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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
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