2 — Friday, March 11, 2016
News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Keynote speaker 
discusses app that 

uses behavorial 

therapy technique

By GRACE CANFIELD

For the Daily

The University of Michigan 

Depression Center closed out its 
two-day Depression on College 
Campuses Conference with a 
keynote address from Dr. Robert 
Morris 
titled 
“Crowdsourcing 

Mental 
Health.” 
Thursday. 

Attendees 
were 
primarily 

University professors and alumni, 
as well as parents of children with 
depression.

Dr. John Greden, executive 

director 
of 
the 
University’s 

Comprehensive 
Depression 

Center, started the conference 14 
years ago in response to increasing 
calls for action to address the 
stigma surrounding depression and 

anxiety on college campuses. He 
sought to involve other professors 
both at the University and at other 
colleges across the United States, 
eventually bringing on Todd Sevig 
and Daniel Eisenberg, co-founders 
of the University’s Depression 
Center, to help organize the event, 
ultimately expanding to include 
450 registered in attendance this 
year. Sevig is currently the director 
of the University’s Counseling and 
Psychological Services.

Greden said though he has been 

involved in the conference each 
year, the organizational efforts of 
other University members have 
allowed the program to expand 
and improve.

“The credit for organizing a 

lot of this just belongs to a team 
of students, counselors, RAs, a 
number of administrators — I 
mean everybody gets together and 
says, ‘who should we invite this 
year that’s really special?’” he said.

Morris, 
the 
committee’s 

choice, is the founder of the social 
platform Koko, an iPhone-based 

app that strives to connect users 
looking for alternative methods to 
cope with depression and anxiety.

Morris explained that he came 

up with the idea for Koko while 
struggling with depression on his 
own as a student at Massachusetts 
Institute 
of 
Technology. 
He 

encountered a website called Stack 
Overflow, which allows users to 
post questions while learning how 
to program and write code, and 
other users will help them solve 
their problem.

“Just as we can use this system 

to identify and fix bugs in our code, 
perhaps we can do something 
similar to help us identify and fix 
bugs in our thinking,” Morris said.

The app uses an interface 

similar to that of Twitter or 
Facebook, allowing users to post 
about day-to-day situations and 
ask for advice, which is given 
in the form of “reframes” by 
anonymous users. The “reframes” 
are a system of commenting and 
refining discussion to approach an 
issue from a different perspective. 
This follows a method of cognitive 
behavioral 
therapy 
in 
which 

seemingly overwhelming issues 
are recast in a different, hopefully 
more positive light, with the intent 
to help the user find a new way 
to think about the problem or 
situation.

Morris used a personal anecdote 

to illustrate the experience of 
using the app, in which he posted 
about a stressful situation that he 
encountered in his life.

“My wife really wants a baby, 

but I’m not sure,” he wrote. “There 
is a chance my child will struggle 
with depression and chronic pain, 
as I have.”

He followed this post with what 

he described as a negative thought, 
an explanation of the view that 
pervaded his way of thinking 
about the situation:

“I worry I won’t be able to care 

for (the child), as I sometimes 
struggle to care for myself,” the 
post read.

Morris 
then 
showed 
the 

audience multiple examples of 
“reframes” that he got from other 
users, similar to comments on 

 MATT VAILLIENCOURT/Dailly

LSA junior Trevor Torres performs a poem as a part of Michigan’s slam poetry team at the Michigan League on Thursday.

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Performance topics 
range from family, 

to health and 

identity

By TANYA MADHANI

Daily Staff Reporter

The University of Michigan 

Slam Poetry Club hosted its 
final campus performance of the 
academic year Thursday in the 
Michigan League basement to an 
audience of 40 people. The themes 
of the poems performed centered 
around family, acceptance and 
identity.

Performers 
at 
the 
event 

were LSA sophomores Laura 
Schwendeman and Alyssa Holt 
and LSA juniors Trevor Torres 
and Eileen Li. The four compose 
the organization’s National Slam 
Poetry Team. From April 6 to 9, 
they will travel to Austin, Texas 
to compete in the College Unions 
Poetry Slam Invitational against 
more than 60 different collegiate 
teams.

Schwendeman 
shared 
a 

poem during the event about 
her grandmother’s battle with 
postpartum 
psychosis, 
and 

another about her relationship 
with her father.

“A lot of the poems we read 

tonight aren’t specific instances 
or experiences that everyone in 
the audience might have had, but 
hopefully they could connect on 
them on some level,” she said. 
“That’s sort of the basis of poetry 
… to get people to relate to us in a 
way we can relate to them.”

LSA junior Coral Lu said she 

attended the event to support 
Schwendeman and the club as a 
whole. One of the most moving 
poems for her, she said, was 
Torres’ poem about his battle 
with juvenile diabetes and celiac 
disease.

“They were all really powerful 

and all really sad,” Lu said. “It 
was just really powerful how his 
personal experiences talked to 
you … I didn’t really expect it to be 
that personal and strong.”

For 
Schwendeman, 
the 

evening’s performance was a 
chance for the team not only to 
showcase its work, but also to 
gain feedback from the University 
audience 
about 
its 
poems. 

Forming the national team is a 
long process, she said, beginning 
in January. In the lead up to the 
final decisions, there are both a 
series of fall events and poetry 

slams each month.

Lu said she thought it was 

important for students to come 
and support organizations like the 
Slam Poetry Club, both to provide 
feedback to the poets about their 
writing as well as to be exposed to 
a new art form.

“I think there are a lot of 

amazing things going on on 
campus that people don’t really 
know of,” she said. “They’re going 
to nationals and it’s a pretty big 
thing, but not too many people 
know of it. And they definitely 
need to practice, and we need to 
get to know how awesome they 
are and what slam poetry really 
is.”

Kylie 
Carpenter, 
a 
Public 

Health masters student, said 
she 
found 
Li’s 
poem 
about 

miscommunication between her 
mother’s native language and her 
English the most powerful, adding 
that she thought slam poetry gives 
students an outlet they wouldn’t 
otherwise find at the University.

“I thought that was interesting, 

like the different perspective 
of the culture,” she said. “It’s 
something like a hobby that 
people have, you can’t express 
it during classes. It’s something 
you can kind of experience in a 

THREE THINGS YOU 
SHOULD KNOW TODAY

CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES
CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES

ZOEY HOLMSTROM/Daily

Nate Ruess of FUN performs at the Bernie Sanders rally in Crisler Center on 
Monday. The rally came just before Michigan’s primaries on Tuesday.

PHOTOS OF THE WEEK

SINDUJA KILARU/Daily

Pitaya employee and EMU student Keanu Palmer folds clothes in Pitaya on Wednesday.

A 
Donald 
Trump 

supporter 
was 

charged 
with 
two 

counts 
of 
assault 
and 

disorderly 
conduct 
after 

punching a Black protestor at 
a rally in North Carolina , the 
Washington Post reported. 

2

The 
Justice 

Department 
responded to Apple 
in its dispute over 

the 
San 
Bernandino 

shooter’s locked iPhone, 
accusing 
the 
company 

of 
false 
rhetoric 
and 

“overblown” fear, the New 
York Times reported. 

Pennsylvania 
police are hunting 
for 
two 
attackers 

who 
opened 
fire 

at a backyard party on 
Wednesday 
night. 
The 

death toll from the shooting 
has risen to six people, 
according to Fox News. 

3

Historic 
sites lecture

WHAT: The 
International 
Coalition of Sites of 
Conscience will explore 
historic sites and 
their contemporary 
implications. 
WHO: Museum 
Studies Program
WHEN: 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. 
WHERE: UMMA, 
room 125 

UMMA after 
hours

WHAT: The museum 
will open galleries and 
special exhibits. Live music 
and refreshments will be 
available.
WHO: University of 
Michigan Museum of Art
WHEN: 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. 
WHERE: UMMA

The Big Short 
screening

WHAT: A free screening 
of the Oscar-winning 
movie about the carsh 
of the housing market. 
WHO: University 
Activities Center
WHEN: 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
WHERE: Natural 
Sciences Auditorium 

ITS Windows 
workshop 

WHAT: The Computer 
Showcase will address 
students’ ease of access 
with Windows 7 and 
Windows 10. 
WHO: Information and 
Technology Services
WHEN: 11 a.m. to 12 p.m.
WHERE: Michigan 
Union, room G-312

Climate change 
symposium

WHAT: Presentations 
will focus on links between 
climate change and social 
conflict in the Middle East. 
WHO: Center for Middle 
Eastern and North 
African Studies 
WHEN: 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. 
WHERE: Weill Hall, 
Annenberg Auditorium

Ross Gay 
reading

WHAT: The National 
Book Award finalist 
and Indiana University 
professor will host 
a reading of his 
poetry and prose.
WHO: Lloyd Hall Scholars
WHEN: 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. 
WHERE: Literati 
Bookstore

Big Fun and 
Miles Davis
WHAT: Big Fun will play the 
electric music of Miles Davis.
WHO: Campus Information
WHEN: 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
WHERE: East Quad, Keene 
Theatre
l Please report any error in 
the Daily to corrections@
michigandaily.com.

Students art 
exhibit 

WHAT: Chroma’s 
opening on Friday will 
present narratives of 
people of color through 
performances and visual 
art. 
WHO: Middle East and 
Arab Network
WHEN: 7 p.m. to 8:30 
p.m.
WHERE: North Quad 

Conference aims to encourage 
dialogue about mental health

Before national competition, 
slam poetry team hosts event

See KEYNOTE, Page 3
See POETRY, Page 3

1

