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Monday, March 9, 2015 — 3A
taken that course?” Mangrulkar
asked.
Steven Gay, assistant dean
for admissions, also discussed
the logic behind requiring profi-
ciency in topics rather than class
credit. He said the old require-
ments did not take into account
that students may learn neces-
sary material outside of the con-
ventional classroom.
“We see a number of students
right now … with advanced
degrees, or who have spent exten-
sive time in labs,” Gay said. “I
think we should give students the
opportunity if they are learning
in those innovative and different
ways not to have to repeat things
unnecessarily.”
Mangrulkar
said
the
new
application process is meant to
create a dialogue in which stu-
dents can reflect on how they
have earned the knowledge they
need, whether it be from a class or
from another experience.
“The student will be able to
say, ‘alright, these are the expec-
tations, let me reflect on what
I’ve done and show how these
all meet those different crite-
ria,’” Mangrulkar said. “That’s
a better way to have a conversa-
tion than what we’ve had in the
past, which is basically a student
saying ‘I took this class, is this
okay?’”
Gay said that, though students
have the freedom to gain knowl-
edge in unique ways under the
new requirements, taking classes
is still the easiest way to fulfill the
prerequisites.
Listed with the new prerequi-
sites is a group of Core Competen-
cies. The four competencies are
analytical thought and problem-
solving skills, written and verbal
communication,
mathematical/
statistical analysis and applica-
tion of hypothesis-driven meth-
ods of research. Mangrulkar
said these competencies began
as expectations for residents, but
have now trickled down to the
pre-medical level.
“It started triggering a discus-
sion in our realm saying, ‘What
are our competencies and how do
they line up with the fact that 98
to 99 percent of medical students
go on to do a residency?’ ” he said.
“Shouldn’t there be some align-
ment?”
Mangrulkar added that the
University’s
changed
require-
ments are part of an overall
shift in pre-medical education
in the United States. He said the
changes stem, in part, from col-
laboration with the Association
of American Medical Colleges,
a national organization that is
strongly allied with many medi-
cal school admissions teams.
“There
were
sessions
and
conferences asking what are the
issues with pre-medical require-
ments,” Mangrulkar said. “I think
the fundamental premise is that
all of medical education is moving
towards much more specificity on
what we, as a profession, expect
physicians to be able to do.”
Implicit in the new pre-med
requirements is a push for well-
rounded pre-med students who
have knowledge and experi-
ence beyond what one gains in
the classroom. Mangrulkar said
the medical profession has been
searching for this type of student
for some time.
“I think for the longest time
the profession has wanted stu-
dents who are not only academi-
cally excellent,” Mangrulkar said.
“If students think that by getting
the A in biochemistry and getting
an outstanding MCAT score, that
that is a ticket to medical school,
that has not been the case for a
long time, it really hasn’t.”
Mangrulkar
added
that,
ultimately, what the Medical
School looks for in its students
are the same qualities that a
patient would seek in his or her
doctor.
“If we’re not aligned, our edu-
cation program, with what our
patients want in their doctor,
then there’s a disconnect there,”
he said.
Gay also spoke to the qualities
that make a good applicant.
“Great applicants have expe-
riences that not every applicant
for medical school has,” Gay said.
“They may do Teach for America,
they may do the Peace Corps, they
may work in the lab, they may
work on Wall Street, they may
build programs and do things as
undergraduates that give them
the opportunity to learn in great
depth a lot of the topics that we
look at.”
Students in the Class of 2016
will have the option of completing
either the new or the old require-
ments. Mangrulkar said the 2016
cycle is meant to serve as a transi-
tion period.
Though the difference between
the old and the new requirements
may seem drastic, Mangrulkar
said it really isn’t.
“The movement in the pre-
med requirements, I wouldn’t
see as being that big a deal,” he
said. “It just allows us to be more
specific, and actually to be more
inclusive, giving credit for the
stuff that our pre-med students
already do.”
the MedEx Academy, presented
the conference’s keynote speech.
The conference also included
22 workshop sessions around
campus, which focused leader-
ship and workplace development
pertaining to this year’s theme.
Inspired
by
the
WCTF’s
programs, GHS created their
own professional development
opportunities for women of
color. The initiative ultimately
resulted in an alliance between
the University and GHS to fur-
ther
increase
development
opportunities for people at both
institutions.
As a director of operations,
training and human resources,
Squire promotes diversity and
leadership development at dif-
ferent institutions by mentoring
staff. He helps organizations and
individuals achieve success by
promoting mutual respect and
investing in “human capital.”
Squire discussed GHS’s slow
evolution to a diverse communi-
ty throughout the years and his
involvement as a director there.
“My personal mission is to
educate, enable and empower
individuals and teams to achieve
excellence,” Squire said.
During his speech, Squire
focused on how “color groups”
can be used to represent work
performance. He discussed how
people could be broken into red,
yellow and green groups to indi-
cate differences in work moti-
vation, skills and performances
among the workforce.
“Colors
reflect
our
lives
because we all have them,”
Squire said. “We bring them
to our work. They bring up
the question — what color are
you? Are you the manager who
never provides follow up to
your instructions? Are you the
person in the team who always
complains and tries to bring the
team down? Or are you a differ-
ent color because you are always
sincere in work and take risks to
achieve your goals?”
Using this concept of colors —
where green is considered the best
of the workforce — Squire also
discussed implementing changes
to increase the staff’s efficiency
and satisfaction and to understand
problems stemming from a lack
of communication, initiative and
awareness of consequences.
“The most important respon-
sibilities of leadership are to
recognize, respond and reward,”
Squire said. “Then you can have
your work done the way you
want it done every day.”
Squire concluded his speech
by emphasizing the importance
of a diverse workforce.
“We are the most creative when
we are not homogenous,” Squire
said.
“Working
with
various
groups of people can create the
most effective leadership skills.”
ADMISSIONS
From Page 1A
Carson, who was born in
Detroit, enrolled at the University
after completing his undergradu-
ate education at Yale University.
He graduated from the University
in 1977 and spent his career prac-
ticing pediatric neurosurgery at
Johns Hopkins University.
Carson became the first sur-
geon to separate twins con-
joined at the head. He went on
to perform the surgery several
times and develop a method to
remove deeply embedded brain
tumors, before retiring from
medicine in 2013.
After Carson’s 2013 speech at
the National Prayer Breakfast,
prominent
Republican
John
Philip Sousa IV created the
National Draft Ben Carson for
President Committee dedicated
to helping Carson gain a nomi-
nation for the 2016 presidential
election. The committee’s catch-
phrase is “Run, Ben, Run.”
A
month
later,
Carson
returned to the University to
give a lecture hosted by the
Alpha Omega Alpha medical
honor society and the Depart-
ment of Neuroscience.
In the lecture, Carson encour-
aged future physicians to branch
out into the political sphere,
emphasizing that doctors are
the best people to talk about
health care policies, as they deal
with these programs and regu-
lations every day.
During a speech at the 2015
Conservative Political Action
Conference in February, Car-
son outlined several broad plat-
form ideas, including welfare
reform and the replacement of
the Affordable Care Act with a
health saving accounts system.
With health saving accounts,
individuals can contribute a spe-
cific amount of money per year
towards healthcare expenses
that is not subject to federal
income tax. Individuals, not the
government or a corporation,
own the accounts. They are cur-
rently only available to those
who have health care plans with
high deductibles.
“It is not affordable,” Car-
son said of the ACA. “And it is
absolutely about redistribution
and control. If we really wanted
to use our intellect, we would
come up with something that
works for everybody.”
Last week, Carson attracted
widespread
media
attention
for comments during a CNN
interview in which he said
homosexuality is a choice, cit-
ing that people “go into prison
straight, and when they come
out, they‘re gay.”
He later apologized for the
remarks, but said he would not
address gay rights issues for the dura-
tion of his presidential campaign.
Contact information for a
Carson spokesperson was not
immediately available.
Aaron Kall, director of the
University’s debate team and
an expert in election politics,
said Carson probably did not
get involved in politics while at
the University because he came
for graduate school.
“I think that his time at
Michigan, just being a medical
student, and all of the rigorous
amount of time and everything,
I don’t know how much time he
had to dabble into politics while
in graduate school,” Kall said.
In the two years that have
passed
since
he
spoke
at
the University, Carson has
advanced from a name thrown
around when talking about the
2016 presidential election to a
serious contender.
“(Carson is) not a frontrun-
ner in the GOP, but certainly a
candidate, a legitimate candi-
date,” Kall said.
This year’s CPAC straw poll
placed Carson fourth among
likely Republican candidates,
pulling 11.4 percent of the vote.
He placed behind Kentucky
Sen. Rand Paul, Wisconsin Gov.
Scott Walker and Texas Sen.
Ted Cruz, but ahead of former
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
Even so, Kall said he has
doubts about Carson’s ability to
gain the nomination.
“He got about just over 10
percent of the vote, showing
that he’s a legitimate candidate
in 2016,” Kall said. “But I don’t
think that he would be consid-
ered one of the very top most
formidable favorites.”
“What’s different about the
Medical School?” Pierce asked.
“Many of the faculty are like
myself. We teach medical stu-
dents, we work with residents,
we treat patients, which is a very
big part of our time. We are also
doing research, we are also get-
ting grants, we are also publish-
ing papers.”
***
Typically, the journey to tenure
commences at the beginning of a
professor’s career, when he or she
is an assistant professor.
Using LSA as an example, LSA
Dean Andrew Martin said assis-
tant professors are often evalu-
ated for promotion at the end of
their fifth academic year at the
University.
At this time, action begins at
the departmental level, where the
faculty member in question starts
by giving his or her respective
department a teaching statement,
research statement, statement of
service, curriculum vitae and a
portfolio of published works.
Martin said the teaching state-
ment “describes their pedagogy
(and) describes their teaching
experience.”
Once these items have been
submitted, the department then
solicits letters of evaluation from
leading scholars in the faculty
member’s field of study — typical-
ly amassing 10 to 12 letters total.
All of this happens between
the end of one school year and the
beginning of the next. By Octo-
ber, all items have been provided
to the department, and by Novem-
ber,
the
department
decides
whether or not it will recommend
the faculty member to be consid-
ered for tenure by administrative
bodies in LSA.
At this level, Martin said, there
are three main criteria for exam-
ining a professor’s overall qual-
ity: Whether or not the professor
is an “outstanding scholar” who
has completed original research;
whether or not the professor is
a distinguished and committed
teacher, something that is quanti-
tatively and qualitatively decided
by student course evaluations and
observations by already-tenured
faculty; and whether or not the
professor has done “service” to
the institution through advising
roles and committee work, and
to his or her profession overall
through work with professional
associations, for example.
Martin added that the third
criterion regarding service is less
important in regards to the tran-
sition from assistant professor to
associate professor with tenure,
and more important at a higher-
level promotion, like full profes-
sor.
If the transition from assistant
to associate represents recogni-
tion of scholarship, Martin said,
then the transition from associ-
ate to full or higher denotes an
expanding breadth of study. How-
ever, the benefits of tenure remain
the same, whether a member of
the faculty is an associate or full
professor.
“In addition to supporting aca-
demic freedom, tenure also pro-
vides security,” Martin said. “And
we would expect our best faculty
members, once they’re tenured, to
begin to focus a little bit beyond
the core things that they’re
invested in.”
“The way I view it is, when we
tenure someone, we’re making
a huge investment in them, and
our expectation is that they’re
going to continue to make a big
investment in the University not
just through research and teach-
ing, but in other ways as well,” he
added.
The first administrative body to
examine the departmental port-
folio is the Divisional Executive
Committee. LSA is split into three
divisions: Humanities, Social Sci-
ences and Natural Sciences. Two
representatives from each of the
three divisions and four other
elected faculty representatives
from within LSA comprise the
DEC — which doesn’t vote on the
faculty member’s pending tenure,
but instead aims to “discuss and
characterize
the
scholarship,”
Martin noted.
This discussion is then submit-
ted in the form of a report with
the departmental portfolio to the
College Executive Committee.
This body votes to recommend a
faculty member for tenure to the
Office of the Provost.
The CEC is smaller than the
DEC, and is comprised of two
members from each of the three
LSA divisions. Martin sits on the
committee as an ex officio, and
only votes if there is a tie.
This entire process is meant to
evaluate a faculty member solely
upon his or her academic excel-
lence, and not upon other intan-
gible qualities.
“One thing that this college has
done with some really great lead-
ership over the last few decades is
to think very carefully about our
promotion and tenure process to
remove sources of bias,” Martin
said.
This yields “a real rigid follow-
ing of our process … to remove
those intangibles.” For example,
talking about race, gender, reli-
gion, age or any part of a person’s
background is completely off the
table, Martin said.
Once the CEC recommends a
faculty member for tenure to the
Office of the Provost, the vice
provosts and University Provost
Martha Pollack conduct a final
review of the faculty member’s
portfolio by mid-February.
Pollack reads each casebook
and evaluates the CEC’s recom-
mendation, re-reading the faculty
member’s portfolio and looking
for context. For example, Pollack
said, in examining teaching excel-
lence, she looks to see whether or
not a faculty member innovated
in his or her teaching methods, or
if that person mentored students
outside of the classroom.
“I think what has evolved for
me is a broad appreciation of how
these fundamental questions play
out differently in different dis-
ciplines,” Pollack said. “I mean,
I have this bird’s eye view … and
what it means to have impact
when you’re a medical research-
er is very different from what
it means to have impact when
you’re an English professor. But
in both cases, that’s what we’re
looking at.”
Ultimately, if the Office of
the Provost approves the fac-
ulty member for tenure, Pollack
submits a report to the Board
of Regents, which has the final
say.
***
Blair and Pierce said it’s not
entirely uncommon for faculty
members who are being recruited
by other institutions to perhaps
try and fast track their tenure
process. However, as Martin
noted, the process is rigid in its
search for excellence.
“Never once have I seen a
shoddy casebook,” Pollack said.
“The process is always very
careful, because it’s so impor-
tant.”
“It’s not exactly a marketplace,”
Blair said. “As an institution, we
take tenure very seriously. The
process for granting tenure is
absolutely the same whether it’s
a Nobel Prize-winning physicist
who is coming to us from outside,
or someone on our faculty is being
recruited (elsewhere), or a young
assistant professor who came up
through the ranks here. We stand
behind the process.”
And according to Pollack, that
process is not just important,
but essential to the growth of
academia. Pollack is a tenured
professor in the School of Infor-
mation.
“Tenure is a right to express
your opinion without fear of
losing your job, but it’s also a
responsibility in my view,” she
said. “It’s a responsibility to
seek the truth and to speak the
truth, and speak up when you
think that views that are being
expressed are inaccurate. And
I think that’s a very powerful
mechanism for getting people to
make sure that they grapple with
difficult issues.”
TENURE
From Page 1A
CONFERENCE
From Page 1A
CARSON
From Page 1A
CSG launched an initiative not
specifically featured in Make
Michigan’s 2014-2015 platform.
The Wolverine Support Net-
work, which launched in Sep-
tember, aims to address mental
health issues on campus through
peer support groups and com-
munity events.
CSG Vice President Emily
Lustig, an LSA senior, said she
is most proud of the assembly’s
work developing the Wolverine
Support Network.
“I think everyone has, if it’s
not themselves or a family mem-
ber, some connection to men-
tal health or mental wellness,”
Lustig said. “Enacting a program
with the ability to change peo-
ple’s lives and addressing mental
health, and trying to break the
mental health stigma is some-
thing that is so important.”
Though some feel there has
been progress in certain areas of
policy, LSA senior Emily Sexton,
a CSG representative, said the
assembly’s actions thus far have
been somewhat insignificant.
“This year, I’ve felt like
we haven’t done anything or
brought any really great reso-
lutions,” she said. “We haven’t
taken any risks. It just feels like
CSG isn’t important.”
She said CSG’s executive leader-
ship have accomplished their indi-
vidual goals, but haven’t expanded
much beyond those efforts.
“I just think that the assembly
is kind of there to aid (Dishell
and Lustig) to get the things
done that they want to get done,”
Sexton added.
LSA junior Jacob Ruby, a CSG
representative and chair of the
assembly’s finance committee,
said two resolutions in particu-
lar have been markers of success
during his term.
“I, for one, sponsored a resolu-
tion that’s going to add 60 charg-
ing stations in the UGLi,” he
said. “There’s (also) an upcoming
resolution that should help with
some of the safety and cleanli-
ness concerns in the CCRB and
IM (Building). Just a lot of really
good things coming up.”
However,
he
added
that
addressing issues of diversity
on campus has not been a strong
point for the assembly.
“One of the main concerns
I’ve seen here on CSG is minor-
ity enrollment,” he said “There
have been a lot of resolutions that
have been passed and commit-
tees formed, and there just hasn’t
been that much actual results.”
Increasing minority enroll-
ment through on-site admis-
sions at schools in the Detroit
area was a point on Make Michi-
gan’s original platform.
In December, CSG passed a
resolution to support such pro-
grams, creating a task force to
work with the Office of Admis-
sions. The group would have
until March to report back with
strategies for implementing an
on-site admissions program or
reasons why the initiative would
be unfeasible for the University.
In this vein, one element of
Dishell’s presidential platform
that did not come to fruition was
partnering with the University’s
Alumni Association to fund
more LEAD scholarships.
LEAD scholarships are mer-
it-based monies for minority
applicants. Though the assembly
approved funds for the project,
they were barred from providing
funding under state law since
University funds cannot be used
for scholarships to specifically
promote diversity, and CSG’s
budget comes from student fees.
CSG
From Page 1A