The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, March 22, 2017 — 3A
conference in Washington D.C. on
Feb. 14.
Still, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D–
Mich.), the former chair of the
Wayne State University Board of
Governors, said in a statement that
despite claims some education
programs are duplicative, many
students still rely on them.
“President Trump’s proposed
budget
would
put
education
even further out of reach for
families by cutting or eliminating
vital
programs
students
rely
on to help fund their college
education,
including
cutting
federal work-study programs and
ending Supplemental Education
Opportunity Grants, which more
than 52,000 students in Michigan
received last year.”
Low-income
students
are
expected to be most affected. The
Federal Supplemental Educational
Opportunity Grant program, which
provides need-based aid to 1.6
million undergraduates a year, is
slated to be eliminated.
LSA junior Enrique Zalamea,
president
of
the
University’s
chapter of the College Republicans,
said he does not see this as a loss,
however, considering the criticism
the program has received for being
inefficient.
“A large portion of this budget
cut comes from the reduction
of the Supplemental Education
Opportunity Grant; an outdated
program that gives money directly
to colleges as opposed to low-
income students.”
Additionally,
the
Trump
administration plans to reduce the
work-study program “significantly,”
though it doesn’t detail how much it
would be reduced. Currently, the
program spends about $1 billion to
provide more than 600,000 college
students with jobs pertinent to their
studies, according to the National
Association
for
Financial
Aid
Administrators.
Though the work-study program
has received bipartisan support
for providing a job rather than a
handout, it has been criticized for
providing too much for the affluent
and not enough for low-income
families. The structure of the work-
study program allocates money
toward colleges and universities
that have been in the program for
a longer time; historically, those
colleges and universities are more
expensive
and
have
wealthier
students.
Additionally,
Zalamea
said
the work-study is not effective at
creating opportunities for those
who would not have otherwise had
them.
“Another large portion of the
cuts come from reducing the
federal
work-study
program,
which actually demonstrates a
high participation rate from people
who would have worked regardless
of the program, or from wealthy
students,” he said.
TRIO programs, which are
geared toward low-income, first-
generation and disabled students,
and GEAR UP face nearly $200
million in funding cuts. The
University has been criticized for
its lack of socioeconomic diversity
and Public Policy junior Rowan
Conybeare, chair of the University’s
chapter of College Democrats, said
the University’s diversity will be
further hindered without these
programs.
“Low-income,
first-generation
and
disabled
students
are
unfortunately few and far between
at UM,” Conybeare said. “Cuts to
TRIO programs will only augment
this issue.”
These cuts allow for the $1.4
billion expansion in voucher
and private school programs, a
favorite cause of DeVos. The $1.4
billion acts as a down payment
to the eventual allocation of $20
billion toward voucher programs.
If enacted, the $20 billion would
represent one-third of federal
education spending.
Despite DeVos’s claims that
school of choice will give students
more
academic
opportunities,
Conybeare argued draining money
from the public-school system is
counterintuitive to that goal.
“Many
students
use
school
of choice as a means to seek out
better
academic
opportunities,”
Conybeare said. “If the Department
of Education focused instead on
funding and fixing our public-
school system, there would be less
of a need for the School of Choice
program in the first place.”
However, Zalamea said school
of choice will keep socioeconomic
status from correlating with poor
education.
“It’s sad to think that in the land of
the free, your ZIP code determines
your quality of education,” Zalamea
said. “Undoubtedly, low-income
families will benefit more from
school choice than they will under
our current, incredibly flawed
public education system.”
TRUMP
From Page 1A
collaboration
with
R&B
artist D.R.A.M., thrust the
19-year-old artist into hip-
hop’s limelight after achieving
quadruple-platinum
status,
while
Desiigner’s
surprise
feature on Kanye West’s The
Life of Pablo resulted in Def
Jam signing the previously
unknown rapper to a record
deal. His hit single “Panda” also
achieved
quadruple-platinum
status in the United States.
SpringFest’s
announced
headliners come on the heels
of
a
hallmark
partnership
between MUSIC Matters and
record label Universal Music
Group. All three artists are
signed to an imprint of UMG:
Both 2 Chainz and Desiigner
are signed to Def Jam and Lil
Yachty is a recent addition to
Capitol Records’ roster. UMG’s
partnership
with
MUSIC
Matters also marks the label’s
first
foray
into
newfound
campus-centric
initiatives,
according
to
a
statement
released by MUSIC Matters.
Per the release, starting this
year, UMG plans on hosting
campus festivals nationwide,
modeling
them
after
SpringFest’s format. In the
statement, LSA senior Austin
Dixon,
talent
and
concert
chair of MUSIC Matters, notes
the partnership has made it
possible for the Crisler Center
to host its first concert since
2002.
“I think 2 Chainz, Lil Yachty,
and Desiigner all bring an
energy that will really excite
the student body, so to be able
to give that experience to our
fellow classmates and peers is
truly incredible,” Dixon said.
Unlike past events, MUSIC
Matter’s
latest
SpringFest
concert also marks a notable
shift from its usual venue of
choice. Unlike Hill Auditorium,
which has a seating capacity of
3,500, the Crisler Center boasts
an ability to host up to 12,707
people; additionally, this year’s
SpringFest concert will be the
Crisler Center’s first student-
produced concert since 1994. In
the statement, MUSIC Matters’
president Max Fisher, an LSA
senior, said the audacious acts
and change in scale illustrates
the organization’s intent to
build
on
its
long-standing
ambition.
“SpringFest is an incredible
vehicle that unites campus
through one event, combining
the passion and energy of
Michigan students with the
academic and entrepreneurial
spirit of the University,” the
statement reads. “We are all
ecstatic about the growth and
magnitude of our festival year
after year.”
Tickets to the performance
will start at $19.99 for students
with valid UM IDs and $29.99
for the public. Tickets will be
available both online on the
official MUSIC Matters website
and at the Michigan Union Ticket
Office beginning Thursday at 12
p.m. and 10 a.m., respectively.
SPRINGFEST
From Page 1A
and astronomy and the faculty
lead of ART 2.0, acknowledged
concerns about the validity of
data, specifically noting the
possibility of biased student
evaluations. However, he feels
University data will be more
objective than other sources
online.
“There are always concerns
when dealing with quantitative
data,” he wrote. “Some faculty
are concerned about potential
biases in the student evaluations
of teaching that could put
certain faculty members at risk.
Previous research has indicated
that such biases are moderate
at Michigan, and the common
alternative, RateMyProfessor,
is likely to be more biased than
our own data, so the previous
Provost
decided
that,
on
balance, the benefits of sharing
(student evaluations) broadly
outweigh this particular risk.
But this is a concern that we
need to study more closely
and have more conversations
around as we go forward.”
Evrard wrote he believes
the expansion of ART will
ultimately be beneficial for
faculty members in that it may
eventually
allow
professors
the opportunity to include
teaching
statements
and
accomplishments in profiles on
these pages.
“Instructors
now
know
that there is a page for each
of them that describes their
teaching
history
at
the
university,” he wrote. “Making
this
information
public
is
consistent with the open nature
of our public institution, and
I do hope that these pages
will grow to contain more
information
about
faculty’s
teaching
philosophies
and
accomplishments. … Also, some
faculty are very innovative in
their teaching - perhaps by
inventing new courses to fill
an emerging need - and these
pages offer a potential means to
highlight such innovations.”
Evrard hopes, in addition
to other benefits for students
registering for classes, ART
will encourage students to fill
out course evaluations more
thoughtfully.
“An additional area of impact
is the Student Evaluations of
Teaching (SETs) themselves,”
he wrote. “As students realize
that their collective feedback
on teaching will be shared with
other students, we anticipate
higher
response
rates
and
increasingly
thoughtful
responses
to
SET
survey
questions.
This
is
where
coordination
with
student
government is essential.”
Wojan
emphasized
the
importance of student feedback
concerning ART to optimize its
usefulness to students, not only
in surveys, but also throughout
the design process.
“It’s
important
for
me
to remember that I have to
design things not just in my
own head but something that’s
representative of what the
end users are asking for,” he
said. “So (student input) is a
good way of keeping us honest
making sure that we have the
right ideas about what people
are asking for.”
LSA senior Noah Betman,
CSG chief of staff, acted as a
liaison between CSG and DIG
throughout the development
of ART, which he said was a
productive experience.
“I felt like my voice has been
heard in the room, so it’s not
just a token student voice kind
of situation,” he said. “I’ve been
able to provide a lot of good
input, and the product that is
being released … is something
that students will appreciate
and that will find beneficial.”
Betman said he feels ART
will be a useful tool for students
in the future, in terms of
giving them information about
workload and past students’
experiences.
“Having that out there when
creating your own schedule
and making sure that the
balance in the best way for you
understanding that you know if
a course has a heavier workload
than another course matters a
lot to students,” he said.
Wojan said DIG will continue
improving and adding features,
and mentioned the possibility
of allowing students to craft
personal profiles on ART or see
grade distributions.
“Moving
forward
we’re
trying
to
do
even
more
with
ART,
we’re
trying
to get students even more
personalized
and
engaging
experience on the platform,”
he said. “Our goal for ART
is to have some new really
useful
functionality
each
term. And so you know we’re
excited about that and it keeps
us on our toes because you
know we’re always designing
something new and exciting
that’s going to be going out you
can see right away.”
ACADEMICS
From Page 1A
capsule.
Forty
students
are
working on M-BARC, while
about 100 are coordinating and
conducting interviews.
“(The
time
capsule
will)
showcase how far the University
has come in the past 200 years,”
Sethi said. “(It will) leave a lasting
legacy of who we, members
of the University of Michigan
community, are now for 100 years
down the road.”
M-BARC
project
lead
Hashmita Koka, a Rackham
student in aerospace engineering,
said the time capsule will store
1,000 interviews from students,
faculty and alumni etched onto
silicon wafers. Koka was also one
of the first students to work on
the project when it began.
Koka said she believes once
all the interviews are completed,
many different people with ties
to the University from around
the world will be interconnected
through the time capsule.
“I think one of the big things
is bringing so many people, like
alumni from all over the world,”
Koka said. “In a hundred years,
we’ll have people from all over
the world that might have some
kind of connection to it.”
Sethi said her favorite part
about
collecting
interviews
is listening to people’s stories
and their memories from the
University.
“It is so interesting to go
through life thinking one thing
but have that be completely
changed when I am hearing
these interviews,” she said. “I
have had Michigan alumni — the
oldest being 97 — email me to ask
to be interviewed. They have told
me stories about being the first
female in the marching band to
the panty raids that used to occur
back in the day.”
In addition to M-BARC,
the Department of American
Culture offered a class this
semester designed to generate
material for the time capsule.
LSA senior Julia Smith, who
is enrolled in the class, said
her project aims to create a
narrative of collective identity
from narratives of individual
student experience.
“The best way to describe
my
particular
project
for
the time capsule is to call
it a collective diary,” Smith
said. “The project depends on
student submissions, in which
each student writes about their
typical day at Michigan and
then splits this day into sections
based on the progression of a
regular day.”
Smith said her final project
will be a book putting all of
the days together in a format
that allows a “typical” day at
Michigan to be read in multiple
ways, or to piece together parts
of different students’ days to
make a complete day.
“The end goal is to represent
as
many
student
voices
as possible, and to get the
campus community thinking
about individual identity and
the ways in which it is both
recognized
and
dismissed
by
our
collective
identity
as
University
of
Michigan
students,” she said.
Koka said the time capsule
will have a tracking system
installed on it to monitor its
location. After 100 years, Koka
said, there is no formal plan yet
in place to send it back to Earth.
“We’re
going
to
have
electronics to be able to
communicate with it and
maneuver it to get to the
right orbit,” Koka said. “The
tracking
system
is
really
important because we want
to track it for a hundred
years. The hope is that if we
keep tracking it, a team of
students a hundred years
from now will design a
mission to retrieve it.”
In
addition
to
the
interviews and humanities
project, the capsule will host
a DNA experiment testing the
effects of radiation in space.
“We’re basically encoding
the University of Michigan’s
admission
statement
into
synthetic DNA,” Koka said.
“We want to test the viability
of DNA as a storage method
in space, because we want to
study the effects of radiation
in space.”
Sethi
said
this
is
unprecedented work and will
push the limits of science.
CAPSULE
From Page 1A
several
publications
including
The Wall Street Journal, the Los
Angeles Times, and The New
Yorker.
Kotlowitz
described
the
importance of studying U.S. cities
in order to understand American
society as a whole, discussing
specifically his study of Chicago
and the growing inequalities
within it.
“If you’re willing to look for
the fissures in the American
landscape, you’re going to find
them within the confines of that
city,” Kotlowitz said. “For me,
what’s notable about Chicago, and
now very many other cities, is that
it’s very much a tale of two cities.”
In
Chicago,
certain
neighborhoods
have
grown
“miraculously”
according
to
Kotlowitz, while the south and
west sides have not grown at all,
and instead have gotten worse.
Desmond agreed inequality in
U.S. cities and around the world
was striking.
“What concerns me (about
cities) is how unlivable they’re
becoming,” Desmond said. “So
in New York and San Francisco
and Boston, for example, rent
costs more than the average
household income. So the cities
where the best jobs are, and the
most opportunities are, are out
of reach even for the middle class
now.”
Esi Hutchful, a Public Policy
graduate student, later echoed
Desmond’s
concern
for
the
affordability of cities, as well as
his call for an increase in existing
policies
that
address
these
problems. When asked which
policies she believed required
more
attention,
she
brought
up the need to address racial
residential segregation in the
United States.
“We’ve seen in the literature
and from decades of advocacy that
residential racial segregation is a
persistent problem that has never
been truly dismantled; as we talk
about better housing policy, we
should not adopt a supposedly
race-blind lens or only talk about
race-blind economic integration,”
Hutchful wrote in an email.
Afton Branche, a Public Policy
graduate student, said she felt
it was important to seriously
consider more policies of rent
control and rent ceilings in the
private market.
However, in the transition
from identifying a problem to
calling for a solution, Desmond
and Kotlowitz both emphasized
the
need
to
humanize
the
marginalized
communities
portrayed
in
their
works,
thus
showing
their
readers
perspectives with which they
may be unfamiliar.
“One of the things you have
to be careful about, especially
writing about people who are
really at the bottom, who are
really marginalized, is not just
writing
about
them
because
you want to teach a lesson, but
rather to write about them with
a sense of discovery,” Kotlowitz
said, praising Desmond’s book
for telling the stories of people in
dire situations while capturing
the complexities and nuances of
their lives.
Desmond agreed humanizing
the people portrayed in their
works was essential. He stressed
that portraying real people was
an enormous responsibility. He
mentioned how he was often
concerned the stories he told would
be interpreted as moral failings
on the part of their subjects,
CRISIS
From Page 1A
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