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Tuesday, December 13, 2016 — 3
of think about Brightmoor from
a different perspective,” he said.
“Some see it as blight, others see
it as an opportunity.”
The BMS project as a whole,
which began through a donation
platform on crowd funding site
Patronicity, met its goal of $25,000
on July 10, 2015 and subsequently
received an additional $25,000
from the Michigan Economic
Development
Corporation.
According to its website, the
money raised from the donation
drive was used to renovate
the vacant building on Detroit
Community Schools’ campus, buy
tools and materials — bringing
together community resources
to support skill-building and
entrepreneurship — and build
the infrastructure to make BMS
sustainable over time.
The money also funds other
projects spawned from BMS,
which
include
a
gardening
collective
that
gives
fresh
vegetables
to
residents
in
the
neighborhood
and
an
organization where a group builds
large tricycles for the purpose of
transporting clean water.
Franzino said after her class
visited BMS and was able to talk to
the project’s key stakeholders and
former students of the program,
they were better equipped for
what the client was looking for in
terms of branding.
“We had to figure out what the
Brightmoor Maker Space was
all about and what their goals
were,” Franzino said. “One of the
biggest challenges in designing
for the Brightmoor Maker Space
is thinking outside of the box
because a lot of the initial ideas
were very literal, like tools and
things like that, so trying to
reimagine what a maker space is
and what it does and for them, it’s
kind of all about community.”
Smotrich wrote in an article
on the Art & Design website that
through these meetings with
BMS staff and with Tobier and
Eddy, she and her classmates
were given the opportunity to see
what working with clients would
be like, and how an organization
like BMS can affect students in
the area.
“Stamps students were able to
develop a fuller understanding
of the goals for the maker space
and make a strong connection to
Detroit Community High School
students and their creative work,”
she said.
After reading the BMS mission
statement, Franzino said she and
her class got to work on designing,
and
received
critiques
along
the way from BMS alumni and
mentors. Though her logo design
received positive feedback from
Tobier at the end of the course,
she was surprised to have won.
“I wasn’t really expecting it
and I wasn’t really sure they were
going to end up choosing one of
our designs so I was pretty happy
to be selected,” she said.
Franzino said she saw BMS as
a valuable resource in Brightmoor
due to its ability to provide
students with design skills not
often offered in school.
“I think probably the most
important thing is that it gives
the kids an education that they’re
not getting in the public school
system,” she said.
SCHOOLS
From Page 1
which were ultimately rolled into a
campus-wide strategy this summer.
Just before the release of the
plan in October 2016, fliers posted
around campus demeaned the
humanity of Black, Muslim and
LGBTQ people, inciting protests
by hundreds of students calling
for an administrative response.
Many students later criticized the
release of the plan as a reactionary
approach to calming racial tensions
on campus. Students also pointed
to issues with the long-term nature
of the DEI, which is benchmarked
to five years from now, chanting
slogans like “Why wait for 2025,
will I even be alive?” in demands
for more immediate action from
Schlissel.
At a panel on campus safety and
racism sponsored by the Sexual
Assault Prevention and Awareness
Center Thursday, Dec. 8, LSA senior
Sabrina Bilimoria, who also is an
Michigan in Color editor at the Daily,
criticized the DEI plan for asking for
more mental and emotional labor
from marginalized students.
“The DEI initiatives are bullshit,”
Bilimoria said to applause from panel
attendees. “... Very little is done on
an institutional level. There’s such a
lack of understanding from Schlissel
and many, many administrators as
to a common way to talk to students
without tokenizing them and asking
minority students to do all the
work.”
In an interview, Katrina Wade-
Golden, assistant vice provost and
director of implementation for the
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Strategic Plan, agreed campus
racial tensions during the semester
affected the perception of the plan’s
rollout, though she noted the plan
was not released in response to
protests.
“We were not reacting to any
particular kind of incident, and we
really wanted to be proactive,” she
said.
E.
Royster
Harper,
the
University’s
vice
president
for
student life, said the University
administration’s commitment to
improving campus diversity has
existed since 1988 with the The
Michigan
Mandate,
launched
by
then-University
President
James Duderstadt, which focused
on
recruitment
of
prospective
students. The initiative largely
succeeded
in
significantly
raising
underrepresented
minority enrollment and faculty
appointments — though a number
of initiatives also aimed at creating
an inclusive campus climate. Black
enrollment has been decreasing
substantially on the University
campus.
According
to
the
University Ten Year Enrollment
by Ethnicity report, in 2006, 7.2
percent of University enrollment
was Black. However, over the past
nine years, Black enrollment has
been decreasing, as in 2015, Blacks
only accounted for 4.8 percent of
enrollment.
Despite the mandate, statewide
attacks
on
affirmative
action
eventually culminated in 2006
with Proposition 2, a statewide
ban
on
the
consideration
of
race in admissions to Michigan
universities
the
U.S.
Supreme
Court upheld in 2014, aligned with
drops
in
minority
enrollment.
Duderstadt
also
criticized
his
successor, Lee Bollinger, for doing
away with funding and resources
allocated toward the mandate,
which eventually faded out of
existence. During her tenure as the
University’s president, starting in
the early 2000s, Mary Sue Coleman
also launched initiatives to increase
minority enrollment.
Student demands about the DEI
plan tend to focus on boosting the
proportion of minority students in
the student body — a figure that
has hovered consistently around 13
percent for the last five years.
Harper said those levels may
never rise significantly without
affirmative action, noting that
recruitment
efforts
in
the
DEI represent something of a
workaround. Programs such as
Wolverine Pathways and HAIL
Scholars — both outlined in the
DEI plan — instead aim to funnel
marginalized students toward the
University with primary education
pipelines and scholarships.
“Why would anyone expect the
numbers to be the same without
affirmative action?” Harper said.
“But you start thinking about
different strategies for getting
that done. Students have to be
willing to get in some of those
elementary schools, they have to
vote for education and be part of
organizations giving back. There’s
a notion that you can be finished
with this work, and that’s just not
true.”
The University may take a
step further in its approach to
maintaining
campus
inclusion
when
compared
to
peer
institutions with active diversity
plans including the University of
California-Berkeley, the University
of Maryland and Brown University
— amid these institutions, the
University’s
combination
of
multifaceted, unit-specific goals
with broader, overarching goals
stands out.
For instance, schools such as
Duke University, University of
North Carolina-Chapel Hill and
UC-Berkeley that already promote
unit-specific strategic plans lack
the umbrella structure of the
DEI promoted by the University’s
executive
leadership,
but
do
indicate needs for it. UNC’s 2014
diversity
report,
for
example,
includes
recommendations
for
a
“coordinated
institutional
strategy,” while Duke calls for
a
“university-wide
statement
affirming our commitment to
diversity.”
The parts of the DEI plan
receiving
the
most
publicity,
however, are already in place at
other institutions. From 2007
to 2012, Ohio State University
successfully
implemented
a
diversity scholars network and met
goals of hiring more female and
underrepresented minority faculty.
A number of schools already
appoint chief diversity officers,
as outlined in the University’s
plan as well. Brown University’s
plan released this February — the
model perhaps most comparable
to the DEI — devotes $165
million to initiatives including a
postdoctorate to faculty pipeline an
improved summer bridge program
and a first-generation student
center, similar to pushes in the DEI
plan.
Tabbaye Chavous, director of the
National Center on Institutional
Diversity
at
the
University,
acknowledged individual elements
of the DEI were not unique
compared to other institutions.
He pointed to a semester rife with
racial tension on campus as a
possible reason for the spotlight on
the DEI.
“A lot of the work and efforts
are not necessarily new ideas, but
might be new in cooperation,”
she said. “Michigan is a place
where
when
these
things
happen, attention is drawn to it,
because we’re a place that’s been
working on diversity issues and
we’ve stated our commitment
to those values. This seeming
contradiction does feel striking,
but this DEI plan is one thing …
that will position us to move on
these efforts in new ways.”
Wade-Golden
also
hailed
efforts increasing faculty and
staff diversity and emphasized
the DEI would not go the way of
the Michigan Mandate with its
measures of accountability and
focus on equity and inclusion.
In particular, she noted that
contributions
to
DEI-specific
goals will be taken into account
in faculty performance reviews
and recommendations for tenure,
and deans must submit annual
reports on college-specific DEI
initiatives.
“The
mandate
was
groundbreaking and really before
its time, actually,” she said.
“Now, we definitely have top
administrative support in terms of
the president and the provost. I’m
sure you’ve seen the commitment
allocated in $85 million, and our
robust accountability structure
really sets us apart from anything
happening nationally.”
A campus climate survey to
be distributed next semester
will establish baseline metrics
to assess the DEI’s success, and
Chavous said the plan’s efficacy
will ultimately hinge on the
University’s ability to balance
short-term needs of students and
long-term institutional goals.
“The experiences of students
are unique relative to faculty
and staff in that you’re here for a
much shorter time,” she said. “It
really is a more immediate issue
for students than faculty and
administrators who are used to
the long haul. If we can balance
that, if Michigan can be a model of
a positive way to work effectively
on these issues, I think we can
affect the broader society.”
DEI
From Page 1
infected in the system.
“None of the available drugs
are effective at getting rid of the
cells,” she wrote. “Our approach
inhibits an HIV protein that makes
the infected cells resistant to the
immune system. We expect that
our drug would help the immune
system find and kill the infected
cells.”
Collins,
who
has
been
researching HIV/AIDS for many
years, wrote she screened these
particular
bacteria
for
about
five years in collaboration with
University microbiologist David
Sherman and the Life Sciences
Institute’s Center for Chemical
Genomics.
After many years dedicated to
the research of Nef — the protein
responsible for concealing the
virus — Collins wrote this the
work looks promising, though she
acknowledged there is still a lot of
work to do.
“So far, the drugs look very
potent and non-toxic in tissue
culture cells - so they are as
promising as they could be at
this stage,” she wrote. “However,
more work needs to be done to
understand the full potential of our
compounds.”
Epidemiology
Prof.
Powel
Kazanjian, chief of the University’s
division of infectious diseases,
wrote in an email interview that
Collins’ research — despite being
in the developmental stage —
holds some promise to address
shortcomings of currently available
drugs, namely their inability to
fully eliminate the virus from the
body.
“It is at a very early stage, but
it has the potential to make an
important
impact,”
he
wrote.
“Right now we have drugs that
suppress viral replication and need
to be given for a lifetime. A cure for
HIV would avoid the lifelong use of
drugs.”
According
to
a
blog
post
published by the University of
Michigan Health System’s Health
Lab, Collins and her team began
with 10 compounds and have been
able to focus in on three that hold
the greatest potential for inhibiting
Nef.
Currently, the work is funded
by
the
University’s
medical
research institute and the National
Institutes of Health. Collins wrote
that limited funding is one of the
primary challenges facing the
research’s ability to move forward
quickly and eventually reach the
stage of clinical testing in human
patients.
“We have a limited amount
of funds to try all the things that
we would like to try to enhance
production of the compound by
the bacteria,” she wrote. “NIH
funding is generally not adequate
for developing drugs and drug
companies often don’t become
interested unless a lot of work has
already been done to show the drug
will be effective.”
Despite challenges of funding
and understanding of the disease,
Collins wrote she hopes to continue
to research the mechanisms that
viruses use to evade and resist the
body’s immune system, not just in
HIV/AIDS but other dangerous
viruses as well.
“In 5-10 years, I expect that
we will continue to be focused on
what viruses do to resist immune
detection and eradication so that
we can refine our approaches
to eliminate a wide variety of
persistent viruses,” she wrote.
CURE
From Page 1
“We can’t let that happen again.”
During the public comment
portion of the meeting, multiple
other
A2
Safe
Transport
members demanded the council
take immediate action by hiring
crossing guards and creating
“school zones” with appropriate
signage.
Last year, prior to Tang’s death,
the city’s Pedestrian Safety and
Task Force committee introduced
“Vision Zero” to the council, a
report brought to council for
review that presented to goal of
completely eliminating deaths
and injuries of pedestrians.
However, when the “Vision
Zero” initiative was brought up
again during Monday evening’s
session,
City
Administrator
Howard Lazarus urged caution
on such absolute goals.
“There are formal Vision Zero
programs, so, if that’s the desire of
the council to have a Vision Zero
program, just realize what that
means,” Lazarus said.
Councilmember
Sumi
Kailasapathy (D–Ward 1) agreed
with A2 Safe Transport members
that the city’s resources would be
better spent specifically in the areas
of greatest concern, like school
zones.
“I also realize that not every
crosswalk will be updated within the
first year, but how I would go about
prioritizing something like safety is
starting from the most vulnerable,”
she said. “So for me I feel like
children are the most vulnerable and
that’s where we start.”
Along
with
the
immediate
action suggested by the group,
A2 Safe Transport members also
touted a longer term measure —
increasing driver compliance with
the crosswalk law via increased
police
enforcement.
The
law
currently states a driver must stop
for a pedestrian in the crosswalk or
waiting to cross.
SAFETY
From Page 1
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