The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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Friday, November 18, 2016 — 3A

2-News

ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily

Business junior Christopher McClendon sings as part of the Love Movement on the Diag Thursday. 

this one that bring together 
different groups dedicated to 
sustainability.

“You get a bigger bang for your 

buck; everything kind of reinforces 
everything else,” she added.

“What we’re doing reinforces 

what 
Recycle 
Ann 
Arbor’s 

doing, which reinforces energy 
management, all of those kinds 
of things,” she said. “It’s a 
bigger message when we all 
come together to reach a bigger 
audience.”

However, 
LSA 
senior 
Liz 

Bedrick, a board member for the 
Student Sustainability Initative, 
voiced disappointment regarding 
the lack of a Q&A session, which 
was a part of the town hall in 
previous years. Bedrick also said 
she felt the event’s scope was 
narrower than she expected and 
focused on the efforts of only a 
few departments.

“I thought it could have been 

a little more comprehensive,” 
Bedrick said. “A lot of stakeholders 

weren’t accounted for here. They 
only had four people talk from 
three different offices, so I think 
they could have had a wider array 
of people.”

Nonetheless, she said she felt 

the representatives from these 
departments 
demonstrated 

a 
positive 
trajectory 
for 

sustainability on campus.

“But I think in terms of their 

goals they all seem to be on track, 
and I think a lot of the initiatives 
going on are really great,” she said.

Engineering 
senior 
Natalie 

Salton said she appreciated the 
format of the town hall event 
because it provided opportunities 
for the community to actively 
engage 
with 
the 
topic 
and 

interact with others involved in 
sustainability programs.

“If the University only put out 

reports, I think you’ll have a lot 
lower participation and awareness 
of what’s going on,” she said. “... 
You can still talk to people, see 
what things are available around 
campus by having interpersonal 
relationships. It’s a lot more 
effective at communicating stuff 
than throwing reports and fliers 
at people.”

SUSTAINABILITY
From Page 1A

move to California, she said she 
promptly began working with 
city officials to create a plan for 
filling her soon-to-be vacant 
spot, minimizing the amount of 
disruption that would ensue.

“In other situations in the 

past, people have moved and 
resigned but because I have full 
warning and I’m the kind of 
person I am, when I understood 
that my son was successful in 
purchasing the house and I had 
a basic idea of when I would 
move, I worked with the mayor 
and the city administrator and 
the city attorney to create a 
reasonable process proposal, 
and council then looked at that 
process proposal and improved 
it,” Briere said.

People interested in filling 

the vacancy have until 2 p.m. 
on Nov. 23 to complete an 
online application. On Nov. 28, 
the council will interview all 
applicants individually.

Briere said the administration 

committee, which is a subgroup 
of the council, is currently 
deciding on a series of interview 
questions to ask applicants, 
which will be made public by 
Nov. 23.

At the Dec. 5 council meeting, 

Briere will offer a resolution 
declaring 
her 
resignation, 

creating a vacancy and stepping 
away from the table to allow 
council members to discuss who 
should fill the seat.

Ward 
1 
resident 
Jeffrey 

Hayner, who ran for the City 
Council seat in 2013, said he is 
currently deciding if he will 

apply for the vacancy, but hopes 
the position will be filled by 
someone who represents the 
community voice.

“Sabra has done so much 

to 
promote 
community 

involvement and participation, 
so I really want to make sure 
that seat goes to whoever it 
is that can keep some of that 
going,” 
Hayner 
said. 
“It’s 

important.”

Hayner 
also 
said 
he 
is 

concerned that this position 
will be appointed rather than 
taken to a public vote, especially 
following 
the 
city’s 
recent 

vote to move to four-year term 
lengths.

“I haven’t read what the clerk 

has to say yet, but I followed some 
of it when they were discussing 
it,” Hayner said. “I don’t love it 
because appointments always 
lend themselves to abuse of the 
majority.”

Briere said she hopes the 

opportunity to apply for this 
position will attract a different 
pool of candidates than those 
who would run in an election 
against an incumbent.

“It is my hope that a number 

of people will apply who are 
supremely qualified, but whose 
names have never appeared on 
a ballot.” 

CITY COUNCIL
From Page 1A

violated 
or 
experiencing 

violence or incarceration for 
whatever reason,” Ridley said.

While noting it is important 

to acknowledge the harsh 
realities 
of 
living 
as 
a 

transgender person, Ridley 
said it is equally important 
to 
remind 
others 
why 

transgender women risk so 
much to express their gender 
identity in the first place.

“I really just want to find 

and look for and dig for those 

stories, not that they haven’t 
experienced marginalization, 
but 
this 
ever 
present 

human story of overcoming 
these 
obstacles 
and 
being 

triumphant and finding love 
and finding joy with other 
people and with themselves,” 
Ridley said.

Panelist 
Mari 
Brighe, 

Spectrum 
Center 
graduate 

communications coordinator, 
agreed that more positive 
stories 
of 
transgender 

experience 
should 
be 

shared. 
Brighe, 
whose 

articles discussing life as a 
transgender woman have been 
featured in publications like 

Vice, Mic and Bustle, said she 
shares her stories publicly 
despite receiving daily threats 
because she feels obligated 
to readers who relate to her 
experiences.

“Honestly, every time I get 

an email or a tweet or a message 
from someone who tells me 
that my work is important 
to them, is important to 
them for being safe or being 
included or feeling welcomed 
or feeling like their ideas and 
experiences were validated, 
that means everything in the 
world to me and outweighs a 
million threats,” Brighe said.

Mark Chung Kwan Fan, 

assistant 
director 
of 
the 

Spectrum 
Center, 
echoed 

Ridley’s sentiments and said 
he hoped the panel discussion 
helped 
individuals 
in 
the 

University and transgender 
community hear more positive 
stories 
about 
overcoming 

marginalization 
to 
find 

happiness.

“It’s really to share their 

experiences 
of 
not 
just 

marginalization 
but 
also 

success,” Chung Kwan Fan 
said. “Because even though you 
identify within an oppressed 
community so to speak, you 
do have opportunities to be 
successful as well.”

STORYTELLING
From Page 1A

adults staying in a shelter live 
with a serious mental illness,” 
Blake said. “Part of why this 
number is so high is because 
folks 
with 
mental 
illness, 

especially 
severe 
persistent 

mental illness, even if they 
are able to get into housing, 
they usually require or would 
like some additional support, 
and there’s not a whole lot of 
permanent support in housing 
out there.”

Avalon Housing currently 

owns and operates 21 properties 
in Ann Arbor that serve both 
single adults as well as families. 
According to Blake, housing 
units 
on 
these 
properties 

currently house more than 400 
individuals. She emphasized 
that the nonprofit operates 
more as a support service rather 
than a landlord.

“There are a lot of public 

housing 
agencies 
nationally 

that are either starting to 
move themselves in offering 
permanent supportive housing 
or are partnering with groups 
like Avalon who are already 
doing it,” she said. “What all 
the research and studies show 
is that permanent supportive 
housing is what’s most effective 
in terms of keeping people 
safely housed.”

Blake 
also 
highlighted 

efforts individuals can make 
to 
become 
more 
informed 

about homelessness, attending 
City 
Council 
meetings 
to 

hear council and community 
members 
present 
their 

positions on the issue. She noted 
public hearings in the past 
have highlight mixed attitudes 
of citizens about proposals 
and developments related to 
affordable housing.

“What we see is sort of a mix of 

folks coming out,” she said. “We 
will see some folks who show 
up and say, ‘I’m so in support of 
there being affordable housing 

in Ann Arbor.’ Then we get folks 
coming out saying, ‘Not in my 
backyard. I don’t want folks who 
need affordable housing living 
by me; I don’t want folks with 
mental illness living near me.’ ”

In an interview with the 

Daily after the event, Blake 
elaborated, 
saying 
residents 

who oppose affordable housing 
project developments in their 
neighborhoods often support 
the idea in general.

She noted that, historically, 

City Council has been highly 
supportive 
of 
Avalon’s 
and 

similar organizations’ work.

LSA junior Carly Noah, a 

member of the CASC Student 
Board who organized the talk, 
said coming from a small, rural 
town, her first experiences 
with homelessness during her 
freshman year exposed her to 
issues of wealth disparities that 
are more prevalent in urban 
environments.

“It was during the winter, and 

I saw people wearing Canada 
Goose coats, and I thought 

there are so many people who 
are homeless, so I was really 
bothered by the discrepancy 
between the two,” she said.

In her remarks, Blake also 

highlighted the gaps in wealth 
that exist in Ann Arbor and 
Washtenaw County, noting that 
while the county is relatively 
wealthy, there are a number of 
individuals who are of lower 
socioeconomic status.

“We have a lot of privilege 

in this county, we have a lot of 
privilege associated with the 
‘U,’ and I don’t think a lot of 
people realize just how much 
inequality there is in Ann Arbor 
currently,” she said.

LSA 
freshman 
Paul 

Chamberlain said after the 
event that at the start, he didn’t 
understand the full scope of the 
issue and the work of advocacy 
organizations like Avalon.

“I felt like I wasn’t really 

aware of the extent of the 
problem, and I was encouraged 
by what people are doing to 
meet the problem,” he said.

HOMELESSNESS
From Page 1A

the FDA’s new tobacco rule. 
Under this rule, the FDA 
regulates all tobacco products, 
including 
hookah 
and 

e-cigarettes, among others.

The 
ACA-sponsored 
day, 

called the Great American 
Smokeout, 
began 
in 
the 

1970s and takes place every 
year on the third Thursday 
of 
November. 
Smokers 
are 

encouraged to either make a 
plan to quit smoking or use the 
day to kick off their plan.

According 
to 
the 
ACA’s 

website, 40 million Americans 
smoke cigarettes, and tobacco 
is the largest preventable cause 
of health complications and 
death.

TCS 
Program 
Manager 

Alison Nix said “Quit For A 
Day” opens a window for TCS 
to promote its resources to 
people who may be interested 
in quitting smoking or who 
would simply like to experience 
what it would be like to quit for 
a day.

“We feel like we have a role 

to share information on this 
day not only from an education 
perspective 
around 
what’s 

going on in the field, but also 
to provide information and 
support to individuals,” she 
said.

Scheduling 
the 
various 

events to culminate on the 
same day as the Great American 
Smokeout, she added, helps 
TCS take part in a national 
conversation at a community 
level.

“It’s an opportunity for us 

to share information on a day 
that people are really keyed in 
to because it’s a historical event 
that’s been happening for many 
years,” she said. “By having it on 
the Great American Smokeout, 
it’s a day that we can focus in 
on and highlight the resources 
that we have available to help 
people do that.”

Public Health Prof. Cliff 

Douglas, who teaches classes 
in tobacco policy and serves as 
the vice president for tobacco 
control at the American Cancer 
Society, noted in an interview 
that 
about 
90 
percent 
of 

smokers start smoking by the 
age of 18, and 99 percent start 
by the age of 26.

As a result, Douglas said, 

efforts like “Quit for a Day” 
in a university setting can be 
very influential. He added that 
knowledge and awareness are 

critical in a college environment 
and among students.

“One 
critical 
focus, 
of 

course, is students,” he said. 
“You’ve got a fairly significant 
percentage of smokers who 
start during the college years, 
so it’s a key transition time 
when a college student who 
smokes will either decide to 
quit or will continue smoking 
for many years to come and 
suffer the consequences. Or, 
in some cases, it determines 
whether a student starts to 
smoke.”

TCS efforts are slated to 

continue throughout the month 
— through the end of November, 
a wall in UMHS’s Towsley 
Center will continue to feature 
stories from people who used 
TCS to help them quit smoking 
as well as information about 
other methods to help quit.

SMOKING
From Page 1A

now can all work to ensure that 
tomorrow is better than today 
and two days from now are 
better than tomorrow.”

She told the crowd that the 

shock of increasingly angry 
and 
discriminatory 
rhetoric 

on campus following Trump’s 
election inspired the creation of 

an all-inclusive movement.

“We 
believe 
that 
people 

have a right to be angry and 
they have a right to be scared,” 
Jawad 
continued. 
“But 
we 

want to counteract all of that 
because if we come together as a 
community it can rise us up. It’s 
been a really frustrating week. 
My Uber driver cussed at me 
when I dropped a food crumb in 
his car. I told him, ‘Thank you 
and have a nice day,’ and that’s 
the model of our movement.”

McClendon 
reminded 
the 

group that love and peace can 
prevail as long as they allow it 
to.

“I don’t care what weapon 

may fall against me,” McClendon 
said. “I will prosper because 
I believe in peace. I love that 
hijab Nadine wears. I love the 
timbs on my feet and my nappy 
hair. I love all of you, whether 
you’re black or white or blue or 
green or yellow or anything in 
between.” 

SPEAKOUT
From Page 2A

The University of Michigan 

Bicentennial Office hosted a 
Diag Day Thursday afternoon 
to 
spread 
information 

about 
the 
activities 
and 

events planned for the 2017 
bicentennial 
year. 
Two 

organizers — the Michigan 
Bicentennial 
Archive 
and 

the 
Bicentennial 
Student 

Advisory Committee — set 
up two booths in the center 
of the Diag with the goal 
of increasing interest and 
student involvement in the 
University’s 
bicentennial 

year.

M-BARC 
focused 
on 

disseminating 
information 

about a time capsule they are 
developing for the occasion. 
Designed 
by 
University 

engineers, it will be launched 
into space this summer to 
orbit for 100 years and will 
include information stored in 
the form of interviews, audio 
and video files and DNA.

On 
Thursday, 
LSA 

senior 
Paul 
Stefanski, 
a 

representative from M-BARC, 

signed up interested students 
to be interviewed for the 
project. 
M-BARC 
plans 

to conduct 1,000 of these 
interviews in total, which 
won’t be heard until the 
capsule is brought down from 
space by the class of 2117.

“No one has ever sent 

something into space for 100 
years before or even designed 
anything with that intention, 
especially since some of the 
information is being stored in 
DNA,” Stefanski said. “It will 
be an interesting experiment 
for scientific purposes as 
well. Our mission is to make 
a time capsule unlike any that 
has been made before.”

Nursing 
freshman 
Mary 

Kostesich was one of many 
students who signed up for an 
interview for the time capsule, 
and said she was excited to be 
involved in such a project.

“I’m really excited for the 

space 
capsule,” 
Kostesich 

said. “I think it’s so cool that 
this will be the first of its 
kind and is being created by 
University engineers.”

Members 
of 
the 

Bicentennial 
Student 

Advisory 
Committee 
also 

spoke to students in the next 
booth about the other 2017 
bicentennial events and how 
they can get involved. The 
University will be offering 
classes, open to students and 
the public, for both the winter 
and fall 2017 semesters about 
the history, effect and future 
of the institution.

Public 
Health 
student 

Peter DeJonge, a member 
of the Bicentennial Student 
Advisory 
Committee, 

said the committee is also 
encouraging 
other 
student 

organizations to get involved 
in the celebration.

“There are a lot of ways 

for your student club to get 
involved,” DeJonge said. “If 
they want to incorporate a 
bicentennial theme they can 
talk to us or they can talk to 
the bicentennial committee, 
and they can integrate that 
into their own activities.

The 
bicentennial 
year 

will also see campus visits 
from several notable alumni, 
seasonal festivals and other 
University-sponsored events.

‘U’ Bicentennial Office holds 
Diag event to raise awareness

Organizers set up booths aiming to increase student interest

ALEXIS RANKIN

For the Daily

“Sabra has done so 

much to promote 

community involvement 

and participation”

Join the news section. Help tell the stories of fellow students. 

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