The 
committee 
also 

discussed changes to the 
Standard Practice Guideline, 
which outlines professional 
standards 
for 
faculty, 
in 

further 
detail 
during 
an 

executive session. This session 
was not open to the press.

During 
the 
meeting, 

Weineck said SACUA had 
received possible revisions 
to the SPG from Provost 
Pollack. 

“Martha (Pollack) expressed 

that she now gave us back a 
document with a considerable 
number 
of 
edits 
that 
do 

not address our concerns, 
but actually aggravate our 
concerns,” she said. 

chance to exit from financing 
the startup.

“It 
started 
off 
as 
this 

investigation 
into 
what’s 

going on in terms of gender 
and venture capital finance,” 
Raina said. “Venture capital 
financing provides money to 
early stage startups — like 
high-tech startups that aren’t 
public.”

Raina 
used 
CrunchBase, 

a database for the high-tech 
sector, to collect information 
on over 10,000 venture capital 
financing rounds and about 
3,600 startups.

CrunchBase 
included 
the 

names of the entrepreneurs 
who founded the startups as 
well as the names of the general 
partners who were leading 
the venture capitals, allowing 
Raina to use the names to 
assign gender to all of the 
people in the sample.

For the names Raina said 

he 
could 
not 
immediately 

assign a gender to — such as 
gender-ambiguous names or 
those that were uncommon 
American names — he used 
online resources to try to 

determine if they were male 
or female. Names that weren’t 
distinguishable were excluded 
from the study.

According to Raina, about 10 

percent of the entrepreneurs 
in the sample were women, 
and only about 15 percent 
of the startups had just one 
female founder. Overall, in 
entrepreneurship in the United 
States, about 36 percent of small 
businwesses 
have 
majority 

female ownership, Raina said.

Raina said he wanted to 

explore specifically whether 
the 
performance 
of 
the 

startups differed by either the 
gender of startup’s founder or 
the venture capitalist funding 
it. For the purpose of the study, 
success was determined by 
whether 
venture 
capitalists 

exited a project, signalling it 
was either public or had been 
bought by another company.

“For startups that had only 

male founders, I found they 
had an exit rate of about 27 
percent,” Raina said. “But for 
startups that had at least one 
woman founder, the exit rate 
was more like 17 percent.”

Considering 
the 
10 

percentage point difference, 
Raina then examined whether 
venture capital financing or 

advising might play a role in the 
gender gap.

He looked at rounds that 

had at least one female general 
partner 
in 
the 
financing 

syndicate 
versus 
financing 

rounds with all male partners 
in the syndicate, and compared 
the startups that were financed 
in these two types of financing 
rounds.

Startups that were financed 

by either of these two groups 
had similar proportions of 
their portfolios led by women 
founders, 
according 
to 
the 

study. In both venture capital 
groups, about 16.5 percent of 
the portfolios were startups led 
by women founders.

For 
male-led 
startups, 

there 
was 
no 
difference 

in 
performance 
based 
on 

whether they were financed 
by a syndicate with all male 
partners or by a syndicate with 
at least one female partner. 
On average, male-led startups 
successfully exited at 21 to 22 
percent of the time.

Among syndicates that had 

at least one female general 
partner, there was no difference 
in the average performance 
rates of male- led startups 
and female-led startups they 
funded. However, for financing 

syndicates that had all male 
general partners, there was a 25 
to 30 percent difference in the 
average performance rates of 
male and female-led startups.

“All of this difference is 

coming from the female-led 
startups doing much better 
when they are initially financed 
by a syndicate run by at least 
one female GP,” Raina said.

Raina 
said 
this 
makes 

him believe that the venture 
capitalists with female general 
partners are able to better 
select female-led startups, and 
this implies that some valuable 
startups might not succeed 
depending on who is financing 
them.

Finance 
Prof. 
Sugato 

Bhattacharyya, chair of Raina’s 
dissertation committee, said 
the most intriguing part of 
Raina’s 
research 
was 
that 

venture capitalist groups with 
women as partners effectively 
selected firms with women 
better.

“What it comes down to 

eventually is the notion that 
when people look at women’s 
participation in whatever way 
in this sub-area, one culprit 
that held up is the widely 
known demographic fact, at 
least in North America, women 

tend to go less into STEM 
fields historically,” he said. 
“That in itself might be causing 
disparity.”

Given the results, Raina 

said along with emphasis on 
STEM — science, technology, 
engineering and math majors 
— it may be beneficial to 
encourage women to go into 
venture capitalism or finance-
related majors as well. He 
said encouraging women to 
work in venture capital will 
result in higher participation 
and 
success 
for 
female 

entrepreneurs.

Bhattacharyya 
noted, 

however, 
that 
because 
the 

research 
is 
ongoing, 
it 
is 

difficult to say definitively 
whether a disparity among 
startups exists.

“These things are never 

static,” 
Bhattacharyya 
said. 

“They evolve. By the time we 
find that in 1996 a big disparity 
existed and then in 2015, is 
it relevant or is it not? By this 
time there will be more women 
capitalists, 
more 
women 

entrepreneurs, and maybe it 
doesn’t exist anymore.”

 Currently, The Michigan 

Daily is the only media in 
Ann Arbor to publish as a 
daily print newspaper. The 
Ann Arbor News maintained 
a daily print news cycle 
until July 2009. It currently 
publishes 
daily 
online 
at 

MLive.com, 
but 
produces 

print 
editions 
only 
on 

Thursdays and Sundays.

 
Anthony 
Collings, 
a 

University 
lecturer 
in 
the 

Department of Communication 
who focuses on journalism and 
media, said he was concerned 
the changes could lead to less 
local coverage in Ann Arbor.

 With 18 years of experience 

reading the Ann Arbor News, 
Collings said he has become 

increasingly dissatisfied with 
the level and quality of the 
paper’s local coverage, and 
now reads it rarely.

 “From what I’ve seen 

of (the Ann Arbor News), 
they rewrite press releases, 
they boost local businesses, 
they tell you about cool 
restaurants,” Collings said. 
“That’s fine, I’m all in favor 
of food and travel, but you 
also need to do the quality 
journalism. 
You 
need 
to 

investigate 
problems. 
This 

town 
has 
problems, 
like 

any place. Where is the 
journalism? Where is the 
accountability reporting?”

 No media organization has 

filled the niche of providing 
local coverage over past years, 
Collings said.

 “Ann Arbor needs good 

coverage,” Collings said. “The 

Daily is fine, but the Daily does 
a lot of focus on the campus. 
It’s a student newspaper. 
There isn’t a really good daily 
news organization covering 
Ann Arbor the way it should 
be covered.”

 Collings added that he 

believes the problem goes 
beyond Ann Arbor and is 
something that’s also missing 
in Michigan and beyond, 
citing coverage of the Flint 
water crisis in particular as an 
example of statewide failings 
in investigative journalism.

“Generally, 
journalism 

in 
the 
United 
States 
is 

undergoing a crisis. Buyouts, 
layoffs and other forms of 
staff reduction — that’s all bad 
news for the public, because 
less journalists means less 
coverage of stories that need 
to be covered,” he said.

MLIVE
From Page 1

STUDY
From Page 1

one: get them credit for doing 
the work,” Nordé said. “And 
two: that it had to be aligned 
with 
college 
and 
career 

readiness standards.”

 After adding the program 

as a course to the DPS 
catalogue, participating high 
schools also arranged busing 
and scheduling so students 
could participate.

 According to Nordé, some 

students attended the prep 
program 
in 
the 
morning 

while others attended during 
the afternoon. Busing was 
arranged by DPS to transport 
the students to and from 
the 
midtown 
architecture 

research studio back to their 
high schools, where students 
would 
then 
attend 
their 

regular classes.

“This was a phenomenal 

opportunity 
for 
students,” 

Nordé said.

In a speech during the 

graduation ceremony, Maurice 
Cox, the city of Detroit’s 
planning 
and 
development 

director, encouraged students 
to explore new opportunities 
and step out of their comfort 
zones.

“You have been taught a 

level of abstraction, a level of 
creative thinking that most 
of your peers back at school 
have not been exposed to,” 
he said. “The fact that you 
succeeded should give you 
enormous confidence.”

 
Diamond 
Long, 
Cass 

Technical 
High 
School 

junior who participated in 
the program, said she was 
grateful for the chance to 
be exposed to college-level 

architecture standards and 
criticism.

“At 
first 
I 
struggled 

because at first we were 
doing a lot of free-hand 
stuff,” Long said. “But as I got 
to the second project I was a 
lot more comfortable with it.” 

Long said her instructor, 

Michigan-Mellon 
Design 

Fellow Paulina Reyes, was 
open with students, easy to 
engage with and made the 
learning process easier for 
students.

“She’s always open-minded 

and gives me critiques on my 
work,” she said. “Which to 
me means she wants the best 
from me.”

In a speech during the 

ceremony, 
Long 
said 
she 

enjoyed the experience and 
was grateful to have had the 
chance to participate. She 
added that her perception 

of architecture has changed 
significantly since finishing 
the program.

 Following the program, 

the University will also be 
offering a follow-up workshop 
during which applicants will 
be guided through Taubman’s 
application process in an 
effort to increase the number 
of minority students studying 
architecture either at the 
University or at other schools.

 
That 
additional 
step, 

Curry said, was also an 
important part of increasing 
representation in the field.

“The way that you become 

an architect is to go to 
architecture school,” Curry 
said. “What we’re doing is 
facilitating a demystification 
of the process of applying to 
college, getting admitted to 
college and then paying for 
college.”

TAUBMAN
From Page 1

Gov. Snyder to 
create new Flint 
water committee 
in executive 
order

Gov. Rick Snyder signed 

an executive order Monday 
to create a new committee 
to work on finding solutions 
to the Flint water crisis as it 
relates to the health of the 
residents.

This follows Snyder 

declaring a state of emergency 
in Flint on Jan. 5. The 
water supply there has been 
contaminated with lead since 
the city switched from Detroit 
city water to the Flint River in 
2014. 

Residents have raised 

concerns over health damage, 
in particular the polluted 
water’s effects on young 
children, and the future safety 
of the city’s water for years to 
come.

The committee is the second 

created by Snyder, who created 
the Flint Water Advisory Task 
Force in October. 

The committee will look at 

the long-run effects of the high 
levels of lead on the health 
of Flint residents and will 
reccommend actions.

Large storm to 
sweep through 
Michigan Tuesday

A high-impact, high-wind 

snowstorm started coming 
through Michigan Monday 
night and will continue on 
Tuesday.

The storm will bring very 

low temperatures and winds 
reaching 30 mph, which will 
give the snow a powdery 
nature. Experts are concerned 
over the danger of blowing 
snow.

The snow will not be 

excessively heavy by Michigan 
winter standards, but the 
lightweight nature of the 
snow may cause near whiteout 
conditions. 

The Ann Arbor area should 

not expect more than two to 
four inches of snow by the time 
to storm concludes on Tuesday. 
Farther north, more snow can 
be expected, with the Traverse 
City area expecting upwards 
of 10 inches and the Upper 
Peninsula receiving more than 
a foot.

City names 
contest winner 
to redesign Ann 
Arbor water 
tower

The City of Ann Arbor has 

selected Bill Burgard as the 
winner of the “Art in the Sky” 
mural project, a city wide 
competition among residents to 
design a mural for Manchester 
elevated Water Tank, 
according to a press release. 

Burgard, a University 

graduate turned lecturer at 
the Stamps School of Art and 
Design, was chosen winner 
for the competition among 598 
of local applicants to for his 
submission. His entry depicted 
birds, fish and other wildlife 
swimming in a river. 

The competition first began 

in fall, with voting for 5 finalist 
entries — which were selected 
by a panel of judges comprised 
of Ann Arbor residents — 
lasting from November to 
December 15. According to the 
press release, over 3,200 votes 
were cast in the competition. 

Renovations to the water 

tank which is located at the 
corner of Washtenaw Ave. and 
Stadium Blvd. are projected to 
be completed by October 2016. 

—LYDIA MURRAY

AND ALYSSA BRANDON

NEWS BRIEFS

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Tuesday, January 12, 2015 — 3

SACUA
From Page 1

like India.

“I’ve 
heard 
really 
good 

things about Bollywood films,” 
she said. “I have only seen one 
or two, but they are really fun. 
I think one of the great things 
about Netflix is that you can 
find really obscure films as 
opposed to really mainstream 
American culture.”

For countries the company 

is entering such as India, Herl 
said thinks the expansion will 
be a good opportunity.

“They have such a thriving 

movie industry over there, but 
it doesn’t always make it over 
to 
American 
film 
audiences, 

and I think that is something 
Americans are going to enjoy,” 
she said. 

Manchanda noted, however, 

that it will be a challenge for 
Netflix to adapt and produce 
local content geared towards a 
global audience. 

“They will have to change 

and start building and start 
programing original content,” 
Manchanda 
said. 
“Which 

means 
different 
languages, 

different 
cultures, 
different 

kind of movies or shows. And 
I think that is part of their 
strategy.”

Of the 130 countries Netflix 

is expanding into, the company 
has 
not 
entered 
China, 
a 

decision 
Machanda 
said 
is 

political.

“Unless 
the 
Chinese 

government 
is 
comfortable 

with 
the 
ideals 
of 
less 

centralized streaming content, 
it will be hard for Netflix,” 
Manchanda said.

NETFLIX
From Page 1

CLAIRE ABDO/Daily

Ann Arbor resident Stuart Parnes and his friends share stories from previous games of Magic the Gathering at a tournament hosted weekly by Get Your Game On on State Street.

