Sanzotta, a plaintiff in a law-
suit filed earlier this month 
by Ann Arbor Residents for 
Public Safety against the city 
to halt the cull, expressed her 
frustration with the council’s 
decision to move forward.

“I see you don’t care much 

about facts, or public safety,” 
Sanzotta said. “Our council 
has been bought and sold — 
cheaply.”

Barry Powers, the attor-

ney representing Ann Arbor 
Residents for Public Safety, 
referred to the lawsuit in an 
especially tense exchange 
during 
which 
he 
moved 

beyond the area given to 
public speakers, approaching 
council. 

“If you start this cull in 

the face of the Constitu-
tion, you’re all violating your 
oaths of office,” Powers said.

When 
Councilmember 

Sabra Briere (D–Ward 1) 
requested that Powers return 
to the podium as he deliv-
ered his speech he refused, 
stating the room belonged to 
the public, and was met with 
applause from the crowd.

“What do we want? Stop 

the Shoot!” the crowd chant-
ed between each speaker. 
“When do we want it? Now!”

Other residents speaking 

during public commentary 
used less pointed rhetoric, 
but nonetheless questioned 
the need for the cull and said 
their concerns for public 
safety were not being fully 
addressed.

Ann Arbor resident Ellen 

Rowe told the council that 
although deer are an occa-
sional nuisance in her back-
yard, they are integral to Ann 
Arbor’s habitat.

“The idea that City Coun-

cil could overturn firearm 
laws behind closed doors 
without 
citizen 
input 
is 

unconscionable, as is the 
short 
turnaround 
time 

between the announcement 
of park closing plans and its 
implementation,” she said.

“Ann Arbor should be a 

leader in developing non-
lethal means of controlling 
nuisance deer, and while it 
may take money and several 
years to create such a plan, it 
would set standards and pro-
tocols around the country,” 
she added.

In response to the con-

cerns, Briere pointed out 
measures the city has taken, 
including the distribution 
of postcards to residents 
near where the cull would 
be active, modifications to 
school bus routes to keep 
schoolchildren away from 
culling areas, and the use of 
GPS by cull shooters to verify 
a 450-foot safety radius from 
all residential properties.

The cull is currently slated 

to begin Wednesday, barring 
any legal action stemming 
from the lawsuit filed earlier 
this week.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, January 6, 2016 — 3A

University 
revises disability 
protections

In a press release, the University 

introduced a revised employment 
policy for workers with disabilities. 
The update followed an agreement 
with the Department of Justice 
to update policy and training 
procedures, and will adhere to the 
Americans with Disabilities Act. 

The ADA calls for the 

reassignment of current faculty and 
staff members to a position of equal 
merit when a disability inhibits 
their job performance.

In the Record, Laurita Thomas, 

associate vice president for 
Human Resources, said a qualified 
employee does not need to compete 
 

as heavily with other applicants for 
an open position if the transfer is a 
result of disability.

State of emergency 
declared in Flint

According to the Detroit 

Free Press, Gov. Rick Snyer 
(R–Mich.) declared a state of 
emergency in Flint and Genesee 
County on Tuesday due to Flint’s 
contaminated drinking water.

An investigation into the 

contamination led by the U.S. 
Attorney’s Office and the 
Environmental Protection Agency 
was also confirmed. 

In 2014, excess lead 

contaminated Flint’s drinking 
water following its supply from 
Lake Huron to the Flint River. The 
pollution rose lead levels in affected 
children, which has the potential to 
interrupt brain development.

According to the release, Snyder 

is working with the Flint Water 
Advisory Task Force to develop 
short- and long-term plans to 
restore clean water to the area. 

Bill signed 
eliminating straight-
ticket voting

Gov. Rick Snyder signed a bill 

Jan. 5 to eliminate straight-ticket 
voting in which voters can select 
one box on a ballot to vote for all 
candidates from a single political 
party, the Detroit Free Press 
reported. 

To account for the possibility of 

slower lines at the polls, Snyder also 
pushed for the state Senate to pass 
a bill allowing no-reason absentee 
ballots. Republicans in the state 
Senate voted to break the tie-bar 
linking the measure in December 
with the elimination of straight-
ticket voting.

However, the Free Press 

reported that Republicans added 
a $5 million appropriation to the 
bill recently which will allow 
for more voting equipment. The 
appropriation is intended to 
accomodate the longer and slower 
lines at the polls.

Obama calls for 
action on gun 
control

During an emotional live 

address from the White House on 
Tuesday, President Obama shared 
his executive actions to reduce gun 
violence. Mark Barden, whose son 
died in the Sandy Hook Elementary 
shooting, introduced the president.

NPR outlined the plan’s four 

main points.

Obama’s plan requires all 

firearm vendors to possess a license 
and to conduct background checks 
before sales. 

The plan makes it possible 

for states to share information 
about individuals banned from 
purchasing guns due to mental 
health issues — $500 million will be 
allocated to increase mental health 
care access. 

It also improves enforcement 

of existing gun laws and adds 
200 new agents to the Bureau of 
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and 
Explosives. 

Finally, the plan encourages 

research in gun safety technology 
conducted by the Departments of 
Defense, Justice and Homeland 
Security.

—CAMY METWALLY

NEWS BRIEFS
CULL
From Page 1A

the college,” Pinder-Grover said. 
“It helps faculty identify, ‘Where 
do I go if I need more informa-
tion?’”

Engineering Prof. Jennifer 

Linderman, associate dean for 
graduate education, gave a pre-
sentation to the attendees about 
graduate programs at the Uni-
versity and the students in the 
College of Engineering.

Linderman said one of the 

many attractive features of 
the College of Engineering is 
the allocation of funding for 
research through the completion 
of a student’s program. She said 
though many faculty members 
are unsettled by the thought of 
not having the funding for their 
graduate student researchers, 
the University has the resources 
to assist with these concerns.

“The funding is put togeth-

er 
through 
grants, 
internal 

and external fellowships, GSI 
appointments,” Linderman said. 
“An important point to make 
here is your department has 
made the commitment for fund-
ing, so if worse comes to worst, 
you can go to your department 
for help.”

The event also featured a stu-

dent panel of Rackham doctoral 
students in the College of Engi-
neering who discussed their 
experiences researching at the 
University. They detailed their 
struggles and successes of being 
a graduate students and how 
their mentors have helped them. 
All were researching with a fac-
ulty members at the University.

Many of the faculty members 

said they were concerned with 
recruiting and matching with 
graduate students for research 
projects, citing student’s prefer-
ences to work with tenured and 
senior professors. 

In response, one student 

said when choosing a profes-
sor to work with, she cared 
more about their personal-
ity and the conversation she 

could have with the professor.

The panel also spoke about 

faculty communication with 
students and the importance 
of checking in. The final part 
of the meeting was led by 
Mentoring Others Results in 
Excellence, a committee of 
faculty within the Rackham 
Graduate School that assist 
faculty and students with 
mentoring.

Engineering 
Prof. 
Steve 

Skerlos said many difference 
challenges can arise in men-
toring a student.

“Mentorship implies some-

thing transformational on the 
part of the mentee,” Skerlos said. 
“Something that is guiding them 
along their way to a new profes-
sional career. That’s a lot more 
than advising.”

Skerlos said the difficulties of 

mentoring include mismatching 
goals, unrealistic expectations, 
conflicting 
personalities 
and 

styles, unreliability and compet-
ing responsibilities.

“There’s a huge variability 

in mentoring norms on cam-
pus,” Skerlos said. “The MORE 
committee works across the 
University and within the 
committee itself; there are 
variable dimensions of vari-
ability with mentoring.”

One of the faculty members 

in attendance, Assistant Engi-
neering Prof. Mosharaf Chow-
dhury, said the event gave him 
ideas about how to advise stu-
dents. 

“I have my views on advis-

ing based on my experience 
and the way I interacted with 
my advisor,” he said. “This 
gave me some more view-
points on how other people 
look at it.”

Chowdhury said his biggest 

takeaway from the program 
was learning about how to set 
expectations for students.

“I would think that all the 

students always have similar 
expectations and will always 
be in sync, but that’s not 
always the case,” Chowdhury 
said.

PANEL
From Page 1A

loss in elderly populations. 
It manifests in two forms: 
the dry type, where there is 
occasional death of certain 
regions in the retina, and the 
wet type, where retina hemor-
rhage occurs due to the forma-
tion of defective blood vessels 
in the eye. Currently affecting 
30-50 million seniors world-
wide, the prevalence of AMD 
is expected to rise as lifespans 
lengthen and populations age.

Mohammad Othman, Kel-

logg Eye Center Research sci-
entist involved in the project, 
said AMD is a complex disease 
caused by multiple genetic 
and environmental factors.

“AMD is a very complex 

disease; there is no particu-
lar gene that accounts for the 
whole disease,” Othman said. 
“It is caused by a contribution 
of several genes that might be 
altered because of variants 
that are present in the genes.”

Also involved in the project 

was Kari Branham, assistant 
research scientist and genetic 
counselor at the Inherited 
Retinal Dystrophy Clinic, said 
the research would help com-
bat the disease more effec-
tively.

“If you know what you 

are fighting against — what 
is it that causes people to 
get 
infected, 
and 
if 
you 

can 
understand 
more 

about 
the 
genetic 
causes 

and background, then that 
information can be used for 
the 
development 
of 
more 

effective 
medications 
and 

preventions for individuals,” 
she said.

The 
genome 
consortium 

collaborated 
with 
26 

research institutions for the 
experiment. The University’s 
role stemmed from a grant 
secured 
by 
Biostatistics 

Prof. Goncalo Abecasis to 
conduct genotyping of 43,000 
individuals from the National 
Eye Institute.

The 
consortium 
aimed 

to learn more about disease 
development and pathology, 
according to Lars Fritsche, 
research investigator at the 
Department of Biostatistics.

“The aim of the experiment 

was to better characterize the 
genetics of known AMD risk 
loci and to find new risk loci,” 
he said.

Risk loci are regions of 

the human genome that may 
affect the risk of disease.

“In this experiment, we 

jointly 
analyzed 
millions 

of genetic variants in over 
16,000 individuals with AMD 
and 
compared 
them 
with 

almost 18,000 control indi-
viduals. We were able to use 
a special genotyping platform 
that allowed us to analyze 
common as well as very rare 
genetic variants in our case 
control study.”

Researchers 
said 
the 

unprecedented size of the 
study allowed them to identify 
these rare variants that typi-
cally occur at low frequencies.

The 
University’s 

multidisciplinary team was 

comprised of faculty members, 
graduate 
and 
doctoral 

students from the Kellogg Eye 
Center and Department of 
Biostatistics. The eye center 
specialized 
primarily 
in 

sample collection, while the 
biostatisticians analyze the 
data. 

Although the experiment 

only began in 2012, the collab-
orative working relationship 
between the two departments 
is more than a decade old. 

Othman said the partner-

ship between the biostatistics 
and ophthalmology depart-
ments was important in the 
collection of samples for the 
experiment.

“Our work in this integrat-

ed department involves clini-
cal and basic research that 
goes on at the same time,” 
he said. “We have over the 
years collected and recruited 
almost 1500 individuals who 
have AMD for controls.”

In addition to contributing 

samples, the team also played 
a major role in the consor-
tium’s data analyses. 

“We generated several tera-

bytes of raw data and their 
analyses took many months, 
in some cases, up to 10 CPU 
years,” Frtsche said. “Conse-
quently most of the presented 
analyses were only doable by 
analysis teams with sufficient 
computational resources and 
expertise, in this case, the 
University of Michigan and 
the University of Regensburg 
(Germany).”

The team said their success 

stemmed from institutional 
support, the willingness on 
the part of patients and con-
trols to participate in the 
experiment and, most impor-
tantly, the effectiveness of the 
international consortium. 

Branham lauded the discov-

ery as a feat of collaboration 
between the 26 participating 
institutions.

“It is a major accomplish-

ment to have so many scien-
tific institutions, each used 
to leading, working together 
to put differences aside and 
make this happen,” she said.

For those involved, collabo-

ration is also key in moving 
forward with the research. 
University 
researchers 
are 

currently involved in a follow-
up genome sequencing study 
involving the National Eye 
Institute and University of 
Pennsylvania. Given that only 
6,000 out of 43,000 individual 
samples in this discovery were 
of non-European background, 
there are also ongoing efforts 
to expand sample collection 
globally, Othman said.

He added that he is opti-

mistic that the amount of 
research underway will lead 
to improved treatments and 
solutions.

“The consortium is a reflec-

tion of the desire and drive to 
study AMD,” he said. “In the 
past, the issue of treatment 
wasn’t even addressed. Now 
we can see that there is hope, 
real hope for individuals with 
this condition. They know 
that there is something going 
on.”

BLINDNESS
From Page 1A

students,” Charlton wrote in an 
e-mail interview.

Charlton said in the e-mail 

the Statement amendment pro-
cess is the method by which 
students defend their rights 
and determine the constraints 
on their behavior. The State-
ment is amended every several 
years by the University — CSG, 
along with the Senate Advisory 
Committee on Undergraduate 
Affairs and the administration, 
are the three groups that can 
propose amendments.

Seven 
amendments 
were 

proposed during the first term 
of CSG, some of which were 
aimed toward improving the 
amendment process and one 
of which targeted improving 
student awareness of the State-
ment. All were drafted and pro-
posed by CSG and heralded by 
Public Policy sophomore Jacob 
Pearlman, CSG General Coun-
cil. The amendments will not 
be final until University Presi-
dent Mark Schlissel approves 
them; he is expected to consider 

changes to the Statement later 
this year.

Sexual Assault Reform
The misconduct feedback 

process is a product of students 
looking inwardly at the causes 
of sexual assault and discover-
ing a problem, Charlton wrote. 
He said CSG remains steadfast 
in its dedication to eradicating 
sexual assault on campus.

“We have advocated for 

students and will have begun 
the institutional and cultural 
changes needed to protect stu-
dents,” Charlton wrote.

CSG held round tables in an 

attempt to increase conversa-
tion about sexual assault on 
campus.

Gameday dining
In September, CSG approved 

funding for a new program to 
open dining halls earlier on 
game days. The pilot program 
initially cost Michigan Din-
ing more than anticipated, and 
CSG provided $10,000 in order 
to sustain the project.

Pearlman said the 
initiative helped tens of 

thousands of students “stay 

CSG
From Page 1A

defend their decision to hire 
sharpshooters, as well as 
the public process that led 
up to the cull, which along 
with the lawsuit have also 
prompted recall petitions to 
be filed against members of 
Council.

Among the plaintiffs in 

the suit representing Ann 
Arbor Residents for Public 
Safety include Ann Arbor 
resident Sabra Sanzotta, who 
filed a petition in Decem-
ber to recall councilmember 
Kirk Westphal (D-Ward 2) 
for his support of the cull.

At the hearing to deter-

mine the legitimacy of the 
recall 
petition, 
Westphal 

said claims of the cull being 
unnecessary and high-risk 
cited in Sanzotta’s petition 
were overstated.

“It has become clear to me 

over the last couple of years 
that the language is patently 
false,” Westphal said. “I take 
issue with the notion that 
there is danger (with the 
cull).”

LAWSUIT
From Page 2A

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

