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Ann Arbor, Michigan
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
CELEBRATING OUR ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIFTH YEAR OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
Party provides
music, food before
polls open on Wed.
for CSG elections
By EMMA KINERY
Daily Staff Reporter
Two days before the polls
are set to open for Central Stu-
dent Government elections, The
Team bared the cold Monday
evening to spread the word about
their platform goals and rally
voters. The Team will run LSA
junior Will Royster as the party’s
presidential candidate and LSA
sophomore Matt Fidel for vice
president.
Campaign supporters handed
out flyers and offered cookies,
Domino’s pizza and Tim Hor-
ton’s coffee and hot chocolate to
passersby in the Diag.
“We’re showing campus a
good time,” Fidel said. “Every-
body’s walking through the Diag,
it’s free to join in, just kind of see
what The Team’s all about.”
Aside from a DJ’s table in front
of the Hatcher Graduate Library,
the Black Student Union, the
Cool Club — a University cloth-
ing startup — and University
fashion groups NOiR and Bronze
Elegance also set up tables to
promote their respective organi-
zations.
“This is a great platform for
us to get our message out, but
to also support other student
organizations, and that’s what we
want to be here for,” Royster said.
“We asked other organizations
to be a part of this so that they
can get their message out as well.
That’s a big part of our platform
and it’s successful.”
Royster said having the orga-
nizations there showed that
even though The Team has yet
to be elected, the party still cares
about advancing their platform
on campus.
“Authenticity: that’s been our
campaign
strategy,”
Royster
said. “Just at this rally we talked
about creating a platform and
empowering people, but we’re
not waiting until we get elected;
we’re doing that now, and that’s
something that we have a track
record of.”
Music played throughout the
rally, and campaign members
and students danced between
speeches and discussions about
The Team’s policies. The rally
Uncontested exec.
candidates focus on
diversity, student
engagement
By ALYSSA BRANDON
Daily Staff Reporter
Though
chalk
messages
touting Make Michigan, The
Team and the Defend Affirma-
tive Action Party began cover-
ing campus in advance of this
week’s Central Student Govern-
ment election, students pitched
platforms Monday night for
another race — LSA Student
Government elections.
At the event, several LSA Stu-
dent Government candidates
presented their platforms and
answered questions during a
candidate forum in the Michi-
gan Union.
The presenters included LSA
juniors Jason Colella and Reid
Klootwyk Colella, the uncon-
tested candidates for LSA SG
president and vice president,
respectively.
Colella and Kloowyk’s plat-
form calls for improving cam-
pus climate and increasing
diversity. The goal reflects that
of the University leadership. In
February, University President
Mark Schlissel held a leader-
ship breakfast to consider issues
related to diversity on campus,
including diversity of the stu-
dent body and faculty, inclusion
and the creation of a strategic
diversity plan.
Klootwyk, who serves as
vice chair of the LSA SG com-
munications committee, said
addressing
issues
regarding
international and transfer stu-
dents is an important part of
addressing diversity.
“Our international student
mentorship program is a huge
project
we’re
working
on,”
Klootwyk said. “I’m also work-
ing on a project that will allow
transfer students to defer enroll-
ment as freshmen are able to.”
Colella, who currently serves
Eight new stations
to open in May
following last
season’s success
By LARA MOEHLMAN
Daily Staff Reporter
With the snow mostly melted
and the sidewalks visible again,
the Ann Arbor bike share pro-
gram ArborBike is back.
On Friday, the nonprofit Clean
Energy Coalition, in collabora-
tion with the University, the city
of Ann Arbor and the Ann Arbor
Area Transportation Author-
ity, reopened ArborBike for the
season. The service, which is
a bike share program serving
both students and residents, first
launched in the fall.
ArborBike consists of a set
of stations around the city and
campus that have bikes available
for temporary use. At the end of
an hour, users return the bikes to
one of the ArborBike stations.
The program has five kiosks
on campus and another at the
Ann Arbor Public Library’s
downtown branch. Eight more
stations will be added by late
May to expand the program off
campus.
The fall 2014 season ended
with 293 users and 690 trips over
the two-month period before
biking season ended. According
to an ArborBike press release,
ArborBike expects membership
to increase dramatically this
round due to both an extended
summer 2015 season and an
Interdisciplinary
training initiative
to explore human
health and disease
By ANASTASSIOS
ADAMOPOULOS
Daily Staff Reporter
Beginning next fall, the Uni-
versity will launch an multidisci-
plinary science-training program.
The program, called Integrated
in Microbial Systems: Modeling,
Population
and
Experimental
Approaches, will combine popu-
lation and microbiome sciences
to explore human health and dis-
eases. A microbiome is defined as
the microorganisms in a particular
environment.
Betsy Foxman, program co-
director and professor of epide-
miology at the School of Public
Health, said the goal of the pro-
gram is to train scientists who are
able to apply laboratory and popu-
lation approaches to the study of
microbial communities in human
health.
“Our long term research goal
is to learn how to sustain healthy
microbial communities and to
manipulate unhealthy ones so as to
improve human health,” Foxman
said.
Tom Schmidt, the program’s
other co-director and professor
of Ecology and Evolutionary Biol-
ogy, said he hopes the program
will lead to new discoveries about
how the microbiome is related to
diseases. He added that the pro-
gram’s work could extend beyond
just human health and allow study
of microbial communities in other
organisms like animals and plants.
Schmidt said the program will
be able to fund four doctoral stu-
dents per year. Other students will
also be able to benefit from work-
shops and symposia hosted by the
program.
“We are looking for people who
reach across the traditional aca-
demic boundaries, people who are
willing to gain expertise not only
in microbiology, but also in model-
ing and ecology and dealing with
large datasets that come with the
study of the microbiome,” he said.
The program will be funded
through the Burroughs Wellcome
Fund Award, which will provide
$2.5 million over a five- year peri-
od. The fund donates money to
similar programs at universities
across the country with the goal
of integrating the fields medicine
with public health. The University
was one of the four grant recipients
in 2014.
The
other
three
were
Dartmouth College, University
of Rochester and Washington
University in St. Louis.
Russ Campbell, communica-
tions officer for Burroughs Well-
come Fund, said the University’s
program connects bench sciences
and public health.
“Students who would have oth-
erwise taken a traditional labo-
ratory-based Ph.D. are thinking
about problems through a pub-
lic health lens and students who
would have otherwise trained in
traditional public health approach-
es are exposed to the power of ask-
ing questions at the molecular or
Funding proposals
for fiscal years
2016, 2017 slated
for a vote in May
By ANASTASSIOS
ADAMOPOULOS
Daily Staff Reporter
Ann Arbor City Council con-
vened for another discussion
on the 2016 and 2017 fiscal year
budgets Monday evening. The
meeting focused on public ser-
vices, including street lighting,
streets and facilities upgrades.
Craig Hupy, Ann Arbor’s
public services administrator,
presented the city staff’s pro-
posal for this section of the gen-
eral fund.
Following the lifting of a
10-year moratorium on new
streetlights last month, the
Council heard plans for poten-
tial streetlight expenditures for
the next two years.
Among the staff’s recommen-
dations is a $750,000 investment
in Kerrytown street lighting in
the 2017 fiscal year and an addi-
tional $3.25 million for other
areas in and outside the down-
town area. Hupy said the Ker-
rytown investment includes 90
street poles and will replace all
current lights in the area.
While Hupy said Kerrytown
lighting has been identified for
attention, the city has not yet
discussed the actual installa-
tion with Ann Arbor Down-
town Development Authority.
Councilmember
Stephen
Kunselman (D–Ward 3) spoke
in favor of the Kerrytown
investment.
“I would highly encourage
that the DDA help fund sub-
stantially the Kerrytown proj-
ect,” he said.
The report states that each
streetlight pole in the city will
cost $43,013 over 40 years,
which would include the costs
of replacement parts, energy
and labor.
Hupy the city will consid-
er requests for additional or
upgraded street lighting and
rank them against other gen-
eral fund priorities.
The Council also discussed
several
forthcoming
street
projects, including a proposal
encouraging extensive street
reconstruction and resurfacing
projects.
The report proposes expendi-
tures amounting $7.1 million for
annual street resurfacing and
$3.7 million for major recon-
structions for both years, with
another $7.4 million for street
and right of way maintenance.
Several major and smaller
local streets are up for resurfac-
ing in 2015, including the stretch
of Packard Street between State
Street and Stadium Boulevard
and State Street from Eisen-
hower Parkway to I-94.
Councilmember Julie Grand
(D–Ward 3) said undergoing
multiple projects at the same
time could be problematic.
City Engineer Nick Hutchin-
son said Ann Arbor plans to
take precautions to let residents
See LSA SG, Page 3
See TEAM, Page 3
See BIKE, Page 3
See COUNCIL, Page 3
See MICROBIOME, Page 3
VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily
Engineering junior Will Royster (Left), candidate for CSG President, and LSA sophomore Matt Fidel (Right), candidate for CSG Vice President, speak at The Team
Rally on the Diag on Monday. LSA senior DaShuane Hawkins and LSA sophomore Cierra Jackson (center) perform with the Movement Dance Team.
RITA MORRIS/Daily
Craig Hupy, Ann Arbor’s Public Services Administrator, proposes a budget for the Public Services General Fund
during a City Council Hall Meeting at Larcom City Hall on Monday.
INDEX
Vol. CXXIV, No. 87
©2015 The Michigan Daily
michigandaily.com
NEWS............................2
OPINION.......................4
A R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
SPORTS ........................ 8
SUDOKU....................... 2
CL ASSIFIEDS.................6
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WEATHER
TOMORROW
HI: 58
LO: 35
‘The Team’ holds rally on
the Diag to garner support
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
ANN ARBOR
RESEARCH
Candidates
for LSA SG
pitch their
platforms
ArborBike
bike share
relaunches
for spring
‘U’ wins funding
for microbiome
science program
Council talks budget plans
for lighting, road repairs