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Tuesday, April 11, 2017 — 3

quarterfinalist, marking the 
beginning of a 22-year NCAA 
Tournament 
streak 
that 

remains the longest streak any 
team has ever put together in 
college hockey.

During 
that 
streak, 

Michigan made the Frozen 
Four 11 times, finishing as 
the 
runner-up 
once 
while 

collecting 
two 
national 

championships.

Berenson 
has 
left 
an 

enduring legacy not only with 
his achievements on the ice 
but off of it, as well. A graduate 
of the university’s Ross School 
of Business, Berenson has 
stressed the importance of 
education to all of his teams, 
priding himself on molding 
boys into men. Some of his 
players have even returned to 
the University after the end 
of their playing careers to 
take graduate classes — like 
Berenson once did. In recent 
years, he has sought to raise 
money 
and 
awareness 
for 

the cause of Scott Matzka, 
a former Wolverine who is 
currently fighting ALS.

Michigan 
will 
be 
in 

uncharted 
territory 
next 

year. 
This 
past 
year, 
the 

Wolverines struggled through 

their worst season in three 
decades, missing the NCAA 
Tournament for the third time 
in four years.

They will bring back the 

bulk of the team barring any 
unexpected early departures 
to the NHL, and may even 
have a new head coach with 
ties to the program — such 
as 
Michigan 
Tech’s 
Mel 

Pearson, a longtime assistant, 
or current assistants Billy 
Powers and Brian Wiseman. 
Berenson, in his new role as a 
special advisor to Manuel, will 
surely have a say in who his 
successor is, as well.

“I 
hope 
there’s 
some 

Michigan 
awareness 
or 

Michigan connection for a 
coach that will feel the right 
way about what a Michigan 
man should be like or what 
a Michigan team should be 
like,” Berenson said. “We’ve 
got some of those coaches here 
today, and we’ve got some 
great alumni here today. I’m 
sure Warde will make the 
right decision. It might be 
an easy decision, it might not 
be. We’re going to get a lot of 
people interested.”

But regardless of any ties 

the new coach might have 
to the program, things will 
undoubtedly feel different.

It is the end of an era and oh, 

what an era it was.

how this membrane plays a 
role in protein aggregation, 
that would lead to different 
types of aggregated species,” 
Ramamoorthy said. “Before they 
go into needle-like structures, 
you see that plaque. Needle-like 
structures are not toxic, but 
the intermediate structures are 
the most toxic species. So my 
research has been investigating 
this intermediate species. We 
would like to know their high-
resolution structure, at what 
times they can form, how 
they execute cell membrane 
toxicity, so that we can develop 
compounds to incubate this 

kind of toxicity. And they may 
become potential drugs to treat 
disease, or they would aid in the 
design of compounds to treat 
these diseases.”

Ramamoorthy 
also 

discovered these proteins can 
punch holes in the membrane, 
which is the second mechanism 
they have found to cause this 
cell death and memory loss.

“It 
is 
like 
a 
tornado,” 

Ramamoorthy 
described. 

“When a tornado comes, the 
buildings get destroyed, and 
when the protein aggregates 
like a tornado, it just rips out 
the whole cell membrane.”

While the research team 

is 
focused 
particularly 
on 

Alzheimer’s due to the grant 
they received, they have also 

discovered proteins that could 
tell more about Type 2 diabetes, 
AIDS and bone diseases.

Mi Hee Lim, an associate 

professor of chemistry at the 
Ulsan National Institute of 
Science and Technology in 
Korea, wrote in an email stating 
she thought the diversity of 
backgrounds in this team had 
a big effect on making this 
discovery.

“This 
research 

field 
absolutely 
needs 

multidisciplinary 
approaches 

in order to identify such a big 
question,” Lim wrote. “Working 
with this team has been very 
fruitful to verify challenging 
questions 
in 
Alzheimer’s 

disease.”

Magdalena 
Ivanova, 

an 
assistant 
professor 
of 

neurology and biophysics and 
a member of Ramamoorthy’s 
research team, said while she 
is more of a biochemist, her 
expertise 
complements 
that 

of Ramamoorthy. Ivanova has 
no 
personal 
connection 
to 

Alzheimer’s, but she believes 
Alzheimer’s and other diseases 
caused by aging should be 
things of public concern by all. 

“Most 
aging 
people 
are 

developing Alzheimer’s disease, 
more or less,” Ivanova said. 
“So the longer you live, your 
chances increase significantly. 
So with the increased lifespan, 
everybody starts to worry about 
these things.”

Ramamoorthy 
does 
not 

have a personal connection 

to Alzheimer’s either, but his 
father did suffer from Type 
2 diabetes, which served as a 
personal motivation for him.

“I’m 
very 
interested 
in 

brain-related 
diseases,” 

Ramamoorthy said. “We are 
living in an electronic world, 
but nature has chosen the brain 
to 
control 
everything. 
And 

the brain is so complicated, 
so 
contributing 
towards 

understanding 
of 
these 

molecule events that disrupt 
the brain is exciting.”

Ramamoorthy was excited 

about these new developments, 
but acknowledged there is still 
a great deal of work to be done 
in understanding the brain.

“I wish a day would come 

where we could clean up our 

brain the same way you clean 
up your body,” Ramamoorthy 
said. “We could go where the 
proteins are aggregated and put 
the brain back.”

Ramamoorthy laughed, and 

said hope is “like a science-
fiction.”

Ivanova shared a similar 

sentiment, 
saying 
there 
is 

still a long way to go in terms 
of creating a drug to combat 
Alzheimer’s. 

“Drugs are not so simple,” 

Ivanova said. “I think this is a 
big step forward to finding a 
cure, or knowing what to target 
and what to modify, so in that 
respect I’m optimistic that this 
could lead to a drug, or at least 
finding a good target to develop 
a drug.”

RESEARCHERS
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BERENSON
From Page 1

diversity at the University, and 
has been lauded multiple times 
by University President Mark 
Schlissel.

The scholarship is valued at 

about $60,000. According to a 
University press release, 262 
HAIL recipients enrolled at 
the University in 2015. Some 
of those students, however, say 
they remain estranged from 
the larger campus community.

White said when she told one 

of her classmates in high school 
about how she was awarded 
the scholarship, he said it was 
only because she was Black and 
of lower socioeconomic status. 
Even though White knew this 
wasn’t entirely true, she could 
not find any solace while at the 
University to prove her former 
classmate wrong.

“In the effort to become 

more diversified, they’ve … 
alienated people at the same 
time,” White said.

Students 
from 
higher 

socioeconomic 
levels 
are 

currently 
disproportionately 

represented in the University’s 
undergraduate student body. 
As 
originally 
reported 
by 

the Equality of Opportunity 
Project, the median family 
income of a student at the 
University is $154,000 and 1 
in 10 students are from the 
top 1 percent of the income 
distribution — the University 
ranked last in social mobility 
among elite public colleges. 

In response to criticism 

about the University’s lack 
of 
socioeconomic 
diversity, 

Kedra 
Ishop, 
vice 
provost 

for enrollment management, 
said the HAIL Scholarship is 
one way to help low-income 
students choose the University.

“We 
started 
this 
pilot 

scholarship to recruit … a 
group of low-income students 
from Michigan with … a pretty 
detailed 
communication 

packet that goes to the student, 
that goes to the student’s 
influencers — meaning the 

parents get an information 
packet, 
the 
high 
school 

principal and counselor get 
an information packet,” Ishop 
said. 
“(We’re) 
helping 
the 

student know that, ‘if you are 
admitted to Michigan, if you 
apply to Michigan and get 
admitted to Michigan, your 
tuition is covered.’ ”

White and Soto both said 

the information packet did not 
explain why they qualified for 
the scholarship and left them 
in the dark about the program. 
Soto said she still is not aware 
what the requirements of HAIL 

are; all she knows is it’s helping 
her pay for school. White said 
there 
was 
no 
information 

about the scholarship online.

“When 
I 
first 
got 
the 

(packet) in the mail at the end 
of junior year … I honestly 
thought it was spam because 
I tried to look it up on the 
Internet and I could not find 
anything about it and it was 
very vague, the language,” she 
said. “They didn’t say why I 
was selected and even now, 
talking to some of the other 
scholarship recipients, I can’t 
really see one set commonality 
between all of us.”

Soto and White also both 

said the scholarship tends to 
tokenize students from lower-
income backgrounds. Soto said 
she sometimes feels as though 
she was only admitted to the 
University through the HAIL 
scholarship to fill a diversity 
quota.

“(Tokenization) is actually 

something me and my friends 
talk about pretty often,” Soto 
said. “My boyfriend and my 

best friend from K-school and 
preschool, we all got accepted 
and we were in the top 10 
percent of our (high school) 
class 
and 
we 
were 
really 

excited to get here, but once 
we were here, we realized 
that people that come from 
our communities aren’t very 
represented and it kind of felt 
like (the University) was trying 
to meet a quota in a way.”

Ishop said the University 

attempts to connect students 
with resources on campus, but 
improving diversity is a trial 
and error process for everyone.

“We all have a responsibility 

to make sure that we help our 
students become part of the 
UM experience,” Ishop said. 
“It’s a challenging endeavor for 
us and we don’t always get it 
right the first time but I think 
we’ve put a great deal of effort 
… into identifying students, 
identifying their needs, to 
make sure they’re supported 
by the University.”

The scholarship is still a 

pilot program in its second 
year. According to the DEI 
plan, the program will be 
re-evaluated after three years 
of data have been collected, 
and changes will be made 
accordingly. White agreed the 
scholarship should be more of 
an integration-based program. 
As of right now, she admitted, 
HAIL attracts students to the 
University, but does not make 
them feel comfortable in their 
new academic environment.

“(HAIL) can be improved 

110 percent,” White said. “I 
just think it was a good idea on 
paper but as far as application, 
it kind of fell short in the end. 
As far as what they’re trying to 
do, I think it would be better 
to have more of a program 
and more integration into the 
University. If they really, truly 
wanted these people to come 
here, you’d think they would 
make them feel more accepted 
and more welcome.”

This article is the third part 

of “Hurdles,” an ongoing series 
of articles on institutional 
barriers faced by all members 
of the campus community. 

HAIL
From Page 1

in a more robust and healthier 
way.”

The economy’s relative health 

has shifted the Fed’s current 
focus to sustaining economic 
strength, and Yellen said she 
hopes to gradually raise interest 
rates to a more neutral rate.

While the economy seems to 

be growing now, that was not the 
case during the Great Recession 
of 2008. In December of that 
year, Yellen effectively lowered 
the overnight interest rates to 
zero as a possible solution. When 
that wasn’t enough to revitalize 
the 
economy, 
longer-term 

interest rates had to be lowered 
as well.

Shockingly 
to 
Yellen 
and 

her 
colleagues, 
those 
rates 

remained for seven years — an 
unprecedented amount of time.

“We 
gave 
to 
monetary 

policy all that we had. We did 
everything we possible could to 
support the economy,” she said. 

The 
shock 
of 
the 
Great 

Recession spurred many changes 
within the Fed, according to 
Yellen.

Its 
focus 
has 
expanded 

to banks outside the formal 
banking sector, and yearly stress 
tests are performed to analyze 
how the system would respond 
to severe economic stress. Yellen 
said these tests have been highly 
successful.

“We would examine where 

these institutions would be, what 
their capital would be if there 
were a highly adverse shock to 
hit the financial system,” Yellen 
said. “We want to be ahead of the 
curve and not behind it.”

However, this supervision has 

been criticized as overstepping 
the 
bounds 
of 
the 
federal 

government in the economy. 
Now 
all 
banks, 
including 

shadow banks, are a part of the 
banking system and are subject 
to supervision by the Fed. 
Yellen said this extension is an 
accomplishment, as it forces 
banks to hold more capital and 
more liquidity as opposed to 
being 
reliant 
on 
short-term 

funding, 
thus 
helping 
them 

control risk.

“Our supervision has changed 

in its character and is much 
better and focused on risks in 
the financial system as a whole 
and not on each individual 
institution — or the trees in the 
forest, as opposed to the forest,” 
she explained.

Yellen 
acknowledged 
the 

system 
of 
supervision 
isn’t 

perfect and noted much of the 
criticism comes from community 
banks that feel overburdened 
by the Fed’s regulations. Yellen 
says the Fed tries to tailor its 

approaches to shield community 
banks and some midsize banks 
from the regulations that are 
appropriate for highly systemic 
banks alone.

“I 
think 
we 
ought 
to 

tailor supervision so that it 
is appropriate to the risk of 
a 
particular 
organization,” 

Yellen said. “The most systemic 
institutions really deserve and 
require 
the 
highest 
degree 

of rigor and supervision and 
regulation.”

In addition to the successes 

of the Fed, Yellen highlighted 
some of her economic concerns. 
She noted the economy has 
only grown by about 2 percent 
overall 
since 
the 
recession 

and productivity growth has 
been slow, in part because of 

diminished technical innovation. 
To 
help 
solve 
this, 
Yellen 

recommended reallocation of 
labor from less productive to 
more productive firms.

“The fact that you could create 

that many jobs in the context of 
growth that is so low points to a 
significant problem,” she said.

Additionally, 
Yellen 
said 

certain 
bills, 
including 
the 

Audit 
the 
Fed 
bill, 
would 

end the Fed’s independence 
in 
making 
monetary 
policy 

decisions. Another bill seeks to 
simplify Fed’s decision to use 
a mathematical rule in setting 
interest rates. Deviance from 
this rule would require the 
Government 
Accountability 

Office 
to 
step 
in. 
Despite 

the message these bills are 
sending, Yellen said she sees 
independence as integral to the 
ethics of the Fed.

“The U.S. is well served by 

having a nonpartisan group 
shielded 
from 
short-term 

political 
pressures 
making 

these important decisions,” she 
argued.

Laurien Gilbert, a joint PhD 

student in public policy and 
economics, asked for clarification 
in regards to inflation.

“Students 
are 
often 
told 

that inflation is everywhere, a 
monetary phenomenon,” Gilbert 
said, hoping to see more of a 
detailed explanation often not 
given to students.

Yellen responded that, though 

the concept of inflation — too 
much demand for too small a 
supply — is simple, consumers 
often believe inflation negatively 
directs their buying habits.

In response to a question 

asked by Public Policy graduate 
student Matt Hillard, she said 
though the caution involved with 
articulating thoughts on policy 
is sometimes hindering, her 
career has been fulfilling. She 
advised students to explore their 
passions and urged them not to 
define themselves by the power 
of their jobs.

“The 
core 
of 
having 
a 

satisfying 
career 
first 
and 

foremost was finding something 
to do that I really love and am 
really interested in,” she said. 

YELLEN
From Page 1

The fact that 

you could create 
that many jobs 
in the context 
of growth that 
is so low points 
to a significant 

problem

I just think it was 

a good idea on 

paper but ... it fell 
short in the end

meeting voted to ratify the contract. 
He said the contract will be sent to 
all union members electronically 
and he expects it will be ratified by 
the organization.

This negotiation has been in the 

works for months as GEO members 
have held grade-ins and sit-ins 
to vocalize their concerns with 
the contract-bargaining process 
they have been engaged in with 
the University since November. 
Many of the proposals GEO 
representatives believed were not 
met by the University include the 
creation of paid staff positions 
for those working on diversity 
programs as part of University 
President 
Mark 
Schlissel’s 

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion plan 
launched last October, protections 
for international students and 
expanded health care benefits. 

Last month, an op-ed was 

published in the Daily calling for the 
University to pay Graduate Student 
Staff Assistants and Graduate 
Student Instructors for their work 
in implementing DEI initiatives. 
However, new paid GSSA DEI 
positions were included in the new 
contract.

Additional highlights of the new 

contract include a 3.35 percent wage 
increase this coming September 
for GSIs and GSSAs, another 3.35 

percent increase next September, 
a third 3.3 percent increase the 
following September, protections 
against hiring discriminations for 
international graduate students and 
other new benefits.

Ware said, though the wage 

increases were a large win for 
GEO, there is still a wage gap 
between GSIs and GSSAs between 
the University’s Ann Arbor and 
Dearborn campuses and the Flint 
campus. He said GEO will help to 
close this gap until the University 
intervenes.

“The total costs to close that 

wage gap is about $2,500 a year, so 
until the time that the University 
steps up with that $2,500 a year 
themselves, we, the GSIs, through 
our union, through our dues, we’re 
gonna pay ourselves to close it, just 
out of solidarity with our colleagues 
in Flint,” Ware said.

University 
spokesman 
Rick 

Fitzgerald said the University 
was content with the way the 
negotiation went. 

“I think that this worked exactly 

how the collective bargaining 
process should work,” he said. 
“The parties give and take and 
work through it and we’re pleased 
that there’s a tentative agreement 
well ahead of the expiration of the 
current contract.”

In response to an agreement 

between GEO and the University 
being reached, the walkout that was 
proposed Thursday and authorized 

Sunday night has now been called 
off.

“There will be no pickets,” Ware 

said. “GSIs and GSSAs will be at 
work on Wednesday as usual, doing 
what we’re here to do and what we 
love to do — teaching our students 
and making the University the best 
that we can.”

Fitzgerald 
also 
said 
the 

University is glad the walkout was 
called off.

“We think that’s good news,” 

Fitzgerald said. “It’s good for our 
students. As (students) know, it’s 
the last week of classes and it’s 
important to keep all the class 
schedule intact and I hope that 
will be the case now that there is a 
tentative agreement.”

Earlier, at Monday’s sit-in, a 

number of GEO members had 
been vocalizing their concerns 
that GEO’s GSSA and GSI proposal 
should be considered by the task 
force as a way to push DEI initiatives 
and see even larger outcomes. GEO 
Staff Organizer Denise Bailey, a 
Rackham student, said the task 
force should seriously consider 
GEO’s requests. 

“We think that we have a really 

good idea about how to make 
(DEI) work sustainable within the 
University’s structure,” she said. 
“We would like for the task force 
to really consider that particular 
idea, which is to make sure that the 
positions are adequately paid … but 
also given benefits and the other 

sort of protections that come with 
unionization.”

Information graduate student 

Vidhya 
Aravind, 
GEO 
DEI 

Committee member and organizer 
of the sit-in, also said earlier that 
not being able to do the work she 
wants to with regard to diversity 
leads to a lack of sustainable growth 
in inclusion. She also said the DEI 
work GSIs and GSSAs could be 
doing is usually done by faculty 
members who have extra time and 
the ability to work without pay.

“With the amount of work there 

is, (with) the qualification and 
expertise that marginalized grad 
students have in making campus 
better for marginalized students, 
it’s super important that they get 
involved in all the work that they 
can possibly be doing and there’s 
kind of a lot of it,” Aravind said.

Ware said, despite gains made 

in Monday’s contract, more work 
can and will be done by GEO in the 
coming months to create more DEI 
GSSA positions on campus.

“In this campaign, we got our 

collective foot in the door on a lot of 
issues and we’re not done and we’re 
not going away,” he said. “We’re 
going to keep fighting for more DEI 
GSSAs … We absolutely need more 
and we’re going to keep fighting 
and I know that everybody who 
cares about this issue and who cares 
about the position and the work 
of marginalized students on this 
campus is going to keep fighting.”

GEO
From Page 1

