dull crayons while microscopes 
with good resolution draw with 
fine-tipped pencils.

As 
microscopes 
were 

improved, they hit a limit: The 
resolution could never get better 
than half a wavelength of light. 
Since microscopes use light to 
see, they can’t tell the differ-
ence between two objects closer 
together to each other than a ray 
of light. Because of this, micro-
scopes could easily see cells and 
some of the larger objects inside. 
But important interactions such 
as viruses’ infecting a cell or the 
aggregating of proteins that cause 
Alzheimer’s were seen only very 
blurrily, if at all. Betzig, however, 
found a way around this physical 
constraint through PALM.

PALM is a type of fluores-

cent microscopy. In fluorescent 
microscopy, 
the 
microscope 

doesn’t actually see the compo-
nents of a cell, but instead glow-
in-the-dark, 
or 
“fluorescent,” 

molecules that attach themselves 
to the features of interest. The 
problem when attempting to look 
at a super-high-resolution image 
is that each fluorescent molecule 
looks like a fuzzy blob — Betzig 
calls these “fuzzballs” — and 
these blobs start to overlap each 
other.

Betzig found a way through 

this problem by using fluorescent 
molecules that don’t automati-
cally glow, but instead only glow 
when exposed to a certain color 
of light — hence the “photo-acti-
vated” component of PALM. He 
found a way to ensure that only a 
handful of these molecules would 

glow in a given image.

After taking many images, 

with only a few different mol-
ecules glowing in each one, he 
would clean the images so only 
the innermost cores of the fuzz-
balls were visible. Then, all of 
the images would be overlaid 
and the fuzzballs, now just bright 
points of light, would no longer be 
overlapping, thus surpassing the 
theoretical limit for resolution. 
Suddenly, a whole world of intra-
cellular interactions was visible.

Despite the novelty and power 

of this approach, Betzig described 
becoming quickly tired of PALM.

“And so, again, I worked on 

PALM until 2008 and by that 
time I was sick of it for two rea-
sons. One is that super-resolution 
became a big bandwagon with 
lots of people getting into it. And 
usually when that happens I want 
to run as far as possible in another 
direction. The other thing is that, 
like my earlier super-resolution 
methods, it has a lot of really 
intrinsic limitations,” Betzig said.

The 
limitations 
mainly 

revolved around the fact that 
PALM is optimized for cells on 
a slide and isn’t adept at taking 
three-dimensional videos.

“Basically, I got sick of looking 

at dead things,” Betzig said.

In 2008, he was inspired by 

his colleague Mats Gustafsson, 
who developed structured illu-
mination microscopy, or SIM. 
This technique also beat the theo-
retical resolution limitation, but 
only by an order of two instead 
of the almost unlimited resolu-
tion achieved by PALM. For this 
reason, Gustafsson was not also 
considered for the Nobel Prize, a 
fact that Betzig takes issue with.

“Now, that was the reason 

the Nobel Committee stated — 
because it was only a factor of two 
instead of theoretically unlimited 
by … PALM — as to why SIM was 
not part of the Nobel Prize. But, 
in my opinion, that’s a tremen-
dous mistake. Honestly, I feel 
that SIM is the technique that 
has answered and will continue 
to answer many biological ques-
tions,” Betzig said.

Despite the quickly evolving 

nature of his field, he says that 
the important reminder is to use 
these technologies for practical 
purposes.

“Winning a Nobel Prize is fine. 

Publishing a bunch of cute papers 
is fine. But it all means diddly-
squat if these tools don’t answer 
biological questions. And I’m 
really concerned about that. And 
it’s very important to me to make 
sure that these tools get into the 
hands of biologists.”

Betzig said many challenges 

remain. Preparing samples prop-
erly is more difficult than ever, 
and the huge amount of data com-
ing out of the microscopes can be 
overwhelming.

“The problem with this micro-

scope is each biologist comes for 
a week and leaves with 10 tera-
bytes of data. And they have no 
fucking clue how to deal with it. 
You’ll never hear from them again 
because they’re too embarrassed 
to ask what to do,” he said.

Betzig hopes, however, that as 

technologies and information sci-
ences advance, soon his main goal 
will be achieved.

“Putting these pieces together 

will get us closer than ever before 
to studying cell physiology as it 
actually happens.”

3-News

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Friday, October 2, 2015 — 3

internal survey released to rough-
ly 3,000 randomly selected stu-
dents on campus, and one survey 
released through the American 
Association of University to all 
students on 28 college campuses.

The results of each survey 

revealed both fairly high rates of 
sexual assault and high rates of 
disillusionment with the efficacy 
of the adjudication process. The 
University’s internal survey also 
revealed that certain groups are 
at higher risk for sexual assault; 
for example, students in Greek 
life are 2.5 times more likely to 
experience sexual assault than 
students not in Greek life.

With these numbers in hand, 

the University is developing a 
number of programs to target 
at-risk groups and expand their 
prevention programming for the 
entire student body.

The context: In his first year, 

Schlissel and the University’s 
Sexual Assault Prevention and 
Awareness Center worked to 
raise awareness of sexual assault 
through the “I Will” campaign 
and through both surveys, seek-
ing data on campus climate sur-
rounding sexual misconduct.

In October 2014, students 

took it upon themselves to bring 
the issue to his attention. Stu-
dents held a protest on campus, 
before issuing seven demands 
for the administration related to 
addressing sexual misconduct. 

“This protest seeks to actively 

disrupt the University of Michi-
gan’s complacency in handling 
issues of sexual assault on this 
campus,” an anonymous group 
of survivors and allies stated in a 
viewpoint for the Daily. “To the 
administration: Students are tak-
ing action because it is time our 
voices are heard.”

However, Schlissel said he was 

frustrated by the way the stu-
dents framed the conversation.

“The one thing I will object 

to, which drives me a little nutty, 
is framing things as demands,” 
Schlissel told the Daily. “I think 
that makes it really difficult to 
have discussions.”

At the time, Schlissel said he 

was concerned that many of the 
demands made by the student 
protesters were actually cov-
ered by policies and procedures 
already in place, illustrating a 
lack of awareness among the stu-
dent body at large.

***

The University administration 

plays a large role in promoting 
sexual assault prevention — pro-
viding resources during New Stu-
dent Orientation and in residence 
halls such as Relationship Remix, 
Change it Up! and an orientation 
skit performed by the Education-
al Theatre Company. However, 
there’s some disagreement about 
the extent to which these pro-
grams are successfully contrib-
uting shifting the culture around 
sexual assault on campus.

Change it Up!, a bystander 

intervention program mandatory 
for freshmen during their first 
months at school, has recently 
expanded to cater to students 
of all years at the University. 
The program, which underwent 
its pilot year during Schlissel’s 
first year, prominently features 
sketches from the ETC to illus-
trate 
methods 
for 
bystander 

intervention.

ETC Director Callie McKee 

says the theater company part-
ners with Change it Up! to teach 
students 
the 
importance 
of 

bystander 
intervention 
when 

dealing with difficult situations, 
as well as dispel misinformation 
on sexual assault.

“With this sketch, we seek 

to send a message that sexual 
assault is a community issue — 
that it is everyone’s responsibility 
to make sure everyone can feel 
safe and respected,” McKee said.

According to research con-

ducted at the University of New 
Hampshire, one of the schools 
tapped by Vice President Joe 
Biden to aid the White House 
Task Force to Protect Students 
from Sexual Assault, freshmen 
learn University policies and prac-
tices best when given activities to 
review and think critically about 
the material they learn.

“It may not be enough to read 

students the campus policies in a 
class OR ask them to watch a video 
on their own time,” the report con-
cluded. “Rather, there may need to 
be an activity following the reading 
so that students can have help pro-
cessing the information in a way 
that will give them more in-depth 

understanding of the policy.”

However, McKee says the play, 

which is developed in part through 
the input of students, is meant to 
teach students about a variety of 
topics, such as mental health, alco-
hol and community living.

Pre- and post-survey data from 

the first iteration of Change it Up! 
show that the program has had an 
overall positive effect on its stu-
dents.

While 15.76 percent of students 

said they “strongly agreed” it was 
their business to intervene in 
harmful situations before the pro-
gram, 24.18 percent said they felt 
that way afterward. Overall, the 
total percentage of students who 
answered with “agree” or “strong-
ly agree” when asked if it was their 
business to intervene was 93.89 
percent by the workshop’s end.

Similarly, while 14.72 percent 

of students said they “strongly 
agreed” that they have confidence 
in their ability to intervene in 
harmful situations before complet-
ing the program, 24.49 percent said 
they felt that way afterward. Over-
all, the total percentage of students 
who felt confident enough in their 
intervention abilities to answer 
with “agree” or above was 93.41 
percent by the workshop’s end.

Business 
sophomore 
Maria 

Malinowski, who saw the ETC 
show last fall, pointed to Relation-
ship Remix as a better educational 
means of preventing sexual assault 
though she said she already knew 
much of the information provided.

“In the Relationship Remix pre-

sentation, we spent a significant 
amount of time learning about how 
to properly put on a condom,” she 
said. “While I think it’s important 
information, I feel that many stu-
dents have already had this lesson 
in high school health classes and 
don’t need to spend 15 minutes 
reviewing how to do so.”

LSA sophomore Rohin Patel 

said he also learned more from 
residence hall workshops like Rela-
tionship Remix and Change it Up! 
due to the ability to discuss the top-
ics in detail with small groups.

“I learned a good amount about 

sexual assault freshman year, but 
I feel that it wasn’t enough,” Patel 
said. “During orientation there 
are a lot of things students need to 
worry about, so oftentimes people 
can overlook this very important 
topic.”

***

Another educational method 

the University uses to educate stu-
dents is AlcoholEdu, an online quiz 
on alcohol abuse. Before arriving to 
campus, students are asked to take 
an online alcohol training program 
that indirectly addresses sexual 
assault prevention. According to 
Rider-Milkovich, this program has 
a 99-percent participation rate.

However, some students still 

were not aware of the campus 
resources for survivors of sexu-
al assault. Malinowski said she 
recalled the alcohol awareness 
quiz touching on sexual assault, 
though she did not learn about 
SAPAC or the University’s sexual 
assault policy.

“If those modules we had to 

complete mentioned SAPAC or 
other resources, I don’t remember 
them having a strong emphasis on 
them,” she said.

LSA sophomore Megan Mack-

enzie also said she was not aware of 
any University resources for sexual 
assault prevention before coming 
to campus, only Blue Light Emer-
gency Phones around campus. 
During her freshman year, she said, 
she learned the most from the ETC 
play in regard to sexual assault pre-
vention, but found Change it Up! 
“unnecessary.”

“At the time, I was 18 years old 

and I felt that if we had to be rein-
forced this common knowledge at 
the University level, then some-
thing was very wrong,” Mackenzie 
said.

As far as learning about the 

SAPAC policy on sexual assault, 
Patel and Malinowski both said 
they learned about it through 
non-administrative ways — Patel 
through running for CSG repre-
sentative position and Malinowski 
through a women’s studies class. 
Malinowski said SAPAC repre-
sentatives came to talk to her class 
about resources and the impor-
tance of consent, and said she 
wishes she received a similar pre-
sentation during orientation.

“Although we talked about 

SAPAC in our dorm presentation, 
people do skip those and would 
miss this information,” she said. “I 
feel like if the University stressed 
this issue more during orientation, 
where people generally don’t skip 
events they’re supposed to attend 
or are significantly less likely 
to skip, more students would be 
aware of these resources.”

***

To gather data on the subject, 

Schlissel issued a survey last win-
ter to gauge campus climate in 
the beginning his second semes-
ter as University president.

“Learning about the experi-

ences of students and the degree 
to which students feel safe and 
respected will help us better 
understand how we can more 
effectively address and prevent 
sexual 
misconduct,” 
Schlissel 

wrote in a January 2015 e-mail 
sent to the student body to intro-
duce the survey.

Schlissel said a campus-specif-

ic survey would give the Univer-
sity better data to use in creating 
programs and interventions to 
reduce sexual violence on cam-
pus.

“Learning about the experi-

ences of students and the degree 
to which students feel safe and 
respected will help us better 
understand how we can more 
effectively address and prevent 
sexual 
misconduct,” 
Schlissel 

wrote in the e-mail.

Schlissel said in a September 

interview with the Daily that the 
survey results, released in June, 
were disheartening. The results 
showed 11 percent of students 
reported experiencing some form 
of unwanted sexual behavior in 
the past year, and 12 percent of 
undergraduate females reported 
experiencing nonconsensual sex-
ual penetration — yet 89 percent 
of all students reported feeling 
relatively safe from sexual mis-
conduct on campus.

“Anything that involves 20 or 30 

percent of a population, that’s not 
a rare event — this is everyday life, 
this is culture,” Schlissel told the 
Daily.

Furthermore, the survey found 

though nearly 86 percent of all stu-
dents know the University has a 
Student Sexual Misconduct Policy, 
only 55 percent of students report-
ed receiving training or attending 
programs on sexual assault preven-
tion and reporting.

A separate survey in which the 

University participated, adminis-
tered by the Association of Ameri-
can Universities in March, showed 
of University students who said 
they experienced nonconsensual 
penetration 
involving 
physical 

force, 76.8 percent did not report 
the crime. Many who did not 
report said they did so because they 
did not consider it serious enough 
or because they thought nothing 
would be done about it.

Schlissel and other administra-

tors have stressed their continued 
dedication to preventing sexual 
misconduct on campus, but they 
have acknowledged that some stu-
dents may be unaware or feel skep-
tical of these efforts.

“We take every report of poten-

tial assault or misconduct of any 
kind very seriously,” Schlissel said. 
“So the obvious problem is that we 
are not getting that message across 
in a way that the students either 
hear or believe.”

Moving forward: So far, Schlis-

sel has emphasized data collection 
as a means for approaching sexual 
assault at the University. And with 
the survey results in, it appears 
that the University has room to 
improve.

In an interview with the Daily 

following the AAU survey results’ 
release, 
Rider-Milkovich 
said 

teachings from programs like Rela-
tionship Remix seem to “wear off 
over time.” Subsequently, the Uni-
versity is working to make assault 
prevention a more continuous and 
visible topic of discussion on cam-
pus.

For example, SAPAC has been 

working with Recreational Sports 
to create a poster campaign to 
appear in facilities across campus. 

“We want to be reinforcing that 

healthy relationships are a part 
of an overall wellness,” Rider-
Milkovich said. “So those kinds 
of messaging, specific to the ways 
that students engage in sports on 
our campus ... is an example of 
those targeted kinds of education 
efforts that need to complement 
the big-scale work that we’re doing. 
And all of that has to happen on 
many different levels.”

In an e-mail to the student body 

Thursday, E. Royster Harper, vice 
president for student life, invit-
ed students to provide feedback 
regarding the University’s sexual 
misconduct policy through a vari-
ety of student-led focus groups.

Overall, administrators have 

made it clear that sexual assault is 
not an issue unique to the Universi-
ty — and struggling to find success-
ful ways to mitigate the problem is 
not an challenge unique to the Uni-
versity either. 

SCHLISSEL
From Page 1

subject is being discussed in class.

LSA senior Chris James, BSU 

executive board member, said 
there should be no definition or 
stereotype of what it means to be 
Black at the University.

“There is no fit definition of 

what Black is,” he said. “When 
you go into the real world, the 
first thing people are going to see 
is that you’re Black. They’re not 
going to see what comes along 
with that. Being Black can encom-
pass so many other cultures and 
heritages and identities.”

LSA 
junior 
Travis 
Jones 

III recounted the shootings of 
unarmed Black men by police 
officers in Staten Island, N.Y., and 
Ferguson, Mo. last year. After 
those incidents, he said, Black 
men were often painted as thugs.

“That is a major stereotype in 

which people who are not in (the) 
culture have now used to describe 
us,” he said. “It’s really important 
that we understand these stereo-
types because they’re using them 
against us and we don’t do any-
thing about it. We all need to take 
action.”

A portion of the discussion was 

also dedicated to thinking about 
how diverse sexualities fit within 
the Black community.

BSU Speaker Capri’Nara Ken-

dall, a Kinesiology senior, said 
she believes the Black community 
is generally not accepting of the 
LGBTQ community.

“I feel sometimes people that 

identify as LGBTQ are often 
outcasted in the Black com-
munity,” she said. “I feel like 
heterosexual Black men tend 
to shy away from gay Black 
men because they don’t want 
to be associated with it. We as 
a community need to be more 
embracive of it so people that 
are afraid to come out feel com-
fortable and know that even 
though they are different, they 
will be accepted, because we 
all have differences that set us 
apart.”

LSA senior Lawrielle West said 

it’s important to remember that 
attacks against the Black LGBTQ 
community can also come in the 
form of microaggressions.

“Discrimination 
and 
mak-

ing people uncomfortable isn’t 
always blatant,” she said. “We just 
have to be careful in our language 
and be aware that not everyone in 
our community will have hetero-
normative identities.”

Trey Boynton, director of the 

Office of Multi-Ethnic Student 
Affairs, said learning to listen to 
the LGBTQ community is vital in 
building connections with them.

“What it would be like if we 

said, ‘Trans community, come 

on. Let’s do this together, let’s 
talk about gayness and gay mar-
riage’?” she asked. “This inter-
sectionality conversation is so 
important because it’s all con-
nected, the hate, the laws, the 
systems. If we approach this issue 
from that way, we can all con-
nect.”

LSA senior Cooper Charlton, 

Central 
Student 
Government 

president, was also present at 
the discussion Thursday. In an 
interview with the Daily after the 
forum, Charlton said the event 
was helpful in forming individual 
connections.

“I think that last year, the Cen-

tral Student Government didn’t 
do the best job of reaching out,” 
Charlton said. “It’s all about con-
nections. I think the connec-
tions and getting to know people 
through personal relationships 
really comes down to personal 
interaction. I don’t think it’s fair 
for me to sit in chambers and 
make these constrictions of what 
the campus needs. I want to do 
that with others.”

In an interview after the 

forum, McKinney said she hopes 
students will now take more own-
ership over their own identities.

“I hope that students take 

away that can be who they are,” 
she said. “We fill in what we 
want to be and we can defy ste-
reotypes, we decide our presents 
and our futures.”

BSU
From Page 1

NOBEL
From Page 1

