every morning in mortal fear that some well-funded, crazy extreme candidate in their own party is going to run against them in the primary, so they alter their voting patterns and they are less likely to cooperate with the other side,” Frost said. The duo suggested that a law requiring states to appoint non- partisan district commissions would mitigate the current polarization in Congress. “That would help, and you wouldn’t have these crazy- looking districts,” Frost said. “You’d have more competitive districts and the two parties would have to talk to each other — and that’s what’s missing right now.” Due to contribution limits to national political parties, Frost said partisan-fueled interests have assumed a greater role in funding candidates, granting extreme factions enormous influence over politicians and particularly presidential candidates. He said super PACs and other well-funded groups and politicians often coordinate to manage campaigns. Frost said either the Federal Election Commission or Congress should pass laws that address this issue of coordination, making it clear that it could be bad for the state of politics since there are no effective limits on the activities of these outside groups. They also advocate for more specific and comprehensive campaign finance and contribution reports. “We have to do something about this amount of money in politics today because it has totally distorted the system, and again when you combine that with (gerrymandering), then there’s an incentive for people to never cooperate with the other side because they’re afraid some some far-right or far-left group will come in (support a more extreme candidate),” Frost said. Davis and Frost also called for efforts to increase voter turnout. They emphasized this point in the case of primary elections, in which turnout has been historically low. As an example, according to Michigan’s Department of State, only 19.7 percent of registered state voters participated in 2012’s presidential primary. Presidential election years typically see a higher voter turnout. Ann Arbor resident Sven Hahr said he felt the former congressmen’s presentation was balanced and effective. In particular, he said he thought Davis and Frost’s theory on polarization was sensible. “It’s always good to have people from both sides of the aisle. Otherwise you have no diversity of thought and one of the criticisms of collegiate America is not enough diversity of thought … so I thought what they presented was good,” he said. Qaradawi’s power followed 2011 revolution — a time that both accentuated the activist’s advo- cacy of democracy. However, many of his views are controver- sial in the west, and he has been banned from entering the U.S. since 1999. “To him, what matters is poli- tics,” Skovgaard-Petersen said, adding that al-Qaradawi is a per- sonal proponent of authoritarian government despite his push for democracy. Skovgaard-Petersen split al- Qaradawi’s life into three differ- ent stages of activism: movement activism, institutional activism and solutionist activism. Al-Qaradawi, who was born in the Nile Delta in 1926, became involved in activism in the late 1940s, joining the Muslim Broth- erhood, an Islamist religious, political and social movement. Skovgaard-Petersen said al- Qaradawi became a prominent youth activist leader after gradu- ating from college in 1953. 1961, Skovgaard-Petersen said, was the year al-Qaradawi embarked into an era of move- ment activism, travelling with the Muslim Brotherhood, speak- ing and proselytizing the organi- zation’s mission. Skovgaard-Petersen added that one of al-Qaradawi’s main teachings invoked Islam as a “simple” concept not meant to be overcomplicated and erroneously applied. Skovgaard-Petersen further noted that al-Qaradawi was known for his style of frank speech. “That idea of making Islam simple … is something that he specializes in,” Skovgaard- Petersen said. “He speaks not a very convoluted Arabic, gener- ally. He knows how to communi- cate.” During the 1960s, Skovgaard- Petersen said, al-Qaradawi moved into a period of “institu- tional activism” when he strayed away from his involvement in Muslim Brotherhood after the organization was banned in Egypt. During this period, al- Qaradawi also did not take severe public stances on political issues. During this era, accord- ing to Skovgaard-Petersen, al- Qaradawi declined to become the leader of the Muslim Broth- erhood when offered the role — instead taking on a paternal role in influencing Muslim youth to steer them on the right path. “We have new generations of Muslims who are much more devout than we have seen before, but they are also much more prone to error, and they need the guidance of men like him,” he said. Skovgaard-Petersen said al- Qaradawi, moving into the 1970s, became involved with issues of Islamic finance and medicine through “solutionist activism,” wherein Islam could be viewed as a “solution” to political issues. This period of time is also known as the Islamic revival of the 1970s. Skovgaard-Petersen said al- Qaradawi was a well-known fig- ure by 1990, and had acquired a large global following. Despite a language barrier, al-Qaradawi joined the European Council for Fatwah and Research and began to develop an interest in how Muslims should survive in Europe and the West. Though seemingly quite sud- den, al-Qaradawi became a “national mediator of some sig- nificance,” Skovgaard-Petersen said. Eventually, al-Qaradawi defended parliamentary democ- racy as an Islamically correct form of governance. Al-Qaradawi is still con- cerned with Jihadism today, and addressed his rebuttal of Jihadist thinkers in one of his books. “He is becoming inspir- ing and sometimes pushing Islamic movements to move in a more democratic direction,” Skovgaard-Petersen said. Skovgaard-Petersen argued that the Arab revolutions, the for- mation of the Freedom and Jus- tice Party in Egypt and the party’s 2012 electoral victory marked the climax of al-Qaradawi’s influence over the Islamist movement. That said, Skovgaard-Petersen noted that al-Qaradawi remains a con- troversial figure in contemporary politics. “Many of his statements are probably more controversial in Western context than they are in a Middle Eastern context,” Skovgaard-Petersen said. “In the Middle East, he would hardly be considered an extremist.” Now 89 years old, al-Qaradawi considers himself an activist and is not yet a “spent force,” accord- ing to Skovgaard-Petersen. “It is very difficult to see who will fill his shoes the day when he dies.” Skovgaard-Petersen said he did not lecture to pass a moral judgment of al-Qaradawi, but rather to make an assessment of his political significance. Skovgaard-Petersen said he uses al-Qaradawi’s unfinished mem- oirs, as well as numerous books written by al-Qaradawi’s own students and colleagues, to col- lect information on the Muslim activist. Al-Qaradawi was sentenced to death in June of this year in Egypt, but continues to update social media, tweeting about events as current as the Egyptian elections earlier this month. Nevertheless, Skovgaard- Petersen said, al-Qaradawi continues to make lasting contri- butions to contemporary Islamic and political thinking. The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com News Wednesday, October 28, 2015 — 3A UM-Dearborn launches general education program University of Michigan- Dearborn officials launched the school’s first general education program last week in an effort to better prepare students to succeed throughout college and life. The program, Dearborn Discovery Core, requires students to take upper and lower- level courses in one of three categories: Foundational Studies, Areas of Inquiry or Capstone Experiences. Foundational Studies consists of courses that strengthen students’ communication, critical and quantitative thinking and problem solving skills. Areas of Inquiry covers classes in natural resources, social and behavioral analysis, arts and humanities. Capstone Experiences are courses providing students with the chance to reflect on previous learning experiences. Ilitch family gifts $40 million to Wayne State The Ilitch family will donate land and funds totalling $40 million for a new business school to be located near downtown Detroit, the Detroit Free Press reported. This gift marks the largest gift in Wayne State’s history. Mike Ilitch, an American entrepreneur famous for founding Little Caesar’s Pizza, is also owner of the Detroit Red Wings and the Detroit Tigers. The donation includes $35 million to build the school, located near the new Red Wings arena on Woodward Avenue, in addition to a $5 million endowment. Construction is expected to be complete in 2018. The school will be named the Mike Illitch School of Business. Two Detroit police officers charged with misconduct Two Detroit police officers, Charles Lynem, age 32, and Chancellor Searcy, age 29, plead- ed not guilty Tuesday before the 36th District Magistrate Laura Echartea to charges includ- ing confiscating money from a 33-year-old man they arrested in March 2013. They were addi- tionally charged for fabricating “circumstances and documenta- tion” associated with the arrest of a 41-year-old man in Septem- ber 2014. Lynem and Searcy are both seven-year veterans of the Detroit Police Department. They are both currently suspended without pay and face several counts, including misconduct in office, embezzlement of less than $20,000 and false report of felony. Attorney John Goldpaugh is representing the two men in court and said he expects they will be exonerated. “They’re both hard-working people that have been out there serving Detroit,” he said. “And serving Detroit well.” University to host TSA PreCheck enrollment event The University’s Procure- ment Services Department will bring the Transportation Secu- rity Administration’s PreCheck program to the Michigan League from Nov. 16 to 20 for a special enrollment opportunity. Carolynn Blankenship, an audit and compliance supervi- sor for Procurement Services, said the TSA PreCheck program offers participants a faster secu- rity check process in which they may be exempt from removing their shoes, belts, light jackets, laptops from cases and and small liquids from carry-on luggage. —LARA MOEHLMAN NEWS BRIEFS RITA MORRIS /Daily Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen, a professor in the University of Copenhagen’s department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, discusses Yusuf al-Qaradawi and the establishment of the Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt in the School of Social Work on Tuesday. to students in print form before the transition to electronic feedback. LSA junior Sean Pitt, CSG chief of staff, said releasing course evaluation data will allow students to form expectations of courses without resorting to third-party sources like the website RateMyProfessors.com. “We have all this data collected about previous students’ experiences,” Pitt said, “Our goal is to make it easier for them to make decisions based on their peers.” CSG President Cooper Charlton, an LSA senior, said the immediate release of course evaluations is not the only ongoing conversation between CSG and faculty governance. “The second conversation is about a continued shared collaboration with faculty to make sure the instrument of gathering course evaluations is not only accurate, but it’s efficient to give us some substantial feedback,” Charlton said. In this case, “instrument” refers to how the evaluations are designed. Comparative Literature Prof. Silke-Maria Weineck, who chairs the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs, has said the current instrument negatively affects the quality of data yielded. “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 at an Oct. 12 SACUA meeting. “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.” Charlton said ideally, CSG wants to course evaluations to be released by Winter 2016. Resolution updates CSG Assembly also considered a new resolution Tuesday to support featuring information about University mental health services in course syllabi distributed at the beginning of each semester. LSA junior David Schafer, who co-authored the resolution, said inspiration for the resolution came from the recent emphasis raising awareness about sexual assault prevention on campus. The University’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center added language about Title IX and sexual assault awareness to course syllabi this semester. “I thought that was a fantastic idea,” Schafer said. Schafer said the resolution will aim to spread the message that there is a direct correlation between mental health and academic results — as well as inform incoming students who may be unaware of the services available to them. “No student should come to the University of Michigan and be shut off to these resources because they don’t know these resources exist,” Schafer said. Public Policy junior Gabe Dell, who co-authored the resolution, said these resources are not currently being utilized to their full capacity. Schafer said to approach the resolution as professionally as possible, CSG went through key departments on campus devoted to mental health assistance. He added that the resolution has garnered support from Robert Winfield, the director of University Health Services and the University’s chief health officer, and Todd Sevig, the director of Counseling and Psychological Services. LSA junior Sierra Stone, a representative on the Assembly, said the resolution is the culmination of many meetings with both Sevig and Winfield. “This isn’t something that we just threw together; this is something we’re all really passionate about,” Stone said. Schafer said the policy recommended by this resolution is not groundbreaking, adding that the inclusion of campus resources and the advocacy of proper language, particularly in the case of sexual assault by example, has already been implemented at schools like Columbia University, Rutgers University and the University of Minnesota. Schafer said the potential mental health resources outlined on syllabi would not necessarily be exhaustive. He added that the resources listed would prominently include but not be limited to UHS and CAPS, among others. Should the resolution be approved by the Assembly, Schafer, Stone and Dell would approach University Provost Martha Pollack with their recommendation for its adoption. CSG From Page 1A SCHOLAR From Page 1A CONGRESS From Page 1A STORY SLAM poetry, short stories, essays email Sam Gringlas at gringlas@umich.edu Friday, November 20 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. 420 Maynard St.