sophomore year. This year, there 

were 131 complete applications.

Harper said there continues to 

be a lot of interest in the program, 
even inquiries from high school 
students who have heard about 
the new major and are wondering 
what they can do to be accepted as 
sophomores.

“The group of applicants were 

all, I would say, stellar applicants 
— people with a lot of great 
experiences, a lot of really beneficial 
coursework,” he said. “It was a 
quite impressive group. In terms 
of what we’re looking for, we really 
do take a holistic approach to the 
review process. We’re not just 
looking for some particular GPA 
cutoff. We are really looking at 
well-rounded students that have a 
good understanding of what public 
health is and what public health 
does, and a real commitment and 

compassion for public health.”

Harper referenced a set of 

guiding principles, which can be 
found on the program’s website, 
and said the program looks to see 
if applicants are in alignment with 
them. 
Such 
principles 
include 

social justice, cultural humility 
and interdisciplinary focus, among 
others.

In terms of acceptance, Harper 

said the program plans to keep its 
acceptance rate about the same for 
the next admissions cycle, about 
95. He said after the first cohort 
completes the program, it will likely 
increase the number of students 
admitted.

Logistically, 
the 
program 

offers either a Bachelor’s of Arts 
in community and global public 
health or a Bachelor’s of Science in 
public health sciences. According 
to Harper, within each major, there 
are a set of four integrated core 
courses, which address various 
aspects of public health, from an 
interdisciplinary and integrated 
lens.

“In graduate training in public 

health, you would take a course 
on epidemiology, a course on 
biostatistics, a course on health 
management, things like that,” 
Harper said. “What we’re doing 
is combining different aspects of 
public health and putting them 
together because at the core of our 
program, we’re really focusing on 
what we call liberal education.”

Liberal education, according to 

Harper, is an approach to learning 
that helps prepare students to deal 
with complexity, diversity and 
social change.

“We’re not just teaching public 

health skills,” he said. “Some types 
of undergraduate public health 
programs teach skills and they’re 
more of a skills training degree, then 
you get some kind of certification. 
We want students to be able to think 
in innovative and complex ways 
about the public health challenges 
that we currently face but then we 
want to prepare them for the future 
public health challenges. ”

Though the program is only in 

its first year, Harper said, based 
on statistics from other schools’ 
public health programs, some 
students are expected to go into 
medicine or other health-related 
fields, some go into graduate 
programs 
in 
public 
health, 

others go into the workforce — 
departments of public health, 
the Peace Corps or working in 
nonprofit organizations with a 
health focus — and some even go 
into law, engineering and other 
fields.

Faculty for the program will 

consist of faculty from the Public 
Health School, who teach graduate 
courses 
and 
have 
real-world 

experience in the field of public 
health.

Harper 
said 
the 
goal 
of 

the 
program 
is 
to 
take 
an 

interdisciplinary approach to think 
about critical public health issues. 
He the program will attack issues 
from multiple perspectives using 
different lenses. He said he thinks 
students will feel stimulated in 
classes to think about things in a 

different way.

Harper said the program will be 

evaluated over the course of the year 
and it will be seeking feedback from 
its first cohort about strengths and 
weaknesses to make improvements 
and provide the best educational 
experience possible.

This 
semester, 
Harper 
is 

teaching a new course developed 
for the program, called Community 
Culture and Social Justice in Public 
Health. It is required for the B.A. 
students; it can be taken as an 
elective for the B.S. students and 
is also offered to non-public health 
students.

“The course will really be an 

opportunity to explore, interrogate, 
understand, work with different 
concepts of community, of culture, of 
social justice, because a lot of people 
use these terms in public health 
and elsewhere, but don’t often have 
an in-depth understanding and 
meaning of (them),” he said. “I want 
to demystify and really have people 
think in a critical manner. I think 
overall we really want students to 

come out of this class being able to 
engage in a critical analysis of the 
field of public health.”

It is important to look at different 

public 
health 
challenges 
and 

the ways in which they’re being 
addressed by the nation, to find the 
flaws and strengths, both locally 
and globally, said Harper.

“There’s ways in which we are 

doing public health work in other 
countries and is it really done in a 
manner that is building capacity 
or is it a way that is making other 
countries dependent on us?” he 
said. “So it’s really that critical 
process of really thinking about all 
of these different aspects of public 
health intervention.”

Aya Takai is a junior public 

health major who transferred from 
Oakland University. She was in a 
pre-professional health sciences 
program at Oakland and was a 
competitive figure skater for 15 
years. 

4A — Tuesday, September 5, 2017
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

LSA sophomore Caroline 

Ordway 
studies 
computer 

science and said she looks 
forward to a faster and more 
efficient printing process.

“I think (these updates) 

have 
the 
potential 
to 

improve the efficiency of the 
printing process,” she said. 
“It simplifies the process of 
needing your computer or 
having to go onto a University 
one, especially if you are in 
an area without access to a 
campus computer.”

Bob Jones, ITS interim 

executive director of support 
services, said his main goal is 

accessibility.

“With 
the 
availability 

of 
Follow 
Me 
printing, 

application 
streaming 
to 

personally managed devices, 
and cloud storage services 
like Box and Google Drive, we 
aim to make many of the Sites 
capabilities available on most 
devices, anytime, anywhere,” 
he said.

According to the release, 

updates for the fall term 
include 
Windows 
10 

operating 
systems 
on 
all 

campus PCs, access to U-M 
Box and U-M Google Drive 
as network drives and new 
hardware 
and 
software 

updates on more than 2,000 
campus computers at almost 
100 locations.

COMPUTING
From Page 1A

HEALTH
From Page 1A

way,” Sreedhar said.
Designed as a Welcome Week 

event, Sreedhar said, one of its 
main purposes is to introduce 
incoming freshmen the resources 
available on campus for LGBT 
students. Shreedhar said the tents 
are placed on Palmer Field because 
many freshmen live on the Hill 
and will be easily seen by incoming 
students walking around their 
dorms.

LSA senior Victoria Johnson 

attended the event as a freshman 
and this year represented the 
Coalition for Queer and Trans 
People of Color as a co-chair. She 
said Pride Outside helped her find 
the coalition and the timing of the 

event couldn’t be better.

“It can be hard and daunting, 

especially 
as 
an 
incoming 

freshman, trying to find your 
community and find people that 
you want to socialize with and 
hang out with,” she said. “Having 
events like this, especially during 
Welcome Week, this is the time 
everyone’s going to come out.”

When President Donald Trump 

proposed the transgender military 
ban back in July, many transgender 
students and allies on campus 
reacted adversely to the news. 
Johnson said pro-LGBT events like 
Pride Outside can contribute to a 
positive community on campus.

“People need community now 

more than ever,” she said. “Having 
events like these is super important 
to show that there are people here 
who are going to support you and be 

there for you and even when it feels 
like everything is going wrong and 
the world is crumbling apart, you 
still have these people you can turn 
to.”

LSA senior Yong-Joon Kim 

volunteers with the Sexual Assault 
Prevention and Awareness Center 
and represented the organization at 
a booth at Pride Outside. He echoed 
Johnson’s sentiments and said the 
event is crucial for newer students 
trying to find resources.

“Marginalized identities, as we 

know, on this campus have been 
facing a lot of hate and negative stuff 
going on right now so just having an 
event during Welcome Week that 
allows LGBT students to know 
they’re welcome on this campus, 
especially one that’s catered by the 
student governance organizations, 
definitely helps show unity and 

acceptance on this campus,” he said.

According to the 2015 Campus 

Climate Survey, lesbian, gay or 
bisexual students were 2.5 times 
more at risk for sexual assault than 
heterosexual students. By working 
with SAPAC, a University sponsored 
program, Kim said it shows how the 
University is dedicated to helping 
LGBT students feel free to speak 
about sexual assault.

LSA freshman Cheyanne Killin 

said the large-scale event showed 
her how many resources she 
actually has on campus from clubs 
and students alike.

“I think it’s really nice to have 

this inclusion here,” she said. “It’s 
such a positive space and coming 
from a community where I didn’t 
have that ability to be proud of who 
I was, this is just massive to know 
that I’m supported here.”

PRIDE
From Page 1A

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com