Office of Academic Multicultural 
Initiatives; engineering graduate 
student 
Chris 
Boyd; 
public 

health graduate student Micalah 
Webster; 
and 
Public 
Policy 

graduate student Angelica De 
Jesus.

Business sophomore Shartia 

Ducksworth said she enjoyed 
the event, and listening to the 
panelists made her realize she 
should have started applying for 
internships earlier. She also noted 
the diversity of the attendees, 
especially in regard to the usual 
makeup of such events.

“I 
wish 
that 
applying 
to 

internships was something I 
started as a freshman,” she said. 
“I definitely liked how diverse it 
was. That’s not always the case 
when you come to events like 
these.”

Public Policy senior Gloriela 

Iguina-Colón, 
undergraduate 

co-chair of Students of Color in 
Public Policy and one of the event’s 
organizers, 
said 
she 
believes 

students of color on campus need a 
better support network in terms of 
applying for jobs and internships.

“We saw a really big need for a 

support system and network for 
students of color in a professional 
development school,” she said. 
“I had several experiences with 

different events that are really 
engaging, but didn’t make the 
connections with people and 
couldn’t help me professionally. 
So I reached out to Ayana, who 
has been a mentor to me, so Dana 
and I have been collaborating in 
planning this panel.”

After securing an internship 

with 
The 
Hill, 
Iguina-Colón 

explained how she personally 
struggled 
with 
creating 

connections because her identity 
was different from that of anyone 
else in the office. However, this 
experience inspired her to return 
to Ann Arbor and work to create a 
network for others going through 
the same experience.

“No one looked like me in the 

office so creating those bonds was 
difficult,” she said. “I felt like that 
wasn’t supported in any way and I 
felt like it was the first time I was 
supposed to have to search for a 
professional network and support 
system. When I came back I felt 
like it was super important that 
people know we will help them 
get to The Hill, but they have to 
put in work when they get the 
internship. It’s not just about what 
you can add to the internship 
though –– it’s about what you 
can add to yourself and your 
experiences. I feel really happy, 
and Dana has been amazing 
through this whole process.”

Rackham 
student 
Dayna 

Asante-Appiah, an intern at the 

Alumni Scholars program and 
another event organizers, said her 
personal experiences navigating 
the 
workplace 
have 
heavily 

influenced her in choosing to work 
in the field of career counseling.

“As a woman of color myself, 

and as a grad student who desires 
to work with students in the 
future, I think it’s important to be 
able to help students communicate 
and 
navigate 
through 
these 

spaces, even though it’s been 
their experience their whole life. 
Sometimes coming to college and 
being one of the only persons 
of color is a new experience, so 
I have a real passion for career 
counseling and have an internship 
at the career center too,” she said.

Asante-Appiah 
also 

emphasized 
the 
importance 

of 
helping 
students 
realize 

the intrinsic value of their 
identities, while simultaneously 
understanding the unfair, but 
realistic, barriers existing in the 
workplace due to said identities.

“I think being able to have 

these 
conversations 
with 

students is important so we 
don’t ignore different aspects 
of our identity –– visible or 
otherwise – and feel confident 
about what they bring to the table 
professional,” she said. “But also 
I want them to know the reality 
that not everyone is going to 
understand or look like you and 
see the value of what you bring.”

of the program in allowing 
students to take control of 
their own ideas and to work 
toward 
gaining 
productive 

support 
from 
those 
in 

positions of power.

“Not enough of us know 

what it means for our public 
servants to fight for us. Not 
enough of us know what it 
means to feel like we have 
our own fate and our own 
wellbeing in our own hands. 
And few, if any of us, know 
what it means to see the 
impact of our representatives 
investing in our ideas. That 
has to change. And that’s why 
we built Innovate,” Sarkar 
said.

One of the kickoff event’s 

speakers was Suneel Gupta, 
vice 
president 
of 
product 

development for Groupon and 
CEO of Rise, a company that 
works to make healthcare more 
affordable through the use of 
technology. He explained to 
the room his own perspectives 
on how to become a successful 
entrepreneur, 
specifically 

through his “Four Chords for 
Founder Mindset.”

Potential 
Innovate 

participants also listened as 
Gupta gave specific tips and 

strategies for working through 
failures and fears. He spoke 
of his own experiences with 
writing ideas and anxieties 
down on paper, for example, 
and 
encouraged 
students 

to 
take 
similar 
measures 

to 
improve 
their 
own 

productivity.

“When 
you 
pull 
things 

out, when you actually start 
putting it down on paper, you 
start to realize that the things 
we fear the most are often 
the same things that are least 
likely to happen,” Gupta said.

University 
students 
also 

joined the lineup of speakers, 
with Engineering sophomore 
Keiana Cavé and LSA senior 
Brendan 
Genaw 
giving 

presentations.

Cavé, who was named one 

of Forbes’ 30 under 30 in 2017, 
discussed her own research 
experiences, 
including 
the 

time she spent a month month 
she spent researching for the 
Smithsonian 
on 
an 
island 

in Panama. She encouraged 
student attendees to persevere 
throughout their journeys, and 
to recognize that processes are 
often much more important 
than the outcomes.

“People 
always 
see 
the 

end 
result, 
and 
especially 

for all of us students, people 
see whatever we list on our 
résumé, but they don’t really 

see how we got there, and 
they don’t know our stories 
necessarily,” Cavé said.

Genaw, who currently serves 

as the president of optiMize, 
an on-campus social impact 
based 
entrepreneurship 

community, expressed similar 
sentiments as he explained 
the importance in remaining 
optimistic and willing to take 
risks.

“A 
lot 
of 
the 
amazing 

entrepreneurs I’ve met are 
people that decide to tell 
themselves 
yes,” 
Genaw 

said. “And when you get a 
community… 
that’s 
always 

going to be telling you yes, 
it makes you willing to try 
things that you might not have 
been able to try.”

LSA 
freshman 
Miriam 

Chung attended the event and 
said the speakers motivated 
her to take on a project 
through Innovate, to work 
toward her own goals and 
gain worthwhile experience 
throughout the process.

“I’m definitely not the type 

of person to take initiative (on 
projects like these),” Chung 
said. “But they were like ‘anyone 
can do it, you just need to start’ 
and I was like okay, maybe we 
can actually do something, even 
if we don’t win, it’s just a chance 
to try and do something, to 
create a project.”

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Thursday, January 18, 2018 — 3A

ALUMNI
From Page 1A

that have contacted us to see 
what we are doing and get 
copies of our questionnaires. 
We’ve been very open with 
them because we want this to 
be something that grows and 
develops. Hopefully at some 
point we can compare across 
institutions.”

A report from Planet Blue, 

the University’s collaborative 
effort to further sustainability 
education, 
research 
and 

operations 
tracked 
positive 

progress 
on 
nearly 
every 

sustainaibility 
goal 
the 

University had set for itself. 
Greenhouse gas emissions, the 
findings detailed, decreased to 
5 percent below the 2006 levels 

last semester Callewaert added 
the over the past years, positive 
trends have clearly emerged 
at the University, particular 
centered around meals.

“There’s been real increases 

of 
awareness 
around 

sustainable food. That’s an 
area where there have been 
positive changes both in terms 
of awareness and behavior, 
and we think that a part of the 
reason for that is there is a lot 
of activity on campus related to 
sustainable food,” Callewaert 
said. “The University has put 
a lot of effort into it and we 
are seeing the results in our 
survey.”

Still, progress has not been 

uniform. For example, student 
transport remains a major issue 
on campus.

“The one area where we have 

seen a decrease over the four 
years is in regard to sustainable 
travel and transportation for 
students,” Callewaert said. “In 
2018, we are asking about Uber 
and Lyft use for the first time.” 

Robert Marans, the survey’s 

other 
principal 
investigator, 

points out that despite the 
steady 
increase 
in 
campus 

sustainability 
awareness, 

taking behavioral steps toward 
sustainability can prove more 
challenging.

“Behavioral 
changes 
have 

been 
slow,” 
Marans 
said. 

“Things haven’t changed that 
much in some areas over the 
past four years as we had 
hoped.”

Fortunately, 
the 
data 

collected 
by 
SCIP 
surveys 

can and are being used by 
organizations 
to 
address 

sustainability issues on campus.

“There’s 
been 
a 
major 

overhaul 
of 
the 
recycling 

and waste containers across 
campus. It’s very clear about 
which items can be recycled,” 
Callewaert said. “The team that 
worked on that was looking at 
SCIP data and results to inform 
their decision making.”

Planet Blue aims to change 

the University’s culture by 
promoting sustainability.

“Few universities are making 

efforts to change the culture, 
which is really what the Planet 
Blue effort is about,” Marans 
said. “Even fewer are trying to 
track the change in culture over 
time, and that’s where the SCIP 
surveys come in.”

Erin Barton, an Environment 

and 
Sustainability 
graduate 

student who works at the 

Graham 
Institute, 
describes 

the importance of the SCIP 
survey in an email interview 
with The Daily.

“In general, social science is 

important for creating a more 
sustainable 
society 
because 

human behavior is a major 
barrier, often more so than 
science and technology,” Barton 
wrote. “We need to understand 
what people do and why they 
do it if we want to facilitate 
positive behavior change.”

The SCIP project is aiming 

for 
2,500 
students, 
1,000 

faculty, and 1,000 staff to fill 
out the survey this semester. 
All 
survey 
responses 
are 

completely 
anonymous 
and 

allow the University to better 
obtain its goal of creating a 
sustainable culture.

INNOVATE
From Page 1A

SURVEY
From Page 1A

Ann 
Arbor 
City 

Councilmember 
Zachary 

Ackerman (D-Ward 3) welcomed 
the Supreme Court’s decision. 
He said the community would 
be fighting for a full cleanup 
of the dioxane to prevent it 
from entering the Huron River. 
This challenges the recently-
imposed state requirement that 
Gelman 
Sciences 
keeps 
the 

concentration of the chemical 
below 7.2 parts per billion, 

which is still more than twice 
as high as the Environmental 
Protection 
Agency’s 
posted 

concentration for carcinogenic 
risk.

 “I think it’s expressly the 

goal 
of 
the 
community 
to 

fight for full cleanup, and I’m 
excited that Ann Arbor will 
have the opportunity to fight 
to protect the drinking water 
of the residents we’re sworn to 
protect,” Ackerman said.

The 
Ann 
Arbor 
City 

Attorney’s Office declined to 
provide comment, based on the 
fact that the litigation between 
the parties was ongoing.

Gelman 
Sciences 
has 

previously acted in attempt 
to negotiate solely with the 
Michigan 
Department 
of 

Environmental Quality, which 
may more likely to settle for a 
smaller cleanup than the local 
jurisdictions. Laura Rubin, the 
executive director of the Huron 
River Watershed Council, said 
examples like the Flint water 
crisis indicated the agency may 
not be tough enough on similar 
environmental issues.

“I think, like many of the 

other 
partners, 
we 
were 

unhappy with how things were 
going with the cleanup –– 30 

years later and we still have this 
plume,” Rubin said. 

“And I think also, there’s 

no question that Flint and 
the Toledo water crises have 
opened everybody’s eyes to 
sort of reanalyzing whether the 
DEQ and regulatory authorities 
are really doing enough on 
these kinds of issues, and so 
that sparked us to start asking 
harder questions.”

Rubin said it was unusual 

an 
environmental 
nonprofit 

like the Watershed Council 
got a standing in such a case, 
and it faced challenges such as 
Attorney General Bill Schuette 

explicitly arguing against its 
intervention. 
She 
believes 

Supreme Court’s decision set an 
encouraging precedent.

“I think it does open up more 

cases like this, for environmental 
groups to come in, and I see that 
as a huge victory because in this 
political climate, environmental 
regulations and policies are being 
de-emphasized,” 
Rubin 
said. 

“And I think that going forward, 
the 
role 
of 
environmental 

groups, citizens, scientists and 
local governments is one that is 
going to have to step up and be 
more of a watchdog and invest 
more in monitoring.”

COURT
From Page 1A

NAVIGATING IDE NTIT Y

CHUN SO/Daily

Panelists discuss their experiences surrounding topics of underrepresented identities in the workplace at the Alumni Center Wednesday.

I’m excited 

that Ann Arbor 

will have the 

opportunity to 

fight

The one area 

where we have 

seen a decrease 

...is in regard 

to sustainable 

travel and 

transportation