3-News

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, January 25, 2017 — 3A

government and the president 
is one of those threads, and that 
there are so many other threads 
that hold that advancement on 
sustainability, that there are 
many parties that contribute 
to that,” Rubin said. “Many of 
them have been mentioned here, 
but especially the states, and 
a lot of our states have already 
been taking leadership on issues 
of climate, and energy, and 
transportation, 
wetlands 
and 

water.”

The panelists agreed, stating 

strong leadership from local and 
state levels will be crucial in the 
upcoming years. The University 
of 
Michigan 
has 
already 

begun making solid ground on 
these 
environmental 
issues, 

according to Rosina Bierbaum, 
professor of natural sciences 
and environmental policy, and 
in turn has helped contribute to 
overall goals on both state and 
national levels.

“I think we should be very 

proud of things that are taking 
place here at Michigan,” she 
said. “I’m very proud that 
sustainability is a big issue on 
this campus now, I’m very proud 
that President Schlissel has 
taken the national science and 
policy engagement committee’s 
report to identify ways that 
faculty can get more involved 
in government in Washington, 
and I’m very proud that the 
University of Michigan is part 
of the national data refuge 
project.”

After 
opening 
the 
floor 

to audience and moderator 

questions, 
the 
panelists 

discussed 
the 
issues 
some 

students looking to find careers 
in the environmental sciences 
might see in the coming years.

Dan Brown, interim dean of 

the School of Natural Resources 
and the Environment, asked 
about the recent announcement 
of the federal hiring freeze, and 
asked panelists to explain how 
students can respond to this 
possible shift in their career 
planning. The New York Times 
reported that the hiring freeze 
was announced on Monday. 
Trump signed an order calling 
for a halt on all public service 
jobs outside of those in national 
security, public safety and the 
military.

Molly Watters, a natural 

resources 
and 
environment 

graduate student, attended the 
panel with questions about a 
possible lack of opportunities 
after school.

“I think we’re all struggling 

to, you know, make sense of 
everything that’s going on,” she 
said. “I wanted to work for a 
federal land management agency 
after graduating and don’t know 
if that’s going to pan out … (I 
wanted) to hear what all of these 
smart academics have to say 
about it instead of whatever real 
or fake news I might find on my 
own.”

Erb Institute director Joe 

Arvai, 
professor 
of 
natural 

resources and environment and 
business, explained that, while 
federal government jobs may 
not be available, smaller, local 
positions could be beneficial.

“I think cities, states are going 

to be key, NGOs are going to be 
key, but also, throw business 

in the mix in a very diverse 
way, I don’t just mean the big 
multinationals, I mean any kind 
of business,” 

Arvai said. “If you go to the most 

unconventional places where you 
don’t think sustainability is at the 
cutting edge and try and make 
your impact there, everything 
you do will be huge.”

By the end of the discussion, 

panelists 
brought 
forth 

the 
importance 
of 
creating 

meaningful 
discussion 
about 

environmental 
concerns 
and 

having conversations with others 
to promote a more well-educated 
scope of activists.

Rackham 
student 
Leah 

Gerber agreed with the panelists 
providing information about the 
environment.

“At the end when they talked 

about engaging, he said, ‘engage, 
engage, engage,’ I think we really 
are going to have to change our 
daily lives,” she said. “You can’t 
just retreat you into your daily 
routine; we have to actively seek 
out and encourage each other to 
engage.”

Rackham student Alana Tucker 

said she believes environmental 
policies should not be a partisan 
issue.

“I think that communication 

of environmental sustainability 
and relaying that message as 
not a partisan issue is so, so 
critical coming from a very, 
very conservative state,” Tucker 
said. “I think just becoming 
more literate in learning how to 
communicate these topics is very 
important. … So not just thinking 
about engaging, but also thinking 
about who you’re engaging with 
is also really important.”

ENVIRONMENT
From Page 1A

new combination of medical 
organizations and reflect a new 
purpose.

According to Runge, this 

new mission of the hospital 
emphasizes 
patient 
care, 

medical education and health 
care research.

“We remain committed to 

extraordinary 
patient 
care, 

world-class medical education, 
being an employer of choice for 
faculty and staff, and moving 
groundbreaking research from 
bench to bedside in order to 
save and improve lives,” Runge 
said in an article from Michigan 
Medicine.

For nurses, however, this 

new name change appears to be 

exclusionary and unsupportive 
of all the work that nurses and 
other hospital workers perform 
daily.

“The term ‘medicine’ is almost 

exclusively 
associated 
with 

physicians, yet so many other 
professionals contribute to the 
treatments and breakthroughs 
here,” Katie Oppenheim, chair 
of the University’s Professional 
Nurse Council, said in an article 
published 
by 
the 
Michigan 

Nurses 
Association. 
“We 

are concerned that time and 
resources are being squandered 
on 
a 
marketing 
ploy 
that 

ultimately 
diminishes 
the 

contributions of a diverse and 
dedicated staff.”

A petition hosted by UMPNC 

was created in response to the 
new Michigan Medicine title 
and currently has more than 
1,200 signatures.

Armelagos agreed, worried 

the financial aspect of the name 
change could have been better 
applied to patient care.

“This is already a done deal; 

they’re spending I don’t know 
how much money on this 
venture, we don’t believe it’s 
money well spent,” Armelagos 
said.

Despite 
the 
contentious 

decision, nurses at Michigan 
Medicine are still committed to 
patient-centered care.

“The nurses and UMPNC are 

going to continue to advocate 
for our profession, our patients 
and 
will 
continue 
to 
act 

collaboratively with all other 
disciplines for the betterment 
of patient care,” Armelagos 
said. “But the employers’ poor 
decision to rebrand the health 
system does not serve anyone 
well.”

NURSES
From Page 1A

Quality for the study — which 
is slated to cost $2 million 
— the team will work with 
Wayne State University and 
the Detroit Medical Center to 
conduct the experiment in two 
hospitals.

Kaye discussed the gravity of 

the presence of antibiotic-resistant 
bacteria in hospital environments.

“We always think of hand-

washing and how germs can be 
moved by the hands of health 
care workers,” he said. “But the 
environment the patients are in, 
whether it’s the bedrails or the 
telephone, also have organisms 
contaminating 
their 
surfaces 

pretty frequently and living for 
long periods of time.”

Hospital cleaning has always 

been 
a 
crucial 
process 
in 

preventing health care-associated 
infections, 
Kaye 
said. 
When 

a patient is discharged from 
a hospital, a form of intensive 

cleaning called terminal cleaning 
is done to accommodate the next 
patient.

Terminal 
cleaning, 
while 

effective, 
has 
its 
limits 
in 

preventing 
antibiotic-resistant 

organisms 
from 
causing 

infections. C. difficile, for example, 
is a bacterium that causes swelling 
and 
irritation 
in 
the 
colon. 

Terminal cleaning cannot kill this 
bacterium because of its resistance 
to antibiotics.

“In a scenario where a patient 

in a hospital has C. diff and is 
then discharged from a room, 
the next patient to go to that 
room has a much higher risk 
of getting C. diff than someone 
admitted into a different patient 
room,” Kaye said. “So, even 
with good cleaning, there’s a 
question of whether adding 
more intensive disinfection for 
standard cleaning would reduce 
the risk of patients developing 
infections in the hospital.”

Kaye 
explained 
that 
the 

robots 
will 
be 
used 
with 

terminal cleaning in hospital 
rooms 
to 
determine 
their 

effectiveness 
against 
the 

infections.

The robots emit UV light, 

which can be harmful to human 
eyes, skin and immune systems. 
However, they will have a 

function that disables these 
harmful lights in the presence 
of humans.

“The robots will have motion 

sensor that will turn it off if it 

detects motion in the room,” 
Kaye said. “So they are pretty 
much fail-proof.”

Germ-zapping robots have 

been used in other hospitals to 
counter the spread of antibiotic-
resistant bacteria.

Oryan Henig, a research 

fellow who worked on the study 
under the mentorship of Kaye, 
said the uniqueness of this 
study came from its controlled 
design.

“It’s a different epidemiology 

of patients and microbiology, 
and a strong setting of infection 
control system that is required 
to make such a study feasible,” 
Henig said.

The study, which will span 

over two years, will use the 
actual germ-zapping in one 
of the two Detroit hospitals 
and a placebo in the other to 
overcome bias and to evaluate 
the effect of the robots.

“We’ll 
essentially 
be 

comparing terminal cleaning 
to terminal cleaning with the 
germ-zapping 
robots,” 
Kaye 

said.

ROBOTS
From Page 1A

There’s a question 
of whether adding 

more intensive 
disinfection for 

standard cleaning 
would reduce the 

risk

The women at NASA, Shetterly 

explained, are often overlooked in 
history. Other figures, like Martin 
Luther King Jr., were pushed 
forward by the accomplishments 
of the African-American women 
working at NASA.

“Most people in our country 

think of the civil rights movement 
as something that started in 
1954 with the Brown vs. Board 
of 
Education 
decision 
and 

culminated 
with 
Dr. 
King’s 

speech in 1963 at the march on 
Washington,” Shetterly said. “Dr. 
King stood on the shoulders of 
others to reach his mountaintop.”

Shetterly explored why it has 

taken so long for the story of these 
women to be told. Despite there 
being many women working 
alongside the main characters of 
the story, their contribution has 
still been obscured.

“(There) may have been as 

many 1,000 women … working 
as professional mathematicians,” 
Shetterly said. “Why didn’t we 
use them as role models?”

Shetterly quickly answered 

the question she posed, saying 
the women were hired as sub-
professionals, 
putting 
them 

below men at NASA. However, 
she added that though this was 

true, there were other reasons for 
them being forgotten.

“Women of all backgrounds 

were separated from the men,” 
Shetterly said. “In the beginning, 
the Black women went into the 
west area computing section and 
the white women went into the 
east area office.”

The biggest reason, Shetterly 

concluded, was that computing 
was considered women’s work, 
in comparison to engineering, 
which was a male-dominated 
field.

The 
American 
dream, 

Shetterly said, is something the 
women in the story experienced, 
making the story of the women 
even more important to tell.

“I think the power of the 

American dream is that it too is a 
story, as much myth as it is reality, 
something that we tell ourselves 
about how we live and what we 
believe and what we think is 
possible,” Shetterly said. “This 
is a story about including Black 
women in the American dream.”

Following the lecture, LSA 

sophomore Zi Huang said she 
found the story of the lives of the 
women in the book inspiring.

“Even in times like the 1950s 

there wasn’t even the civil rights 
movement yet,” Huang said. 
“There were women making this 
type of progress and it gives me a 
lot of hope.”

Rackham 
student 
Jasmine 

Jones, a computer scientist, was 
also encouraged by the story.

“I think it was inspiring to 

a lot of people and I think it’s 
going to be a good chance for 
people everywhere to really 
take seriously and thank their 
education and opportunities and 
to really push forward and not 
discount themselves and what 
they can contribute to society,” 
Jones said.

A Q&A after the lecture 

allowed the audience to ask 
questions about contemporary 
segregation and the process 
Shetterly 
went 
through 
in 

researching for and writing her 
book.

“One of the things is that we 

have schools that are segregated 
not just by race, but by income 
and by opportunity and we are 
leaving so much talent on the 
table,” Shetterly said.

Hours after the featured event, 

Shetterly also gave a “fireside 
chat” at Stamps Auditorium. The 
450 seats at the venue were again 
filled to capacity, and many more 
waited outside to be first in line at 
the book signing afterward.

Speaking to the appeal of 

getting the autograph of an idol, 
Shetterly said when she went to 
meet Katherine Johnson –– one of 
the protagonists of the book and 

film 

MARGO
From Page 1A

Read more online at 

michigandaily.com

be hesitant and unsure for this 
organization to go forward and 
fund this stuff, because I’m not 
sure what kind of message that 
sends.”

The resolution was tabled for 

later review by the Resolutions 
Committee.

The 
Student 
Organization 

Funding 
Committee 
also 

attended the meeting to clarify its 

funding process to the assembly, 
which was unclear about the 
organization’s role.

According to SOFC Chair 

Kevin Yang, a Business junior, 
the committee is the funding 
body of CSG. However, the 
group was created to operate 
autonomously 
from 
CSG 

because of certain biases that 
representatives 
might 
have. 

Various student organizations 
apply 
to 
SOFC 
to 
receive 

funding for student activities 
and events on a reimbursement 
basis.

It also funds services and 

events, such as the night owl 
bus route and water bottle refill 
stations. For each semester, 
SOFC has about $200,000 to 
give to student organizations.

A year ago during now-

alum 
Cooper 
Charlton’s 

administration, SOFC played 
a critical role when the body 
depleted its financial resources 
a month before the semester 
ended. The former assembly 
passed the resolution to provide 
the commission the emergency 
funds.

CSG
From Page 1A