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
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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