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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Monday, October 26, 2015 — 3A
their parents or guardians.
The
launch
of
Wolverine
Pathways follows the enrollment
of the most racially diverse
freshman
class
since
2005.
Underrepresented
minority
students represent 12.8 percent
this fall’s incoming class, a
2.8-percent increase from last
year’s incoming class.
In
2005,
underrepresented
minorities made up 13.8 percent
of the entering class. However,
representation
of
minority
students slowly declined following
the statewide ballot proposal
Proposal 2, which banned the use
of race-based affirmative action
in public entities.
Schlissel
thanked
Kedra
Ihsop, associate vice president
for enrollment management, and
her team for working to enroll a
more diverse student body within
the confines of the law. He noted
Ishop made significant changes
to financial aid, recruitment and
admission policies during his first
year at the helm of the University.
“I want to thank the many
individuals who have worked very
hard to achieve these gains in a
relatively short time,” Schlissel
said.
The University also launched
a new website detailing their
diversity
efforts:
diversity.
umich.edu. The website provides
resources for students, as well
as provides a space for online
discussions regarding issues of
inclusion.
For
more
discussion
on
diversity
within
campus,
Schlissel is hosting a campus-
wide diversity summit open to
all members of the community on
Nov. 10.
Last
February,
Schlissel
launched a Strategic Plan for
Diversity
to
improve
equity
and inclusion on campus. He
appointed 60 facilitators within
each college and campus unit to
collaborate with faculty, staff
and students to outline diversity
efforts unique to their unit.
At the breakfast, Schlissel said
these individual unit plans are
due by the end of the academic
school year.
alums started the association
in 1918. The dorm’s alumni
association assists in awarding
scholarships to current residents
and
organizes
fundraising
efforts and events like the 100th
anniversary.
Sheila
Davis,
the
100th
anniversary general chair who
organized the event, said the
activities allowed alumni to
reconnect and meet the current
generation of women living in
the building.
Davis said the anniversary
serves as an important milestone
for the Martha Cook Building
and its history of forming lasting
bonds and friendships.
“Cookies” past and present
bonded over their experiences in
the dorm, including University
alum
Beth
Johnston,
who
said living there helped her
form lasting friendships that
have continued through her
involvement
in
the
alumni
association.
“Everyone from freshman to
graduate students living there,
you really have a diverse group
of women to draw experience
from,” she said. “I remember
sitting at dinner and having a
problem and talking to a grad
student who put things in
perspective and evoked wisdom.
It felt like I had just talked to an
older sister who set me straight.
You don’t get that at a normal
dorm or at an apartment.”
Nursing
senior
Carrie
Ramseyer has lived in the
Martha Cook Building since
her freshman year and said she
is grateful to be celebrating
the dorm’s 100th anniversary
during her last year on campus.
“This event means so much
to me that I am able to be here
my senior year at the 100th
anniversary.
The
fact
that
so many other Cookies have
come to celebrate with us it’s
phenomenal,” she said. “I am
very excited that Martha Cook
has lived strong for 100 years
and will continue to do so in the
future.”
and
self-compassion.
Positive
psychology
employs
these
techniques, among others, to cope
with anxiety and increase quality
of life.
Christine
Asidao,
CAPS
associate director of community
engagement and outreach, said
the goal is to reach students with
a wide variety of mental health
concerns.
“Leaders at their Best is really
about
increasing
resiliency,
wellness and wellbeing across the
U of M campus and specifically
focused on our students,” she said.
“We see students who are coming
in in a lot of distress, and we want
to help those students, but we also
want to help those students who
might also be doing pretty well
but just sometimes forget because
finals are coming up, things are
getting really busy, time seems to
be going really quickly.”
Over the next several weeks,
CAPS will host a series of
workshops
dedicated
to
the
various
elements
of
positive
psychology.
“If you can highlight what
people’s
strengths
are,
have
people really be attuned to what’s
going on in the moment, say
through mindfulness, it can really
improve a person’s overall sense of
wellbeing,” Asidao said.
At a meeting last spring, Asidao
initiated a conversation about
positive psychology with CAPS’s
community outreach group. From
that discussion, Leaders at their
Best was born.
LSA senior Micalah Webster,
a member of the CAPS student
advisory
board,
said
part
of the initiative’s goal is to
teach students skills they can
implement in their daily lives.
“Things that people could
really learn, skills they could
walk away with and that they
could keep doing afterwards,
something that could just get
people excited and have a really
nice break.”
Asidao said student feedback
from events held over the next few
weeks will determine what is next
for the initiative. According to her,
feedback from various student
groups has been positive thus far.
Webster,
an
organizational
studies major, said one of her
classes is conducting a research
project that will measure the
efficacy of the Leaders at their
Best
campaign.
The
project
began by sending out a pre-
survey asking students what
forms of positive psychology they
already practice. This survey,
which roughly 300 students
responded to, will be used as a
baseline. After the preliminary
group of Leaders at their Best
events conclude, the class plans
to follow up with students from
the pre-survey to see how their
positive
psychology
practices
have changed.
“We’re really just looking at
how this all is functioning just so
in the future we can make sure
that we’re constantly putting
forth the best and most effective
campaigns that are evidence-
based,” she said.
Asidao is hoping the initiative
has an impact on students’ daily
lives. She said prevention is an
element of student mental health
that often falls by the wayside on
college campuses. By promoting
preventative techniques, CAPS is
hoping to address mental health
issues before they become crises.
“To
really
think
about
prevention as an actual way of
intervening with our students is
a big deal,” Asidao said. “What
we’re trying to do is give tools to
students before problems get too
big.”
addresses to the summit Saturday.
O’Malley is currently polling
below 1 percent in the Democratic
contest.
O’Malley noted several times
in his speech that Islamophobia
and xenophobia are rampant
in the United States today, and
said he understands it can be
discouraging to be an Arab
American
or
an
American
Muslim.
“At the Republican debate,
Donald Trump said it wasn’t fair
that he didn’t know the names
of terrorist leaders because, he
said: they all have Arab names,”
O’Malley
said.
“Ben
Carson
flat out said he would not be
comfortable with a president
who happened to be Muslim.
One
wonders,
from
a
man
who understands the value of
education, what sort of message
that sends to Muslim American
little boys and girls studying
American history.”
He acknowledged the threat
terrorist groups in the Middle
East, such as the Islamic State,
present to the United States, but
cautioned that fear should not
prevent Americans from being
open or inclusive.
“There are other ways to lead
then at the end of a drone strike,”
he said. “And in the face of this
humanitarian crisis, we need to
step up … The image of our nation
is not a barbed wire fence, it is the
Statue of Liberty.”
O’Malley went on to say that
America’s role of world leadership
should be one of morality and
compassion,
referencing
the
estimated 9 million refugees who
have fled Syria since a civil war
began in the country in 2011.
The question of who has
responsibility
for
taking
in
the
refugees
has
prompted
international debate in recent
months
as
the
number
of
immigrants has increased, with
many European countries split
on how many refugees they are
willing to accept. The U.S. has
so far taken a background role,
accepting 1,500 refugees, though
the White House announced in
September plans to accept 10,000
more.
O’Malley has been vocal in his
commitment to provide American
support to refugees, and was
the first candidate to respond
affirmatively to a request from the
International Rescue Committee
to the U.S. government to accept
at least 65,000 Syrian refugees
by
2016.
GOP
presidential
candidate Donald Trump has
also announced support for the
request.
“If Germany, a country with
one-fourth our population, can
accept 800,000 refugees this
year, another half million in
subsequent years, surely we can
accept 65,000,” O’Malley said.
Before
O’Malley’s
speech,
three recent immigrants to the
United
States
addressed
the
crowd about the hardships they
faced leaving the Middle East
for the United States to provide
their children with safer lives and
more opportunities.
O’Malley spoke with them
in a session also open to press
to discuss improvements to the
American immigration process.
Troy
resident
Noor
Al
Dabbagh, who arrived in January
2014 from Iraq with her husband
and son, told O’Malley about her
and her husband’s long wait to
receive a work authorization,
which, she said, was particularly
challenging because the money
they had saved was running out.
Because her family had yet
to receive asylum status, she
said, they did not qualify for any
government assistance for the
unemployed or medical insurance
to cover the costs of living.
Dearborn
Heights
resident
Radhia Fakhrildeen spoke of
leaving a prosperous life in Iraq
behind to come to the United
States in January 2014 with her
children. She told O’Malley it
has been particularly difficult
to establish a life for her family
in the United States because
she has not been able to find a
job and because her husband’s
application to join her was
denied.
In response to the immigrants’
stories,
O’Malley
said
the
immigration system must be
modernized and families should
not be broken up. He told media
that there needs to be a new and
better approach to balancing
security
concerns
with
the
lengthy screening process that
currently exists for individuals
seeking entrance to the United
States.
“I don’t believe that we should
shortchange the background and
the security checks, but I believe
we have to act like lives depend on
our being able to improve these
processes and do a much better
job of it quickly without cutting
corners,” he said.
Speaking
to
reporters,
he
said the past of every American
contains a story or an experience
that could help them empathize
with Syrian refugees.
“Our people were all once
immigrant people, and that is
the beauty of the United States
of America,” he said. “With the
exception of Native Americans,
we were all once strangers in a
strange land.”
O’MALLEY
From Page 1A
SCHOLARSHIP
From Page 1A
CAPS
From Page 1A
MARTHA COOK
From Page 1A
ZOEY HOLMSTROM/Daily
Participants begin the Purple Run 5K outside of Pierpont Commons on Saturday. Proceeds from the event were
donated to the SafeHouse Center, a local organization that helps survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.
DPSS hosts first annual
SafeHouse 5K fundraiser
North Campus
event promotes
domestic violence
awareness
By ANNA HARITOS
Daily Staff Reporter
Early
Saturday
morning,
about 250 people lined up
outside Pierpont Commons to
participate in the first annual
Purple
Run
5K
run/walk
held by the the University’s
Division
of
Public
Safety
and Security in conjunction
with the Washtenaw County
Prosecutor’s Office.
The goal of the run was to
raise awareness for domestic
violence
and
to
fundraise
for
the
SafeHouse
Center.
Entertainment for the event
was provided by Soultivity, a
band of local attorneys from
Ann Arbor.
Brian
Mackie,
the
prosecuting
attorney
of
Washtenaw County since 1993,
kicked off the event.
“When you leave you should
tell everyone what you did,”
he said. “You are champions
of justice for running this
today.
More
than
1,000
domestic violence cases a year,
and that it is one of the most
underreported crimes means
that it’s the tip of the iceberg.
We can’t tolerate that level of
violence and misery that has to
change.”
After
opening
statements
by Mackie and Barbara Niess-
May,
executive
director
of
SafeHouse,
the
race
was
started by Arnett Chisholm,
dean of admissions and student
life at Washtenaw Community
College and assistant track
coach at the University.
The loop was centralized on
North Campus, and runners
and walkers alike went about
it at their own pace. The first
finisher
was
Engineering
sophomore
Charlie
Castelli,
who had a self-timed 18:27
finish.
The
time
it
took
for
participants
to
complete
their route, however, was not
the main focus of the day.
According
to
DPSS,
every
60 seconds, 20 people are
victims of intimate violence. In
addition, every year, an average
of 54 officers are killed in the
line of duty responding to
domestic violence calls.
During the event, Niess-May
advocated for the resources
that SafeHouse provides.
“We support survivors of
sexual assault and domestic
violence by putting qualified
trained counselors in front of
people in crisis, and need help
for what’s going on in their
life. We also offer shelter,
support groups, legal advocacy,
(personal
protection
order)
assistance,
some
limited
financial assistance.”
The event drew numerous
University
participants
including first-year Medical
student Jennifer Neva.
“I am a big fan of SafeHouse
and the work they do for
the community,” said Neva.
“In medicine we often think
that health issues related to
domestic violence don’t get the
attention they deserve, so this
is a really good way for people
to learn about these issues and
help support the cause.”
The organizers plan to make
the Purple Run an annual event,
and hope for more people to get
involved in the cause.