This year’s Central Student
Government
elections
saw
significantly
lower
numbers
of
voter
participation
in
comparison to recent years.
According to an email interview
from
Public
Policy
senior
Jacob
Pearlman,
the
CSG
election director, a total of
7,989 students, or 17.9 percent
of the student body, voted in
this
year’s
presidential
and
vice-presidential
election.
In
2016, voter turnout came in at
19.1 percent of the student body,
while in 2015, 20.1 percent of
students voted.
Engaging with the student
body has been a priority for
CSG in recent years, especially
considering
the
fact
that
many students attribute their
decision not to vote to a lack of
knowledge of what CSG is and
what specific actions the body
takes throughout the year. For
LSA sophomore Chang Yang,
this year’s CSG elections were
not something she felt was very
prevalent around campus.
“I just felt very disconnected,
to be honest, from the CSG
campaigns to begin with,” Yang
said. “They were just some
things that kind of happened in
the background. I would have to
see more of how much CSG plays
in the roles or the effects it has
on the actual student body, or
how effective it is in doing things
for me, to care more about voting
in their elections.”
Pearlman agreed that this sort
of unfamiliarity from students
with their governing bodies has
provided reason for them not to
take part in elections. He also
highlighted instances in which
students made their decisions
not to vote based on issues they
may have encountered with
previous administrations.
“Low
turnout
could
be
attributed
to
students’
disenchantment
with
the
outgoing CSG leadership,” he
said. “I’ve talked to countless
students who felt as though
the promises made last year
to bring more transparency
and inclusivity to CSG went
unfulfilled — and it made
students feel as though their
voice and vote did not matter
this year.”
When it came to the voting
process
itself,
Pearlman
explained that a campus-wide
email was sent to students to
let them know the polls had
opened. These polls, which
were available at vote.umich.
edu, were open for 48 hours.
Once they closed, results were
automatically
tallied
online
and CSG members filtered out
ballots from unenrolled students
and, according to Pearlman, the
ballots “which were deemed
vulgar or inappropriate.”
The
University
is
home
to about 45,000 students of
different genders, races and
religions, but these differences
are not discussed on a daily
basis. With the intention of
addressing
this
issue
and
creating a campus fostering
the inclusion specifically of
people of all genders, the Sexual
Assault Prevention Awareness
Center
has
partnered
with
the LSA Student Government
to create a dialogue series. By
fostering a safe and “brave”
discussion space, the first of
this series, held Wednesday
night, hoped to normalize the
use of gender-neutral pronouns
and the explain stigma that
surrounds them.
Led by two coordinators —
LSA sophomore Eve Hillman, a
SAPAC peer educator, and LSA
junior Elaina Rahrig, an LSA SG
member — the discussion group
reflected the diverse campus
environment.
michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Thursday, March 30, 2017
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INDEX
Vol. CXXVII, No. 56
©2017 The Michigan Daily
N E WS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
O PI N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
A R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
S U D O K U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
CL A S S I F I E DS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Gender
pronouns
examined
at dialogue
CAMPUS LIFE
Sexual Assault Prevention
and Awareness Center to
host a series of events
ELIZABETH LAKE
For the Daily
2015
2017
2016
20.1%
19.1%
17.9%
% of Students Who Voted
73.3%
of student voters voted for
the eMerge party, the
most votes any party has
ever received
7,989
total votes
(2017)
CSG Student Voter Turnout
DESIGN BY JULIA MARGALIT
eMerge considers campus involvement
following low CSG election turn out
Recent Central Student Government election had lower voter participation than 2016
JORDYN BAKER
Daily Staff Reporter
michigandaily.com
For more stories and coverage, visit
About 70 people gathered
Wednesday night in North Quad
Residence Hall for the 2017
Climate Blue Spring Symposium,
titled “With or Without US?”
The
symposium
included
a
presentation of students’ findings
from the 22nd Conference of
Parties, hosted by the United
Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change in Marrakech,
Morocco, as well as an expert
panel of environmental scientists
and policymakers.
Climate
Blue
is
a
group
comprising University students
and faculty, businesspeople, non-
governmental professionals and
public servants representing the
University’s delegation to the
Conference of Parties.
Acknowledging the Trump
administration’s
failure
to
address climate change, many
speakers at the event stressed
the importance of strengthening
local, state and international
policy.
Conference
on climate
highlights
legal action
RESEARCH
Panelists talk strategy
on state, global levels
after Trump deregulation
ANDREW HIYAMA
Daily Staff Reporter
Examining the ties between race and tenure:
underrepresented minority faculty count remains stagnant
DESIGN BY OLIVIA STILLMAN
DEI strategic plan proposes change in hiring and recruiting practices, as candidates of color still encounter implicit bias
Along with efforts to increase
student diversity on campus, the
42-page Diversity, Equity and
Inclusion plan outlines the need to
increase diversity among faculty. As
of the plan’s launch last October, the
percentage of underrepresented-
minority tenured faculty at the
University
of
Michigan
has
not changed from 2011 to 2016,
according to records compiled by
University Public Affairs.
In a headcount of total tenured
and tenure-track faculty between
2011 and 2016, the total percentage
of all minorities increased by 2
percent—from 24 percent in 2011
to 26 percent in 2016, according to
the Faculty Headcount report from
the Office of Budget and Planning.
The percentage of female tenured
faculty also increased: from 30
percent in 2011 to 34 percent
in 2016. While these numbers
appear to show a gradual increase
in
faculty
diversification
that
the DEI plan can improve upon,
Alec Gallimore, the dean of the
College of Engineering, said Asian
populations account for a large
percentage of University faculty
and can warp diversity statistics.
“I knew that we could not
have
20-something
percent
underrepresented minorities on
the faculty at the University of
Michigan,” he said. “That didn’t
make sense. Asian-Americans, in
any field like engineering … are
often overrepresented in terms
of percentage of students and
faculty versus underrepresented
minorities, which are obviously
underrepresented.”
The
underrepresented
minorities included in the data
— composing categories of Black,
Hispanic, Native American, Pacific
Islander, and two or more races —
show a more flatlined percentage
between the years the data covers.
From 2011 to 2016, the proportion
of such faculty stayed at 10 percent.
In an interview, Chief Diversity
Officer Robert Sellers, vice provost
for equity and inclusion, said the
data shows more work has to be
done to increase diversity among
faculty, but also noted figures
from individual colleges may look
different.
“I think it’s very complex,”
Sellers said. “I think we have a ways
to go to diversifying our faculty to
look broader and look like the larger
society and larger community.
That’s one of the reasons why
we’re doing our DEI work. At the
same point in time, those numbers
themselves, while important, don’t
tell the whole story. They look
different in different contexts and
different spaces.”
According to an excerpt from
the
College
of
Engineering’s
annual Office of the Provost report
provided by Gallimore, women
make up 20 percent of engineering
tenure and tenure-track faculty and
underrepresented minorities make
up 6 percent. Advance gathered
data from 2016 on LSA and the
Medical School, which reported
an LSA tenure and tenure-track
underrepresented-minority
percentage of 6 percent and a
Medical School (Basic Sciences)
percentage of 5 percent.
Tabbye Chavous, the director
of
the
National
Center
for
Institutional
Diversity
and
Education and a professor of
education and psychology, said
the larger data for all minorities
and women should not give a false
sense of security in the University’s
efforts to improve diversity. The
MATT HARMON
Daily Staff Reporter
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
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