michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
See ANDRES, Page 6
See SACUA, Page 3
See GENETICS, Page 3
CAMPUS LIFE
ARTS PREVIEW
SCIENCE
Students recount
experiences with
sexual assault at 29th
annual SAPAC event
By RIYAH BASHA
Daily Staff Reporter
At
the
Sexual
Assault
Prevention
and
Awareness
Center’s 29th annual Speak Out,
more than 150 attendees shared
and listened to each other’s
personal
accounts
of
sexual
assault and harassment.
The public forum presented an
opportunity for self-identifying
survivors of sexual assault to
speak in a confidential setting.
Common themes, such as others
doubting their accounts and the
importance of advocacy and
solidarity emerged in many of the
stories.
LSA senior Alex Barkin, a
co-coordinator with SAPAC, said
Speak Out provides a safe space
for survivors.
“A lot of people up there
speaking
have
never
spoken
before, and it’s a way for people
to start thinking of ways they can
heal,” Barkin said.
The
event’s
organizers
repeatedly
emphasized
both
confidentiality
and
safety
throughout the session. About
20 SAPAC volunteers staffed
the event and were present
throughout the session in case
any of the survivors’ accounts
proved triggering for listeners.
Professional
advocates
also
manned a separate crisis room to
serve as on-call support.
“The sharing that takes place is
emotional and powerful, and we
need to make sure that survivors
are in a safe space,” she said.
Survivors
echoed
similar
sentiments.
“We’ve all been through so
much of the same,” one survivor
said. “This bond we have, even
if it’s the worst bond ever, is still
amazing.”
LSA senior Kara Kundert, a
SAPAC peer facilitator, noted
that Speak Out often empowers
survivors
to
begin
working
toward institutional change.
“The advocacy work being
done,
especially
by
student
survivors, comes out of spaces
like this,” she said. “Having
Speak Outs helps people cleanse
Takacs Quartet
performs composer’s
‘Strong Language’
By DAYTON HARE
Daily Arts Writer
The image of the starv-
ing artist is one of the most
deeply ingrained etchings in
the collective consciousness
of the West-
ern
world,
and certainly
with
good
reason.
For
generations,
many creative
laborers have
struggled
to sustain a
comfortable
income
for
themselves,
often
wres-
tling with a
public
that
doesn’t place a high monetary
value on creative work. In
many cases, artists will take
a second job with a more sus-
tainable cash flow — in the
most favorable instances, a job
related to their art.
For the creative figure of the
composer, this second job will
often involve teaching music,
both privately or at a college or
university. But for those cou-
rageous and talented few who
work to make a living by com-
posing alone, income generally
comes in the form of commis-
sions, requests for a new work
for a specific ensemble or
occasion. In Rackham Audito-
rium on Wednesday, the Takács
String Quartet will be perform-
ing one such commissioned
piece, Timo Andres’s Strong
Language,
written
for
the
ensemble and commissioned by
Carnegie Hall and Shriver Hall.
Timo Andres is a young and
talented composer and pianist
based out of Brooklyn. Born
in 1985, he first came under
the public gaze in 2010 with
the release of his piano music
album Shy and Mighty, which
The New Yorker’s Alex Ross
wrote “achieves an unhurried
grandeur that has rarely been
felt in American music since
John Adams came on the scene”
— but Andres’s musical life
began far earlier.
“I grew up as a pretty serious
classical pianist. I started when
I was about seven, and became
pretty serious pretty quickly. It
was something that I initially
just took to very naturally, and
then pretty soon just decid-
ed that it was going to be my
career,” Andres said in a phone
interview with The Michigan
Daily.
“And I started writing things
down right around the same
time. It was just sort of some-
thing that I didn’t even really
Event includes
hip-hop, dialogue
about identity,
historical context
By LYDIA MURRAY
Daily Staff Reporter
The Native American Student
Association capped off Native
American Heritage Month on
Monday night with a concert
featured noted performers Frank
Waln and Samsoche Sampson.
The performance, which drew
more than 80 people, featured
a blend of Native American
dancing
and
traditional
instrument
playing
overlaid
on more modern, hip-hop style
music.
Waln,
a
Sicangu
Lakota
from South Dakota, has been
recognized for his work raising
awareness for Native American
culture,
and
has
received
numerous
awards
for
those
efforts — including three Native
American Music Awards, the
National Center for American
Indian Enterprise Development
2014
Native
American
40
Under 40 award and the 2014
Chicago Mayor’s Award for Civic
Engagement.
Sampson is an artist who
works to fuse modern art with
traditional
Native
American
elements,
and
his
work
involves a variety of mediums
including dance, music, acting,
printmaking and painting.
The
two
are
both
2014
graduates of Columbia College
Chicago, where Waln received
a bachelor’s degree in audio arts
and acoustics, and Sampson
received a Bachelor of Fine
Arts. They have been working
together since 2011.
A talking circle — a traditional
Native
American
problem-
CLAIRE ABDO/Daily
Hip-Hop artist Frank Waln and dancer Samsoche Sampson perform for the Native American Heritage Month keynote performance at the Michigan Union on Monday.
ZOEY HOLMSTROM/Daily
Neurology Prof. Lewis Morgenstern, a health disparities researcher, speaks about a program to reduce income
inequality at the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs meeting in the Regents Room on Monday
CSG president also
calls for expedited
release of course
evaluation data
By GEN HUMMER
Daily Staff Reporter
A
potential
University
program to address income
inequality led discussion at
Monday’s
Senate
Advisory
Committee
on
University
Affairs
meeting
—
where
Neurology
Prof.
Lewis
Morgenstern, whose research
focuses on health disparities,
unveiled a “social experiment”
to address the issue.
The meeting also featured
comments from CSG President
Cooper
Charlton,
an
LSA
senior,
who
again
asked
SACUA to move up the timeline
for releasing student course
evaluatation data.
Morgenstern
said
the
income gap in the United
States, which hesaid is higher
now than it’s ever been with
the exception of just before the
Great Depression, is one of the
main factors driving health
care inequality. He added that
the responsibility to address
the growing disparity must fall
to the private sector.
Under Morgenstern’s plan,
those working at the top end of
the University’s pay scale would
have the opportunity to donate
a percentage of their salary to
those working at the low end
of the University’s pay scale.
The idea is that money that
might otherwise be locked into
retirement funds could now be
transferred to those who would
spend it immediately.
Morgenstern
was
quick
to clarify that the idea is not
driven by a particular problem
at the University. Instead,
he hopes the University can
pioneer the program with the
eventual goal of its adoption by
large, for-profit corporations.
“This is not in any way saying
that there’s anything wrong
with
what
happens
here,”
Morgenstern said. “This is just
a social experiment that could
go on anywhere and might as
well start at home. Being an
employee at the University
of Michigan is a great thing
and in no way is this targeting
Michigan because there’s a
problem.”
Rather
than
donations
funding
health
care
costs
Program pioneered
at Berkeley drew
criticism for asking
students to donate
DNA samples
By MAYA SHANKAR
Daily Staff Reporter
Before he was University
president, Mark Schlissel was
the dean of biological sciences
at the University of California,
Berkeley.
During
his
tenure
there,
he
helped
implement
a
controversial
orientation
program in which all freshmen
were asked to submit a DNA
sample for analysis, which were
intended to then inform an
orientation week discussion on
genetics.
Schlissel
discussed
that
project — and the backlash to it
— during a panel held Monday
as part of the University of
Michigan Department of Human
Genetics Seminar Series.
The
orientation
program,
called “Bring Your Genes to Cal,”
initially intended to analyze
student saliva samples for three
non-disease
associated
genes
related to the ability to metabolize
alcohol, lactose and folic acid.
In return for submitting their
samples, students were told they
would have access to their own
results and the opportunity to
See SPEAK OUT, Page 3
See CONCERT, Page 3
Takacs
Quartet
Wednesday,
Dec. 2,
7:30 p.m.
Rackham
Auditorium
$26 to $52,
students $12
to $20
Survivors
share their
stories at
Speak Out
Concert caps off Native
American Heritage Month
Rackham show
features Timo
Andres’ work
Prof. discusses income
inequality with SACUA
Schlissel
talks role of
genetics in
medicine
INDEX
Vol. CXXV No. 38
©2015 The Michigan Daily
michigandaily.com
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O PI N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
ARTS............................. 5
S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
S U D O K U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
CL A S S I F I E DS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
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