“The UN wants this content 

not to happen in a black box,” 
Hogikyan said. “They want 
people around the world to 
know what’s happening, so they 
invite these people to come as 
observers.”

Engineering senior Matthew 

Irish, 
who 
will 
also 
be 

attending the COP, said it will 
be one of the most important 
negotiations looking into the 
future of climate change.

The 
team 
of 
University 

students and faculty will attend 
as observers, meaning they 
will get to sit in on all of the 
negotiations over the course 
of the two-week conference. 
Though the team members will 
be able to voice their opinions, 
they will ultimately not be 
considered when the countries 
come to an agreement. 

The team will update a 

website 
and 
social 
media 

outlets throughout their time at 

the conference. Irish said they 
hope to raise awareness for 
what is happening by bringing 
their first-hand observations 
back to campus.

“We are trying to actually 

bring back some information 
that 
will 
help 
our 
whole 

University community to have 
a really good ear for what’s 
going on,” he said. “A big part of 
us coming back home is letting 
people know what we think of 
the agreement.”

Additionally, 
the 

University was recently one 
of 218 universities to sign 
the 
American 
Campus 
Act 

on 
Climate 
Pledge, 
which 

maintains 
the 
campuses’ 

commitment to sustainability 
in light of the upcoming COP.

Discussing how the COP 

will affect the University’s 
environmental policies, Irish 
said the policies cannot directly 
influence the University, but 
would make for an interesting 
comparison.

“This 
international 

agreement wouldn’t directly 

tell the University you have to 
do anything,” he said. “We have 
all these goals and it would be 
interesting to compare them 
to the goals that are set by 
different countries coming out 
of this agreement.”

Irish added that he wishes 

they were more progressive.

“My personal opinion is we 

are not doing quite enough,” 
he said. “We are just going 
with the flow. We are just 
kind of doing what will now be 
required for all utilities in the 
U.S., but I think that is going to 
change.”

Overall, Irish said he looks 

forward to the opportunity 
to see such an important deal 
negotiated.

“I’m just really excited to 

be there and see it all happen 
firsthand,” Irish said. “I’m 
really apprehensive. If you 
judge by the past, things don’t 
look good, but I think people 
realize the gravity of the 
situation. I’m nervous to see 
what happens but I’m really, 
really excited.”

we were actively ignored. Our 
role and existence in society was 
really, really downplayed or left 
out completely.”

According to the fall 2015 

enrollment report from the 
Office of the Registrar, Asian 
students account for 11.2 percent 
of the University student body.

Sean Liu said when they asked 

questions at panel events, their 
questions, on issues such as how 
to help reduce discrimination 
toward Asian Americans on 
campus and make the University 
a more inclusive environment 
went unanswered. 

“We feel that these are 

large topics that are not being 
addressed 
and 
are 
being 

overlooked. You can argue that 
the administration is unaware 
of these issues, but even when 
Brendan, Jenn and I brought 
up these issues, they seemed 
dumbfounded and even glanced 
over it,” he said.

Wu 
said 
he 
hopes 
the 

conversation 
from 
Project 

Elephant will prompt others to 
think about diversity on campus.

“By expressing this, we’re 

hoping that people will at the 
very least think a little bit more 
about how they conceptualize 
diversity and inclusion and if 
they have felt excluded from 
certain areas in the past, maybe 
this will make them more 
comfortable sharing.”

Echoing Wu, Sean Liu said he 

hoped this event will catalyze 
future conversation on a broader 
scale.

“I plan to personally try to 

use this, and use the Diversity 
Summit, and use some of these 
issues that we’ve talked about 
today as conversation starters 
both within our community 
and bridge other communities,” 
he 
said. 
“We 
believe 
that 

these issues of inclusion don’t 
only apply to us, they apply to 
everyone, all students of color, 
and 
these 
underrepresented 

groups.”

ELEPHANT
From Page 1

PARIS
From Page 1

3 — Tuesday, November 24, 2015
News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

AFL-CIO to help 
rehab 300 vacant 
homes in Detroit

At a press conference on 

Monday, Detroit Mayor Mike 
Duggan announced the city’s 
plans to partner with the 
AFL-CIO to rehab hundreds 
of homes in several Detroit 
neighborhoods, including the 
Bagley and East English Village 
neighborhoods. 
The 
Detroit 

Land Bank will transfer the 
rights of 300 blighted homes to 
the union, which will in turn 
use union labor to rehabilitate 
the homes. The union will then 
sell the homes and split the 
profits with the city, the Detroit 
Free Press reported on Monday. 

“We are trying things that 

haven’t 
been 
done 
before,” 

Duggan said. The project will 
expand if the initial pilot proves 
successful. 

Richard 
Trumka,, 
the 

AFL-CIO president, said in a 
statement that the program is 
placing special emphasis on 
creating construction jobs for 
Detroit residents, women and 
people of color. 

Since his election in 2014, 

Duggan has initiated several 
new efforts to combat blight in 
the city, including programs 
to ramp up demolitions of 
vacant homes too damaged for 
renovation. The city has also 
instituted a massive program 
to auction off homes in more 
neighborhoods. 
In 
these 

programs, 
winning 
bidders 

are required to renovate and 
inhabit 
the 
homes 
within 

several 
months 
of 
their 

purchase. 
Neighborhoods 

initially 
targeted 
for 
this 

program 
 
included 
historic 

Boston-Edison, as well as 
the Osborn and Marygrove 
neighborhoods. Duggan has 
also relied on partnerships with 
other local players for similar 
rejuvination programs. 

‘U’ economists 
predict job growth 
for next two years

University Economics Prof. 

George Fulton, who directs the 
University’s Research Seminar 
in Quantitative Economics, led a 
study that broke down expected 
job growth in Michigan in the 
next two years. 

Fulton 
and 
his 
team 

predicted that 126,000 new jobs 
will be added by the state of 
Michigan by 2018, with 61,100 
being added in 2016 and 64,800 
by 2017. 

“From the perspective of 

how the economy has been 
performing overall in growing 
out of the prior severe recession, 
things are looking pretty good. 
The environment has stabilized 
and progress has been fairly 
impressive,” Fulton said in a 
press release.

Joan 
Crary, 
research 

assistant at the RSQE, said 
six out of 10 jobs in the trade, 
transportation 
and 
utilities 

sectors will originate in the 
knowledge-based professional, 
scientific 
and 
technical 

subcategories, with the rest 
being in the administrative 
support subgroup.

While 
jobs 
are 
growing, 

Michigan’s 
capital 
income, 

per capita GDP, employment-
to-population 
ratio 
and 

educational 
attainment 
still 

rank low, researchers said. 

“What this tells us is that 

although we’ve made a fair 
amount of progress recently, we 
have a ways yet to go,” Fulton 
said.

—TANYA MADHANI 
and SAM GRINGLAS

NEWS BRIEFS

“We chose this cohort based 

on their proven ability, or the 
ability that they indicated in 
their application, to execute on 
their idea,” Gourley said. “As 
a bare minimum we require 
that each team has at least 
two people, two students from 
the University of Michigan. 
We really tried to get a broad 
swathe of teams.”

Gourley said the application 

consists of a series of questions 
to assess a team, its idea and 
the stage in the development 
process. He noted having an 
array of projects, as well as 
feasible goals, plays a key role in 
the selection process.

If multiple teams submitted 

similar 
projects, 
organizers 

selected the strongest proposal 
of the bunch.

Such diversity is evident in 

this fall’s incoming class. The 
selected 
startups 
represent 

a wide range of focus, from 
manufacturing 
sustainable 

water bottles to developing 
virtual tours for the apartment 
search process. Team members 
come from a variety of the 
University’s 
schools 
and 

colleges and age groups — from 
freshmen 
to 
post-doctoral 

candidates.

“We really have a wide 

representation 
of 
students 

working 
on 
both 
products 

and services, both high-tech 
and 
low-tech, 
approaching 

problems from every angle 

imaginable at the University of 
Michigan,” Gourley said. 

Those selected are given 

access 
to 
mentorship, 

educational 
workshops, 

workspace, material support 
and the TechArb community 
for a three-month period.

The 
workspace, 
which 

participants can access 24/7, 
includes 
whiteboards, 
two 

private 
meeting 
rooms, 
a 

kitchenette, office supplies, a 
printer, a foosball table and walls 
emblazoned with inspirational 
quotes like “passion never fails” 
and “experiment, fail, learn, 
repeat.”

Gourley said TechArb works 

hard to cultivate a collaborative 
community.

“TechArb is only as great as 

the people who make it up,” he 

said. “It’s a community of like-
minded people that also have a 
high potential for a high impact. 
When you get such bright and 
interesting people in a room, 
really interesting things start 
to happen. So that’s the goal of 
TechArb is to connect all these 
people in the same place so they 
can see what magic happens.”

At Monday night’s event, 

James 
Holloway, 
the 
vice 

provost for global and engaged 
education, praised the students 
for their desire to help others 
as evidenced by their startup 
ideas.

“I think this is a really 

exciting, inspired place to be 
right 
now,” 
Holloway 
said. 

“I’m really awed by this group. 
You’re 
imaginative, 
you’re 

creative and you’re developing 

things that will help people.”

Holloway 
reassured 

participants 
that 
the 
real 

value of the program is not a 
startup’s explicit success, but 
experiencing and learning from 
the overall ups and downs of 
building a business. 

“Your 
ventures 
may 
not 

work out the way you expect,” 
he said. “The success is going 
to be that you learn how to do 
this work, you learn how to be 
creative, you learn how to be 
collaborative, you learn how to 
interact with others that are 
very different, you learn how to 
make something that has value 
for the world. That’s success. I 
think the real value is going to 
come from spending time with 
this group of people, learning 
from each other.”

TECHARB
From Page 1

on campus in Ann Arbor.

“I think that to some extent, 

it can extend down to college 
students and anyone in school,” 
Sen said. “This shows the value 
of these web-based tools and 
potentially 
also 
smartphone 

apps and nontraditional mental 
health resources because they 
would allow students to access 
them on their own time without 
having to fit it into the schedule 
of a traditional therapist.”

WEB
From Page 1

ON
THE
DAILY

The Michigan Daily is launching a new space for content 

online. “On the Daily” will provide readers with stories that 

don’t already exist in our sections, and will aim to serve as an 

platform for fresh content published during the day. 

For more, be sure to look for 

“On the Daily” on michigandaily.com

