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Friday, January 12, 2018 — 3

POP- UP PHOTOGR APHY

ALICE LIU/Daily

The LSA Institute for the Humanities hosts a pop-up exhibition featuring photos by Margaret Condon Taylor titled “An Accidental Photographer: Seoul 1969” at
the Institute for Humanities Thursday.

identify certain trends that may

be occurring, such as an increase
in student suicides within a certain
school or college.

While this information is not

released to the public from the
University, the Suicide Prevention
Resource Center’s report found
that 24 percent of U-M students
think about suicide, 11.3 percent
have
“seriously
considered

attempting suicide at least once
in the last academic year” and
1.1 percent responded to having
attempted suicide at least once.

Learis said identifying these

trends can be helpful in providing
resources to areas where they are
lacking, as was done last year on
North Campus.

“I think by having this data and

seeing just how student suicides
spread
between
majors
and

schools, that will definitely raise
awareness of those schools within
the University that aren’t having
their needs met,” Learis said.

Public Health junior Omar

Ilyas agreed with Learis, stating
such data can help the University
identify more specific patterns,
such as certain times throughout
the year in which student suicide
rates may increase or decrease.

Ilyas currently serves on the
CAPS Student Advisory Board,
working with administrators and
psychologists to bridge the gap
between student awareness and
programs offered by CAPS.

“A huge part of being a student

is you do go through mental health
issues (while on) campus, and I
think a large avenue for that is
depression, and depression in itself
has so many intricacies … suicide is
one of them,” Ilyas said.

Out of respect for the loved

ones of the affected student, the
Dean of Students office does not
finalize any information without
confirmation
from
medical

examiners and related officers.

“We are very mindful of not

ascribing a cause of death before
it is confirmed,” Daniels said. “It
is not for us to decide whether
something was or was not a suicide
or whether it was or was not a
certain cause of death.”

Learis noted, although this

information
is
important
in

understanding certain trends, it
does not provide a comprehensive
look at mental health issues on
campus.

“I think a bigger issue with the

data collection is for every suicide
that actually happens, there are so
many suicide attempts and those
you can’t really track,” Learis
said. “So even though we have
suicide numbers, it’s hard to see
the total trends.”

When
moving
forward
in

working
to
alleviate
mental

health issues, Daniels says the
Dean of Students office continues
to partner with organizations,
such as those Learis and Ilyas
are involved in, to advocate for an
increase in student recognition of
resources available on campus.

CAPS, for example, made a

series of videos under the title
“do something: Stop Student
Suicide.” The purpose of these
videos, Ilyas said, is to change
the current dialogue around the
topic that may be considered
taboo or kept secret, and to help
students understand what they
can do in scenarios in which their
own friends may be experiencing
suicidal thoughts.

Additionally, each year, the

Division of Student Life and
the
Association
of
Religious

Counselors
hosts
a
campus

memorial to honor students who
have passed away during the year.

“When we experience a death

in our community, we’re working
with our campus partners and
saying ‘what can we do, what do
we need to do proactively, what
should we do reactively,’ ” Daniels
said. “I think we’ll continue that
work and continue to talk with
each other within Student Life
and across the campus to figure
out how to improve … areas of
intervention and education, and
creative ways to influence students
to talk about resources that are
available.”

met this growing demand. In the
last five years, the CSE faculty
has only increased by 22 percent,
from 50 faculty members in Fall
2013 to 61 faculty members in Fall
2017.

“This
is
something
that’s

happening across the country,”
Noble said. “We sort of knew this
was happening five years ago
and so our strategy has been to
hire as fast as we can and we’ll
meet the demand. The College
and University have been very
supportive of us hiring faculty.”

However,
high
enrollment

rates and low faculty numbers
are not the only factors affecting
waitlists.
Graduate
students

have reportedly been registering
for undergraduate, upper-level
courses and taking seats intended
for
undergraduate
students.

Although
graduate
students

are generally restricted from
registering for these courses,
some of these courses were
placed on a different registration
schedule.

Due
to
high
numbers
of

declared students, the EECS-CSE
advising office organized staged
enrollment phases to ensure
students in need of upper-level
courses for graduation can obtain
them. Most upper-level courses
are set on a staged enrollment
schedule, with the first phase
from Nov. 20 to Dec. 5, the second
phase from Dec. 6 to Dec. 8, and
the third phase from Dec. 11

forward. According to Noble,
popular electives like EECS 442,
Computer Vision, was mistakenly
not on staged enrollment this
term.

However, with EECS 442

not on a restricted schedule by
mistake, the waitlist skyrocketed
to 176 students during registration
and currently still has a waitlist
of 64 students, according to the
Winter 2018 course guide. The
course was consequently filled up
by masters students, since it was
the only undergraduate CS class
they could enroll in.

“What’s happening is a lot

of the Electrical and Computer
Engineering masters students
would like to take Computer
Science classes,” Noble said.
“We
don’t
let
them
into

our
undergraduate
classes

because they’re reserved for
undergraduates first, but (EECS
442) was the only class they could
enroll in so they flocked to it.”

However, Noble emphasized

the EECS department grants
registration priority to students
with upcoming graduation dates.

“Our number one goal is to

make sure we meet the obligation
we committed to get students to
graduate on time,” Noble said.
“That doesn’t mean they’ll get the
classes they want necessarily. For
courses a part of our required set,
we try really hard to never turn
anyone away.”

Although this priority system

works for some seniors, others
are still placed on waitlists. Data
Science major Anna Ten Have,
an LSA senior, emphasized she
does not receive as high of a

registration priority compared to
her peers. As a result, she will not
know if she will get off the waitlist
until well into the semester.

“I only registered for one

EECS class but I was 37th on the
waitlist when I registered,” Ten
Have said. “It’s really annoying
because it’s a class I really want
to take.”

However, Noble explained how

students with earlier enrollment
times are signing up for extra
classes during registration and
dropping them after the first
couple weeks of the term. This
method
subsequently
leads

to increased waitlists during
registration and sudden decreases
at the start of the semester.

“The students who have early

enrollment dates know they’re
never going to get into something
if they don’t enroll right away,
or they think that,” Noble said.
“That happened in the fall, we
cleared waitlists really deeply.
In 442, the waitlist has shrunk
significantly, that’s partly what’s
going on.”

This
reportedly
places

significant stress on not just
juniors and seniors, but also
underclassmen EECS students
who are just starting out. Data
Science major Isabelle Williams,
an LSA sophomore, experienced
this first hand when attempting
to register for several EECS
classes to stay on track with her
coursework.

“I was waitlisted for the class I

wanted to take, my back up class,
and my back up class for my back
up class,” Williams wrote in an
email to The Daily. “I was not able

to register for a single EECS class
that counted for my major. This
added considerable unnecessary
stress to an already stressful end
of the semester.”

Even with waitlists slowly

decreasing at the start of the
semester, students in the same
situation as Williams will never
get into the classes they want.

“I dropped the class I was

waitlisted for because I was
112th,”
Williams
said.
“Our

professor said 50-70 students
were likely to get off.”

Noble
emphasized
these

increased waitlists could also be
due to the number of non-major
LSA students who are registering
for introductory CS courses.
EECS 183 has increased to one of
the highest enrolled CS classes.
As a result, courses like EECS 183
have unintentionally turned into
service courses — classes for non-
major students who want to get
grounding in the field.

“Our 100 and 200 level courses

have become service courses in
spite of us, so those courses are
designed for Computer Science
majors but lots of other people
have decided they want to be
computationally literate,” Noble
said.

In order to fix these registration

issues,
the
department
aims

to fulfill both long-term and
short-term goals to decrease the
waitlists while still providing
students
with
the
quality

education they were promised.

Pettie said he is working on

hiring additional temporary and
tenure-track faculty to make
up for the department’s current

gap. According to Noble, senior
Ph.D. students, as well as recent
Ph.D. graduates in the area,
are teaching approximately 10
percent of CSE lecture sections
on a temporary basis. Yet, with
the program in high demand, the
department has faced challenges
with hiring long-term faculty
due to competition with other
universities.

“We’ve
been
doing
a

tremendous amount of hiring of
temporary people to help staff
our classes,” Pettie said. “We’re
conducting lots of tenure-track
searches to increase our faculty
size and it’s very difficult because
of the tremendous demand for CS
courses year by year — it’s greater
every year.”

Noble emphasized strategies,

such as increasing lecture hall
and class sizes and finding
professors
without
full-time

teaching appointments to teach a
few classes.

“In the short term, how do

we scale our classes up, how do
we find bigger lecture rooms,
are there more of our very (own)
senior Ph.D. students that can take
the time out of their academics
to teach a class, are there more
people in the community that can
teach?” Noble said.

Increasing
class
sizes

and
bringing
in
temporary

faculty
can
also
come

with
repercussions.
Noble

highlighted the administration’s
intent to get as many students off
the waitlists as possible without
sacrificing the University’s high
education standards.

“If
we
feel
like
we’re

compromising the quality of
the
educational
experience,

then the question is how many
students
can
we
take
and

still give them the Michigan
educational experience that we
really want to give them,” Noble
underscored. “We want to make
that number as big as we can,
but we don’t want to sacrifice
quality to do that.”

Many EECS undergraduate

students
are
hopeful
these

changes will fix the waitlist
issues for the future, but current
students still may not have the
chance to take advantage of
every opportunity they desire.

“I came to this University to

learn from the EECS department
and it’s unacceptable that I
may be unable to do that next
semester because there are too
many students in my field than
the University can handle,”
Williams said.

With
the
administration’s

long-term
goals
to
hire

permanent faculty and build
larger spaces for class, such as
the future robotics building,
Noble hopes these advances
will reduce waitlists in the
coming semesters and provide
more
opportunities
for

future
students.
Ultimately,

he
emphasized
the
current

students are the department’s
main priority.

“For the students that are

currently enrolled, our current
goal is to allow them to get the
major they want in a reasonable
amount of time and we are
doing everything to make that
happen,” he said.

as their supposedly negative bias
towards Israel. Weiser brought up
U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley’s
speech that looked at the number
of condemnations Israel received
compared to those of other nations.

“The U.N. gives undo negative

tension towards Israel,” Weiser said.
“The Human Rights Council has
passed 62 resolutions condemning
reasonable actions Israel takes to
defend its security. Meanwhile,
human rights abusers in Syria,
Iran and North Korea received few
condemnations.”

Weiser ended on an uplifting

note, explaining to the delegates
they should not let the idea of
perfection disrupt their ability to
work effectively.

“Change is typically incremental,

but perfection cannot be your goal,”
Weiser said. “Someone famously
said something that I quote often,
‘Don’t let the perfect get in the way
of the good.’”

Though
audience
members

appreciated
Weiser’s
speech

and felt his perspective was an
important one to hear, others
disagreed with aspects of what
he presented. One of these staff
members was Business sophomore
Lucas Reynolds, who was unhappy

with Weiser’s U.S.-centered focus
when discussing the functions of
the U.N.

“I enjoyed his speech to a point,”

Reynolds said. “I thought some of
the things he said regarding the
U.N. having this vision of freedom,
I agreed with a lot of that. However,
I didn’t like how he focused on how
the U.N. is supposed to be a U.S.-
centered body. I fundamentally
disagree with that. Especially
because now the U.N. is dealing
with a lot of topics.”

LSA freshman Danielle Falling

shared Reynolds’s sentiment and
explained while the U.S. was a part
of the U.N., it did not make up its
entirety.

“It’s
not
a
U.S.-centered

organization, it’s the United Nations
of the world,” Falling said. “I think
it’s important to look at things with
a grain of salt so we can’t just call
the U.N. an ideal pinnacle of unity
because there are problems.”

Falling also touched on the

relevance of Weiser’s speech, and
why it was necessary for younger
individuals — especially students
involved in Model United Nations
— to hear.

“The students here will one day

become the people in the United
Nations, so they’re the ones who
have to think about what they want
to be changed,” Falling said. “It’s
important to see the faults so that
they can do that.”

EECS
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SUICIDE
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WEISER
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Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
Annenberg Auditorium, 1120 Weill Hall
735 S. State Street

Free and open to the public.Lunch served at 11:45 am.
Live webstreamed at fordschool.umich.edu.
Info: fspp-events@umich.edu

Follow us: @fordschool
Join the conversation: #policytalks

for youth and young adults

INNOVATIVE
PROGRAMS

U-M REVEREND DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. SYMPOSIUM EVENT

Broderick Johnson

Partner, Bryan Cave LLP and

Former Cabinet Secretary, Obama Administration

MONDAY, JANUARY 15, 2018

12:00 PM (SHARP) TO 1:15 PM

Luke Shaefer

Brian Jacob