I

ncoming regent Ron Weiser 
is, objectively, a very nice 
man. 
When I had the 

opportunity to interview him 
several weeks ago, just 
before the election on 
Nov. 8, I was struck 
by 
how 
incredibly 

personable 
and 

well-spoken he was. 
His experience as a 
diplomat was apparent; 
he carried himself like 
a statesman, but did 
so with a smile on 
his face and a joke or 
anecdote at the ready. 
He was excited at the 
opportunity to engage one-on-one 
with a student and gave a great 
interview. However, none of that 
changes the fact that I find him to 
be categorically and utterly wrong 
on a laundry list of issues. And 
I’m not alone. But he’s not wrong 
about absolutely everything.

Just after the election, he 

made thoroughly inappropriate 
comments at a post-election 
analysis 
panel 
hosted 
by 

the Ford School of Public 
Policy. He talked about the 
fact that he often feels “very 
unwelcome on campus” as 
a Republican, ignoring the 
thousands of students who 
were petrified to walk to class 
on Nov. 9 because of their 
skin color, religion or sexual 
orientation 
— 
a 
statement 

that seems particularly whiny 
and clueless in consideration 
of the on-campus incident in 
which someone would feel 
legitimately 
unwelcome 
a 

few days later. He hid behind 
his platform as an “economic 
conservative” when explaining 
his support for Trump — 
because a vote for hate and 
indecency is OK if it’s good for 
your wallet — and talked about 
how he found it “offensive” 
that people could not separate 
his own political views from 
aspects of “Trumpism” that he 
finds despicable. This is from a 
member of the Trump Victory 
Committee, 
a 
fundraising 

committee for the Republican 
National Committee, and a 
man who will serve as finance 
vice chair for the president-
elect’s inauguration.

Simply put, Ron Weiser is 

out of touch with the student 
body on a lot of issues, with one 
colossal exception: tuition. And 

if you’re an out-of-
state student like me, 
his election presents 
an opportunity in an 
incredibly 
divided 

political 
climate 

to 
get 
something 

important done.

Why? 
Well 
it’s 

important to note 
first and foremost 
that 
Michiganders 

can get extremely 
protective 
when 

it comes to tuition. Every 
single candidate for the board, 
Democrat 
and 
Republican 

alike, campaigned on the need 
to keep in-state tuition low for 
Michigan families. This makes 
sense: Regents are elected by 
Michigan families. But it’s also 
problematic.

State 
funding 
for 
higher 

education took a big hit in 2011 
due to budget cuts by Gov. 
Rick Snyder. Although with 
moderate increases levels have 
returned to what they were in 
2011, the cut was poorly timed. 
The University of Michigan is 
spending like crazy: Renovating 
buildings, 
constructing 
new 

ones, continuing to rise in 
higher 
education 
rankings 

and hiring big-name coaches 
all at the same time is a costly 
exercise. And for the most part, 
it has been on the backs of out-
of-state students, most of whom 
pay very high tuition.

I know what you’re thinking. 

Michigan families have been 
paying taxes to the state, and 
therefore into the University, 
for years, and so it’s fair that 
out-of-staters pay more. And I 
knew what I was getting myself 
into from the start. You’re right. 
But three times more and rising? 
With tuition hikes every year 
since I stepped foot on campus? 
Is that still fair?

And here’s where Ron Weiser 

comes in. In his platform, 
he posits that you “wouldn’t 
purchase 
a 
home 
without 

knowing your cost over the term 
of your loan, and you shouldn’t 
go to school without knowing the 

cost of your degree.” As regent, 
Weiser wants to guarantee that 
the price tag on your degree 
when you walk into orientation is 
the same price tag you see when 
you walk at graduation. For all 
students, 
and 
especially 
for 

middle-class out-of-staters who 
don’t qualify for financial aid — 
look left and right, you’re likely 
sitting next to one of them — that 
would be a huge and important 
step in the fight for affordable 
higher education.

Tuition at the University 

has increased by 91 percent 
since 2003 — not accounting for 
inflation — to the tune of about 
$26,000 for out-of-state students. 
Slowly 
but 
surely, 
middle-

class students from around the 
country are being priced out 
of going here with rising costs, 
too little financial aid and a 
refusal to raise in-state tuition 
by any substantial amount. By 
the way, these are students 
who contribute greatly to our 
university community, whose 
test scores and tuition and theses 
are helping to improve the school 
we love — contributions that 
benefit future Michiganders, by 
the way.

So, while I’m more than 

happy to stand in opposition 
to Ron Weiser on any number 
of issues — to protest in the 
Diag or change my Facebook 
profile picture or walk out of 
class if necessary — it’s time to 
recognize that when it comes to 
tuition, Weiser could help make 
real progress. A regent with his 
position on tuition is rare. Out-
of-staters, this guy, as flawed 
and out of touch as he may be, is 
pretty much our only hope that 
tuition isn’t $70,000 by 2025. 
Or, we can turn our nose up at 
him because of the R next to his 
name on the ballot and watch 
as a college degree becomes a 
privilege of the uber-wealthy 
and the abyss that is student 
debt grows deeper and deeper 
every year. Instead, I choose 
as a starting point the fact that 
Ron Weiser is, objectively, a very 
nice man.

Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Wednesday, December 7, 2016

At least Weiser is right on tuition

JASON

ROWLAND

LAURA SCHINAGLE

Managing Editor

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

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Editor in Chief

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and REGAN DETWILER 

Editorial Page Editors

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. 

All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

Carolyn Ayaub
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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

BRETT GRAHAM | COLUMN

BRETT

GRAHAM

Brett Graham can be reached at 

btgraham@umich.edu.

JASON ROWLAND | COLUMN
Combatting the sophomore slump
B

elieve it or not, we 
columnists 
have 
a 

topic 
we’re 
supposed 

to explore over the course of 
the semester. Perhaps harder 
to believe, my topic 
is not race relations 
on campus or the 
presidential election, 
but 
“the 
first-year 

experience.” 
So 

maybe it’s fitting that 
after a semester of 
not writing about my 
assigned topic, my 
final column of the 
semester is also not 
about the first-year 
experience, but about combating 
the dreaded sophomore slump.

The 
mechanisms 
behind 

this slump are simple: During 
freshman year, everything is 
new and everyone is focused on 
ensuring an easy transition into 
college life. However, at the end 
of the year, everything that was 
once exciting becomes normal 
and routine. This phenomenon 
is actually pretty common. It 
happened to me when I received 
my first phone, my first laptop 
and, apparently, enrolled in 
college. Living in a new dorm 
with new friends became living 
in a germ-infested dungeon, a 
fun game against an in-state 
rival became a soul-crushing 
loss that will never be forgotten 
and the beauty of snow in 
the Law Quad became just 
something that interrupted my 
walk to class.

All of this seems to be 

compounded 
by 
the 
fact 

that during sophomore year, 
classes 
get 
tougher 
while 

extracurricular 
demands 

begin to pile up. “What are you 
majoring in?” replaces “How do 
you like school?” and everyone 
wants to know where you’re 
interning over the summer. As 
if that wasn’t enough, the school 
treats us sophomores like an 
elderly dog — once young and 
adored but now old and unloved 
— compared to the treatment we 
received upon entering campus.

To be fair, this is far from being 

just a University of Michigan 

phenomenon. Every publication 
from The New York Times to 
USA Today has written about 
the slump at colleges across the 
country. Yet nothing seems to be 

getting done to avoid 
it. 
While 
joining 

new clubs or making 
new 
friends 
seem 

like easy solutions, 
most students’ top 
priorities lie in the 
more 
challenging 

and 
demanding 

classroom. As a result, 
time that was spent 
during freshman year 
exploring 
interests 

or talking to new people is now 
spent doing section readings or 
studying for exams.

At its root, the sophomore 

slump is the disappointment 
felt by a student who can’t 
quite 
capture 
the 
same 

excitement they felt during 
their first year. Based on my 
experience, the cure for this, 
then, is not necessarily joining 
new organizations (though, as 
long as you’re not overbooked, 
that certainly doesn’t hurt). 
The best way to combat the 
sophomore slump is simply to 
adjust your expectations and 
then balance accordingly.

First, it’s important to know 

that almost nothing we do will 
recapture all of the excitement 
of freshman year. However, 
colleges should do a better job 
at conveying that each year is 
supposed to be very different 
from the last. To survive in the 
21st century, it’s essential that 
we can adapt to constant change. 
The same holds true for making 
it through our college careers. 
If sophomore year was just like 
freshman year, it’d be a sign that 
progress through the “college 
experience” is not occurring. 
This is because sophomores 
are held to a higher academic 
standard 
and 
have 
higher 

expectations to meet than their 
freshman 
counterparts. 
By 

now, after a year of experience 
of classes at the university 
level, 
we’re 
expected 
to 

understand how school works. 

By this point, we’re working 
toward our majors and taking 
fewer distribution classes. By 
sophomore year, our shift in 
mindset from being here to enjoy 
ourselves to being here to work 
toward a better future should 
be well underway. Furthermore, 
it’s important to realize that this 
shift isn’t bad — despite what 
films and TV shows, replete 
with partying and little actual 
studying, have to say about the 
college experience.

With these new expectations, 

a delicate balance must be 
made so personal growth is 
still possible. During freshman 
year, filled with less-intensive 
introductory courses and, as 
a result, more free time, it’s 
possible to dedicate almost all of 
your time outside the classroom 
to exploring new interests and 
people. In later years, however, 
course work begins to eat up 
more and more of your waking 
hours. Achieving a balance, 
where class assignments reign 
as the top priority but you’re still 
finding time for extracurricular 
pursuits, should be the goal 
for sophomore students — not 
a futile pursuit of excitement 
from years before.

As for finding this perfect 

balance, I’m still struggling. 
If I spend too much time in 
the library, I stop enjoying my 
time in college; too much time 
hanging out with friends leads 
to stress around due dates over 
the course of the semester 
and 
during 
exam 
week. 

However, just knowing that 
this uncertainty is acceptable, 
even if it leads to feelings I 
didn’t experience during my 
freshman year, is my way to 
keep the sophomore slump at 
bay. So, first-year students, live 
it up while you still can. And to 
sophomores and up: Know that 
the freshman experience won’t 
last forever, but keep in mind 
that it’s not supposed to, and 
you’ll be more than OK.

Jason Rowland can be reached at 

jerow@umich.edu.

JEFF BROOKS | COLUMN
Trump endangers First Amendment rights
F

reedom of the press, 
freedom 
of 
speech 

and 
the 
freedom 
of 

assembly — the foundation of 
American democracy is in the 
First 
Amendment. 

Be you a Democrat, 
a 
Republican 
or 

something 
in 

between, relative to 
most people in the 
world, you’re free to 
express your opinion 
in any way you see 
fit. This notion is 
so deeply ingrained 
in the DNA of our 
nation that it’s almost 
unfathomable to consider that 
there are others who are deprived 
of these freedoms. Yet, despite 
the fact that these fundamental 
rights are written into the 
United 
States’ 
Constitution, 

which all but guarantees that its 
citizens will forever have these 
rights, we must never forget that 
the suppression of free speech 
will always be a very real threat 
to democracy.

That is exactly why I continue 

to find Donald Trump’s recent 
statements 
so 
troubling. 

Throughout the course of the 
past year, Trump has repeatedly 
expressed his desire to weaken 
the power of our most vital right 
and has received an alarmingly 
low degree of criticism for his 
comments. Most recently, he 
claimed that if anyone were to 
burn the American flag, “there 
must be consequences — perhaps 
loss of citizenship or year in jail!”

Putting aside the fact that 

threatening to expatriate U.S. 
citizens is a deeply disturbing 
sentiment 
in 
itself, 
many 

Americans will claim that a law 
preventing this type of behavior 
would have no effect on their daily 
lives, as they would never dream of 
desecrating the flag. Yet the truth 
is that regardless of if you agree 
with the action of flag-burning 
itself, a law of this nature would 
set a very dangerous precedent, 
as the Supreme Court has deemed 

the act a form of symbolic speech 
protected by the First Amendment 
on multiple occasions.

If a U.S. citizen could be 

arrested or even stripped of 

their citizenship for 
an act that is clearly 
protected under the 
First Amendment, an 
all-out war on free 
speech could begin. 
Once 
flag-burning 

is outlawed, what is 
to stop the president 
from 
punishing 

U.S. 
citizens 
for 

engaging 
in 
other 

acts of protest? Could 

someone be arrested for simply 
marching in the streets? Is it so 
ludicrous to suggest that under 
these circumstances, one could 
be arrested for speaking ill of the 
president in any way? While I 
understand that these examples 
are extreme in nature, they are 
important to mention, as this is 
the type of slippery slope that a 
law of this nature would create.

Many will say that treating 

Trump’s statement with this 
degree of seriousness is an 
overreaction, and I would agree 
if it had been made in a vacuum. 
Yet we must remember that this 
decree is coming from the same 
man who once urged his own 
supporters to “knock the crap 
out of” protesters at his rallies. 
His actions and statements 
have continued to build upon 
one another over the course 
of the past year, and it is clear 
that an anti-First Amendment 
sentiment has emerged from 
Trump’s corner.

For a man who has vehemently 

protested 
the 
political 

correctness 
and 
sensitivity 

of modern American society, 
Trump has made it quite clear 
that any negative comments 
hurled in his direction will not 
be tolerated. He has repeatedly 
insulted reporters who have 
criticized him or asked him 
tough questions and even banned 
many news organizations from 

attending his events for fear of 
negative coverage. Perhaps most 
concerning of all, he has claimed 
on multiple occasions that he 
will “open up our libel laws” 
so it will be much easier to sue 
reporters and news outlets for 
publishing negative stories.

Many 
have 
realized 
the 

danger that Trump’s statements 
represent, and the Committee 
to Protect Journalists, a non-
partisan 
committee 
that 

advocates 
for 
the 
rights 
of 

journalists throughout the world, 
has even gone as far as to issue 
a statement declaring Trump 
“an unprecedented threat to the 
rights of journalists.”

But despite these troubling 

signs there has been very little 
discussion of Trump’s potential 
crusade 
against 
the 
most 

fundamental rights that we as 
Americans enjoy. While many are 
quick to erupt in furious protest 
when even the slightest degree of 
gun control is proposed, claiming 
that such limitations violate their 
Second Amendment rights, they 
seem content to let the preceding 
amendment slip by the wayside.

Perhaps Trump’s statements 

haven’t been taken seriously 
enough 
because 
of 
how 

ubiquitous the First Amendment 
is in our society. Most of us have 
lived our entire lives without 
ever having to fear reprisal for 
speaking our minds, and as a 
result we cannot imagine society 
any other way. Yet ignoring 
dangerous 
statements 
simply 

because we do not perceive them 
as plausible is a disservice to 
our way of life and a sentiment 
that has emerged with alarming 
frequency 
since 
Trump’s 

election. 
These 
statements 

cannot be ignored; the American 
people must utilize the very 
rights that Trump threatens and 
speak out against these threats 
to our freedom.

Jeff Brooks can be reached at 

brooksjs@umich.edu.

JEFF

BROOKS

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