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Tuesday, April 4, 2017 — 3

that moment it was kind of like
what just happened? It was
a complete surprise … (This
lecture) is very personal, and
I’m hoping students will be
able to take something away
from this that’s more than just
classroom material.”

Cho started his lecture, titled

“The
Unexpected
Benefits

of Pain, Passion, and Pets,”
like he begins his classes: by
asking the audience to turn to
their neighbors and introduce
themselves. He then had the
crowd practice his trademark
classroom phrases — “Yuh” and
“Nuh.”

When Cho said “Yuh!” into

the microphone, the entire
auditorium responded with a
resounding “Yuh!”

After
a
short
slideshow

featuring pictures of his cat,
Munchy, who Cho said was
“basically
his
daughter,”

he began talking about his
upbringing
on
a
farm
in

Cupertino, Calif. His parents
both stopped formal education
after junior high, and Cho
grew up in a much lower
socioeconomic
bracket
than

most of his classmates. This led
to insecurities later in life.

“Thinking
back
to
high

school,
there’s
a
lot
of

insecurities,” Cho said. “The
one that hit me the hardest,
that I didn’t even realize until
I wrote this speech — it was
hidden in my brain almost — is
probably the most pernicious
one. It was, ‘do I have the
ability, do I have the DNA, can
I do this?’ … For those of you
feeling the same self-doubt,
the same ‘am I good enough?’,
I want to tell you that you are.
There’s nothing different about
you.”

Cho did overcome those

insecurities,
and
eventually

found himself working toward
a Ph.D. in economics from the

Massachusetts
Institute
of

Technology.
The
remainder

of his lecture focused on his
time in graduate school, and a
story he said he hasn’t shared
publicly before.

“Graduate school can be

summarized for me in the

simple
equation,
graduate

school equals pain,” Cho said.

When he was in graduate

school, Cho began to feel pain
in his wrist. He would try to
ignore it while he sat at the
computer for hours a day,
coding and organizing data for
his dissertation. However, the
pain didn’t go away. Instead, it
began to spread.

“I kept going, I kept typing,

and it started getting worse and
worse,” he said. “I should have
listened to my body. I didn’t. It
started spreading all into my
hand, all up this arm. It’s almost
as if they did not belong to me,
that my arms were someone
else’s.”

Soon, the repetitive strain

injury stopped Cho from being
able to use his arms at all.
Still determined to finish his
Ph.D., he began to use voice
recognition software to code
the data, but eventually this
wore out his throat as well.

“I never knew you could do

that, that you could hurt your
throat from talking too much,”
he said. “This is definitely the

most difficult part of my life.
There’s two things happening:
there’s so much pain in my
throat that I just couldn’t talk
anymore. I was mute. And my
arms were shot … I remember
having thoughts about cutting
off my arms because they were
the source of my pain … Pain
warps your thinking.”

A year went by, and still

Cho couldn’t use his voice. He
didn’t know if he would ever
get better, and he began to
feel hopeless. At his darkest
moment, he decided to turn
to the animal shelter. This, he
told the audience, was when he
found Munchy.

“I
thought,
I’m
like
an

animal, in the sense that I can’t
talk, I can’t speak,” he said. “I
can just run around and look at
stuff. We’re the same.”

Like Cho, Munchy didn’t

make noise. She would never
meow, and the two spent their
days staring at each other.
Eventually, Cho began voice
therapy and slowly regained the
use of his voice. Miraculously,
Munchy began to meow at the
same time. Cho said this made
him feel even closer to her.

Though the experience of

his pain was difficult for Cho,
he also counts it as one of the
best things to happen to him,
because it was what led him to
teaching.

“It’s the best and worst

thing that’s ever happened to
me,” he said “Had I not sort
of experienced all that pain,
I probably wouldn’t be an
educator. I probably would be
in private industry somewhere,
and maybe I’d have a different
set of priorities. But after that,
I could reorganize my life and
my priorities, and in the end, it
turned out that this story had a
good ending.”

The evening ended when

the Golden Apple committee
presented him with the official
Golden Apple Award. As they
handed him the award, the
entire audience gave Cho — and
Munchy — a standing ovation.

CHO
From Page 1

can’t lurch from good funding
to bad funding.”

At the mention of searching

for
alternative
funding

sources like the Food and
Drug Administration, SACUA
member
David
Smith,
a

professor of pharmaceutical
science, said researchers at
the University should strive
to retain a high standard
of research, even with the
uncertainty of funding sources.

“We can fund ourselves and

wind up being a very good
mediocre
school,”
he
said.

“In no way would I encourage
anyone to give up on NIH.”

Schlissel
also
spoke

about the progress toward
reorganizing
Michigan

Medicine as a cohesive unit.

“This
reorganization,

the goal of it is to make our
health
care
delivery
and

academic enterprises a single
enterprise so that their shared
responsibility of all the leaders
will be the success of both
sides of that house in order to
teach the research side, the
clinical side,” he said. “The
idea of bringing those two
positions together and setting
up a leadership group that work
together on problems on both
sides of the organization is to
try to ensure that integration.”

Sami Malek, an associate

professor of internal medicine
and an upcoming member of
SACUA, said, in his personal
experience, he has found the
University Medical School is in
need of some sort of change.

“I think we’ve gone through

the dark ages,” he said. “I just
don’t think they had what it
took to run such a thing on a
competitive level. I think we
all have to make sure things
get better because it wasn’t
good.”

At the end of the meeting,

Schultz
asked
for
further

nominations for both the chair
and vice chair positions for the
next academic year. Ortega,
the only nomination for chair,
won with acclamation and
the election of vice chair was
postponed to provide further
opportunities for nominations.

surrounding
controversies,

student protest, the growth of
ethics in biomedical research
in a global context and the
future of nuclear research.

Presidential
Bicentennial

Prof. Martha Jones, one of
the coordinators of Stumbling
Blocks exhibits, discussed the
importance of commemorating
these events.

“This
project
tries
to

bring the questions that the
bicentennial raises out into
the public light of the campus,
beyond
auditoriums
and

seminars and lecture halls
to places like the Diag and
the Michigan Union,” Jones
said. “It also recalls difficult,
challenging and complicated
moments of our past so we can
think better about the future.”

According
to
Jones,

Stumbling Blocks was greatly
influenced by a project by
German artist Gunter Demnig
called
“Stolpersteine,”
or

Stumbling Stones. His project
originated
in
Berlin
and

has now spread throughout
Europe. Demnig has removed
cobblestones from sidewalks
and
streets
and
replaced

them with brass plaques to
memorialize the people who
perished in the Holocaust.

“History is always there,”

Jones said. “But it is often
invisible or muted. By creating
these
installations,
the

invisible history can become
more visible, and become a part
of our contemporary memory.”

Five of the seven Stumbling

Blocks were created by staff
who have their own markers.
The Fleming Administration
building has been renamed,
for the week, the “33,616 Staff
Building,” in honor of the
33,616 staffers who work for
the University.

Nearby, the sign in front

of the Michigan Union ticks

endlessly
to
demonstrate

the restrictions on women’s
use of the building from its
construction in 1919 to 1968.
The Union, according to the
sign, was built as an exclusive
men’s club, and women were
required
to
enter
through

a side door and have a male
escort
accompanying
them

during specific hours and days.
Equal access to the entirety of
the building did not come until
1968, when the Billiards Room
allowed women entry.

A sign outside the exhibit

displayed
words
from

Michigan Union Director Amy
White that progress can still
made.

“We want all students to feel

at home here,” the sign read.
“To feel like this is their space.
Our challenge — and that of the
future university community
— is to continue to evolve to
meet the needs of students of

all genders and identities.”

Many students and faculty

had strong reactions to the 950
empty maize and blue chairs in
the Diag, which symbolize the
number of underrepresented
minority students who did not
attend the University after
Proposal 2 deemed race- and
gender-based
affirmative

action unconstitutional in the
state of Michigan. LSA senior
Brian
Sutherland
discussed

how he feels the chairs carried
a sense of urgency.

“It captures the eye so

quickly,”
Sutherland
said.

“People think that an event is
going to start, but once they
see and read the signs they
realize that this is actually
has a deeper meaning to it … I
definitely did not know about
Proposal 2 before this.”

About 100 meters away, a

plaque in Ingalls Mall that
commemorates
the
Native

American land gift to the
University has been blown up to
an 8-ft by 8-ft model with three
sides and artificial lighting.
According to Jones, this is
so people will deliberately
encounter the plaque and is
meant to encourage them to
have conversations about it.

“I was very inspired by a

conversation with a colleague,”
Jones said. “When I mentioned
to them that we had a marker
on Ingalls Mall, they exclaimed
that they literally stumbled on
it on their way to my office. So
I thought that this idea that
someone would accidentally
or
inadvertently
encounter

history seems like something
we could work with.”

Encountering
the

monument, Music, Theatre &
Dance junior Noah Kieserman
commented
how
he
felt

enlarging these aspects of
history has had a strong impact
on conversations of diversity
and inclusion.

“I think it’s important to

make sure we remember the
foundations of our University,”
Kieserman
said.
“As
well

as
continuing
to
support

diversity and provide support
for all groups and all walks
of life at the University, I
think it’s important to make
everyone feel included. This is
crucial especially during the
bicentennial.”

Jones encourages students

to Tweet using the hashtag
#UMich200 to engage in the
dialogue about the bicentennial
and the University’s history.

DISPLAY
From Page 1

SACUA
From Page 2

But after that, I
could reorganize
my life and my
priorities, and in
the end, it turned
out that this story
had a good ending

Our challenge -
and that of the
future university
community - is to
continue to evolve
to meet the needs

of students

organizations
and
beyond.

And I love to think of it like
this: If we assume the average
student
organization
has,

let’s say 10 or 15 students,
then this program impacted
upwards of 3,000, if not more,
students, and I think that’s an
unbelievable accomplishment
and something I deeply hope
the next CSG administration
will continue.

Q:
You
both
endorsed

eMerge, which was arguably
the most experienced party,
can you explain why that
was a choice for you?
Micah Griggs: Well personally,
I endorsed Anushka (Sarkar)
and Nadine (Jawad) as the
executive ticket because I
felt that those two people
would be the best for the
organization, including their
CSG experience. They’re well-
versed on a lot of issues on
campus, they’re inclusive in
their work and their speech
and I think they will move the
organization forward.
Schafer: I’ve just come to so
deeply
admire
personally

and professionally Anushka
and Nadine. Both of them are
some of my closest friends on
campus and I’ve seen the work
they’ve done and they’re two
of the best change makers
that I’ve ever met, not only
in my time at Michigan, but
throughout the course of my
life. I know for certain, and
I’m sure I speak on Micah’s
behalf as well on this point,
that
Anushka
and
Nadine

will never quit, especially
when the going gets tough. I
honestly meant it when I said
that a vote for them was the
best CSG-related vote that
any student at this University
would and could ever cast.
And I’m extraordinarily proud
of those two for the campaign
they ran, the issues on which
they ran, and I look forward
to bearing witness, albeit from
the sidelines, to the great work
they’ll do next year

Q:
The
DEI
(Diversity,

Equity and Inclusion) plan
still isn’t favored strongly

among
members
of
the

student body. As you are
the main liaison with the
administration,
can
you

speak to student concerns
that
you’ve
heard
over

the
past
year
regarding

ambiguities within the plan
or any sort of things you’ve
heard?
Schafer: I think one of the
major questions that students
have raised, at least from
my eyes, is the timeline. I
think some students have the
perception that we’re waiting
five years, or the University
administration is waiting five
years to implement everything,
and I don’t believe that’s
necessarily the case. I think,
obviously, you have short-term
initiatives and you have long-
term initiatives. Real change
is hard and it takes time, but
that’s not to say that students
should not continue to hold the
administration
accountable,

because they must, and they
should.

Q: You guys advocated very
strongly to get a student
on the Board of Regents.
There still isn’t a student
on the board, so can you tell
us a little about what that
journey was like for you
and what barriers you came
across?
Schafer:
Of
course
I’m

disappointed it didn’t happen,
but again, it’s a long-term
initiative that takes time. So
at the start of the year, with
an indispensable foundation
set
by
the
previous
CSG

administration, we were able
to push through an addition
to the Regents’ bylaws, 701,
that discusses the importance
of student participation in
University decision making,
and
guarantees
that
such

participation will be sought
and
encouraged
by
key

decision makers and other
University
administrators,

including the Board of Regents.
I
think
institutionalizing

that language is something
tangible
that
future
CSG

administrations
can
grasp

and point to and say, ‘listen,
students need to be involved
in
key
decisions
at
the

University.’ For example, we
used that language to advocate

for the inclusion of student
presence
on
the
provost

search advisory committee.
So to have that student is big
because that’s a key University
decision. Going forward, it
is my continued hope that
students work to strengthen
student engagement with the
Board of Regents because the
Board of Regents is unique
among its peers in the Big Ten
and across the country for
not having a student presence
on the board.* So maybe if
we had a little more time, but
I’m proud of the groundwork
and foundation we laid and I
believe that it will happen one
day.

Q: So we wanted to talk
a
little
bit
about
the

Leadership
Engagement

Scholarship. Some students
raised concerns over the $5
fee, and I just want to learn a
little about your experience
with them and a little about
the process of going through
the article and how will the
scholarship move forward in
the upcoming year?
Griggs:
Well,
firstly,
the

Leadership
Engagement

Scholarship
was
created

to
award
emerging
and

established leaders on campus
who face financial barriers to
getting involved on campus
and we’ve participated in a
variety of efforts to increase
funds for the scholarship.
We’ve
done
outreach
to

donors and participated in
Giving Blue Day, so we were
thinking of other objectives
and ways to increase funding
and we did take the route of
advocating for a student fee.
We’ve decided to work with
the administration to increase
funding for the scholarship, so
going forward we’ll be working
with the administration to
find ways to increase funding
for the scholarship. We’ll still
be participating in Giving Blue
Day and doing outreach to
alumni.
Schafer: For me, the leadership
engagement
scholarship
is

without a doubt the proudest
thing I think we were able to
accomplish this year. We’ve
raised more than $180,000
over the course of this year
alone and that money, as well

as the money yet to come from
other alumni and donors, as
well as, like Micah touched on,
the administration, will better
the lives of student leaders for
generations to come, frankly
for the life of this Michigan.
And it’s just the belief that
every student regardless of
who they are and where they
come from deserves the ability
and the opportunity to have
those same memories and to
have those same Michigan
experiences that so many of us
have been afforded during our
four plus years on campus.

Q:
Also,
we
had
the

Student Support & Action
Committee. They aim to
work with bias response
(the Bias Response Team) to
promote positive messaging.
I was just wondering how did
it work out, what were the
outcomes of this committee?
Schafer: The whole goal of
that is obviously not to replace
what the Dean of Students
does because we’re incredibly
thankful for the work of their
office, from the Bias Response
Team perspective, but really to
help them. So the whole goal
and impetus of this committee
is, it’s maybe to address and
to mitigate the impact of
those harmful messages by
spreading positive messages.
I believe this is the case but I
remember talking with senior
administrators, both of us,
after the racist and awful fliers
were posted in September and
October and they said ‘legally,
we cannot remove the fliers.’
Students are not compelled
or bound by the same legal
obligations or restrictions that
administrators are.

Q:
After
you
graduate,

how do you hope to stay
connected to the University?
Do you plan on still being
involved with the campus?
Schafer: I think I’m going to
maybe not come back for a
few years. No, I don’t say that
sadly, because as the old cliché
quote goes, I think absence
makes the heart grow fonder.
My ultimate goal from this
year is to best understand what
this role and this position has
given me and what I’ve learned
from it.

INTERVIEW
From Page 1

Jessica Prozinski, who is active
in the organization Stop Trump
Ann Arbor, said during the
meeting. Prozinski was one of
the supporters of the ordinance,
and called on the city to do
more as federal policies restrict
undocumented
individuals’

freedom.

“Our goal with this ordinance

at this time is to give greater
protection to the undocumented
people in our community, to
lessen the fear and to decrease
the chances that people will be
arrested for immigration related
charges, detained and deported,”
Prozinski said. “I think this
ordinance does that.”

She went on to list other

actions Stop Trump Ann Arbor
wanted the city to take, including
refusing
to
cooperate
with

federal agencies in arresting
undocumented immigrants and
refusing to arrest people based on
administrative warrants.

A main point of concern for

City Council in passing the
ordinance was the risk of losing
federal funding. As such, the
ordinance currently does not
explicitly defy any federal policy.

Lumm, who voted against

it, stressed the importance of
remaining in compliance with
federal policy, and pushed for an
amendment that explicitly called
for compliance from employees
of the city.

“I will not support something

that places federal funding at
risk and shifts the burden of
paying for city priorities to local
taxpayers,” Lumm said.

The council convened for a

closed session to discuss the
amendment, after which they
deliberated publicly, eventually
voting against it.

Councilmember Jack Eaton

(D–Ward 4) argued the language
from the amendment was vague,
and made the work of city police
and officials uncertain.

“This
language
actually

creates uncertainty for our staff,
as you’re telling them it’s not
meant to cause a violation of a
valid law,” Eaton said.

CITY
From Page 1

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