The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Friday, October 9, 2015 — 3A
curriculum, which often consists
of teaching basic science and
anatomy for the first two years,
then clinical science for the last
two years.
In line with this vision, one of
the programs the Medical School
launched this year was an “initial
clinical experience” for its first-
year students. This program
allows students to see firsthand
how healthcare
teams
come
together
to
provide
good
patient
care,
Mangrulkar
said.
“Before,
shadowing
doctors
and
being
in
the
clinic
during
the first year
of med school
was something
you had to arrange for yourself,”
said Charlie Frank, a first-year
Medical School student, said.
“But now, every other week
we are in a clinic, shadowing a
diverse healthcare team that not
only includes doctors but includes
other
important
healthcare
professionals such as nursing
assistants and social workers.”
In addition, a new “doctoring”
course has been established for
first-year students, where they
will learn about clinical and
interpersonal skills in medicine
in an intimate setting with two
faculty members who will work
with them for their entire four
years.
Lastly, the Medical School has
unveiled the MHome learning
community for all of its students.
The program divides students
into houses, and each house has
a director, faculty members, and
students of all medical school
years, Mangrulkar said.
This allows students to work
within a smaller community,
plan community service events
and focus on integrating their
learning across the curriculum.
Ed Hur, a second-year Medical
School student, said MHome
provides a great opportunity for
older Medical School students to
mentor younger ones.
“The idea of the MHome is to
bridge the gap between first-,
second-, third- and fourth-year
med students,” Hur said. “We
often have meet and greets with
the first-year students, where
older students like myself can
give them advice on things such
as research opportunities.”
Facility
renovations
accompany
the
curriculum
changes. Among these is the
Taubman
Health
Sciences
Library, which
underwent
a
$55
million
renovation.
The
new
library
was
designed
to
bolster
the
improved
model
of
medical school
education.
“The new library supports
team-based learning that focuses
on problem solving,” Mangrulkar
said. “This will support the idea
of students being change agents
in society.”
Curricular changes are not
being introduced all at once,
Mangrulkar said.
For example, the “Paths of
Excellence”
programs
that
were designed to allow students
to focus on a specific area of
medicine are being introduced
gradually. Initially optional, they
will now become mandatory for
the incoming Medical School
class.
Frank said initial feedback
from the curricular changes has
been positive overall.
“The way medicine has been
taught for a long time is now
outdated,” he said. “The best
doctors of the future are those
that not only have a strong basic
science understanding, but also
have excellent clinical skills,
teamwork skills and a social
understanding. Teaching these
skills was nonexistent in medical
school education before, but is
now at the forefront of the new
curriculum.”
curriculum and worked with
her during her life.
Ward
studied
the
Black
Power movement in graduate
school and, in that context,
became
familiar
with
the
Boggs’ work.
“Although she’s not African
American
herself,
she
was
very much immersed in the
Black community in Detroit
and the Black circles across the
country,” Ward said.
Born in Providence, R.I., in
1915, Boggs was the daughter
of Chinese immigrants. Early
in her childhood, her family
relocated to New York, where
Boggs grew up. She completed
her
bachelor’s
degree
in
philosophy at Barnard College
and her doctorate in philosophy
at Bryn Mawr College in
Pennsylvania.
“I
would
describe
her
as
a
philosopher-activist,”
Ward said, “She never taught
philosophy, but philosophical
thinking was always important
to her.”
After
participating
in
the March
on
Washington
Movement — formed to protest
segregation in the armed forces
— in the 1940s, Boggs was
inspired to continue fighting
for equal opportunity for the
Black community for the next
seven
decades.
Influenced
deeply by Marxism and left-
wing radicalism, she became
active in the labor party, civil
rights and the Black power
struggles.
Ward
said
Boggs’
more
visible
accomplishments
through the University, such
as her honorary degree, were
important, but what’s more
noteworthy
were
the
less
visible displays of University
friendship such as the years of
guest lecturing.
“She didn’t just say what
she had to say and leave. She
really engaged with students,
challenged
students,”
Ward
said. “She challenged everyone
she
spoke
with
to
think
more deeply about what they
were interested in and to see
themselves as able to come up
with the ideas and carry out
the actions to bring about the
changes that we need.”
Ward
said
Boggs
and
her husband lectured at the
University as early as 1962.
“She’s been
coming
to
U of M for
decades,”
Ward
said.
“In the 1970s
they
started
coming every
year.”
Boggs
settled
in
Detroit in 1953
and
shortly
thereafter wed James Boggs, an
employee of Chrysler and fellow
civil rights activist.
Their
home
became
a
hub for visiting civil rights
leaders, a breeding ground for
fellow organizers hoping to
see reforms for women, labor
equality, education access and
an
end
to
institutionalized
racial discrimination.
“From over seven decades
of
being
an
activist
and
writer there was this really
rich network of overlapping
communities,” Ward said.
Ward said Detroit was an
important base for Boggs to
develop her ideas and a network
of activists because she saw the
changes occur firsthand.
“When she came to Detroit it
was at its peak population of 2
million,” Ward said. “She lived
through the population and
economic decline in those 60
years.”
As
of
2013,
Detroit’s
population is 688,701.
Along with serving as an
informal center for visiting
activists, Boggs and her husband
created several organizations
to
increase
community
development to combat the
aftereffects of the Detroit race
riots in the 1960s.
Boggs also continued the
tradition of uniting communities
through education and activism
in Detroit later in life with
the creation of her charter
elementary
school — the
James
and
Grace
Lee
Boggs School
— in 2013.
LSA
sophomore
Darian
Razdar,
an
intern at the
Boggs School
last
year,
wrote in an e-mail interview,
that his interest in human
geography and radical social
justice initially led him to apply
for an internship.
“I saw a revolution happening
at the Boggs School thanks to
the visions of James and Grace
Lee Boggs, and it continues to
give me faith in the work we
do,” Razdar said.
Razdar added that he was
intrigued by how the school
operated under a model called
Place
Based
Education,
a
learning process which allows
students
to
explore
their
communities at young ages.
Amid these efforts, Boggs
also continued political writing.
She co-wrote the book “The
Next
American
Revolution:
Sustainable Activism for the
Twenty-First Century” in 2011,
describing how radical social
change can be created in the
modern world.
Ward
said
Boggs’
work
profoundly
influenced
the
reading
materials
and
subject matter of his classes,
which includes her book in a
curriculum that centers around
meaningful engagement with
communities
beyond
the
University.
Her involvement was also
central
to
the
University’s
Semester in Detroit program.
Wards said Boggs had been
involved with the program
since its inception and was
instrumental in the process.
“She was connected to the
program from the beginning —
in her work and her writing and
these networks that she built
were instrumental,” he said.
Razdar, who participated in
Semester in Detroit, wrote that
the program helped inform his
interest in connecting with the
city.
“I had one of the most
enriching
educational
experiences I could ask for with
Semester in Detroit,” Razdar
wrote.
“All
the
academics
provide a great context for
actually living and engaging
with the city through my
internship,
working
with
grassroots
communities
and
just getting to know other
people living there.”
Overall,
Razdar
said
he
thought Boggs would want
those she educated to reflect
back on her life and move
forward with their activism.
“She’d want us to reflect on
what she had taught us and to
keep going, and planting the
seeds for revolution in ourselves
and our communities,” Razdar
said. “So, that is what I have
resolved to do in light of her
death. Rest in Power, Grace
Lee Boggs.”
here in North America by at least
13,000 years ago. The mammoth
shows signs of human association
way before that,” he said. “The
age of this mammoth could very
easily be very old, and if we buy
this theory of human association,
then we can push back the time
(humans) were here.”
The mammoth tusks, which
contain growth layers, serve as a
kind of record of the mammoth’s
lifespan, according to Fisher.
With further study, the team will
be able to estimate the year the
mammoth was born.
The
team’s
preliminary
hypothesis on how the mammoth
came to be buried in Chelsea is
that early humans were storing
its remains in a pond for later
consumption.
That
would
also
mean
primitive
humans
would
have had the technology and
capabilities to hunt the large
creatures, which has been the
case in other prehistoric animal
findings in Michigan.
Signs of human interaction
would
include
cut
marks,
which would be found only
after the bones are washed and
cleaned.
The team also found a stone
flake tool among the bones,
which,
Fisher
hypothesized,
could have been used by humans
to cut mammoth bone.
Michael Cherney, a research
assistant in the Museum of
Paleontology
and
a
Ph.D.
candidate in geology sciences,
said
mammoth
findings
are
comparatively less common in
lower Michigan, noting that
mastodon findings are actually
more common locally.
According to Smithsonian
Magazine,
mastodons
and
woolly mammoths are two
distinct
shaggy-haired
species, though they are both
considered
proboscideans,
which are generally described
as species of animals with
tusks and trunks.
“There
are
around
300
mastodon
skeletons
recorded
for Michigan,” Cherney said.
“There’s only on the order of 30
mammoth sites, and most sites
only include a few bones here and
there.”
Cherney
and
Fisher
both
stressed that there is much work
to be done in terms of dating and
researching the recovered bones,
but the significance of the find is
already apparent.
“Just
the
fact
that
it
has tusks and teeth, it’s a
significant find that it has
those
things,
and
they’re
preserved well enough that
we should be able to say a lot
more,” Cherney said. “If the
date turns out to be very old, it
could be quite significant, but
it is hard to say at this point.”
of consent. The core of the
definition — “Consent is a clear
and unambiguous agreement,
expressed outwardly through
mutually
understandable
words or actions, to engage in a
particular activity” — remains
unchanged.
However, the drafted policy
outlines
several
clarifying
bullets, including the idea that
“Consent is not
to be inferred
from
silence,
passivity,
or a lack of
resistance,
and
relying
on
non-verbal
communication
alone may not
be
sufficient
to
ascertain
Consent.”
In April, a
Michigan Daily report pointed
to a discrepancy between the
definition of consent taught by
the Sexual Assault Prevention
and Awareness Center — which
promotes consent as requiring
verbal agreement — and the
official policy, which does not.
E.
Royster
Harper,
vice
president
for
student
life,
sent an e-mail to the student
body on Oct. 1 advertising the
roundtables, and also promoted
a digital feedback survey for
those who cannot attend in
person.
In February 2014, the U.S.
Department
of
Education
announced
it
would
investigatethe
University’s
handling of sexual misconduct
reports. That investigation is
ongoing.
In a September interview
with the Daily, Schlissel said he
hoped to unveil updates to the
sexual misconduct policy before
the new year.
“The goal of making change is
to have the process be as fair as
possible to the complainant and
the respondent to help us arrive
at a decision
which is the
right
one,”
Schlissel
said.
Last
January,
Schlissel
announced
a survey to
gauge campus
climate
on
sexual
assault.
According
to
the
survey
results, 11 percent of University
students reported experiencing
nonconsensual sexual behavior
over the course of the 2014-2015
academic year.
“As a university president, a
physician-scientist, an educator
and a father, the issue of sexual
misconduct keeps me awake at
night,” Schlissel said when the
survey results were released
in
July.
“I
feel
personally
responsible for the safety and
well-being of all students at the
University of Michigan.”
POLICY
From Page 1A
FOSSILS
From Page 1A
BOGGS
From Page 1A
CURRICULUM
From Page 1A
“The issue of
sexual assault
keeps me awake
at night.”
“The way
medicine has
been taught for
a long time is
now outdated.”
HELP US BEAT THE
STATE NEWS
FOLLOW US ON
TWITTER & INSTAGRAM
@MICHIGANDAILY
AND ‘LIKE’ US ON
FACEBOOK
ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
UPPER: Research Assistant Katrina Lewandowski carefully cleans mud off a mammoth skull at the Ruthven Museum of Natural History on Thursday. The
remains arrived at the museum yesterday morning after they were discovered beneath Jim Bristle’s soybean farm in Lima Township last week. LOWER: Carts of
sediment from around the excavation site sit in the hallway of the Ruthven museum’s research wing.
“She didn’t just
say what she
had to say and
leave.”