The project was driven in large 

part by Munger, both in terms of 
providing a vision for the final 
product and funding most of the 
construction costs. The real estate 
tycoon had previously funded a 
similar model of graduate stu-
dent housing at Stanford Univer-
sity, and his record-breaking $110 
million donation to the Univer-
sity in September 2013 was given 
expressly to fund such a project in 
Ann Arbor.

E. Royster Harper, vice presi-

dent for student life, said Munger 
brought a unique perspective to 
the project.

“Charlie’s vision was uncon-

ventional,” she said. “It broke a 
lot of rules about what people 
thought was possible in graduate 
education, and it didn’t consult 
any of the people who thought 
they should be consulted.”

This 
approach 
sometimes 

drew criticism from students, 
particularly those who criticized 
the price tag to live there, which 
is between $850 and $900 per 
month, but was originally slated 
to total about $1,000 monthly.

Schlissel praised the forward-

thinking ambition of Munger and 
credited him for the project’s suc-
cess.

“He approached the University 

with a different way of thinking 
about living and learning space,” 
Schlissel said. “A way that would 
purposefully foster the kind of 
interactions that lead to the con-
nections across disciplines that 
will actually solve big problems.”

Social Work student Arlene 

Chandra said living in Munger 
has been a positive experience so 
far.

“As a social worker I’m going to 

be coming across so many differ-
ent walks of life and I’m going to 
need to be able to connect with all 
my clients and what they’ve expe-
rienced,” she said. “By living with 
so many different people, I am 
able to learn about different top-
ics and how to engage with other 
students.”

bill, colleges can grant Perkins 
loans to students who applied 
before July 1 for the current school 
year, but will not grant new loans 
to new students.

Institutions 
can 
continue 

awarding Perkins loans to stu-
dents who had been offered those 
loans in the 2014-2015 school year. 
These students are eligible for 
ongoing Perkins loans until Sept. 
30, 2020, or until they graduate if 
that date is sooner, so long as they 
remain in the degree programs in 
which they were enrolled when 
offered their most recent loan.

Under the program, these 

500,000 students are awarded a 
total of approximately $1 billion 
a year at about 1,500 colleges and 
universities nationwide. Program 
advocates argue that the funds, 
which are only a small portion of 
the $150 billion the federal gov-
ernment awards in student loans 
and grants each year, have made 
higher education possible for mil-
lions of students in the U.S.

However, Mark Kantrowitz, 

publisher of the college financial 
planning website edvisors.com, 
argued the Perkins program has a 
less significant impact than other 
federal student loan programs, 
namely the Federal Stafford loan 
program, which he said accounts 
for about $100 billion in federal 
financial aid.

Kantrowitz said the average 

Perkins loan is relatively small: 

usually 
between 
$1,000 
and 

$2,000.

According to Margaret Rodri-

guez, senior associate director at 
the University’s Office of Financial 
Aid, the federal government sub-
sidized the cost of Perkins loans 
when the program began. How-
ever, it has not allocated funds to 
the Perkins program since 2004.

“When the program started, 

the federal government provided 
funds to the institutions to make 
loans,” she said. “And then the 
institutions had to match those 
funds with some of their own 
money.”

Rodriguez said the lack of fed-

eral funds has not stopped colleg-
es from awarding Perkins loans. 
The University, she said, has been 
using repayments from previously 
awarded loans to offer new loans 
to current students. She also noted 
eligibility for Perkins grants is 
based upon demonstrated need, 
which is determined by the infor-
mation students provide on the 
FAFSA.

“We have a certain amount 

of money available — and that 
depends on how much is col-
lected in any particular year — 
and we use those funds to help 
needy students, both graduate and 
undergraduate, meet their costs of 
education,” she said. “So we look 
at our applicant pool every year 
and determine how much we can 
offer (to each student).”

Rodriguez said 4,500 under-

graduate and graduate students 
at the University receive Per-
kins loans, and that last year the 

University 
had 
approximately 

$12 million available last year to 
award in Perkins loans alone.

In total, according to the Uni-

versity’s Office of Budget and 
Planning, the University awarded 
more than $200 million in finan-
cial aid to its students in 2014.

“The Perkins loan is part of 

what we call an aid package — put 
together with grants, scholar-
ships, work study in some cases, 
and federal direct loans to offer a 
variety of sources of aid students 
can use to meet their need,” Rodri-
guez said.

Kantrowitz said colleges are 

typically attracted to awarding 
Perkins loans to students because 
they are associated with greater 
flexibility. Perkins loans, he said, 
are a form of campus-based aid, 
and individual schools are able 
to choose which students receive 
them.

“Colleges often use the Perkins 

loan money to fill in gaps in their 
financial aid packages,” he said.

Students who receive these 

loans pay no interest while they 
are in school, and when they grad-
uate, their loans will carry a 5-per-
cent fixed rate. Additionally, if 
borrowers commit to certain pub-
lic service jobs after graduation 
for between one and five years, 
they are eligible to have all or part 
of their Perkins loans forgiven.

Kantrowitz said he, too, is not 

optimistic the Senate will act to 
continue the program. However, 
he argued this is a positive: it 
would be cost-effective to elimi-
nate the program, and expand the 

Federal Stafford Loan program 
instead.

He said Perkins loans were 

created for those with the high-
est need, but in practice they are 
awarded to any student with 
financial assistance, regardless of 
their relative need.

“There is a feeling in Congress 

that the Perkins loan program is 
redundant,” he said. “It overlaps 
with the existing loan programs, 
doesn’t add a lot of value.”

Kantrowitz said if Congress 

decided to extend the program to 
new borrowers for one more year, 
it would incur avoidable costs. To 
account for those costs, he said, 
Congress would eliminate the 
portion of the program called 
“grandfathering” — which is what 
guarantees students who previ-
ously received Perkins loans will 
get more in the future.

“The thinking of opponents of 

the Perkins program is that elimi-
nating the grandfathering makes 
it a lot easier to kill off the pro-
gram entirely,” he said.

Kantrowitz also noted that 

some in the Senate are propo-
nents of simplification and won’t 
see value in extending the pro-
gram.

“Especially considering that 

for a longer term extension, Con-
gress would have to spend money, 
and Congress is in a budget-
cutting mood, not an increas-
ing spending mood,” he said. 
“And where would they get the 
money?”

Colleges will fight for this pro-

gram he said, because they’re 

focusing on promulgating their 
existing policies and not consid-
ering what is best for financial aid 
policy in the future.

“A 
much 
better 
approach 

would be to get rid of the Perkins 
Loan program and instead some-
how expand the Stafford Loan 
program — maybe expanding the 
loan limits or adding some addi-
tional flexibility to the program, 
loan forgiveness, or something,” 
he said.

Though colleges would lose 

some leeway in their financial aid 
budgeting processes, Kantrowitz 
said, the amount would be man-
ageable. The expiration of the 
program, he said, would not be 
terribly significant and colleges 
could devise their own loan pro-
grams to replace the Perkins pro-
gram if they wished.

Though Rodriguez said she is 

unsure if the Senate will approve 
the House bill to reinstate the 
program, she is not hopeful. She 
also said the University remains 
committed 
to 
satisfying 
the 

financial needs of its students, 
despite the expiration of the Per-
kins loan program.

“Of course losing an aid pro-

gram that provides $12 million 
is significant, but the University 
is looking for ways that it can 
continue to meet the full need 
of Michigan residents and offer 
competitive aid packages to non-
residents,” she said. “We’ve been 
studying the issue for a while: 
we knew that there was always 
a possibility that the program 
would go away.”

tation considered the stigma 
around recovering patients. He 
said this shame felt by drug users 
can actually prevent them from 
seeking the care they need.

“One of the things we need to 

continue to work on is the role 
that language plays in perpetu-
ating stigma,” Botticelli said. 
“People are afraid of what their 
neighbors think, what the police 
will think, so we know that stig-
ma has an impact in delaying 

care.”

According to the Office of 

Adolescent Health over one in 
five high school seniors reported 
“binge drinking” daily in the pre-
vious month. By senior year, half 
of adolescents have abused an 
illicit drug one or more times. On 
college campuses, the numbers 
are larger, and the most common 
drugs abused include marijuana, 
Adderall and ecstasy.

Recently, a study by University 

researchers showed an increase 
in the use of all three of these 
drugs by college-aged students.

Botticelli 
emphasized 
the 

importance of young people 
supporting those close to them 
who are in recovery. He said 
young people are less likely to be 
embarrassed when talking about 
addiction, particularly because 
so many substance abusers are in 
their teens or early 20s. 

“What I find tremendously 

invigorating is the role of young 
people in recovery,” he said. “We 
have this explosion of young 
people in recovery who are not 
going to be silenced by shame 
and stigma.”

At the event, Donald Vereen, 

director of the University’s Sub-

stance Abuse Research Cen-
ter, presented on the biological 
aspects of substance abuse. His 
slides graphically depicted the 
harmful effects of regular use 
of drugs like cocaine, marijuana 
and methamphetamine, includ-
ing dangerously high dopamine 
levels and slowed brain activity.

He also noted how difficult it 

is to treat these cases.

“There are these expectations 

that when you have a disease 
and when you enter treatment, 
you will be cured,” Vereen said. 
“There are very few things we 
actually cure in medicine.”

Public Health student Lau-

ren Boone attended the lecture 
because of her interest in drug 
education.

“(It) was informative in help-

ing me to understand what is 
going on federally and biologi-
cally and it helped me to identify 
areas that I can contribute to in 
my research specifically in terms 
of drug education,” she said.

Botticelli 
said 
the 
White 

House’s agenda for substance 
abuse help includes promoting 
collegiate recovery programs 
and engaging in general out-
reach.

meeting.

“It was, and still is, our belief 

that the right to choose our own 
members is a crucial part of self 
governance,” he wrote. “We will 
appeal this decision and believe 
that we have a strong case. The fact 
that the IFC came to this decision 
without a precipitating incident is 
extremely disheartening and calls 
into question the motives and val-
ues of the member chapters.”

LSA senior Nick Swider, Delta 

Sigma Phi president, said IFC 
chapter presidents voted on the 
issue at last week’s meeting, but 
did not achieve a two-thirds major-
ity to expel the fraternity. Swider 
emphasized that he was not speak-
ing on behalf of his fraternity.

“We’ve been alerted multiple 

times through the Office of Greek 
Life that we are not allowed to 
affiliate ourselves with these 
particular 
individuals, 
that 

they’re bad news, just stay away,” 
Swider said.

Swider said a DKE national 

adviser attended the meeting in 
support of the merger. He said 
the executive board in atten-
dance requested a lesser pun-
ishment, suggesting IFC keep a 
closer eye on them rather than 
expelling the chapter.

After failing to abandon the 

merger 
before 
Wednesday’s 

meeting, 
the 
expulsion 
was 

brought to another vote, this time 
receiving the necessary majority.

“We have bylaws for a reason, 

the bylaws that we do not affili-
ate with a rogue organization and 
if we do, we have consequences 
through the Greek Activities 
Review Panel or there’s conse-
quences that the presidents can 
directly take against us which 
is what we saw tonight.” Swider 
said. 

Field spoke at the IFC meeting 

and justified their reasoning for 
recruiting the Sig members.

“(Field) explained that over the 

summer months and beginning of 
the school year, he had [COPY: 
“been”?] 
working 
extensively 

with their national organization, 
their membership and appar-
ently had even taken a vote from 
the membership back in April,” 
Swider said. “The membership 
by a simple majority agreed to 
take the kids in Sig into DKE and 
merge the chapters.”

according to administrators, is 
generally marked by increased 
alcohol consumption.

Last fall, DPSS said a short-

ened Welcome Week reduced on-
campus alcohol-related activity 
during that time. The number of 
ambulance requests to Universi-
ty Housing facilities, calls to the 
DPSS Communications Center 
related to drinking, noise com-
plaints, urinating in public and 
visits to University Emergency 
Departments all dropped consid-
erably from 2013.

However, 
events 
during 

the last year have shed a more 
intense light on the University’s 
party culture.

In January, four University 

fraternities and sororities inflict-
ed hundreds of thousands of dol-
lars worth of property damage 
on two ski resorts in northern 
Michigan.

The Sigma Alpha Mu frater-

nity and Sigma Delta Tau soror-
ity, who stayed at the Treetops 
Resort in Gaylord, Mich. during 
the weekend of Jan. 16, were esti-
mated to have caused $430,000 
in damages, according to the 
resort’s general manager.

That same weekend, fraterni-

ties Pi Kappa Alpha and Chi Psi 
and sororities Delta Gamma and 
Alpha Phi damaged rooms at 
Boyne Highlands, a ski resort in 
Harbor Springs, Mich.

The damage reported at the 

two resorts included felled ceil-
ing tiles, broken walls and dis-
mantled furniture.

Both Schlissel and E. Royster 

Harper, vice president for stu-
dent life, have insisted on the 
necessity of creating a social 
environment less influenced by 
alcohol.

In a January interview with 

the Daily, Harper said the Janu-
ary ski trip incidents illustrated 
part of the problem at hand.

“We can’t keep going this 

way,” she said. “Too much at risk. 
Too many safety issues. We can’t 
keep behaving like we have this 
system, and because there are so 
many good things about the sys-
tem, that makes the things that 
are unhealthy and dangerous 
about the system OK. And that’s 
what we’ve been doing. I think 

that Up North was a wakeup call 
for us as an institution and as a 
community.”

However, 
Schlissel 
has 

acknowledged that expecting 
students not to drink is an unre-
alistic goal, and he would focus 
the bulk of his efforts on efforts 
to reduce the harm.

“I think it’s impractical to have 

as a goal that students won’t drink 
on campus,” he said in a Novem-
ber interview with the Daily. 
“Even though most of students 
are drinking illegally, I don’t think 
that’s an enforceable law, but look-
ing at it from the safety perspec-
tive is what I want to do.”

***

In the past month, the Uni-

versity has launched or floated 
ideas to introduce several initia-
tives designed to curb drinking 
on campus, as well as a party 
culture administrators have said 
Greek life plays a role in.

In August, the University 

unveiled a plan to involve the 
parents of first-year students 
who violate school alcohol poli-
cies on a case-by-case basis.

The University plans to notify 

parents if a first-year student 
under the age of 21 “commits a 
violation accompanied by other 
serious behavior such as need-
ing medical attention, signifi-
cant property damage or driving 
under the influence,” or if one 
of these students “has a second 
alcohol or drug infraction.”

Harper said the policy will 

only be implemented in certain 
instances.

“Part of what we have talked 

about is trying to leave some 
space,” Harper said. “Should, in 
the course of having a conver-
sation with a student, there is a 
sense that actually calling would 
not be in their best interest, then 
we won’t.”

Mary Jo Desprez, the direc-

tor of Wolverine Wellness, said 
the policy is not meant as a 
punishment, but as a preventa-
tive measure. She pointed to the 
close relationship many students 
share with their parents.

“Part of this also is, students 

tell us, when we ask them, ‘Who 
is the biggest influence on your 
decisions and your values?’ they 
always say parents or family,” 
Desprez said. “So part of this is 
us partnering with the people 
they have told us are the biggest 

part of their support network.”

In a September interview with 

the Daily, Harper said the Uni-
versity was considering delaying 
Greek rush.

“Does it make sense to have 

students come, and in a week, by 
the whole pledging process, we 
have thrown them into a whole 
environment that we’re worried 
about?” Harper asked. “Should 
we stay on this path we have, 
where we’ve been so committed 
to self-governance, that we allow 
rush to happen sometimes less 
than a week after students get 
here? So we’re certainly going to 
take a look at that.”

Members of the University’s 

Senate 
Advisory 
Committee 

on University Affairs have also 
floated the idea of increasing the 
number of Friday classes to curb 
Thursday night drinking — a 
move University Provost Mar-
tha Pollack has said she would be 
open to.

The administration has seem-

ingly identified Greek life as help-
ing drive a University culture 
marked by excessive drinking. In 
September, the University called 
a historic, all-chapter meeting of 
Greek life, in which administra-
tors said change must occur, or 
the future of Greek life could be 
in peril.

Schlissel told the crowd that 

the University’s reputation was 
at stake.

“The value of their degrees are 

gonna go down because the repu-
tation of the University of Michi-
gan won’t be the excitement in 
the Big House or our teams doing 
well under our fantastic new 
coach,” he said. “It’s not gonna be 
the kids who receive the Rhodes 
Scholarships and the Fulbright 
Scholarships, and the famous 
professors who do the work that 
you’re going to get reflected on 
for, or the National Medal for the 
Arts that our faculty won this 
past week. It’s going to be the 
‘Shmacked’ videos. So it’s really 
up to you what the value of your 
education is going to be, what the 
reputation of this institution’s 
going to be.”

Moving forward: In response 

to negative attention directed at 
Greek life in the last year, LSA 
junior Sean Pitt, vice president 
of public relations for the Uni-
versity’s Interfraternity Council, 
said the IFC has begun to revise 

its existing risk management 
policies.

“This summer, the Interfra-

ternity Council … has under-
taken a major review of all of 
our risk management policies to 
determine how and where they 
can be strengthened in order 
to better protect and educate 
our members,” Pitt wrote in an 
e-mail. “In addition to this work, 
we have been rapidly developing 
and escalating our existing part-
nerships with SAPAC and UHS 
to bring peer led, Greek Life tai-
lored, sexual assault prevention 
presentations to our chapters in 
order to ensure the retention of 
bystander intervention training 
information that our members 
are given upon entry into the 
Greek Community.”

Pitt said the IFC worked to 

address 
sexual 
assault 
even 

before the University’s survey 
results on the topic were released 
over the summer.

Among these efforts, he said 

Winter 2015 pledges signed a 
sexual misconduct prevention 
pledge “agreeing to voluntarily 
resign their membership if they 
do not uphold the ideals, stan-
dards, and values of the Inter-
fraternity Council and Greek 
Community at the University of 
Michigan and commit an act of 
sexual misconduct.”

Members of Greek life have 

had mixed reactions to the 
administration’s calls for reform. 
Many sorority and fraternity 
members 
expressed 
frustra-

tion with the administration 
for effectively linking the Greek 
community to the problem of 
excessive alcohol consumption.

“That was the one big thing 

that people were against is that 
it was spoken as just the Greek 
community,” 
one 
fraternity 

member told the Daily after the 
September Greek life meeting 
with Schlissel. “If anything, a 
lot of the times when incidents 
happen it’s people from outside 
of the organization that come to 
our parties and cause trouble. So, 
it’s a message that really should 
have been transmitted to the 
entire University.”

Many members who spoke 

with the Daily said Greek life 
actually does a better job than 
other organizations at ensuring 
parties are safe. Unlike students 
hosting house parties or ath-

letic teams hosting team parties, 
members say Greek life parties 
are heavily regulated.

“We have sober monitors, 

attendance lists, strict alcohol 
rules and risk-management poli-
cies,” one member said. “Remov-
ing Greek life wouldn’t remove 
parties, it would remove safe 
parties.”

Dean of Students Laura Blake 

Jones said enacting change in the 
Greek community will require 
more 
comprehensive 
support 

— from national organizations, 
the Office of Greek Life, alumni 
advisors and parents.

“I’ve been talking with a lot 

of parents of Greek life stu-
dents who, similarly, want to be 
involved in helping support, and 
so we’re taking a really compre-
hensive approach to how do we 
create a foundation for these 
organizations 
to 
work 
from 

that’s really going to help them 
to be able to live into their values 
and be all the positive things that 
we know Greek life can be in the 
community,” Blake Jones said.

She added that any work to 

improve Greek culture will have 
to focus on a variety of issues.

“We have five major areas of 

emphasis where we think we 
need to do work. The first one is 
education, the second one is lead-
ership development, the third one 
is risk management, the fourth 
one is environmental manage-
ment and the fifth is accountabil-
ity measures,” Jones said.

She acknowledged that hav-

ing the entire Greek community, 
rather than just executive offi-
cers, care about enacting a cul-
ture shift will be key to making 
real progress.

“There’s such a focus at times 

in some groups on the social 
scene, and then that eclipses the 
service, the academic focus, sis-
terhood, the brotherhood — the 
other common elements of the 
values,” she said. “And so if we 
could have our groups moder-
ate their behavior and really be 
thoughtful about potential harm 
that could happen, and have not 
just the president and the social 
chair and the risk manager 
worry about those things, but 
everybody in the organization 
understand and be committed to 
wanting to ensure the safety of 
everyone, we would come a long, 
long way in achieving our goals.”

3-News

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Thursday, October 1, 2015 — 3A

PERKINS
From Page 1A

DKE
From Page 1A

SCHLISSEL
From Page 1A

MUNGER
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CZAR
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