The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Thursday, January 26, 2017 — 3
MAX KUANG/Daily
Investigative journalist Azmat Khan talks about social justice and the importance of local history at the annual SAAN Conference on Saturday at the
Michigan League.
YES WE CAN , YES WE SA AN
chairman back in December.
The
announcement
came
after
former
chairwoman
Ronna
Romney
McDaniel
vacated the position to head
the
National
Republican
Party.
LSA
senior
Casey
VanderWeide
interned
for
Weiser on both his regent and
GOP chair campaigns. She
said his decision to run was
made after Republican Party
members approached Weiser
and recommended him for
the position in McDaniel’s
absence.
“He
was
approached
by multiple people of the
party just because of this
vacancy,” VanderWeide said.
“Coming up in 2018, we have
the governor, we have the
U.S. Senate, you have the
Michigan
House
and
the
Michigan Senate. There’s a
lot of important races for this
state and Ron has had such an
incredible legacy helping the
Michigan Republican Party
and other Republican parties
as well across the nation.”
Public
Policy
Lecturer
Rusty Hills has served as the
Michigan Republican Party
chair twice. He said the job of
the GOP chair is to turn states
red, as seen in November.
“The chair’s job, really, is
to elect Republicans and to
assist them in their efforts
to win office,” Hills said.
“It’s real simple. It’s about
winning elections.”
Scott Hagerstrom, Trump’s
campaign
director
in
Michigan during the election,
was Weiser’s only opposition
for the position.
“I am confident that Ron
Weiser
understands
that
the future of the Michigan
Republican
Party
lies
in
embracing the constitutional
principles
that
led
to
President Trump’s historic
victory,” Hagerstrom wrote
Sunday in a Facebook post.
Once it was announced
that Hagerstrom canceled his
campaign, many expressed
concern
over
whether
it
was a conflict of interest
were Weiser to hold both
positions.
Some
have
questioned whether it would
be a violation of the board’s
bylaws to do so.
The
Regental
and
Executive-Senior
Officer
Conflict of Interest Policy,
Section 1.14 of the board’s
bylaws,
says
a
regent
is
considered
to
have
a
conflict
of
interest
when
they have “an existing or
potential financial or other
interest which impairs or
might appear to impair the
regent’s or executive/senior
officer’s
independence
of
judgment in the discharge
of
responsibilities
to
the
university.”
Hills
said
being
both
a
regent
and
Michigan
Republican chair is not a
conflict of interest, but rather
an advantage because he will
bring his resources from the
state job to the University.
“The advantage, as I see it,
is that as a party chairman,
Ron Weiser will, obviously,
come in contact with a great
number of people,” Hills said.
“By virtue of that, I think
he’ll make connections that
will rebound to the benefit of
the University of Michigan,
making
fundraising
connections, making framed
interactions, being a positive
ambassador for the University
helps to put the University
in a good light with a wide
range of Republican Party
members.”
SACUA
member
Silke-
Maria Weineck, a professor
of German studies, however,
believes Weiser should resign
from one of his positions.
She said Weiser’s support
of President Donald Trump
and his current stake at the
University creates a situation
where
Weiser
cannot
represent both organizations
at the same time.
“Trump’s general campaign
and
his
post-election
statements have show him to
be deeply at odds with UM’s
core mission,” Weineck said.
“I think there’s a chasm there.
The way our cosmopolitan
institution would have voted
is to the creation of a nation
of
knowledge
…
I
think
(President Trump) is a proven
brazen liar and I think Mr.
Weiser can either side with
a liar or he can side with the
University which stands for
the unbiased quest for truth.
These two are incompatible.
He cannot side with both.”
LSA junior Collin Kelly,
chair
of
the
University’s
chapter of College Democrats,
said Weiser’s situation might
result in students being a
backburner issue for him in
the future.
“Even
though
(the
chair position) isn’t a paid
position, it’s still one of the
most
important
positions
in the state of Michigan,”
he said. “Here, running a
flagship
university,
that’s
very important and to have
explicitly partisan ties is, at
the least, a big distraction.
There’s a danger and a worry
that his chairmanship of the
Michigan Republican Party
will affect that and might put
conservative politics above
what is in the best interests
of
the
students
and
the
University.”
With these claims above
his head, Weiser said his
holding both positions is in
no way a conflict of interest
and, like Hills, he said he will
try to use his chair position to
help the University any way
he can.
“The other people who
are regents also have full-
time jobs so the regents are
not full-time jobs,” Weiser
said. “On the other hand,
I do believe as chair of the
party of Michigan, that will
give me some opportunity
to try to help the University
when it comes to government
policy because I’ll have some
influence over the legislature
and the executive branch.”
WEISER
From Page 1
change takes time.
“I think often the way the
story is told to us is she sits
down and miraculously there’s
this moment and then they
win,” Theoharis said. “We miss
the work of that, and for those
of
us
building
movements
today, we have to see that
that’s not the case, it takes a lot
of work.”
LSA senior Lindsay Green
appreciated this sentiment and
plans to apply it to her daily life.
“You
don’t
know
when
something is going to change,
you have to choose to make
change,” Green said. “I think
that that’s really inspiring and
a good reminder that today we
have to choose to do that even
if we might not get any positive
outcome right away.”
Theoharis emphasized this
idea throughout her talk, while
also trying to communicate to
students the idea that social
change is not always positively
received.
“Most Americans did not
agree with the civil rights
movement when it happened,”
she said. “But it’s important to
remember that doing the work
of justice is not necessarily
popular at the time, there’s
nothing natural about it.”
By the end of the talk,
Theoharis had elaborated on
Parks’ story, and she inspired
students to enact changes in
their own communities.
LSA senior Lauren Rose was
inspired by Theoharis’s talk
and she plans to use lessons
learned from the talk in her
own community.
“It’s important to be aware
that the smallest things can
make a huge change and a huge
impact,” she said. “I think that
I’m going to take that and go
forward in terms of how I’m
going to continue my activism
in my own community.”
AUTHOR
From Page 1
resolution states.
Engineering
Rep.
Tania
Haddad,
an
Engineering
senior, said the resolution can
provide more funds for the
scholarship.
“We
are
especially
passionate
about
this
scholarship and establishing
it so it can have a large
enough
endowment
and
have a profound and helpful
impact on multiple students
on campus,” she said.
Recipients
are
expected
to serve as future mentors
to
younger
students,
and
Schafer
asked
the
board
to
consider
donating
to
the
scholarship—aimed
at
improving
socioeconomic
inclusion— which was well
received by the regents. A
recent internal survey of CSG
found the body is mostly male
and white and 37.2 percent of
members come from homes
earning more than $250,000
a year.
“Seventy-five percent of
CSG members come from
a household from a total
income of over $100,000,”
Schafer said at the October
meeting. “This simply does
not reflect the experiences of
many students on campus.”
To
qualify
for
the
scholarship,
potential
recipients must be full-time
students at the University of
Michigan,
receiving
need-
based funds from the Office
of Financial Aid and either
currently be a leader in a
student
organization
or
aspiring to be one.
Rackham
student
Rep.
Andy Snow was critical of the
idea, noting its similarities to
a regressive tax.
“At the end of the day, I
don’t care that it’s generally
going to help students who
need money — I see the
student fee as basically a
regressive tax for students
the most, in general, and I do
find it massively, massively
insulting that we just act
like financial aid covers it,”
he said to the body. “People
take out loans and pay, not
only that fee, but finally pay
back quite a bit when they
finally get the money to do
it, so without reducing where
people pay, I will not be able
to support this.”
Snow
continued
to
criticize
the
body
for
introducing the resolution,
stating it was against many
of CSG’s beliefs.
“I don’t see fundamentally
how so many of us can be
against tuition hikes and
increases and still be in
support of this,” he said.
The Regents voted this
July to increase tuition by 3.9
percent for in-state students
and 4.4 percent for out-of-
state
students,
translating
to a $546 per year tuition
increase for in-state students
and $1,934 for out-of-state
students.
The resolution was tabled
for further review at the
resolutions committee.
CSG
From Page 1
looking into mental health,
and are listening. It’s nice to
know that someone is taking
your concerns and taking them
higher.”
To gain information and ideas
for potential recommendations
and policies, organizers asked
students to voice their concerns
and suggestions in small groups
to further discuss ideas. Task
force co-chair Yumi Taguchi,
an LSA senior, explained how
the setup of the event was
important in furthering the
discussion of mental health
issues.
“Both the surveys and the
town hall are so important for
this discussion,” Taguchi said.
“We hear a lot of different
stories about resources and
the climate on campus, but this
format lets us record it in a
quantitative way in order for us
to present it to administration,
to actually make a difference.”
Data
from
the
resource
innovation
survey
reported
90.3 percent of students are
aware
of
Counseling
and
Psychological
Services,
but
many students in the breakout
groups
pressed
for
more
targeted campaigns to boost
awareness.
LSA
sophomore
Sujay Shetty, president of the
Residence Halls Association,
noted students living in dorms
—
particularly
incoming
freshmen — would benefit from
an increase of awareness.
“Many students living in
residence halls are freshmen,”
he said. “Freshman year comes
with
a
lot
of
transitional
stressors. They are a population
that needs a push in knowing
what’s there for them.”
The task force reported most
students understand resources
available on campus, but still
encounter significant barriers
to utilize them. Respondents
cited negative experiences with
CAPS, anxiety about making
appointments,
accessibility
and a fear of stigma from other
students.
CAPS has focused recent
efforts on equipping faculty
and staff with diagnostic tools
to field student mental health
concerns,
but
the
surveys
revealed a lingering divide in
the
classroom.
Eighty-seven
percent of faculty respondents
felt
comfortable
discussing
and/or providing mental health
accommodations for students,
yet 68 percent of students
felt comfortable approaching
professors about mental health
accommodations.
Task force members wore
and handed out T-shirts with
semicolons printed on them.
The shirts are the outcome of
a CSG resolution that allocated
money for their production,
representing
Project
Semicolon, which was created
for individuals who were going
through struggles with mental
illness and whose story could
have stopped moving forward,
but did not.
Schafer lauded task force
members for organizing he
called “crucial” for organizing
crucial
University
policies
about mental health.
“These
policies
will
normalize
mental
illness
and
expand
student
access
to invaluable resources and
strengthen the mental health
climate in classrooms,” he said.
TOWN HALL
From Page 1
I think he’ll make
connections that
will rebound to
the benefit of
the University of
Michigan, making
fundraising
connections,
making framed
interactions
(Freshman) are
a population that
needs a push in
knowing what’s
there for them
These polices will
normalize mental
illness and expand
student access
to invaluable
resources and
strengthen the
mental health
climate in
classrooms