greenhouse is currently in the
process of hiring its staff, and
plans to begin work in the fall.
Overall, Niemer said, the
greenhouse is a logical next
step in aiding student teach-
ing and learning, especially at a
large-scale university.
“One of the things we know
about the science of learning
is that personalized feedback
really helps learning,” she said.
“And it’s just really hard to do in
a large class.”
today’s society.
“I think when it came to
issues of racism in this coun-
try, he wasn’t the sort of opti-
mism that MLK was and his
way of dealing with racism, it
meant on the one hand calling
out white supremacy whenever
he could, but then also making
sure that Black people were
organized,” McCoy said.
In his talk, McCoy touched
on the importance of the histo-
ry of racial issues in the United
States. He also said students
need to think radically about
activism and he encouraged
them not to make compromises
when addressing racial issues.
Elizabeth James, a program
associate from the Depart-
ment of Afroamerican and
African studies, said she likes
that “Taking Back the X” is an
event open for interpretation.
She said the significance of
the event’s title is rooted in the
historical meaning of the let-
ter X, particularly in relation
to her ancestors’ obligation to
sign their names with an X.
“The fact that we were tak-
ing (the X) back was the sense
that we were reclaiming our
ancestors and really paying
homage to the fact that there
are those that come before us,
and it’s important to recognize
and to let them offer wisdom to
our current students,” James
said.
Many
of
the
speakers,
including Cotton and Spence,
emphasized the importance
of Black community. Spence
focused on solidarity and the
need to build community at the
University and elsewhere.
“The political battles and
the political trials that we
have,
they’re
exciting
and
they can be tiring too, but they
won’t sustain you,” Cotton
said. “What will really sustain
you is the people that you’re in
that battle with.”
In tandem with this idea,
most of the speakers said there
is a vibrant Black community
at the University and acknowl-
edged the importance of Black
student groups, such as the
Black Student Union and move-
ments like #BBUM.
LSA
freshman
Gloriela
Iguina-Colón said as a Puerto
Rican she felt a sense of com-
munity at the event as a minor-
ity, noting a lot of the stories
told will stick with her for a
long time.
“I came mainly because I
feel like the recent movements
on campus have been really
important,” Iguina-Colón said.
James said engaging stu-
dents and alumni on campus is
key for building a community
and increasing education on
these issues.
“We do a lot of talking about
UM leaders and best, and if
we’re forging these new voices
to go out into the world, and
if we’re going to be working
to empower and invigorate
and create a better world, we
have to start here,” James said.
“College campuses have bright
young minds that are open to
looking at things in a different
way.”
ing cause of cancer death in the
United States, both for men and
women,” Kazerooni said. “For
the other common cancers, like
breast, prostate and colon can-
cer, we have screening tests. So,
there’s definitely a public health
need to try and reduce mortal-
ity from lung cancer. Lung can-
cer screening with CT is aimed
at doing that at the population
health level.”
Kazerooni was an investiga-
tor for the 2011 National Lung
Screening Trial that showed lung
cancer screenings reduced mor-
tality and proved cost-effective.
Despite the finding, lung can-
cer screenings were voted down
when originally presented to the
CMS in 2014.
As the principal organizer
of the coalition to advocate for
CMS coverage, Kazerooni said a
diverse group of medical profes-
sionals and advocacy groups was
necessary to achieve their goal of
screening coverage.
“When you bring in the voice
of the patients through patient
advocacy, it really tells the story
in a way that’s very impactful for
people who are not necessarily in
the medical field,” she said.
Kazerooni also emphasized
another important aspect of the
lung cancer screening — smok-
ing cessation. The requirement
not only targets lung cancer,
but also has secondary effects
by reducing death from cardio-
vascular disease and chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease,
Kazerooni said. By including
smoking
cessation
alongside
these screenings, she said the
system functions in a more cost-
effective way as well.
Douglas
Arenberg,
associ-
ate professor of internal medi-
cine and a member of the
American Thoracic Society — a
group involved with the coalition
— also stressed the importance of
smoking cessation.
“It is absolutely imperative for
people interested in setting up a
lung cancer screening program to
make the center of gravity of that
program offering and encourag-
ing tobacco cessation amongst
current smokers,” he said. “It is a
far more efficient, far safer and a
far less expensive way to achieve
the goal of a lung cancer screen-
ing program, which is fewer peo-
ple dying from lung cancer.”
Such cessation programs are
part of what makes the new cov-
erage not just a one-time test, but
rather an ongoing process.
For smoking cessation to
work, Arenberg said, several
additional steps — including
integrated cessation counseling,
pharmacotherapy and follow-up
phone calls with nurses, phy-
sicians and medical assistants
— need to be implemented, not
all of which are fully included
under the coverage.
Arenberg said in a society
consumed by instant gratifi-
cation, quitting smoking can
be a challenge. He said while
it would be difficult to prove
to individual former smokers
that quitting saved their lives,
smoking cessation programs
have made a big difference for
the population at large.
Overall, Arenberg said CMS
should provide even more funding
toward these kinds of programs.
“We, as a society, could invest
in prevention by providing more
robust reimbursement for tobac-
co cessation counseling,” he said.
However, despite the benefits
of lung cancer screening, Aren-
berg also mentioned several prob-
lematic components.
Because a lung CT scan looks
at the whole chest, as opposed
to other cancer screenings that
only look at certain tissues, he
said issues in other areas can be
discovered that seem medically
significant, but really are not.
“This is a very different test,”
he said. “And it has the potential
for harm because a lot of these
findings are just incidental and
don’t represent significant dis-
ease, but in investigating them
you sometimes have to put the
patient at risk, including invasive
procedures that have the poten-
tial for harm.”
Because of these complexities,
Arenberg said a major goal of his,
as well as other advocates for the
lung screening policy, is to inform
people about both the benefits
and the risks of these screenings.
Moving forward, Kazerooni
said one of the next steps is to
spread public awareness. While
many physician practices are
currently in the process of edu-
cating patients about the impor-
tance of the scans, more work
still needs to be done with local
advocacy groups to educate
those who could benefit from
the screenings.
Another condition of the
CMS lung screening coverage
is building a clinical practice
quality registry into the screen-
ing. This registry compares
the progress of the screenings
in relation to benchmarks and
quality metrics.
Kazerooni also said there is
interest in helping individuals at
risk for lung cancer for reasons
unrelated to smoking, such as
radon exposure, asbestos expo-
sure and a genetic history of lung
cancer. Such efforts, she said, may
be a future focus.
With many moving parts to
lung cancer screenings, Kazeroo-
ni said that the biggest challenge
in organizing the coalition was
keeping everybody focused on
the ultimate goal of bringing lung
cancer screenings to those who
needed them. Despite those dif-
ficulties, she said she was happy
with the overall result.
“Bringing
people
together
across disciplines for a common
purpose was amazing to see as it
started to fall into place,” she said.
dedicated to the Arab-American
and Muslim communities on
campus.
The establishment of a dedi-
cated space for these students
has been an ongoing point of
contention, but the topic was
brought to the forefront of con-
versation during the UM Divest
protest. A February 2014 CSG
petition — launched the month
prior to the protest — called
for the establishment of such
a lounge in North Quad and
received almost 500 signatures.
However, Engineering junior
Flavio Fiszman, a diversity peer
educator at North Quad, said
the idea of an Arab-American
themed lounge has been under
consideration by the multicul-
tural council for almost three
years. Debate in the last year
has focused on the name of the
lounge.
“There was already a pro-
posal and the proposal had been
accepted (in February 2014),”
Fiszman said. “What’s hap-
pening at that time was mostly
about the name.”
The
lounge’s
namesake,
Edward Said, is best known for
his analyses of the representa-
tions of Arab and Muslim popu-
lations in literature and media.
He wrote extensively on Arab
and Muslim identities in the
United States and the Middle
East and was known for his aca-
demic perspective on politics,
including advocating the “one-
state solution” to the conflict
between Israel and Palestine.
Said was a faculty member at
Columbia University and received
an honorary doctorate degree
from the University of Michigan
in 1998. He died in 2003.
Engineering sophomore Grant
Groshek, co-chair of the North
Quad Multicultural Council, said
the council held a town hall meet-
ing earlier this year for North
Quad residents to address any
concerns regarding the lounge’s
name. After presenting informa-
tion about Edward Said and gath-
ering input, they gave residents
the opportunity to vote online. In
the end, Groshek said more than a
quarter of the dorm voted in favor
of the name, allowing the council
to move forward with the dedica-
tion ceremony.
Fiszman said it was important
to respect the desires of North
Quad residents, especially those
living on the third floor halls sur-
rounding the lounge.
“The lounge is for the Arab-
American community, but we
mainly
want
it
representing
North Quad residents,” Fiszman
said.
Fiszman added that access to
the lounge will be restricted to
North Quad residents who com-
plete an educational program to
learn about its history and cul-
tural message.
While Dahbour said the lounge
is a positive step for the Universi-
ty, she elaborated that it does not
address many of the remaining
concerns for Arab-American and
Muslim students.
“There’s always a lot of work
to be done around this issue,” she
said. “We still live in a society
that’s very much violent toward
Arabs and Muslims.”
“I know this means a lot to
myself as a student here and a lot
to the Muslim and Arab students
here,” she added. “It’s one step for
sure, and I just hope that the Uni-
versity continues to work on it.”
nal DACA legislation, said she
thought the expansion was a neces-
sary step from the president.
“The Obama administration has
been advocating for a legislative fix
to immigration and the Congress
has rejected that,” Schlanger said.
“The administration would like
to do by way of legislation, but has
not been able to. They have instead
been using available executive
authority.”
However, not all were in agree-
ment with these new provisions.
In a statement issued after the
court’s decision, Michigan Attor-
ney General Bill Schuette (R) said
his disagreement with the bill
stemmed primarily from concerns
of presidential overreach.
“America has always been a bea-
con of hope,” Schuette stated. “Our
country needs an immigration
policy that is hopeful, encouraging
and lawful. A federal judge agrees
that the president’s unilateral
action is constitutionally flawed,
and now the rule of law will get its
day in court.”
For Rackham student Carlos
Robles, the original DACA was a
saving grace.
Robles came to the United States
about 10 years after his family’s
business in Mexico failed. They
crossed the border legally with
travel Visas, overextended their
stay and became undocumented
immigrants.
Robles and his siblings attend-
ed public school in Palatine, Illi-
nois for multiple years, staying
undetected. However, one spring
break, Robles and his brother
decided to visit a friend in Bos-
ton. Near the Buffalo/Toronto
border, border patrol agents ran-
domly inspected the train they
were travelling on.
Robles and his brother could
only provide their expired Visas,
and were taken to a county jail,
where they spent several days.
After posting bail, Robles said U.S
Sen. Dick Durbin (D–IL) took on
their case and ultimately managed
to get them approval to stay in the
country through the original itera-
tion of DACA.
While DACA does not provide
any path to legal residency or citi-
zenship, it opened the doors for
Robles and his brother to continue
schooling, and gain work authori-
zation in the United States.
Robles said it’s possible the block
on expansion could stop him and
others from being able to renew
his own authorization to stay in
the country, though the court thus
far has indicated that the litigation
won’t affect individuals covered by
the original 2012 order.
He added that while he wasn’t
surprised by the challenge to the
court case, it added on to the dif-
ficulty of being an undocumented
immigrant.
“It’s furthering the same sense
of frustration that immigrants
have been having,” Robles said.
“This isn’t a surprise. I’m more sur-
prised this didn’t happen earlier.”
In an e-mail interview, Assistant
Law Prof. Kate Andrias wrote she
believes that the current litigation
will not have a large effect on how
the executive branch addresses
immigration in the long term.
However, in the short term,
she wrote, many people’s fears of
deportation are high.
“Immigrants who would oth-
erwise be entitled some relief are
living with a great deal of uncer-
tainty,” Andrias wrote.
The next step for the contest-
ed expansion will be a federal
court hearing, during which the
court will be tasked with decid-
ing whether or not it was within
Obama’s power to expand DACA.
Robles and Schlanger said they
were both hopeful that future
work to integrate undocumented
immigrants wouldn’t be halted by
the injunction.
“I think that the goal of immi-
gration reform is to take people
who are here and are functionally
Americans, and allow them access
to the opportunities they need to
flourish,” Schlanger said.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Friday, February 27, 2015 — 3
IMMIGRATION
From Page 1
LOUNGE
From Page 1
LUNGS
From Page 1
University Greek life.
“The ski trip incident was
an embarrassing and shameful
event that was not representative
of Michigan Greek life, weren’t
representative of the individual
fraternities and sororities that we
were apart and weren’t represen-
tative of who I am,” he said.
Fidel also said he and his fra-
ternity are doing their best to
move forward from the incident
through charity and other phil-
anthropic work.
“We’re doing our best to right
our wrongs and rectify the situa-
tion,” he said. “After the incident,
I led my fraternity in commu-
nity service projects, coordinated
with Habitat for Humanity to
send 50 volunteers to volunteer.”
Fidel also told the Daily that
SAM has cooperated with the
Detroit Partnership and will send
30 to 40 members of the frater-
nity to volunteer at a soup kitchen
after Spring Break.
Though he did not refer spe-
cifically to the incident, Roys-
ter said he is confident in Fidel
both as a partner and a leader on
campus.
“Matt is just an incredible
leader and an incredible guy,”
Royster said. “The fact that he is
really using CSG as a catalyst to
drive social change on campus
really shows that he does care.”
Overall, Fidel said, he didn’t
think the ski resort incident
would impact the campaign.
“Will and I have some great
ideas for this campus,” he said. “As
I said before, those actions don’t
reflect on me and don’t reflect on
our campaign. I think that as long
as we strive to maintain our goals,
that’s all we can do.”
SKI TRIP
From Page 1
BLACK HISTORY
From Page 1
GREENHOUSE
From Page 2
LOS
ANGELES
(AP)
—
Dressed in red and raising signs
into the air, thousands of teachers
filled a downtown Los Angeles
park on Thursday in demand of
higher wages and smaller class
sizes amid stalled contract nego-
tiations.
“Everybody in this country
is watching this struggle,” said
Joshua Pechthalt, president of the
California Federation of Teach-
ers. “It’s a fight about the nature
of public education. What is pub-
lic education going to look like?”
The rally was the largest action
yet amid an escalating standoff
between union and Los Angeles
Unified district leaders: United
Teachers Los Angeles is demand-
ing an 8.5 percent salary increase,
a demand interim Superintendent
Ramon Cortines contends the
district cannot meet without sig-
nificant layoffs.
The union declared an impasse
in February and is set to meet
with the district and mediators in
March. If a resolution is still not
reached, a fact finding panel will
convene.
Though
still
several
steps
away, union officials say they are
prepared to strike if needed.
UTLA President Alex Caputo-
Pearl and other union leaders
have visited hundreds of schools
in recent months, talking to
teachers and handing out com-
mitment cards. The cards ask
teachers to pledge support for a
variety of actions, from leafleting
to a strike. About half have been
returned so far.
“The vast majority of our mem-
bers have checked off, ‘Are you
willing to strike?’ with a, ‘Yes I
am willing to strike,’” Caputo-
Pearl said to applause and cheers
at the rally.
The last major urban district to
strike was Chicago Public Schools
in 2012. That contract dispute
centered largely on the role of
student test scores in teacher
evaluations.
In contrast, the Los Angeles
contract standoff has focused
mostly on teacher salaries, class
sizes and increasing the num-
ber of support staff members
like nurses and counselors. The
union notes that teachers have
gone eight years without a salary
increase or cost of living adjust-
ment.
Union leaders contend the
negotiations highlight an ongoing
post-Great Recession concern:
That while economic conditions
have improved, cuts made dur-
ing the height of the crisis have
been disparately restored. They
point to new pockets of money
that could be used to finance their
demands, including the gover-
nor’s proposed budget, which
would increase spending on K-12
education by at least 8 percent.
Contines, meanwhile, is pro-
jecting a $160 million deficit for
the next school year. He is ask-
ing every department to reduce
expenses by 8 to 15 percent. In a
letter to Caputo-Pearl Thursday,
he also warned that $171 million is
at risk if union leaders don’t agree
to evaluation requirements nec-
essary for the district to receive
its No Child Left Behind waiver.
Congress is currently attempt-
ing to revamp the George W.
Bush-era law.
“We’re entering a tough phase
because of the significant decline
in enrollment, primarily,” said
Tom Waldman, a spokesman for
the district.
There were 677,538 student
enrolled in Los Angeles Unified
in the 2009-10 school year. In the
2013-14 school year, that number
had declined to 653,826.
A recent survey by the Schools
Superintendents
Association
found that about half of superin-
tendents described their districts
as stable, while nearly four in 10
believe their district’s economic
situation has gotten worse; but
the study concluded that over the
last three years, conditions have
mostly improved.
Lily Eskelsen Garcia, presi-
dent of the National Education
Association, said what happens
in Los Angeles will have national
implications, as districts weigh
what to prioritize as the economy
improves.
Los Angeles teachers, union leaders rally
amid stalled talks over class sizes, wages
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THE PEOPLE.”
-Henry Phillip Tappan,
University of Michigan president
1852