
UMHS division of minimally
invasive surgery and senior
author of the study, said the
MSQC allows Michigan hospi-
tals to excel beyond those using
ACS-NSQIP, making it one of
the safest states to have sur-
gery.
“Michigan does a really
nice job at analysis and issu-
ing report cards,” Dimick said.
“Without a tutor, or lesson
plan, you can’t get improve-
ment. Michigan does things
differently through a collab-
oratively quality improvement
program, where we do measure
outcomes. We then build on
top of that a structure where
the surgeons meet four times
a year to help implement them
locally.”
Andrew
Ryan,
associate
professor in the School of Pub-
lic Health and co-author of
the study, said designing and
implementing interventions is
most important in the process
of improving surgical quality.
He added that this study can
motivate hospitals to actually
implement measures based on
their report cards.
“The fact that it didn’t
achieve its objective means to
me that we need to keep search-
ing and come up with new
ways to measure important
patient outcomes,” Ryan said.
“We can’t be complacent about
thinking that we’ve solved our
quality problems, and that we
have the answers. We have
seen decline in adverse events,
so improvement is happen-
ing, but the question is how
do we design and implement
interventions that are going to
improve quality of care?”
EVALUATION
From Page 1A
All final admissions decisions
are set for release by April 2015.
Complete admissions data is
typically released in May. Last
cycle, the University’s under-
graduate acceptance rate was 32
percent.
Daily News Editor Michael
Sugerman contributed reporting.
EARLY ACTION
From Page 1A
TROTTER
From Page 1A
reports, Ried provided a state-
ment describing the events on
the night of the shooting.
“Rosser had the knife in her
right hand had the blade now
facing us, it was up in a ready to
strike position with her elbow
bent and arm raised with the
blade about level with her jaw-
line,” Ried said.
After Reid said he ordered
Rosser several times to put
down her knife, she proceeded
to move toward the officers, the
original incident report said.
“Rosser was still ignoring
my commands drop the knife.
I feared my life and the life of
Officer Raab. I believed we were
in imminent danger. I was in
fear for the safety for myself and
Officer Raab, so I discharged my
firearm one time (to) stop the
threat.”
According to the other officer
present at the scene, Mark Raab,
Rosser’s eyes were widened and
she appeared “deranged.” He
fired his Taser at Rosser, and
said this occurred at around the
same time as Ried shot his fire-
arm.
“This officer yelled stop and
fired the Taser at Rosser, fear-
ing for officer safety. Officer
Ried fired his side arm at nearly
the same time,” Raab said. “The
time from when officers first
entered the house and yelled
police to when she was shot and
Tasered was approximately 5-10
seconds.”
Toxicology analysis revealed
a blood alcohol concentration
0.170 grams /100 mL along with
cocaine and THC. In Michigan,
it is illegal to drive with a BAC
of .08 grams /100 mL or higher.
Cocaine residue was found in
Rosser’s bedroom, along with a
hand-rolled cigarette that was
suspected to have contained
marijuana.
The
Controlled
Substance
Report said there were 0.073
grams of marijuana found.
The autopsy report, conduct-
ed at the University of Michigan
Morgue, showed Rosser died
from a gunshot wound to the
chest.
Rosser was reportedly shot
with a Taser and a 40-caliber
semi-automatic handgun.
The autopsy report revealed
a penetrating entrance gunshot
wound to the left chest with
perforation of the heart, proxi-
mal aorta and esophagus.
According to the autopsy
report, Rosser had a history of
bipolar disease.
There were two other inci-
dents in which police were
called that involved Rosser, one
in September and another in
October. Officers reported these
instances as assault/simple bat-
tery, according to the Incident
Reports released along with the
documents relating to Rosser’s
death.
In January, demonstrators
marched through Ann Arbor to
protest the prosecutor’s deci-
sion not to press charges in the
incident. The event followed a
series of demonstrations in Ann
Arbor and nationwide protest-
ing the use of unnecessary force
by law enforcement officials.
At the protest, Rosser’s sister,
Shae Ward, expressed disagree-
ment with the prosecutor’s
decision.
“My hope is that I can get
strong enough to speak for her,”
Ward said. “Because I know
her person. She would have
never attacked Officer Ried. She
would have never made him feel
that he would have to take her
life to defuse the situation. That
is just outlandish. It totally is
outlandish.”
Daily Staff Reporter Gen Hum-
mer contributed to this report.
Photos courtesy of the Ann
Arbor Police Department
FILES
From Page 1A
neighborhoods.
The city is also working to
demolish hundreds of blighted
homes deemed unsuitable for
habitation.
The mayor also touted his
program that gives loans to city
residents for repairing blighted
homes. The plan, backed by city
council and the federal govern-
ment, has a loan pool worth $8
million and has zero percent
interest for lower to middle
income residents.
The audience gave the mayor
a standing ovation during his
announcement that the city will
finish the year with a balanced
budget for the first time since
2002.
As job creation in the city
improves, Duggan said he wants
to ensure Detroit’s residents are
offered the new jobs. To this
end, he stressed job creation
and training for residents of the
city, listing the uptick in city
residents having jobs in skilled
trade fields like plumbing and
electric. He also demanded that
new development projects, such
as the forthcoming arena for
the Detroit Red Wings and a
new accompanying entertain-
ment district, create jobs for
Detroiters.
“I believe one thing in my
heart, that talent in this world
is distributed equally, no mat-
ter what community, no matter
where you are,” Duggan said.
“What isn’t distributed equally
is opportunity.”
The mayor also spoke on
improved neighborhood service
and safety, including Duggan
a plan to secure body cameras
for police officers and put 200
more officers in the streets.
Many other cities across the
nation have adopted body cam-
eras on police officers to hold
officers accountable for brutali-
ty against citizens, an issue that
has sparked protest nationwide.
“We are going to change the
culture of this community to
recognize every life matters,”
he said.
The mayor also touched on
the fact that police response
times have been cut 20 minutes
in the last year and a half, from
37 minutes to 17. Furthermore,
in the last year, the city’s emer-
gency medical service response
time, formerly the slowest in
the country, has been cut seven
minutes and there are twice as
many ambulances on the road.
Duggan
also
stressed
revamping the city’s transit,
jokingly calling the city’s high
car insurance rates its “biggest
problem.”
“I’m going to work every sin-
gle day until we fix this injus-
tice and get people a fairer rate
on their insurance,” he said.
Along with improving car
insurance, the mayor spoke on
ameliorating the city’s pub-
lic transit system. He said
the administration has hired
more drivers and implemented
a smartphone application to
track the bus schedule, and has
since worked with Vice Presi-
dent Joe Biden to purchase 80
more buses in the city, eleven of
which will beginning running
this week.
“For the first time in years,
riders are coming back to the
(Detroit Department of Trans-
portation) system,” he said.
DETROIT
From Page 1A
BAY CITY, Mich.
Opening remarks
set in fraud trial
A jury has been selected in the
trial of a charter school founder
charged with fraud and tax
crimes.
Prosecutors
accuse
Steven
Ingersoll of a series of illegal
deals in which he took large cash
advances for managing Traverse
City Academy and tried to use
construction loans to repay the
money.
Opening statements are set for
Wednesday in Bay City’s federal
court.
Ingersoll started the Traverse
City school and Bay City Academy
with charters granted by Lake
Superior State University.
Defense
attorney
Martin
Crandall says Ingersoll paid taxes
on the money and is innocent.
MOBILE, Al.
Some Alabama
counties refuse
gay marriages
Same-sex
marriage
spread
further across Alabama on Tues-
day as more courthouses issued
licenses to gays and lesbians, yet
some counties still defied a federal
judge’s order, so couples took their
fight back to court.
The dispute and confusion
headed toward a showdown in
federal court set for Thursday in
Mobile, where gay couples have
waited for two days in a court-
house after officials quit issuing
marriage licenses altogether —
even for heterosexual couples —
rather than sell them to same-sex
couples.
Jim Strawser and his partner
John Humphrey sat outside the
shuttered marriage license win-
dow at the Mobile County court-
house.
“Come on, you’ve got a fed-
eral court order. Open those win-
dows,” Strawser said to no avail.
Alabama Chief Justice Roy
Moore threw the state into dis-
array when, at the 11th hour, he
ordered probate judges not to
allow gay marriages.
SARTANA, Ukraine
Fighting intensifies
in eastern Ukraine
ahead of peace talks
Fighting intensified Tuesday
in eastern Ukraine as pro-Rus-
sia rebels and Ukrainian troops
sought to extend their gains ahead
of crucial peace talks, and the gov-
ernment accused the separatists
of shelling a town far behind the
front lines, killing 12 people and
wounding scores.
Germany, which has joined
with France to try to broker a
peace deal, urged Russia and
Ukraine to compromise and called
on the warring parties to refrain
from hostilities that could derail
a four-way summit Wednesday in
Minsk, Belarus.
YAOUNDE, Cameroon
30 abducted in
Cameroon and
Nigeria
Nigeria’s Boko Haram Islamic
extremists have abducted about 30
people including eight Cameroo-
nian girls and killed seven hostages
in two bus hijackings in Cameroon
and Nigeria, Cameroon residents and
a Nigerian intelligence officer said
Tuesday.
Boko Haram, who kidnapped
nearly 300 schoolgirls in Nigeria last
year in an incident that ignited inter-
national outrage, have taken eight
Cameroonian girls hostage, said
Chetima Ahmidou, the principal of a
school in the area. The girls range in
age from 11 to 14 and come from the
town of Koza, he said.
The bus attack took place Sunday
about 11 miles (18 kilometers) from
Cameroon’s border with Nigeria.
Seven other hostages were slain and
their bodies scattered near the bor-
der, said Ahmidou, whose brother
was the bus driver and was among
those killed.
—Compiled from
Daily wire reports
NEWS BRIEFS
the concept was very simple and
easy to use.
“The rewards are tangible,”
Sonnabend said. “It’s rewarding
you for something positive you
should already be doing.”
The application launched at
Pennsylvania State University a
few weeks before starting in Ann
Arbor, and it has close to 7,000
users in University Park. After a
week of marketing to students,
close to 800 University students
are using the application.
“We’re
so
academically
focused, and we try to pursue the
‘Michigan Difference,’ but with
this app you can really put your
money where your mouth is,”
Prickett said.
According to The Washing-
ton Post, “productivity” apps
are currently a booming field in
mobile-platform technology, but
few products have been geared
toward the classroom.
“I truly do believe in the app,
and I think it has the potential to
change the academic culture at an
institutional level,” Prickett said.
“I think with the rate that tech-
nology is growing, it’s only going
to become a bigger part of every-
one’s life.”
ATTENTION
From Page 2A
CUPID
GRAMS
FOR
VALENTINE’S
DAY!
FEATURE
YOUR LOVED
ONE ON OUR
FACEBOOK
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MICHIGAN
DAILY.COM
Provision in
state constitution
could prevent full
use of funds
DENVER (AP) — Colorado fi-
nally learned Tuesday how much
tax revenue it collected from rec-
reational marijuana in the first
year of sales, and the haul was
below estimates — about $44 mil-
lion.
The release of December sales
taxes gave Colorado its first full
calendar year of the taxes from
recreational pot sales, which be-
gan Jan. 1, 2014.
Colorado was the first govern-
ment anywhere in the world to
regulate marijuana production
and sale, so other governments are
watching closely. In Washington,
where legal pot sales began in July,
the state had hauled in about $16.4
million in marijuana excise taxes
by the end of the year; through No-
vember, it brought in an additional
$6.3 million in state and local sales
and business taxes.
Colorado’s total haul from
marijuana for 2014 was about $76
million. That includes fees on the
industry, plus pre-existing sales
taxes on medical marijuana prod-
ucts. The $44 million represents
only new taxes on recreational
pot.
Those new taxes were initially
forecast to bring in about $70 mil-
lion.
“Everyone who thinks Colora-
do’s rollin’ in the dough because of
marijuana? That’s not true,” said
state Sen. Pat Steadman, a Denver
Democrat and one of the Legisla-
ture’s main budget-writers.
By all accounts, the $70 million
estimate was a guess. And Colo-
rado has already adjusted down-
ward spending of the taxes, on
everything from substance-abuse
treatment to additional training
for police officers.
Still, Colorado will likely have
to return to voters to ask to keep
the pot tax money. That’s be-
cause of a 1992 amendment to
the state constitution that re-
stricts
government
spending.
The amendment requires new
voter-approved taxes, such as
the pot taxes, to be refunded if
overall state tax collections rise
faster than permitted.
Lawmakers from both parties
are expected to vote this spring
on a proposed ballot measure
asking Coloradans to let the state
keep pot taxes.
Colorado’s tax results under-
score a big conflict facing public
officials considering marijuana
legalization.
Taxes should be kept low if
the goal is to eliminate pot’s
black market. But the allure of a
potential weed windfall is a pow-
erful argument for voters, most
of whom don’t use pot.
“Being able to claim some
non-trivial tax revenue is im-
portant to the legalization move-
ment,” said Jeffrey Miron, a Har-
vard University economist who
follows national drug policy.
So far, Colorado’s trail-blazing
marijuana experiment shows the
tax revenue isn’t trivial.
But Colorado has also shown
that pot-smokers don’t necessar-
ily line up to leave the tax-free
black market and pay hefty tax-
es. If medical pot is untaxed, or
if pot can be grown at home and
given away as in Colorado, the
black market persists.
Recreational marijuana sales
bring in $44 million in taxes