3-News

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Monday, March 23, 2015 — 3A

“If you just look at our out-of-

pocket expenses, things we’ve 
paid to contractors, third par-
ties, it’s around $230,000. It 
doesn’t take into consideration 
management time or damage 
to the resort’s reputation. Our 
accountants and attorneys are 
saying that this could be up to 
an additional $200,000,” Barry 
Owens, Treetops Resort general 
manager, wrote in a statement 
Friday.

The University’s chapter of 

SAM was disbanded earlier this 
week by its international board 
in part for refusing to cooperate 
in an investigation, as members 
declined to name individuals 
involved in the destruction.

The current members have 

been placed on alumni status, 
meaning they cannot affiliate 
with another chapter, do not have 
the rights associated with under-
graduate membership and are 
ineligible for SAM scholarships.

The chapter members must 

move out of their house by May 3.

In February, the University’s 

disciplinary proceedings ruled 
that the fraternity would no 
longer be recognized as a cam-
pus organization and could not 
reapply for a return to campus 
for four years.

The sanction was the most 

severe penalty the University 
could levy on a student organiza-
tion. It requires SAM to pay the 
damage to Treetops in full and 
participate in “restorative mea-
sures” in the Gaylord community.

University spokesman Rick 

Fitzgerald said the University 
is still in the process of review-
ing the investigation, but will 
consider initiating individual 
complaints through the student 
judicial process.

“We have said all along that 

we wanted individual account-
ability and that if additional 
information became available 
we would consider that informa-
tion,” he said.

The Sigma Delta Tau soror-

ity was also on the ski trip with 

SAM and faces a two-year dis-
ciplinary suspension, but will 
continue to be recognized by the 
University.

LSA junior Alex Krupiak, 

president of the Interfraternity 
Council, said Greek life lead-
ership has previously said the 
events in Northern Michigan 
were unfortunate and disap-
pointing.

“We have always hoped and 

expected that the involved mem-
bers would be held accountable 
for their actions,” he wrote. “We 
are confident that Greek Life 
will continue to move forward 
and impact campus in a positive 
manner.”

“These incidents simply do 

not reflect the University of 
Michigan’s values or its expec-
tations,” E. Royster Harper, vice 
president for student life, said in 
a statement. “The behaviors are 
a contradiction of what it means 
to be in and of a community, 
and we do not believe that being 
away from campus is a license to 
act in destructive and irrespon-
sible ways.”

Datta said roughly 200 more 
high school students submit-
ted pitch ideas this year, due in 
part to the fact the expansion of 
Startup High School’s advertis-
ing. The organization previous-
ly only catered to Detroit-area 
schools — this year, however, 
it appealed schools in areas 
including Metro Detroit, Grand 
Rapids and Battle Creek.

Datta and other members 

of Startup High School visited 
numerous Michigan schools and 
delivered guest lectures encour-
aging students to submit to the 
competition.

Datta 
explained 
that 
the 

workshop was meant to provide 
a learning experience for the 
semifinalists, who will now be 
allowed to re-submit their origi-
nal pitches with their “field day” 
lessons in mind.

Saturday’s event consisted of 

several guest speakers, a pre-
sentation at the headquarters 
of the business accelerator Ann 
Arbor SPARK, a tour of Google’s 
Ann Arbor offices and workshop 
activities for the students.

Bill Mayer, SPARK’s vice 

president 
of 
entrepreneur-

ial services, spoke to the high 

school students about the pros 
and cons of entering the entre-
preneurial field.

“I find it very valuable to pres-

ent to people that are in high 
school,” Mayer said. “They’re 
thinking about their college 
choices, and if entrepreneurship 
is something that they’d really 
like to explore as a career choice 
after they graduate, having a 
university with a good entre-
preneurship curriculum is very 
important.”

Mayer said joining a startup 

tends to yield a meager sal-
ary. However, he added that 
recent college graduates are 
often eager to work on startups 
because they provide a unique 
environment with a direct con-
nection to an issue those stu-
dents care a great deal about.

“It’s a very nice path,” he said. 

“The earlier we can start, the 
better.”

After the presentation at Ann 

Arbor SPARK, the high school 
students were given a campus 
tour of the University, followed 
by a visit to Google’s Ann Arbor 
office, where Ed Lee, an employ-
ee of Google for Entrepreneurs, 
reminded the high school stu-
dents that even Google was a 
small company at one point, but 
became a thriving, multi-bil-
lion-dollar corporation through 

innovative ideas.

After the presentation, the 

students were invited to inter-
act with one of Google’s newest 
products — Google Cardboard. 
The toy is a simple cardboard 
box that, when fitted with a 
smartphone and special appli-
cation, create a virtual reality 
experience.

At the end of the day, students 

split into startup-related work-
shops led by members of Start-
up High School. One group, for 
example, discussed the impor-
tance of networking in develop-
ing a product.

Another group focused on 

product 
marketing. 
In 
this 

group’s main activity, students 
were given an amusing object 
and were then tasked with cre-
ating a series of selling points 
for it. Among these objects were 
a coconut bra and a pair of rain-
bow suspenders.

Among the semi-finalists was 

Evan Morton, a senior at Detroit 
Edison Public School Academy 
in Detroit. He said that he came 
to the event to re-evaluate his 
pitch and to get some outside 
help.

“They had a lot of useful 

information, especially break-
ing off into the workshops,” he 
said. “I wouldn’t trade this for 
anything. It was very valuable.”

CHARGES
From Page 1A

#TEDxUofM. After their official 
lectures, the speakers answered 
these questions in interviews, 
which the University then posted 
on its Snapchat story.

Prior to the event, attendees 

were asked to complete the sen-
tence “The source of my energy 
is...” Their answers were printed 
on their nametags to spark conver-
sation. LSA sophomore Anthony 
Okaneme’s nametag said his source 
of energy was “drive.”

Some speakers discussed over-

coming hardships in their respec-
tive fields, others groundbreaking 
work in areas such as technology 
and health and others of combin-
ing different passions to solve prob-
lems. University professors, who 
discussed using outside passions 
to enhance their students’ learning 
experience, gave two of the most 
popular talks.

Herbert Winful, a professor of 

electrical engineering and com-
puter science, spoke about incor-
porating music into one of his 
engineering courses after one of 
his students died in a car crash. 
In the talk, “How Hidden Pas-
sions Can Connect People,” Winful 
explained that combining the two 
disciplines helped his engineering 

students cope with and pay hom-
age to the student.

Winful said it was relatively easy 

for him to choose the theme for his 
talk because the event’s theme of 
constructive interference was an 
idea that he teaches every day.

“I teach optics, and in optics we 

deal with waves, and waves get 
constructive interference,” Winful 
said in an interview after the talk. 
“I thought, wait, maybe I’ll com-
bine what I do in engineering with 
my passion for music, and see how 
they’ll interfere constructively.”

Winful also discussed how 

music has helped him overcome 
other struggles throughout his 
life. He admitted that this might 
be unexpected for someone whose 
career focuses on optics and pho-
tonics, but added that his grand-
father was a music composer, and 
subsequently music has played a 
significant role in his life.

He ended his talk by fulfill-

ing a dream of his — performing a 
song of his own composition titled 
“Spirited Away” on the piano. He 
said he is currently teaching a class 
on risk-taking and it only felt natu-
ral to end the talk on that note.

“I really liked Herbert Winful’s 

whole discussion on engineering 
and art connecting and stuff, and 
how you can bridge the path and 
find out things you don’t know 
by taking things that aren’t usu-

ally seen together and combining 
them,” Okaneme said, adding that 
the talk was one of his favorites 
Saturday.

Comprehensive Studies Lec-

turer Jill Halpern’s talk, “Beyond 
STEM: The Whole Flower Class-
room,” was memorable for both 
her message and delivery. Halpern 
spoke in rhymes for a portion of the 
presentation, mimicking the form 
of Dr. Seuss’ “The Sneetches.”

She used the metaphor of a 

flower’s growth to describe the 
community she built within her 
classroom. Halpern teaches Calcu-
lus II, which she said was formerly 
known as “the most failed class at 
the ‘U’ ” by students — now, she 
said, the course ratio yields roughly 
103 students with A’s and B’s, and 
only one with a grade falling in the 
D and E range.

Halpern told the story of how 

she was lenient toward a student 
who was caught cheating by dis-
cussing her motives for cheating 
instead of just doling out punish-
ment. This process, Halpern said, 
allowed the student to grow and 
later admit that even though she 
was tempted to cheat again, she did 
not.

Halpern incorporated humor 

throughout her talk, which kept 
the audience captivated and laugh-
ing.

LSA senior Anuhya Bhogineni, 

whose energy source was “hope,” 
said she has watched TED videos 
online and had been to two other 
TEDx events, but was eager to 
attend the event Friday because all 
of the speakers were affiliated with 
the University. Bhogineni pointed 
out Halpern’s talk as one of her 
favorites.

Other talks throughout the day 

centered on the constructive inter-
ference within social media.

Cliff Lampe, associate professor 

at the School of Information, and 
Researcher Kyra Gaunt, a member 
of the University’s ethnomusicolo-
gy faculty, took different approach-
es to this concept.

Lampe argued against the com-

mon narrative that social media is 
bad for people by noting its benefits 
in his talk, “Social Media is Good 
For You.” He said most people 
spend the majority of their time 
around people like themselves, but 
can interact with a more diverse 
range of people through social 
media, gaining new information 
and perspectives with which they 
would otherwise not come into 
contact.

He acknowledged that anony-

mous social media platforms like 
YikYak can be places for cyber bul-
lying; however, he added that they 
also serve as forums where people 
can gain help for things they would 
feel uncomfortable turning to their 

friends for, such as suicide.

In summary, Lampe said, social 

media is a place for “social groom-
ing.” In some cases, he said, people 
can feel loved by others through 
sites such as Facebook.

“One of the important parts of 

social media is this social grooming 
effect,” Lampe said. “The likes, the 
votes, the shares, the comments, 
what we consider banal, can be 
extremely important.”

While Lampe said he does not 

think that, on his birthday, all of his 
500 Facebook friends would send 
him a cake, and he probably would 
not want 500 cakes, if they had not 
posted “Happy Birthday” on his 
wall, they probably would have not 
reached out to him at all.

After the talk, Lampe explained 

why he chose to speak on the posi-
tive aspects of social media.

“When I was talking with stu-

dents, I realized that a lot of them 
felt really bad about their social 
media use,” Lampe said. “A lot 
of them were talking about how 
they’d gotten off Facebook, and 
they felt ashamed of their social 
media use, and I thought ‘you know 
what? I’m just going to do a very 
simple social media is good for you 
talk,’ and that’s the one (the orga-
nizers) really clicked with.”

Though Gaunt agreed in her 

talk, “Broadcasting Black Girls’ Net 
Worth,” that the social grooming 

aspect of social media is important 
to study, she said this is not so for 
the positive reasons that Lampe 
described.

Gaunt, who earned her Ph.D. 

in musicology and ethnomusicol-
ogy from the University, began her 
speech by recounting her audition 
process in the Power Center years 
before she broke out into an opera 
song. From there, using her per-
sonal anecdote of overcoming her 
feelings of low self-worth, she tran-
sitioned into her research today on 
Black girls younger than 18 twerk-
ing in YouTube videos online.

While Lampe discussed how 

social grooming helps build people 
up, Gaunt spoke on how it dete-
riorates young African American 
girls’ self worth. She said 40 per-
cent of the videos that fit into this 
category are uploaded by men, and 
the comments section sexualizes 
and degrades the minors featured 
in the video, which is harmful for 
their self-confidence.

Okaneme, the LSA sophomore, 

said he would like to see more 
events like TEDxUM.

“I’ve always really enjoyed going 

to TED talks and have watched 
them online,” he said. “The chance 
to do this on campus sounded 
great. It’s been really interesting, 
there’s a lot of different speakers 
from across different disciplines, 
and I thought that was really nice.”

TEDX
From Page 1A

junior Jibran Ahmed, MUSIC 
Matters 
fundraising 
chair, 

referenced the organization’s 
pending 
summer 
leadership 

camp 
for 
underrepresented 

Detroit ninth graders.

“Our hope with that camp 

is to bring together these stu-
dents, show them that one, col-
lege is attainable and something 
that is very much tangibly in 
reach for them, and two, to pro-
vide them the resources, expe-
rience, mentorship that allows 
them to continue their higher 
education pursuit,” he said.

He added that the summer 

program will likely form a rela-
tionship with its participants 

through the University’s Detroit 
Center that allows the students 
to regularly return to Ann 
Arbor for continued mentorship 
with MUSIC Matters students 
throughout high school.

As far as SpringFest goes, Sie-

gel said the layout will remain 
the same as last year’s event. 
Participating student organiza-
tions will be stationed through-
out the Diag up to North 
University Avenue, and split 
into five sections: arts, innova-
tion, sustainability, social iden-
tity and philanthropy.

Food trucks will line up 

North University, along with 
a local farmers market and a 
station for MTank — where a 
panel of judges will evaluate 
startup pitches from Univer-
sity students. Ahmed noted that 

SpringFest will also feature its 
inaugural fashion show, bring-
ing together a number of student 
groups in the “fashion realm.” 
The event’s overall theme will 
focus on social activism.

“A big thing too, with Com-

mon, having someone like him 
with his respect at a historic 
venue like Hill, where all these 
speeches have been, where 
Martin Luther King (Jr.) has 
been … Hill is seen as that his-
toric place where all sorts of 
impactful speeches have been 
given,” Ahmed said. “To bring 
someone like Common in there 
just kind of merges the venue’s 
historical value with our mis-
sion with his mission, and we 
just really think that’s a nice 
mesh.”

COMMON
From Page 2A

STARTUP
From Page 1A