bodies are marked by enduring
toxicities in modern times,”
she said. “The book invites
readers to think in historical
and contemporary terms about
archives of homosexual desire.”
The
questions,
issues
and
data
raised
sparked
conversation
between
Agard-Jones and University
colleagues after her lecture,
diving deeper into the socio-
political issues involved with
the story of Martinique.
“Is it a toxic question?”
History Prof. John Carson
asked. “She brings up the
question of what exactly is
the problem? Is it a problem
of gender identification? Is it
a problem of physical health?
I thought that was really
interesting.”
Jones said one of the very
first articles she wrote was for
a news outlet, editors gave her
article the title “Biracial, and
also black.”
“It was a reflection on shifting
categories, one that used my
family history to tell about how
we got from the one drop pool
to mixed race,” Jones said. “It
was powerful to hear people
respond to the work. Detractors
told me I couldn’t be both black
and biracial.”
Jones referenced feminist
writer and poet Helene Cixous’
famous line, “Blackness isn’t
black. It is the last degree of
reds.” For Jones, Cixous’ line
reminded her that writing a
family history of race is more
than social science.
“My
family’s
story
has
banished
the
red,
leaving
blackness to stand alone, stand
in for the whole,” Jones said.
She
posed
questions
to
attendees: “Can a color be
remembered? Does it carry with
it memories of red, of black, of
white … ? What happens to my
blackness when it becomes also
red? Is it then blackness at all?”
Going
through
school,
Kamimura-Jimenez said people
would often ask, “What are you?”
and after listing off different
ethnicities, he said they would
often call him a “mutt.”
“The only mutt I knew was
my neighbor’s dog,” Kamimura-
Jimenez said jokingly. “You
have these notions of attaching
identity
to
these
different
events in your life … (As a child)
it becomes really complicated to
negotiate and understand the
world we’re in.”
Kamimura-Jimenez
said
racial history in the United
States informs a lot of the
climate
around
mixed-race
identities.
When
beginning
his
dissertation,
Kamimura-
Jimenez said a faculty member
asked him why he was studying
race and told him to study
something more important.
So Kamimura-Jimenez wrote
his dissertation on multiple
race groups and mixed race as
related to identity development.
In his dissertation, he asked the
question, “How do mixed-race
people understand themselves
and others?”
Kamimura-Jimenez
found
in his research that mixed race
people understood others much
more than they understood
themselves because mixed-race
people are constantly trying to
negotiate
their
environment
with situational identity.
“Do we create environments
in which students are being
forced to think about who they
are all the time?” Kamimura-
Jimenez asked. “We need to
create environments in which
students can be themselves.
They need to be free to be who
they are.”
A multiracial student panel
will take place in winter 2016.
the website Rate My Professors.
Others said faculty should be
transparent and responsive to
student requests. Others said
because course evaluation data is
provided by students, it should be
made available to students.
Those opposed to releasing
the data pointed to potential
bias based on race, gender,
ethnicity
and
sexuality
in
course evaluation data, the low
student participation rate in the
evaluations and the professional
implications such a release could
have for faculty members.
On Oct. 12, Holloway said
a prototype website featuring
limited data has been up and
running for several months.
His announcement earlier this
month was met with surprise by
SACUA members, who voiced
the need for broader faculty
consultation before such a plan
was implemented.
At the time, Comparative
Literature
Prof.
Silke-Maria
Weineck, the SACUA chair, said
a majority of faculty members
dislike
the
current
course
evaluation tools.
“In my 17 years at the University
of Michigan, I have not heard from
a single person that thinks this
is a good instrument providing
good data,” she said. “In sum,
nobody thinks that these are
good data. And whatever they are,
they were not designed to assist
students in choosing classes; it is
the wrong instrument for that.
So what we’ve been saying at the
Senate Assembly, it’s not that we
don’t think students don’t have a
legitimate interest in having more
and better information on how to
choose classes, but we think at a
world-class University it behooves
us to design an instrument that can
actually deliver the data needed
for that purpose.”
In an interview with the Daily
last week, University Provost
Martha
Pollack
said
if
the
University’s
Senate
Assembly
expressed
similar
disapproval
about releasing course evaluation
data, she was willing to delay the
release.
“This came up because the
students have requested it — this
was all prompted by the students.
We then got a response from
SACUA that they were not happy
about it,” Pollack said. “So I’ve
asked them to take it to Senate
Assembly, which is a bigger body,
and if there’s serious unhappiness
about it there, then I’m willing to
hold off. But then I’ve said I want
faculty governance to meet with
student governance to get this
sorted out.”
Pollack acknowledged faculty
concerns
about
the
current
evaluations during her interview
with the Daily. As a result, she
said she has asked Holloway
to form a committee including
students, faculty and assessment
experts
to
determine
best
practices for course evaluation. If
these best practices are not in line
with the current instrument, the
committee will be charged with
recommending an alternative.
On Monday, Mika LaVaque-
Manty, a professor of political
science, presented an abbreviated
summary of his research on
bias based on race, ethnicity
and gender in course evaluation
data. According to his findings,
LaVaque-Manty said, there is no
indication of such bias. To reach
this conclusion, he aggregated
data from the 108,000 courses
offered
by
the
College
of
Engineering and LSA over the
past 10 years.
LaVaque-Manty argued in favor
of providing students with current
course evaluation data until a new
instrument is developed.
“There is no evidence of bias,”
LaVaque-Manty said. “This does
not mean that social identity is not
in play, but the instrument seems
to be pretty neutral on that. The
question of a better instrument is a
reasonable one, but at the moment
students are using nothing for
most of us, or RateMyProfessors.
com for about 10 percent of us. The
current instrument has shown to
be much more consistent, a much
better instrument. I don’t see any
inconsistency between the idea of
developing a better instrument and
at the same time releasing data.”
Angela
Dillard,
the
LSA
associate dean for undergraduate
education and a professor of
Afroamerican
and
African
Studies, said faculty should focus
on whether or not to release course
evaluation
data,
rather
than
developing a new instrument.
“This is not a new conversation;
we’ve been looking at this for a
long time,” Dillard said. “I am
unconvinced that a study group
could come up with a somehow
better instrument that would be
free from the questions we’re
using now. I don’t think that this
committee is going to come up
with something that is somehow
magically better. For me, it’s a
question of release it or don’t
release it. I can’t tell you how
many studies we’ve done; I think
that that’s just evasive.”
Several student government
representatives were also present
at the meeting. LSA senior
Cooper Charlton, Central Student
Government president, said CSG
is in favor of working with faculty
to develop a new instrument.
In the meantime, however, the
group plans to advocate for
current course evaluation data
to be released at the start of the
winter 2016 semester.
“We
want
this
to
be
a
collaborative
effort,”
Charlton
said. “By no means are we here to
shove your concerns into a corner
and not listen to you. That being
said, it’s a decision, ‘are we going to
release these now or are we going
to kick the can down the road?’
We see there’s two conversations
going on: the immediate release of
course evaluations as they stand,
and the second conversation is how
can we come together through
the committee Dr. Holloway has
suggested to determine what
the instrument looks like going
forward?”
In an interview after the
meeting,
LSA
senior
Jason
Colella, president of LSA Student
Government, said he was willing
to accept a delayed release of
course evaluation data if it meant
protecting
the
relationship
between students and faculty.
“Personally, I would want the
immediate release as well, but
I am willing to take a step back
and wait until we can get further
agreement,” he said. “In my
opinion, it’s not worth causing
such strife amongst faculty in
order to get the release of data.”
Following
the
meeting,
Charlton stressed that CSG has
a vested interest in collaborating
with faculty.
“From the outside, it looks
like it’s faculty versus students —
and it’s really not that,” Charlton
said. “I really do believe it is
faculty and students wanting to
work together. I want that to be
extremely clear, we want to work
with faculty. That being said, we
want the course evaluations to be
released for winter 2016.”
For this to happen, Charlton
said, CSG has developed two
potential options.
“We have two congruent plans
that we can take, one is a little bit
more aggressive that we want to
avoid because, like I said, we want
to commit to a relationship with
faculty, not just while I’m here,
but down the road,” he said. “We
have a softer plan that involves a
lot of sit-down meetings, but that
probably won’t work, so we’re
really left with one aggressive
plan. We’d like to avoid taking an
aggressive stance on this, but it’s
something we might have to do.”
SACUA
From Page 1
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Tuesday, October 27, 2015 — 3
MHealthy
launches ‘Ask the
Expert’
Beginning Monday, once week
per month, MHealthy experts
will be accessible on Twitter and
Facebook for a series called “Ask
the Expert.”
From
October
through
December, this online series will
consist of the experts posting
about
health-related
topics.
They will also respond to faculty
questions posted on the social
media platforms. The experts
will be from the three MHealthy
program areas: nutrition, physical
activity and stress management.
The series will culminate on
Dec. 15 with the three featured
experts facilitating a live question
and answer session on Twitter.
Western Michigan
student found
dead in Norway
Western Michigan University
senior Dallas Rauker was found
dead Sunday morning on the
Reinebringen
mountain
in
Norway, the Detroit Free Press
reported.
Rauker
was
attending
Hogeschool
Utrecht
in
the
Netherlands in a study abroad
program
with
Western
Michigan’s Institute for Global
Education. Rauker was spending
his fall break last week hiking in
Norway, when his family became
concerned after not hearing
from him during the middle of
the week.
After his family contacted
WMU, Utrecht officials were
contacted and worked with the
U.S. Embassy to pinpoint the area
in Norway where Rauker was
hiking. Officials searched Friday
through Sunday and were often
stopped by inclement weather,
eventually finding Rauker on
Sunday. Rauker’s family flew to
Amsterdam Saturday.
Detroit mayor
announces land
transfer for farming
Detroit Mayor Mike Dug-
gan announced a deal to trans-
fer 40-acres of Detroit-owned
land near Eastern Market to
the RecoveryPark project, the
Detroit Free Press reported.
RecoveryPark is a project
aimed to commercially grow
food inside the city. The prof-
its will support SHAR, a drug
addiction recovery center.
To begin, RecoveryPark will
build
plastic-wrapped
hoop
houses to grow vegetables year-
round. In coming years, the
program hopes to build more
permanent growing sheds.
The program already grows
vegetables at a former industrial
area and sells the salad greens to
approximately 15 Detroit restau-
rants.
This deal will eventually start
as a lease between RecoveryPark
and the city, eventually leading
to a full purchase of the land.
The land transfer is expected
to go before City Council next
week.
University searches
for Wallace House
director
The University is in the pro-
cess of searching for a new direc-
tor of the Wallace House, home
of the Knight-Wallace fellow-
ship for journalists. The Wallace
House is also home to the Liv-
ingston Award for Young Jour-
nalists.
Current
director
Charles
Eisendrath
announced
his
retirement, effective July 2016.
A search advisory commit-
tee appointed by Vice Provost
James Holloway is in charge of
conducting the search and pre-
senting a list of recommended
candidates.
Engineering
Prof.
Thomas
Zurbuchen and Ken Auletta,
journalist and critic for The New
Yorker, will co-chair the search.
—KATIE PENROD
NEWS BRIEFS
new scholarship programs and
an move to package financial
aid packages with admissions
decisions.
This year, the percentage of
total Black students on campus is
at 4.82 percent, or an increase of
59 students since last year.
Kinesiology senior Capri’Nara
Kendall, speaker of the BSU,
said increased number of Black
students
in
class
represents
a positive trend, though she
added that the University still
has a way to go in terms of
tangibly increasing diversity and
subsequently improving student
life for Black students on campus.
“Talk to me when minority
enrollment is out of the 4 percent
— when we’re looking at more
of a 7-percent enrollment for
African Americans,” she said in
an interview with The Michigan
Daily. “When we’re looking at
more of a 7-percent enrollment
for Latino students.”
Similarly,
the
number
of
undergraduate Hispanic students
at the University also saw a slight
bump in the last year, from
1,209 undergraduate students
in the fall 2014 semester to
1,300 students as of this current
semester.
Hispanic
students
currently make up 4.93 percent
of the undergraduate body and
5.9 percent of the incoming
freshman class.
Note that the University’s
enrollment report employs the
term “Hispanic,” whereas most
students tend to use, generally,
the
term
“Latin
American.”
Though
the
University
has
increased diversity among its
Latin American students, some
student leaders say more efforts
are needed on campus.
LSA senior Thalia Maya, the
president
of
the
historically
Latina Lambda Theta Alpha
sorority, noted that some of the
reason for the increase in Latina
students on campus is due to the
increasing accessibility of higher
education to these communities.
She said many Latin American
students, like herself, are born to
immigrant parents and are the
first in their families to attend
college. This, she added, can pose
a challenge.
“When I first came here, I
was living in the dorms and
surrounded by people who did
not look like me at all,” Maya
said. “That did make me feel
uncomfortable, but being able
to find people who came from
similar
backgrounds
as
me
served as that support system.”
For Native American students,
though increases in diversity
have occurred, they have been
slight. In the entire student body,
there was an increase of only 12
new Native American students
from last fall’s enrollment. This
marked a percentage bump from
0.21 percent of the student body
to 0.25 percent.
Public
Policy
senior
Isa
Gaillard, co-chair of the Native
American Student Association,
said
the
slight
increase
of
representation
for
Native
American students is a “drop in a
bucket.”
Gaillard says NASA, originally
designed
as
a
group
for
undergraduate Native American
students, has been struggling
with
retaining
and
growing
its membership. This year, he
said, only eight or nine students
come to meetings — and they
are a mix of both graduate and
undergraduate students.
“We
e-mailed
all
of
the
students that are listed as Native
and none of them showed up to
our meeting,” he said.
He attributes the decreased
NASA membership to the general
lack of Native American students
on campus.
Gaillard
and
other
NASA
members work each year to raise
awareness for Native American
culture through hosting the
Native American Heritage Month
in November, alongside the Office
for Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs.
NASA
also
organizes
an
annual “powwow,” or cultural
celebration with food, dancers,
drummers
and
fashion.
According
to
Gaillard,
the
University’s
powwow
is
the
second
largest
student-run
powwow in the nation. The 2014
iteration, the 42nd Dance for
Mother Earth Powwow, was held
at Skyline High School.
Despite NASA’s efforts to
promote awareness of Native
American culture on campus,
Gaillard says when he asks, many
students are unaware of the
heritage month or the powwow.
Gaillard says he wants to leave
the University knowing there
is a more representative and
supportive community for Native
American students on campus,
which starts with increasing
their representation within the
student body.
“We really do want to work
with the University in whatever
ways we can to make sure that
not only is Native American
student enrollment increasing,
but also that the community feels
welcome on campus,” he said.
Though the proportion of
Asian American students has
declined slightly in the new
freshman class — changing from
15.28 percent in 2014 to 14.09
percent this year — the University
does
not
consider
Asian
American students to comprise
an “underrepresented” minority
group. The U.S. Census Bureau
reports Asian Americans make up
only 2.9 percent of the Michigan
population but represent a much
larger proportion of students.
Still, LSA junior Eman Hijab,
president of Michigan Pakistanis,
or MPak, said she and other Asian
American students are subject
to stereotyping and judgment
despite being represented on
campus. Furthermore, though
Asian
American
students
make up 11.87 percent of all
undergraduate students, she said
intra-Asian American groups,
like
South
Asian,
Southeast
Asian, East Asian and Middle
Eastern students have much
smaller representations.
For this reason, Hijab said in
an e-mail to the Daily, she hopes
to see increases in all minority
groups in the coming years.
“I can’t help but to think about
how many potential connections,
friendships, relationships, were
forewent due to the decrease in
theses enrollment numbers this
year alone and how many will
be foregone in the future years
if enrollment doesn’t increase to
include not just Asian Americans
but other minorities as well,” she
wrote.
been pretty unbelievable the
past 100 days, and just to see it
all in one event has been pretty
unbelievable as well. It’s hard to
express what this all means to
me. I love everyone that’s here.”
Johnson
said
Janssen’s
recovery has been going well for
an injury this serious.
“Normally the diagnosis is
full paralysis below the chest;
however,
Taylor
has
been
showing tricep control and has
been doing really, really well in
his rehab and showing a lot of
strength,” Johnson said. “He’s
an incredibly motivated kid and
incredibly positive.”
Johnson started a GoFundMe
campaign that raised more than
$150,000 in the first month and
has helped sell T-shirts and
wristbands with a “Janssen
Strong” brand. As of Monday
evening, the campaign has raised
$157,947.
“Following the accident, all
of my friends in the fraternity
started coming up with ideas for
how we could help him and his
family get through this,” he said.
“It’s been amazing.”
The idea for the night of prayer
originally came from Pastor
Jim Mong of the Redeemer Ann
Arbor church. Mong said he was
inspired by the story and wanted
to help show support in the
community.
“I went to visit Taylor two
weeks after his accident, and they
talked about how overwhelmed
they were with how much
support they’d been getting from
the community,” Mong said. “As
I walked away, I hoped that as
he had that long-term journey
that he would have that support
long term, so I met with Seth and
had the idea of doing it 100 days
out to show that the support will
continue.”
Looking
forward,
Johnson
said he hopes Janssen continues
to recover and is still able to live
a fulfilling life.
“My hope for him, in the
future, is that this doesn’t
impede his ability to do whatever
he wants,” he said. “He always
wanted to be a CFO, and I hope
he can obtain whatever he wants
in his career regardless of this
injury.”
At the event, Janssen’s father,
Mark Janssen, spoke about his
the family’s experiences during
the past 100 days of recovery.
“Early on, we saw an amazing
difference,” he said. “He has a
ton of strength back — nowhere
near where he was — but he has a
ton of strength back.”
He also took time to thank
all
the
people
who
have
been
supporting
his
family
throughout the entire process,
particularly
the
Greek
life
community.
Janssen
said
despite his past experience in
a fraternity himself, he did not
truly understand its importance
until now.
“I never got it, really, but
I truly get it now,” he said. “I
wanted to close with a big thank
you to the Greek system. You’ve
given such tremendous support,
and it truly humbles me.”
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