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The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is 
published every Thursday during the 
spring and summer terms by students 
at the University of Michigan. One copy 
is available free of charge to all readers. 
Additional copies may be picked up at the 
Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for fall 
term, starting in September, via U.S. mail 
are $110. Winter term (January through 
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On-campus subscriptions for fall term 
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The Michigan Daily is a member of The 
Associated Press and The Associated 
Collegiate Press. 

2

Thursday, May 14, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
NEWS

Resort to file suits 
against Greek life 
members on ski trip

Findings of additional 
investigations suggest 
further legal actions are 
necessary, Treetops says

By CARLY NOAH

Summer News Editor

Tuesday 
afternoon, 
Treetops 
Resort announced it will file a civil 
lawsuit against individual members 
of the Sigma Delta Tau sorority and 
former members of the University’s 
disbanded chapter of Sigma Alpha 
Mu fraternity for damages during 
their ski trip the weekend of Jan. 19.
More than 200 members of Sigma 
Alpha Mu, along with members of 
Sigma Delta Tau, were present at 
the Northern Michigan ski resort 
that weekend. Following the trip, 
the SAM chapter was disbanded due 
to allegedly costing the resort more 
than $430,000 in damages, and the 
SDT chapter was placed on a two-
year disciplinary suspension for 
their failure to intervene.

SDT recently launched a bystand-
er intervention program centered 
around providing students with the 
tools necessary to intervene in diffi-
cult situations.
Treetops spokeswoman Susan 
Wilcox-Olsen confirmed to the 
Detroit Free Press the resort plans 
to sue several fraternity and sorority 
members.
Barry Owens, general manager of 
Treetops, could not be reached for 
comments about the specific num-
ber of fraternity and sorority mem-
bers the resort plans to sue.
“Treetops’ legal advisors have 
recently completed a review of the 
facts of the case, including recently 
released material prepared pursu-
ant to the criminal investigation,” 
the resort said in a press release. 
“Criminal 
charges 
were 
filed 
against three students last month. 
Several facts from this review now 
suggest that legal action beyond the 
criminal matter should be pursued.”
The resort also said the resort’s 
management confronted the group 
of students involved after the first 

See TREETOPS, Page 3

Faculty, students 
discuss diversity 
of Great Books 

Current classes only 
study Greek and 
Biblical literature

By RACHEL PREMACK

Daily Saff Reporter

As students challenge the 
status quo of academic require-
ments at the University, one LSA 
Honors Program requirement is 
hardly unchanged since the pro-
gram’s founding in 1947.
Freshmen in the Honors Pro-
gram were, up until Fall 2014, 
required to take Great Books. 
Although that requirement has 
since altered slightly, Great 
Books remains one of the few 
options, and, at about 200 stu-
dents, it remains the most popu-
lar Honors course, according 
to History Prof. Sara Forsdyke, 
director of the Interdepart-
mental Program in Greek and 
Roman History. The reading 
list for the class is composed of 
Greco-Roman 
literature 
and 
excerpts from the Bible.
One Honors newsletter from 
2007, the 50th anniversary of 
the Honors Program, notes, 
“The founders of Honors wanted 
a course that would allow stu-
dents to immerse themselves in 
the study of a significant culture, 
and classical Greece seemed the 
obvious choice.”
However, 
some 
scholars 
say this choice shouldn’t be so 
instinctive, especially as the 
University pledges to prepare 
its students for an increasingly 
global society.
Microcosm of an ongoing 
debate
Debates on increasing the 
diversity of university’s curricu-
la grew in the early 1990s, when 
the term “dead white European 
male” was coined. Students and 
scholars alike began to ques-
tion why their social science and 
humanities courses contained 

only the experiences of white 
men from bygone eras. These 
activists wanted to amplify the 
voices of women and those out-
side white European and Ameri-
can heritage.
Critics of that movement 
claimed that Greco-Roman lit-
erature retained its significance. 
They praised the Greeks’ inno-
vations in areas such as politics, 
science and rhetoric, some-
times with a tinge of annoyance 
toward what they perceived to 
be political correctness.
Few 
elite 
schools 
today 
require Great Books courses, 
which were developed at Colum-
bia University and the Univer-
sity of Chicago in the 1920s. At 
Chicago, Greek Thought and 
Literature remains one of the 
eight options for undergraduate 
students to fulfill the requisite 
humanities 
course 
sequence. 
But world literature and open-
ended topics such as “Language 
and the Human” are also appli-
cable.
The University of Notre Dame 
has a more traditional Great 
Books course for students in its 
Program of Liberal Studies. Save 
for readings from Confucius, 
Bhagavad Gita and Black Ameri-
can author Ralph Ellison, the 
sequence is dominated by Euro-
pean perspectives.
But Notre Dame’s Liberal 
Studies program professes a 
much different task than our 
diversity-focused University: it 
is “anchored in the Western and 
Catholic traditions,” according 
to their website. The LSA Hon-
ors Program, on the other hand, 
pictures itself a “vibrant com-
munity,” emphasizing inclusion: 
“There’s something for everyone 
and all are invited.”
Why are these books so 
great, anyway?
While Great Books courses 
occasionally include upper-level 
courses on contemporary Euro-

@MICHIGANDAILY

See GREAT BOOKS, Page 3

