of the event’s sketches and acts,
which ranged from personal
journal readings and comedy
acts. Many of the actors were
involved with the University’s
Educational Theatre Company
or were a part of the School of
Art & Design BFA in Interarts
Performance program.
ETC Director Callie McKee
was the Master of Ceremonies
for the event and performed a
recitation of a prose piece she
wrote after the election. In it,
she describes the emotional
response she felt when the
candidate she had campaigned
for lost. In a compelling, yet
comical sense, she illustrates
the “hole” left when Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton lost
the election.
“I woke up this morning and
I was faced with a disturbing
lack of Hillary,” McKee said.
“She had been there for nights
before, for years before, in
magnets, buttons and shirts,
pictures framed and cut out,
articles, greeting cards. Her
profile carved into the skin of
a gourd, coursed, yet gooey,
orange,
yet
decidedly
not
orange, her profile glowed
against the dark and greeted
trick-or-treaters.”
ETC
member
Theresa
Beckley-Amaya, an LSA junior,
performed a piece she titled
“I Am Protest,” in which she
describes how she sees her
role in society.
“My
life
is
a
protest,”
Beckley-Amaya said. “A queer,
mixed,
spiritual
woman
of color in white, Catholic
suburbia.
Now,
don’t
get
me wrong, I am immensely
grateful for my community,
as it shaped me into who I am
today, a battling activist who
constantly questioned, ‘Why
in the world can’t women be
priests?’ ‘Why was our teacher
fired for being gay?’ Breath,
fight, breath, protest, breath,
exhale. I am an on-going act of
protest.”
Art & Design senior Ian
Renstrom, of the Interarts
program,
performed
a
comedy stand-up act. Later,
he discussed how the faculty
helped prepare his piece.
“Channel
the
darkness,”
Renstrom said. “For me, it
was a very vulnerable time
when Trump got elected, I
was alone in my room and
watching
everything
turn
red on the map and thought:
‘What is happening? Everyone
is failing me.’ I feel hopeless,
this was like the epitome of
hopelessness.”
Renstrom
said
he
saw
the
arts
in
the
country
under
attack
by
the
new
administration. At the end
of
January,
Trump
stated
he wished to cut programs
such as public broadcasting
— programs that cost 0.02
percent of federal funding.
“It’s inspired me to get
angrier,” he said. “The U.S. is
the one country that doesn’t
have
a
state-funded
art
initiative. Trump is getting rid
of the National Endowment
for the Arts, which is like the
closest thing we have.”
He said the central message
of his performance was to
create change and progress
during Trump’s presidency.
He hoped the rally would
spawn similar events in the
future, since he felt it was a
way to express his mind.
“Let’s not fuck up the next
four years,” Renstrom said. “I
want people to realize we can
overcome this for sure. He’s
going to get away with half
the things he’s doing. People
are regretting voting for him.
There’s going to be hope.”
He also said he felt the
University has neglected to
support
performance-based
art forms in favor of more
mainstream projects.
“They’re supportive of very
accessible
stuff,”
Renstrom
said. “Like, oh we’ll do ‘Angels
in America’ or ‘Rent,’ but I
feel like with performance art
people don’t take it seriously
and the University is becoming
more accepting. I just wish it
was faster.”
Fourth-year
medical
student Harold Gomez saw
the event on Facebook and
felt his views aligned with the
movement’s message.
“I
think
of
the
most
important for me that, as you
can tell I’m an immigrant, too,
being in the United States and
being American is tolerance,”
he said. “There have been
many
statements
for
the
Muslim
community,
people
who are supporters of Planned
Parenthood, LGBTQ, who I
feel transgress all that we have
done over the past 50 years for
civil rights … I think there
should be more work done by
the University to try and foster
that kind of environment and
prevent things that happened
with the email controversy
from happening.”
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Tuesday, February 21, 2017 — 3
last
weekend,”
Solnit
said.
“Intelligence
agencies
and
individual employees seemed to be
placing themselves in opposition
to the administration. The power
of the presidency is to command. If
people do not obey the commands,
the power does not exist.”
Solnit went on to speak about
the Women’s March, the travel
ban executive order and how she
came to think of hope as a catalyst.
For
Solnit,
hope
became
important in 2003, when U.S.
troops descended on Iraq. Today,
she sees hope as the driving force
of all change in the country.
“Fourteen years later, I use the
term hope because it navigates
the way forward between false
certainties of optimism and of
pessimism, and the complacency
of passivity that comes with both,”
Solnit said. “Hope, for me, has
meant a sense that the future is
not yet written, and that we don’t
actually know what will happen,
but we may be able to write it
ourselves.”
Solnit,
a
self-identified
progressive
whose
political
ideologies often color her writing,
did not shy away from claiming
partisan affiliation in her speech.
“I’m just assuming you’re all
progressive here,” Solnit said.
“For those of you who aren’t, I’m
assuming we can bring you in …
because it’s more fun and it has
more people. It has better facts,
too! The facts are generated on our
side but the stories have not been.
We need to tell riveting stories
about how a progressive agenda
can make their lives better.”
Solnit returned to her theme of
hope later in her speech, saying
that hope in activism — hope that
what is being done will make a
difference, even if it isn’t evident
— is what drives change forward.
“The most important effects
are often the most indirect,”
Solnit said. “I sometimes wonder
when I’m at a mass march like
the Women’s March a month ago
… whether the reason it matters
is because some young woman is
going to find her purpose in life,
that will only be evident when she
changes the world in 20 years as a
great litigator. Maybe the purpose
of what you’re doing won’t reveal
itself in your lifetime, but it will be
tremendous nonetheless.”
Many audience members came
to the event because of a passion
for Solnit’s writing, and a feeling
of connection to her words. Liz
Bayans, a resident of Toledo, Ohio
drove all the way to Ann Arbor
to hear Solnit’s speech. She feels
Solnit’s bold stances are what
make her writing so important.
“I think that she talks about a
lot of topics people maybe don’t
breach or feel comfortable with
discussing openly,” Bayan said.
“I think it’s important that those
things are discussed in a more
mainstream venue.”
Taubman
graduate
student
Phillip Redpath came to hear the
talk because he’s using elements of
Solnit’s work in his master’s thesis
in architecture, but he also shared
Bayan’s enthusiasm for the way
Solnit presents her ideas.
“I came because I thought it
might be relevant to my thesis,
but also more so because of the
current political climate,” Redpath
said. “To me, she offers a way of
approaching things, not like a
‘here’s what you do’ but a ‘here’s
how to think about what to do.’ ”
WRITER
From Page 1
that they didn’t know about
it, so we wanted to provide,
because we had the position to
do so, (a) comfortable setting
and educational setting for
people to learn about it from
the ground up so that they feel
more educated on the topic.”
Cole started by explaining
how the conflict began with
peaceful protests in Syria in
March 2011, around the time of
the Arab Spring, in which both
Tunisia and Egypt overthrew
their long-term rulers.
Cole
stated
these
protests
began
with
the
youth and expanded to a
broader population as loss
of employment and lack of
opportunity
became
more
frequent. He also described
the unrest in Syria in regard
to President Bashar Assad’s
authoritarian regime.
“Any time there’s a ceasefire
or a slight political opening,
people come out and protest,”
he said. “They protest the
regime,
they
even
protest
ISIL.”
Though
the
revolution
did begin peacefully, Cole
described the violent reaction
of the regime and the military
tactics it used to respond to the
protests, including firing tank
shells into groups of peaceful
demonstrators.
“This regime is not nice,”
he said. “It’s not a nice regime.
It
kills
prisoners.
There’s
nothing more helpless in the
world than a prisoner. They
torture prisoners to death.
Not one, not two, how many
prisoners do we think they
tortured to death in the last
five years? At least 10,000.”
Four
hundred
thousand
Syrians were found dead by
the end of 2016, 11 million are
currently homeless and 13.5
million are in need of some
form of aid or assistance, Cole
stated in his presentation.
One
of
his
conclusions
about civil wars was the
idea that many people don’t
understand how easily, or how
quickly, a nation can fall into
this sort of unrest.
“People don’t understand
civil wars if they don’t live
through them,” he explained.
“They think it’s something
that happens to other people,
but it can happen to you. You
can fall into a civil war.”
The
majority
of
Syrian
refugees escaping the chaos
of their home nation have fled
to Jordan, Lebanon or Turkey.
For comparison, he stated the
United States has let in 22,000
refugees, while Turkey has
let in 2.5 million. Turkey had
many economic benefits from
the influx of refugees.
“The refugees, when they
came in, they increased the
money supply,” Cole said.
“They figure that Turkey’s
economy grew 4.5 percent
because
of
the
refugees
coming in, otherwise it would
have stalled out.”
Once refugees enter these
new countries, however, they
often find similar hardships
with standards of living, he
explained. Many are often
denied access to local jobs
and, as a result, are isolated
and forced to live in tent
cities.
Michigan has the second
highest population of Syrian
refugees in the United States,
after California, with more
than 1,400 Syrian refugees in
September 2016. A majority of
the Michigan refugee families
reside in the cities Troy and
Dearborn.
LSA junior Alaina Dehner
attended the event because
she was hoping to learn more
about an issue with details
that might be misconstrued
or not fully explored through
social media conversations
or other sources that many
college students are exposed
to.
“I think it’s important for
students to come to events
like these if only to stay
informed,” she said. “There’s
not a whole lot we, as students,
can do directly involving the
situation, directly impacting
the situation, especially with
the stance that Prof. Cole
mentioned
that
America’s
taking on it right now, but just
to stay informed I think is of
the utmost importance.”
PROFESSOR
From Page 1
said. “However, we keep in mind,
when
adjusted
for
inflation,
funding still lags well behind 2011
levels.”
The
$316.1
million
budget
recommendation for the Ann
Arbor campus is lower than the
funding level in 2011, when the
state instituted a 15 percent cut to
higher education funding.
Cynthia
Wilbanks,
vice
president
for
government
relations,
echoed
Schlissel’s
sentiment in a statement and said
the University appreciates the
increase in funding, but plans to
advocate for a greater amount of
funding and more opportunities
in the future.
“We
appreciate
that
this
budget
recommendation
continues the recent trend of
increased funding for higher
education,”
Wilbanks
wrote.
“In the coming months, we will
work with the state Legislature to
support this increase and explore
opportunities to do better, if
possible.”
Conversely, state Rep. Kim
LaSata
(R–Bainbridge
Twp,),
chair of the Michigan House
Appropriations
Subcommittee
on Higher Education, said in a
statement she is emboldened
by the increased investment in
higher education and would like
to see this funding in Michigan
continue to increase to pre-
recession levels. LaSata did not
respond to interview requests
from the Daily.
“I am encouraged by the
proposal to invest more money
into higher education and will
work hard as chair to ensure
these dollars are spent in an
efficient and fair manner,” LaSata
wrote. “Michigan’s colleges and
universities have still not fully
returned to their pre-recession
funding levels and it is my goal
to see these institutions made
whole again using dollars tied to
performance.”
State Rep. Yousef Rabhi (D–
Ann Arbor) said in a phone
interview he was pleased to see
at least a small increase, but said
he believes higher education
in Michigan is still severely
underfunded.
“I’m happy to see at least higher
education got a small increase,”
Rabhi said. “But the governor cut
higher education substantially
back like five years ago and if you
adjust for inflation, we’re not even
close to where we used to be —
it isn’t good enough, we can do
better.”
In
addition
to
funding
increases,
Snyder’s
budget
recommendation also includes
a provision to limit any tuition
increases
to
3.8
percent
or
$475 per student in order for a
university to receive any new
performance funding.
In her statement, LaSata said
she believes efforts to cap tuition
will aid in making college more
affordable and accessible
“This will serve to keep tuition
increases down and ultimately
allow more students to pursue
their educational dream,” LaSata
said.
Contradicting this idea, Rabhi
said he believes this will have a
vicious effect on higher education
institutions, because he thinks the
state is limiting its funding, while
also capping tuition increases as
ways for universities to receive
any additional funding.
“We’re putting our higher
ed institutions in a situation
where the legislator is capping
their tuition increases and also
underfunding them at the same
time,” Rabhi said. “So they’re
really hamstringing the ability
of our public universities to
provide that high quality of public
education that we’ve come to
expect.”
LSA junior Enrique Zalamea,
president
of
the
University’s
chapter of College Republicans,
wrote in an email interview
he personally doesn’t support
massive
increases
in
higher
education funding without more
specificity and transparency in
how
Michiganders’
taxpayer
dollars are being allocated.
“Federal
student
aid
only
accounts for roughly 3% of
Michigan’s
higher
education
spending, the majority of the
higher education budget actually
goes to ‘University Operations,’
”
Zalamea
wrote.
“Without
more transparency, I personally
wouldn’t
want
my
taxpayer
money going towards university
sponsored partisan events or
towards the discounted tuition
rates of undocumented students.”
In comparison to Zalamea,
LSA junior Collin Kelly, chair
of
the
University’s
chapter
of
the
College
Democrats,
wrote in an email interview he
unequivocally supports increased
higher
education
funding.
Kelly said he believes Snyder’s
recommendation is a positive
step, but advocates to see more
invested in higher education.
“While we are glad this is
another positive step in the right
direction, we need the state
government to go much further
in supporting higher education in
Michigan,” Kelly wrote. “A 2.4%
increase is nice, but that likely
won’t even be a drop in the bucket
for most students, we would
strongly urge the legislature and
Governor to support our students
by increasing funding even more.”
HIGHER ED
From Page 1
threat to physical well-being.
“Obviously the risks are
high in the United States, but
in other countries, we can be
talking about their lives that
are on the line,” Potter said.
Obermayer,
who
writes
for the German newspaper
Süddeutsche
Zeitung,
highlighted the importance
of being methodical when
investigating complex data
leaks. He noted the scope
of
an
investigation
like
the Panama Papers, which
encompassed over 11 million
pages of leaked documents,
makes the process of review
even more important.
He also noted the challenges
of language barriers, political
knowledge
and
sourcing
that journalists face when
investigating
international
scandals.
“You
need
people
on
the ground who know the
language,” Obermayer said.
“When I was investigating the
Panama Papers, a part of our
research involved Icelandic
politicians, and ... I personally
don’t know a word of their
language. You also need to
have people who know the
country and politicians.”
Much
of
the
panel
discussion centered around
issues faced by investigative
journalists in the information
age, such as security issues
surrounding encryption and
data transfer and coordinating
work between large teams of
reporters.
One
of
Obermayer’s
colleagues on the Panama
Papers investigation, Guevara,
from
the
Washington
D.C.-based
International
Consortium of Investigative
Journalists, spoke about the
challenges faced during large
collaborative
projects
like
Obermayer’s
research
into
tax evasion in Panama, which
involved journalists from over
100 media outlets.
“How
do
you
convince
journalists to let go of some of
the control over their work?”
Guevara
asked.
“Because
when you collaborate, you
share
a
lot
of
research
and resources, but when it
comes time to publish, you
have to respect each other’s
independence.”
Perrin,
who
helped
spearhead
the
large
investigative
LuxLeaks
project,
echoed
Guevara’s
sentiments.
“You need to be really
disciplined
and
need
to
respect the plan and date,”
Perrin said, emphasizing the
necessity to uphold ethical
standards of fact verification
prior to publication.
This, Guevara added, is
particularly
important
in
light of the increasing rate of
large-scale scandals. She cited
the revelations of corruption
in FIFA, the international
body governing soccer, and
Petrobras, the Brazilian state-
run petroleum company.
The
panel’s
focus
then
shifted
from
journalistic
methods and ethics to the
means of facilitating large
transfers of data.
Richard, editor in chief of
Premières Lignes Télévision,
a French media outlet, spoke
about his new project —
Freedom Voices — that is
being
developed
alongside
University researchers.
Freedom Voices is a service
that
enables
journalists
to save information to a
secure server if their work
or safety is jeopardized. If
the journalist using Freedom
Voices is imprisoned or killed,
their information is then sent
to a team of journalists who
will finish and publish the
uncompleted work.
“SecureDrop
makes
communication of documents
more secure, safer to be a
whistleblower or investigative
journalist,” Richard said of the
open-source
whistleblower
submission
system.
“But
to
send
information,
whistleblowers also can also
opt to use postal mail, which
is often very secure.”
Guevara
concluded
the
event by stressing the role of a
journalist as a public servant
whose job is to share facts
that have a public interest.
“I believe there is moral
responsibility in journalism
to think about what your story
will change,” Guevara said.
Following the event, LSA
junior Tyler Robinson said
he believed it was valuable
to him as a communications
major who is not pursuing a
career in journalism, because
it provided him with insight
into how news stories are
produced.
“I
thought
the
event
was
great;
everyone
was
very
knowledgeable
and
experienced in their field,”
Robinson
said.
“I
think
that
whistleblowing
is
extremely valuable and at
times necessary if there is
severe wrongdoing occurring
within the government or
corporations.”
JOURNALISTS
From Page 1
I believe
there is moral
responsibility
in journalism to
think about what
your story will
change
I think it’s
important for
students to come
to events like
these if only to
stay informed
RALLY
From Page 1
He’s going to get
away with half
the things he’s
doing. People are
regretting voting
for him.