Michigan
and
professional
football player and the current
medical director at a hospital in
Reno, Nev.
Hackett will remain in office
until the University finds a
permanent replacement, which
Schlissel said will be an asset
during the search process.
“Interim Director Hackett
continues to do a great job with
the department,” Schlissel said.
“He’s flexible enough to stay on
as long as necessary to allow us
to conduct a very thorough and
broad search for the very best
person who can do the job —
and then to stay around to help
the person we select come on
board. So all that’s great, and
that takes the monkey off my
back in that I don’t have to do
this in a three-week time frame.
The longer we have to do this,
the more thoughtful and better
job we can do. A typical search
takes months.”
Schlissel noted that campus
outreach and input will be
a large factor of the search
process. He said he intends
to meet with a number of
governing bodies — including
Central Student Government,
the Student-Athlete Advisory
Committee
and
the
Senate
Advisory
Committee
on
University
Affairs,
as
well
as
individual
coaches
and
members
of
the
Athletic
Department’s staff, to evaluate
what University constituents
want most out of the new
director.
While gauging campus needs,
Schlissel has also begun to
independently develop a broad
set of criteria. He is looking
for “someone who gets the
cultural aspects” — “a person of
unquestioned integrity” who is
capable of both upholding the
University’s athletic excellence
while also placing an emphasis
on the “student” portion of
“student-athlete.”
“I’m looking for an athletic
director that sort of gets it,
that understands that athletics
is a part of the University,” he
said. “It’s not separate from
the University; it exists to help
build the community here, and
to represent us, and to keep
our alumni attached to the
University, to develop student
spirit, to give folks who care
about athletics an outlet to
either
participate
or,
more
often, to watch and cheer.
“It has to be a person of
unquestioned
integrity,”
he
added. “You know, winning is
important, but it sure isn’t more
important than operating at a
highest level of value system
— and do things really both by
the rules, but even do things the
‘Michigan Way’ of really a high
level, high standards.”
Divestment and rhetoric
Schlissel has articulated his
hesitance toward divestment
on several platforms in the last
week — both via a post on a
University website and during
his final fireside chat of the
semester.
“The irony here is that
I am a strong proponent of
sustainability and recognizing
the
significance
of
global
climate
change
and
the
necessity of having a thoughtful
way to quickly diminish the
damage we’re doing to the
environment,”
he
said.
“I
think where I differ with
the
community
promoting
divestment
is
whether
the
University
of
Michigan
divesting
will
do
anything
to achieve the goals that we
share.”
He noted the University’s
internal
commitment
to
sustainability,
renewable
energy
and
spearheading
correlating
research,
adding
that divestment could deter
such
efforts
on
a
larger,
corporate scale.
“The problem I have with a
divestment approach is, I don’t
understand how the University
of
Michigan
changing
its
investment
portfolio
will
diminish
the
release
of
greenhouse
gases
into
the
environment
or
promote
sustainability,” he said.
What he has said in meetings
with campus groups such as
Divest and Invest — which
recently garnered the support
of the Faculty Senate Assembly
with
regard
to
endorsing
University
divestment
from
fossil fuels — is that University
divestment
would
be
more
symbolic than impactful.
“I grant, it’s a symbolic action,
and symbols are important in
society,” Schlissel said. “But
I think the situation’s way
more complicated … the same
companies, for example, that
are harvesting coal and taking
oil and gas from the ground, are
the same companies that are
doing research on renewable
energy and trying to convert as
quickly as possible away from
coal toward gas and, ultimately,
renewables.”
“Those very same companies
that we would be divesting
from need investment capital
to convert from carbon source
to renewables,” he later added.
“So where is that going to come
from if we put them out of
business? — not that we could
by Michigan divesting.”
Schlissel
said
the
most
productive thing for groups
like Divest and Invest to do is
not to lobby the University to
divest, but instead to focus their
advocacy
toward
tightening
state regulations and laws.
Broadening
his
focus
to
include not only Divest and
Invest, but groups such as the
Students Allied for Freedom
and Equality — which, as a part
of the Boycott, Divestment,
Sanctions
movement
calls
for the University to create a
committee to consider divesting
from
companies
that
they
allege facilitate human rights
violations in Israel — Schlissel
noted that overall, divestment
does not seem to be a feasible
tool for the University to use.
“The
endowment
isn’t
a
vehicle for playing out political
arguments,” Schlissel said. “It’s
there to support the mission of
the University, and it’s taken in
trust from donors.”
Autonomous
vehicles see rise in
young drivers
A study by Michael Sivak
and Brandon Schoettle of the
University’s Transportation
Research Center found that the
rise in autonomous vehicles may
also signal a rise in the demand
for private road transportation
among 18 to 39-year-olds.
For over 30 years, the number
of young adults without driver’s
licenses has been on the rise. Since
1983, the percentage of adults with
driver’s licenses under the age of
40 has dropped from 93 percent
to about 83 percent. Among 18 to
19 year-olds, the drop is from 84
percent to 66 percent.
In a press release, Sivak and
Schoettle said autonomous
vehicles will cause a 28 percent
increase in the number of 18 and
19-year-olds with driver’s licenses.
“The basic approach in our
study involves combining all
reasons for currently not having
a driver’s license that would no
longer be applicable with self-
driving vehicles, and calculating
the new percentage of persons
who would have access to
personal transportation with
self-driving vehicles,” Sivak
said. Among the reasonsfor not
having a driver’s license that
would no longer be applicable
with autonomous vehicles are
being too busy to get a license and
having a disability that prevents
one from receiving a license.
Rep. Fred Upton
condemns Trump’s
Muslim comments
Representative Fred Upton
(R-St. Joseph), a member of the
House Republican leadership,
condemned comments by GOP
presidential candidate Donald
Trump calling for the complete
shutdown of Muslim immigration
into the U.S. on Tuesday, the
Detroit Free Press reported.
Upton, who chairs the
House Energy and Commerce
Committee, reportedly said
Trump’s plan was “crazy.”
In an interview with WSJM-
FM Tuesday, Upton said Trump’s
comments are in direct violation
of the constitution’s commitment
to freedom of religion.
“We have this thing in our
nation that we’re pretty proud of:
freedom of religion. What Donald
Trump said yesterday goes
against the very principles that
our founding fathers wrote into
the Constitution,” he said.
Upton added that although he
supports free speech, he finds
fault with Trump’s comments.
“It doesn’t follow the pattern
of who America really is and what
we stand for,” Upton said.
Trump, who has been
leading polls in the race for
the Republican presidential
nomination, drew criticism from
both Democrats and Republicans
after his comment on banning all
Muslim immigration to the US on
Monday, in wake of last month’s
Paris attacks and the deadly
shooting in San Bernadino, both
linked to individuals with ties to
radical Islam.
Man imprisoned
for selling fake
Detroit homes
38-year-old Joseph Haden of
Florida will serve four years in
prison for orchestrating an $18
million dollar scam in which
hundreds nationwide were
tricked into purchasing homes
in Detroit that did not exist, the
Detroit Free Press reports.
U.S. District Judge Stephen
Murphy sentenced Haden to
52 months in prison for his role
in the scheme that cheated 290
people in 47 states and Canada.
According to the U.S.
Attorney’s office, telemarketers
involved in the scheme claimed
bank-owned homes in Detroit
could be purchased for a fraction
of their value, and that the homes
could be quickly resold to an
already-existing group of hedge
funds and foreign investors. The
telemarketers would then pocket
the money.
- LARA MOEHLMAN
NEWS BRIEFS
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, December 9, 2015 — 3A
SCHLISSEL
From Page 1A
Medical School in 1977 and
gained prominence as the first
surgeon to successfully separate
conjoined twins in 1987.
In
addition
to
being
a
University alum, he has strong
roots in the state — he was
born and raised in Detroit, and
launched his campaign earlier
this year in the city.
Currently fourth in the polls
at 13.8 percent, according to
Real Clear Politics, Carson has
drawn controversy in recent
months over statements on
a variety of issues, including
gun policy and whether a
Muslim can be president.
The main focus of the Carson
campaign’s Wednesday stop
in the state are two campaign
events, one open to the public
and one private.
Carson is slated to hold a
public town hall at 2:30 p.m. at
Eastern Michigan University
to announce a new health
care plan aimed at providing
a policy alternative to the
Affordable Care Act. He is also
scheduled to attend a campaign
fundraiser at the Ann Arbor-
Ypsilanti Marriott hotel.
Carson also visited the state
in September to speak at Spring
Arbor
University.
During
his speech, he touched on a
number of social issues as well
as the importance of education,
emphasizing the transformative
nature of education.
A significant portion of the
current GOP field — including
frontrunner candidate Donald
Trump and other candidates at
the top of the polls — has also
visited Michigan in past months.
CARSON
From Page 1A
diversity, equity and inclusion that
affect you as a graduate student?”
and “What are your short-term and
long-term ideas for change?”
Rackham
student
Kimberly
Reyes emphasized that change
does not depend on representation
and numbers alone. She said
change in classroom culture and
conversation are also essential to
combating such issues.
“When
you
say
you’re
celebrating diversity, it’s much
more about bodies in a room
versus how do faculty create
places where folks can have
honest conversations and how
does
curriculum
adequately
represent issues of oppression,
even in sciences,” Reyes said. “It’s
not getting at the kind of academic
culture and the academic norms
that I think affect us as graduate
students much more because our
departments are our worlds.”
Many students in attendance
agreed with Reyes, saying they
have noticed a general lack
of
diversity
training
among
Rackham faculty and mentors.
Rackham
student
Channing
Mathews, president of Students
of Color of Rackham, said much
of the advocacy and reform
surrounding
diversity,
equity
and inclusion falls on students
when it shouldn’t.
“We should not be the ones
doing it by ourselves,” she said.
“We should see the faculty coming
in and working with us … deans
allocating resources to address the
issues that students are coming
up with. It’s the institution’s
responsibility to make us know
that we belong here.”
Mathews expressed the need
for the University to incentivize
departments’
implementation
of effective plans for training
faculty in this respect and
penalize departments that are
not doing this work. Schlissel’s
current
diversity
strategy
calls on individual University
departments
and
units
to
develop their own plans for
approaching
diversity
on
campus, with the hope that
those plans would then inform a
broader campus strategy.
“Right now, it feels like the
University is relying on the
goodwill of the department,”
Mathews said.
Rackham Dean Carol Fierke
explained that because Rackham
is an umbrella program to many
different
departments,
it
is
difficult to change individual
programs’
policies.
Rackham
currently provides funding and
opportunities for workshops and
training to support inter-program
diversity efforts. However, none
are mandatory.
“Those are two areas where we
have programs,” Fierke said. “It’s
a matter of figuring out how to
use them better.”
Mathews said she hoped the
dialogue from the event would
result in action.
“I think there’s something
to be said about having the
conversation and then moving
to
action
steps,”
she
said.
“Hopefully
Rackham
takes
the dialogue and turns it into
tangible action steps that came
from the voices of the students.”
RACKHAM
From Page 1A
AMANDA ALLEN/Daily
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks to supporters at a campaign rally at Spring Arbor University Fieldhouse in Spring Arbor on
Sept. 23, 2015.
should go unpunished.
“When
their
narrative
is
beaten away, what do we find?
We were silenced again — by a
CSG member,” Jones said. “By
not helping us, you have helped
to
further
silence
students
already in a climate that silences
their narratives.”
Hislop said he thought the
event had also highlighted the
need to revisit how the body
dealt with ethics among its
members.
“It basically looked like they
needed an ethics committee,
they made three rules for it and
threw it up there,” Hislop said.
“I think it’s time we dust it off.”
In
comments
to
the
commission, Arm said he had
been through a lot in the last
couple of weeks and felt the
proceedings
have
detracted
from his goals at CSG.
“The reasons that I ran for this
assembly are because I wanted to
work on mental health programs
improved on campus, I wanted
to see sexual assault prevention
programs
on
campus,”
Arm
said. “I didn’t run to have ‘Jew’
slapped on my back. I didn’t
run for the assembly to be an
advocate for Israel.
“My goals and things that
I want to accomplish in this
assembly are not related to my
status as a Jewish student,”
Arm said. “I’m Jesse. I’m not
Jesse the Jew, I’m not Jesse
pro-Israel, I’m Jesse who wants
to see a better campus for the
University of Michigan.”
Executive communications
CSG
President
Cooper
Charlton,
an
LSA
senior,
addressed his recent meeting
with University President Mark
Schlissel
Monday
to
discuss
future initiatives on how to
increase student voice on campus.
In particular, he said last
month’s Diversity Summit was
a learning experience about
how to start legitimizing the
platforms from which students
can voice their opinions.
“I want to pause here and say we
made it aware of an easy fix is that
we host these feedback sessions at
times where students can actually
show up,” Charlton said.
Charlton said it was noted
during the main assembly’s
9 a.m. start time limited the
number
of
students
would
would attend.
“We wanted to make it clear
that when students voice their
opinions it can make it all the
way up to the top and not lost
along the way,” he said.
Other initiatives discussed
were the renovations at the
University’s
unions,
which
Charlton said he hopes to be a
restorative space for students on
campus, as well as the release of
course evaluations and student
safety.
CSG
From Page 2A
A FREE
PRESS
“Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press;
or the right of the people peace-
ably to assemble and to petition
the government for a redress of
grievances.”