michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Friday, October 16, 2015

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

ADMINISTRATION

CAMPUS LIFE

Return on 

investment drops 
15.3 percent since

2014 report 

By ALLANA AKHTAR

Daily Staff Reporter

FLINT 
— 
Though 
the 

University’s 
endowment 

continued 
to 
increase 
in 

fiscal year 2015, its return on 
investment decreased by 15.3 
percent from 2014, University 
administrators 
announced 
at 

Thursday’s University’s Board of 
Regents meeting.

The endowment is a pool of 

funds, much of which are received 
from 
donors. 
The 
principal 

amount of the fund remains 
untouched, but is invested and 
grows with interest from year 
to year. The University does not 
spend all the resulting interest, 
resulting in a theoretically never-
ending source of funding.

“You can think of it, in a way, 

as this giant bond … which pays 
out a certain amount of interest 
every year to the University,” 
said Rafael Castilla, director of 
investment risk management in 
the University’s investment office, 
said in a 2014 interview with The 
Michigan Daily.

The 
total 
value 
of 
the 

endowment increased to $10 
billion this year from $9.7 billion 
in 2014, due to a 3.5-percent 
return on investment in fiscal 
year 
2015. 
The 
distributions 

from the endowment, which 
represent 
the 
money 
the 

University spends from returns 
on the endowment, were $292.5 
million this year. In 2014, the 
endowment had an 18.8-percent 
return on investment, and chose 
to distribute $284.4 million.

The 
University 
bases 
its 

distributions on a seven-year 
average 
of 
the 
endowment’s 

value, pulling a set percentage of 
that average value every year. In 
2014, the University implemented 
a reduction to the set percentage, 
from 5 to 4.5 percent annually.

“Our investment team’s long-

Conversation focuses 
on ‘U’ definition of 

incapacitation

By EMMA KINERY

Daily Staff Reporter

Seeking to gather input on how 

the University addresses sexual 
assault 
on 
campus, 
students 

and Sexual Assault Prevention 
and Awareness Center officials 
gathered in the Michigan Union 
on 
Friday 
for 
a 
roundtable 

discussion. The forum focused 
on proposed updates to the 
University’s 
Student 
Sexual 

Misconduct Policy.

A series of similar roundtable 

discussions 
are 
scheduled 

through Nov. 3 and SAPAC 
Director Holly Rider-Milkovich 
said she has already recognized 
potential improvements to the 
draft since the sessions began 
earlier this month.

“We 
are 
learning 
from 

students every single time we 
do one of these roundtables,” 
Rider-Milkovich said. “We heard 
tonight, for example, that we 
should make clear on the policy 
who is responsible for ensuring 
that 
sanctions 
are 
enforced. 

That’s a really important point, 
and that is not a point we have 
heard 
from 
others. 
That’s 

just one example and we have 

those examples for every single 
roundtable we’ve done.”

The 
roundtables 
are 
the 

second of three stages Rider-
Milkovich said are in the works 
before a new policy on student 
sexual misconduct rolls out next 
semester, as part of a process that 
first began when the policy was 
last revised in 2013.

In 
November 
2014, 
the 

University 
began 
collecting 

feedback from the administration 
and external experts on sexual 
misconduct policies on campuses, 
as well as reviewing how other 
schools around the country were 
addressing the issue.

A University survey released 

in June indicated that 22.5 
percent of female undergraduates 
experienced 
sexual 
assault 

within the past year. A similar 
survey conducted at 28 research 
universities by the Association of 
American Universities, released 
in 
September, 
showed 
about 

30 percent of undergraduate 
women at the University reported 
experiencing 
nonconsensual 

penetration or sexual touching 
by force or incapacitation. That’s 
almost 7 percent above the 
national average.

The 
University 
is 
now 

considering revisions to the 2013 
policy, with a draft of a new 
sexual misconduct policy open to 
student input — an opportunity 

A look at the voices of Michigan 

football

» INSIDE

Gathering on the Diag 
features prayer, songs, 
personal connections 

to events abroad

By LEA GIOTTO

Daily Staff Reporter

Students 
gathered 
on 
the 

Diag on Thursday night to honor 
victims of terror attacks that have 
taken place in the Israel over the 
past month.

The event, which was co-hosted 

by multiple student organizations 
including J Street, WolvPac, the 
American Movement for Israel 
and I-LEAD, featured prayers and 
accounts from those somehow 
affected by the attacks.

MATT VAILLIENCOURT/Daily

Engineering sophomore Kevin Wolf recites a prayer for those who have been affected by terror attacks in Israel at a 
vigil on the Diag on Thursday. 

By ALEXA BORROMEO

Daily Video Editor

“My calc teacher is so 

foreign that she spoke in 
Chinese for a full minute 
before 
realizing 
it 
wasn’t 

English”

-Anonymous 
(Yik 
Yak, 

September 
21, 
2015, 
100 

upvotes)

“Really wishing my foreign 

GSI came with subtitles right 
now.”

-Anonymous 
(Yik 
Yak, 

October 2, 2015, 156 upvotes)

Discriminating 
remarks 

like 
these 
have 
become 

commonplace 
amongst 

undergraduate students on 
our campus. Maybe you’ve 
overheard side comments in 
the back of lecture filled with 
more than 100 students about 
your professor’s accent or 
listened to friends complain 
about having a “foreign GSI” 
in the dorms. Maybe you’ve 
even 
responded 
to 
these 

comments made on popular 
college campus social media 
platforms such as Yik Yak. 
This video series was made 
in an attempt to respond to 
these comments by providing 
a direct perspective and voice 

from our professors and GSI’s 
who 
face 
discrimination 

because of their language and 
culture.

Each interview was done in 

the instructor’s first language.

“Having this conversation 

in English and reproducing 
the same feelings of feeling 
different 
is 
meaningless,” 

said Psychology and Women’s 
Studies GSI Özge Savas.

Speaking 
in 
one’s 
first 

language on a daily basis is a 
privilege that many students 
at the University, including 
myself, have; we are able to 

fully express ourselves 

and easily communicate our 
ideas without second thought 
or fear of being misunderstood 
or judged based on our ability 
to speak a language. To reverse 
this privilege, even if only 
within the scope of this video 
series, will hopefully put those 
of us at the University who 
do speak English as our first 
language, or speak English as 
our only language, in a role 
that we are not too familiar 
with - the patient role of 
translating and understanding 
in language that isn’t your 
own.

See INVESTMENT, Page 3A

See VIGIL, Page 3A
See SAPAC, Page 3A

ALEXA BORROMEO/Daily

The Michigan Daily asked international professors and graduate student instructors what it’s like to teach classes in English. 
From top left, clockwise: “We are a minority on campus, and we do not have a good pathway to raise the community’s awareness of our difficulties and 
to understand and appreciate our efforts.” GSI Yidi Li, from China. “I feel like when they see me and when I speak that they think, in some form, that 
I am a second-class professor.” Professor Luis Felipe Sfeir-Younis, from Chile. “At the end of the day what is really hard, in my opinion is to just be 
yourself, not being fluent.” GSI Claudio Vilas Boas Favero, from Brazil. “Sometimes, I still feel nervous when students talk fast. And when I ask them 
to reiterate again I’d be worried if the students would be like ‘Haha, she didn’t understand me’ and they would be making fun of me in the back.” GSI 
Yang Wang, from China.
TEACHING IN 
TRANSLATION

University 
investment 
portfolio 
totals $10B

Students host vigil for victims 
of recent terror attacks in Israel

SAPAC talks draft 
sexual assault policy

INDEX
Vol. CXXIV No. 12
©2015 The Michigan Daily
michigandaily.com

NEWS......................... 2A

OPINION.....................4A

A RT S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5A

SUDOKU..................... 3A

CL ASSIFIEDS...............6A

FOOTBALL SATURDAY. . 1 B

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