Opinion
JENNIFER CALFAS
EDITOR IN CHIEF
AARICA MARSH
and DEREK WOLFE
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS
LEV FACHER
MANAGING EDITOR
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Edited and managed by students at
the University of Michigan since 1890.
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s editorial board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Thursday, April 9, 2015
Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Rabab Jafri, Ben Keller,
Payton Luokkala, Aarica Marsh, Victoria Noble, Michael Paul,
Anna Polumbo-Levy, Allison Raeck, Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm,
Matthew Seligman, Mary Kate Winn, Jenny Wang, Derek Wolfe
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
W
e
were
40
minutes
into an 11 a.m. lecture
for Bible as Literature
when our profes-
sor, Ralph Wil-
liams,
offered
another one of his
“Williamsisms.”
It was in the thick
of a complicated,
careful
analysis
on the theological
necessity of the
annihilation
of
the first genera-
tion of Israelites
in the wilderness
(in Numbers, precluding the entry
into the promised land at Canaan).
It was the sort of aphorism that,
thrust off-hand, I almost missed
amidst my grasping to keep up with
the narrative, the details, the char-
acters and the chronology. But this
one was a diamond in the rough, a
needle in the haystack, a pearl in
the sand, whatever idiom suits your
fancy. A biggy. I’ll get back to it.
Impossibility
is
an
obscure,
transient notion. Long have phi-
losophers sought to explain that
which defies the laws, the mental
framework within which we live
our lives. Take Isaac Newton, for
example, who posited much of the
foundational
physics
principles
upon which modern theory rests.
During his time, the concept of the
presence and interaction of “invis-
ible forces” as a medium guiding
much of the observable phenomena
was truly implausible and impossi-
ble. In the words of Williams: “Oh”
(i.e. “they really swung and missed
on that one?”)
Indeed, it seems, something is only
impossible until it can be explained.
Impossibility withers in the face of
reason, removed from the precipice
of the miraculous and placed within
the realm of the conceptual. In this
way, impossibility is but a temporary
asterisk marking that which we do
not yet understand.
So, why does any of this long-
winded musing on the nature of
impossibility matter? Well, it’s nec-
essary in order to gain an apprecia-
tion that the impossible is overcome
every day.
History is flush with this storyline.
Light could not be explained until
Louis de Broglie and David Bohm
articulated the wave-particle dual-
ity. No sprinter could run a mile in
less than four minutes until Roger
Bannister did. Pictures could not
move until Georges Meliés and oth-
ers made the first movies. No pitcher
could throw faster than 102 miles
per hour until Aroldis Chapman did.
Hell, hepatitis C could not be cured
until Sovaldi until its approval in
2013. The plot of history’s “impos-
sibles” is canonical and repetitive: “it
could not happen, until, well, it did.”
Albert Einstein put this concep-
tion of impossibility (while at the
center of a heated debate between
science and religion) a particularly
eloquent way: “To sense that behind
anything that can be experienced
there is something that our mind
cannot grasp and whose beauty and
sublimity reaches us only indirectly
and as a feeble reflection, this is reli-
giousness … In this sense I too am
religious, with the reservation that
‘cannot grasp’ does not have to mean
‘forever ungraspable.’ ”
In other words, Einstein believed
that religion and science reflect
a rather similar fascination with
understanding the impossible.
That is, until we, inevitably,
grasp it.
I know, I know. I’m a little bit off
the deep end right now. So let me
come back to that Williamsism, if
you’ll let me. In that 40th minute,
Ralph stated, simply and as only he
can, that “possibility is only bounded
by the imagination.”
Put another way: you think, there-
fore you may be. Conversely, deem-
ing something impossible is a form
of creative apathy. It’s a label used to
qualify an anomalous phenomenon.
It’s a manifestation of intellectual
arrogance, a claim that the current
framework of comprehension is the
right, and the only, one.
Of course, if there’s one immu-
table historical truth, it’s that things
happen, facts emerge, and minds
change. Indeed, the impossible is as
malleable and temporary as the lens
through which we view it. Wow! (As
an aside, if you haven’t registered yet,
I’d go take one of his classes.)
In other news, this is my last offi-
cial column for The Michigan Daily.
In my time writing, I’ve addressed
many different topics, including once
providing a reflection on some of the
career decisions I’ve made, coupled
with some advice. I would be remiss
if I didn’t add one last nugget, one
that Adidas popularized a few years
back: “Impossible is nothing.”
Here’s what I make of the tagline:
“impossible,” as a label, is nothing.
It’s meaningless, an excuse for a void
of knowledge or of skill. And inverse-
ly, impossible is no thing. No thing is
impossible. It’s just as Coach Holtz
(and Mom) said it: “Nothing is impos-
sible … if you put your mind to it.”
I always loved “Hardy Boys” and
“Scooby Doo” as a kid. And this idea
— that the most distant challenges
are but mysteries waiting to be solved
— is tremendously inspiring. I hope
you find it as empowering as I do as
you move forward with your life.
Actually, one more thing, before
I sign off, that I would regret if I
didn’t do. I want to thank my read-
ers for the attention, for the support
and for giving me the opportunity
to grow up through this newspaper
these four years.
Thank you. It means the world.
— Eli Cahan can be reached
at emcahan@umich.edu.
On impossibilities
ELI
CAHAN
A great first step
Other student groups should get involved with BSU initiative
T
he Michigan Institute for the Improvement of African
American Representation, a committee within the University’s
Black Student Union, has organized a program to host 46 high
school students from Kalamazoo Public Schools for three days at the
University. Led by Will Royster, an LSA and Engineering junior and the
BSU academic concerns committee chair, the purpose of the program is
to encourage underrepresented minorities to apply to and enroll in the
University. This initiative is beneficial for both the high school students
and for the University as a whole. To keep expanding the program, as
the BSU is currently in the works of doing, other student organizations
should become involved in the initiative.
During their three-day stay, the high school
students are given the opportunity to tour
campus, participate in an SAT workshop and
hear from admissions counselors. To participate
in the program, students are expected to have
a GPA of at least 3.0 and submit a 300-word
essay. This requirement provides students with
possibly their first experience writing college
admissions essays.
The program allows students to envision
themselves
as
future
Wolverines
by
providing social activities for them, including
opportunities to interact with different student
organizations on campus and hear from an
alum. The program also strives to connect the
high school students with current students
from the same area.
When talking about the program in an
interview with the Daily, Royster stressed
the importance of the program for minority
students. “We want to allow them to acclimate
to the culture and make them passionate about
the University,” Royster said. “We want them to
envision themselves at the University.”
Furthermore,
this
initiative
provides
an opportunity for the University to work
toward
increasing
minority
enrollment
without violating Proposal 2, which prohibits
affirmative action at Michigan universities.
The program’s goal to increase enrollment
of students within underrepresented groups
has many merits. With a more diverse
population, students will benefit from an
environment in which ideas are fostered from
people of varying backgrounds. If students are
never exposed to individuals who come from
different backgrounds than their own, they
are limited by a lack of new perspectives. The
purpose of higher minority enrollment is to
promote inclusiveness, prevent discrimination
and decrease the marginalization of minority
voices on campus. Additionally, an increase in
minority students will allow the University
to better serve the state of Michigan and hold
the University more accountable to the public
it is serving.
Similar programs may be implemented in
the future alongside the expansion of BSU’s
program. While this is the first semester
the BSU initiative will take place and the
number of enrollees seems minimal, the
program serves as a great first step to increase
minority enrollment. Both the Central Student
Government and the University should support
this program in all possible ways and work with
BSU toward its upcoming expansion.
FROM THE DAILY
D
ear young, impressionable,
just-turned-18-three-days-
ago me,
College is a new
beginning for you,
and you need the
change it provides.
You’re
nervous
now but also excit-
ed to be in Ann
Arbor, a place with
thousands of new
faces and many
new freedoms.
College is going
to be different. You
say this in your
head now, but soon you’ll understand
how much truth this mantra holds.
You’re going to grow apart from peo-
ple you don’t currently want to lose.
You’re going to grow close to people
with whom you didn’t think you had
anything in common initially. People
and problems that seem so central to
your life today will be a minor blip on
your radar by senior year.
The biggest problem you’ll tackle
is figuring out what to study. During
Campus Day you heard about the
Ford School, and you’ll end up
choosing this path. It’ll be a good
experience and you’ll meet some
amazing people, but you’re not going
to have a thing like everyone else. You
won’t suddenly become passionate
about saving the environment or
changing the tax code or fixing labor
laws. You’ll choose health policy as
your focus area, mainly because you
took an amazing public health class
that made you change the way you
view political problems.
Ultimately, though, you’ll realize
health policy isn’t what will get you
out of bed in the morning.
So you’ll look at possible minors to
supplement your Ford School experi-
ence. You like a lot of different things,
so it’s going to be hard to choose just
one. One day, while you’re sitting in
Rackham, you’ll stumble across the
Sweetland Minor in Writing. You like
writing, so you’ll decide to apply. By
senior year, you will be confident that
it was the best decision you made at
Michigan. You’re a writer even now,
sitting on your twin XL bed in your
unfamiliar room, but you don’t have
the courage to admit it yet. The first
time you say it out loud, though, it’ll
seem like you’ve gained the mental
clarity for which you’ve been search-
ing since you arrived on campus.
Your writing classes will be
treasured spaces where you can be
vulnerable, where you can share.
You’ll want to thank each one of your
peers who took the time to read your
writing and give you critiques and
encourage you, but it’ll be difficult
to convey how much that means
to you. “Hey, smart people!” your
professor will write when she sends
out announcements to the class. We
are a group of smart people, you’ll
think. I am smart.
Each year you are enrolled at
Michigan is going to be different
from the last. Really different,
actually. Most of this is because each
year you’ll spend most of your time
with a different group of people.
Right now you share campus with
your brother, but that will end by
middle of junior year when you head
to Washington D.C. for a semester.
You’ll miss being able to drive to
Zingerman’s on a Sunday and talk
about whatever is on your mind with
him, but luckily, you’re going to end
up about an hour and a half away
from each other after graduation.
South Quad is a great spot for now,
but next year you’ll live in the
sorority house and spend a lot of time
with Pledge Class 2011. You’ll spend
most of junior year in D.C., living
with Fordies and PoliSci majors.
Senior year, you’ll live all over Ann
Arbor (I’d tell you that story, too, but
I signed a nondisclosure agreement
which prohibits me from doing so).
You’re going to join a sorority
in a few weeks, and you’ll wonder
whether or not you fit into the house
you got a bid from. The girls in the
house are “chill.” You are most defi-
nitely not chill. Then you’ll realize
chil in this context means you’re
going to have fun with these peo-
ple whether you’re out on a Foot-
ball Saturday or lying in the Green
Room on a Wednesday watching
“Good Will Hunting.” Your best
friend in the house will be the same
kind of hyper/chill hybrid as you.
You don’t know yet, but next year,
the girl you met during orientation
will walk around Pike in her pajamas
with you at midnight on a Friday
because she knows you just had your
heart ripped out of your chest by
someone you thought would be in
your life forever. A year later, you’ll
laugh about how ridiculous you two
probably looked, you sobbing down
Oxford and her wearing a bright-
orange shirt with “sober monitor”
written on the back.
Also,
an
important
tip
for
sophomore year: don’t sign up for
Honors Calculus.
You’re a freshman who thinks she
wants to live in New York City one
day, but in two years you’re going
to intern in D.C. and randomly be
assigned a roommate. She’ll be the
most ridiculous, spirited and enter-
taining friend you’ll have during
your time at the University, and
you will share many inside jokes
that make you laugh until you can’t
breathe. You’ll live together in D.C.
again a few months later, and get
into more trouble. You’ll also make
a friend who will join in your com-
plaints about Shake Shack chang-
ing their fries, watch kids movies
on Saturday mornings while you
recover from drinking one too many
on Friday nights and take an entire
album worth of selfies with you dur-
ing your semester in Washington.
You’re struggling to make friends
now, but in a few weeks, a tall girl
from Midland will run into the
room where you happen to be hang-
ing with your new friends. She’ll
explain how she’s currently sex-
iled and introduce herself, and by
senior year it’ll be difficult to avoid
crying with her anytime someone
talks about graduation. Next year,
a girl will introduce herself, saying
she knows you through a friend of
a friend, and senior year you’ll be
there for each other when you each
need a friend the most.
But you don’t know any of this
currently, as you lie in bed at
night and let a few tears fall down
your face. You are just a homesick
freshman — nervous, but also
excited to see what the next four
years will bring. You’re the unedited
version of the person you’ll become
in the next four years, the first cut
of many revisions you’ll make to
yourself without even realizing it.
You’re going to grow and you’re
going to thrive, so get ready for the
next four years of your life. They’ll
be over in the blink of an eye.
Go Blue,
Katie
— Katie Koziara can be reached
at kkoziara@umich.edu.
A letter to myself on move-in day
C
ollege education is a mixture of choice,
effort, perception and circumstance.
Academically speaking, you can only
choose from the classes
offered: this is our circum-
stance. We choose our cours-
es, decide the level of time
and effort we will invest in
class and rate the course
based on our subjective per-
ceptions of what education
should look like.
A student can choose to
pursue paths of knowledge
acquisition or skill honing —
academic “excellence” or a
focus on experience-based learning. But often,
for me, the question is, “How much will you
remember when you leave?” Will you remem-
ber the historical events you learned, or the
social justice concepts you dialogued about?
Will the academic habit you hang on to the
longest be your new coffee addiction?
I wasn’t sure what I came to the University
for, to be honest. I thought maybe it was to hone
my writing skills or to learn about how and why
the earth was being destroyed (along with how
to prevent destruction). Alongside the “liberal
arts education” came the idea that I was going
to college to learn how to learn, to grow as a
well-rounded human and to become more eli-
gible for the working world.
I did learn many things here. I took a wide
array of classes that helped me understand dif-
ferent ways of looking at the world and under-
standing humanity. I took classes about writing
and the earth. I also took classes that taught me
more about gender, health, race, socioeconomic
status and Afro-Cuban drumming. They taught
me more about being perceptive and critical of
the changing world around me.
However, the classes that made my experi-
ence here uniquely impactful were the classes
that existed off the beaten trail. These classes
understood the earth and the human mind as
concepts that did not fit into textbooks, but
rather as entities that flourished from creative
environments of freedom and dialogue. They
encouraged self-exploration and deep curiosity.
From these classes, I gained an understand-
ing of a different life perspective — one that
embraced the earth as a grounding life force.
I gained an understanding of meditation and
compassion as a type of spirituality. This spiri-
tuality deeply resonated with me. Coming into
school, I had strong values and convictions, but
coming out, I better understand how to nurture
this sense of self.
I highly recommend these classes at the Uni-
versity. In Jazz 450 with Martha Travers in
School of the Music, Theatre & Dance, students
learn mindful meditation, how to connect more
deeply with nature and different ways of coping
with our daily tedium.
In Psychology of Spirituality with Richard
Mann, students become friends as they sit in a
circle and learn about the nuances of navigating
life as humans.
Environment, Sustainability and Social
Change, taught to first-years by James
Crowfoot, a professor and dean emeritus
in the School of Natural Resources, helps
freshmen commune with nature in an
incredibly accessible way.
Writing and the Environment with Aric
Knuth encourages students to write about their
nature-based recollections and share their expe-
rience with classmates.
Through these classes, I found meaning,
calm and purpose with a new understand-
ing of how I can interact with the earth and of
the anchor the earth can provide me. I learned
methods of walking and sitting meditation. I
learned how to greet the elements and how
to take in others’ life stories. These classes
spanned beyond the usual limits of the college
classroom. These classes based themselves in
dialogue and experience. In circles, we talked
about our personal journeys.
I learned how to think deeply about the meta-
phors around me.
As a high school student, I perceived societal
success as my ultimate goal. These are the goals
set for you by the people around you rather
than by what you determine makes you happy.
I set about achieving the highest grades, play-
ing varsity sports, taking many standardized
tests, joining clubs and not sleeping. I was very
stressed and very miserable. My most frequent
emotion during that time was anger.
I went into university knowing that I did not
want to treat my body and spirit like that again.
Striving to meet society’s pre-set goals was not
my personal path to happiness. This much I
knew. What I needed to find out then was what
would make me happy.
My professors in these classes didn’t have the
same rules as others. Their highest concern was
not whether you ended the semester with an A;
rather, whether or not you grew as a person.
Learning about my spirituality was my real
education. I find life lessons in the path these
professors set me on. If you are still continuing
your journey at the University, I highly suggest
finding classes that speak to you along with
the mandatory requirements. It’s possible that
it won’t be the classes for your major that are
embedded deep in your memory, but the classes
you took for you.
—Maris Harmon can be reached
at marhar@umich.edu.
My real education
MARIS
HARMON
KATIE
KOZIARA