universities.
The University’s Office for 

Institutional Equity’s annual 
report released in January 
showed a 40 percent increase 
from 
2016 
in 
misconduct-

related reports. The increase 
in reports may be due to the 
University’s 
revised 
policy, 

which broadened the definition 
of 
misconduct 
and 
added 

new types of allegations to be 
addressed by the policy. An 
independent 
crowd-sourced 

database of sexual misconudct 
in 
academia 
called 
the 

“whisper 
network” 
detailed 

more than a dozen incidents of 
sexual assault, harassment and 
rape perpetrated by University 
faculty members. 

Schlissel also referred to 

the outside review at the first 
Board 
of 
Regents 
meeting 

earlier this year. University 
spokesman 
Rick 
Fitzgerald 

later told The Daily no specific 
firm has been hired yet. 

“We want to have an outside 

expert come in,” Schlissel said 
to SACUA. “So we can say, 
‘Look, are we doing the best we 
can? Are our procedures at the 
level of other schools and our 
commitment as well?’”

SACUA Chair Robert Ortega, 

an 
associate 
professor 
of 
 

social 
work, 
brought 
up 

concerns 
from 
faculty 
 

members who are unsure if 
they should report certain 
situations, 
or 
if 
they 
are 

unintentionally 
handling 

situations 
involving 

misconduct due to lack of 
proper training.

“There’s always a concern of, 

‘Am I trained well enough?’” 
Ortega said. “‘Do I know, do 
I recognize signs or do I see 
something that I don’t fully 
understand?’ That seems to 
be one of the main concerns 
among faculty, whether we can 
recognize these situations.”

Schlissel 
referred 
to 

mandatory reporting, which 
requires faculty members to 
report situations of misconduct 
by law. He also agreed that 
more 
training 
for 
sexual 

misconduct is necessary.

“We 
need 
to 
make 
a 

commitment to have everyone 
trained to a certain level, and 
retrained,” Schlissel said.

SACUA member Joy Beatty, 

an 
associate 
professor 
of 

management studies at the 
U-M 
Dearborn 
campus, 

suggested the mentality of 
sexual misconduct reporting 
would be difficult to change 
immediately, 
even 
with 

increased training efforts.

“Culture change takes a 
 

long time,” Beatty said. “You 
can’t just send people to class 

and expect them to change.”

Schlissel 
also 
updated 

SACUA 
on 
scheduling 
a 

space for Spencer to speak on 
 

campus, 
saying 
Spencer’s 

representative 
was 
not 

interested in the date the 
University 
offered. 
He 

also 
mentioned 
Spencer’s 

appearance at Michigan State 
University on Monday after 
a 
months-long 
legal 
battle 

between Spencer’s legal team 
and MSU, highlighting the 
conflict 
MSU 
faced 
when 

representatives 
such 
as 

former MSU President Lou 
Anna Simon outwardly stated 
they didn’t want Spencer to 
 

speak on campus despite his 
eventual engagement in East 
Lansing.

He ended his discussion 

highlighting some successes 
of the Diversity, Equity and 
Inclusion initiative, such as 
the Campus Climate Survey, 
Go Blue Guarantee, Wolverine 
Pathways and DEI Innovation 
Funding, which awards grants 
up 
to 
$10,000 
to 
faculty 

and students with ideas to 
improve inclusion on campus. 
Last year’s Campus Climate 
Survey found 43.8 percent of 
all underrepresented minority 
undergraduates had reported 
an instance of discrimination 
at the University.

SACUA then moved into 

status report updates on the 

proposed 
Intra-University 

Summit and the upcoming 2018 
SACUA elections.

Ortega 
provided 
results 

of a feedback survey for the 
Intra-University Summit, an 
event that will bring together 
Michigan public universities 
to address campus issues such 
as DEI efforts and sexual 
misconduct policies Schlissel 
mentioned. Seven universities 
replied 
to 
the 
survey, 
 

providing 
insight 
on 
 

potential topics to be discussed 
and 
recommended 
for 

discussion.

SACUA elections will be 

held March 19 and faculty 
governance 
members 
will 

vote to fill the three seats 
which will be vacated by 
Ortega, 
Dave 
Wright 
and 

Stefan Szymanski at the end of 
April. The members discussed 
ideas 
to 
increase 
faculty 

attendance 
at 
governance 

meetings. 
Electronic 
voting 

was one suggestion to improve 
attendance 
at 
elections. 

SACUA member Neil Marsh, 
a 
professor 
of 
biological 

chemistry, 
said 
improving 

attendance 
and 
interest 
in 

meetings among faculty will be 
a long-term project.

“We need to think long-term 

about how to interest people 
to come to Senate meetings,” 
Marsh said. “It’s not something 
we can just come up with now.”

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Tuesday, March 6, 2018 — 3

SCHLISSEL
From Page 1

stable,” Smith said.

With higher recycling costs 

resulting from the shutdown of the 
Materials Recovery Facility, some 
voiced concerns about longterm 
stability. However, according to 
a January report by Craig Hupy, 
public service area administrator, 
average annual revenue from 
the Solid Waste Fund measures 
approximately $14 million, and 
barring an emergency, will not 
drop significantly. In January, 
City 
Administrator 
Howard 

Lazarus 
projected 
higher 

revenues numbers for the end of 
the fiscal year than Hupy.

“The end of year balance for the 

Solid Waste Fund is forecasted 
for the end of the fiscal year to 
be $22 million,” Lazarus said. 
“There’s a drop in what’s called 
the unrestricted fund balance, 
this is at $8.5 million, but that’s 
forecasted to rebound in the 
fiscal year of 2019 to go up to $10 
million.”

Smith 
emphasized 
the 

Environmental 
Commission’s 

main focus in the coming months 
is to update the 2013-2017 Solid 
Waste Plan and draft a new five-
year plan, which would aim to 
establish a zero-waste system for 
the city.

“But 
more 
importantly, 

we spent a lot of time at that 
work session talking about the 
upcoming five-year Solid Waste 
Plan and since we’ve all been very 
involved in the recycling situation 
particularly with the condition 
of the MRF, this is all going to be 
examined in pretty great detail 
in the five-year Solid Waste Plan 
update,” he said. 

The 
Environmental 

Commission will hire an outside 
consultant to evaluate the plan’s 
current condition and ultimately 
draft a new, improved five-year 
proposal aiming for a zero-waste 
plan. 

“The selected consultant will 

prepare financial models about 
the best ways to pay for these 
things, give us guidance on how 
to move forward with the MRF 
with or without regional partners 
and give us real direction on how 
to achieve the goals we have set 

for ourselves which is becoming 
more on a path towards zero 
waste in a financially responsible 
manner,” Smith said.

Smith 
also 
highlighted 

the 
community’s 
concerns 

surrounding the revitalization of 
the MRF for future use under the 
five-year plan. 

“The 
update 
from 
staff 

included information that we 
have yet another group that 
will give us an opinion on the 
condition of the MRF and what 
it will take to make it operational 
again,” Smith said. “We expect 
that by early April we were told.”

With 
the 
guidance 
of 

the 
outside 
consultant 
and 

involvement of the Ann Arbor 
community, the drafting will 
begin in April.

“We expect to have a consultant 

on board to start the five-year 
Solid Waste Plan by mid-April and 
that will go on over the course of 
the summer and naturally there 
will be a lot of public meetings 
that we will be asking a great deal 
of input from our community on 
this plan,” Smith said.

Hupy emphasized prioritizing 

different aspects of the plan based 
on the council’s goal of zero waste.

“Part of the planning effort will 

have to be prioritization of what 
items get done first and with what 
resources,” Hupy said. “This isn’t 
an unlimited amount of money so 
you have to decide what gets done 
first so that’s why the Solid Waste 
Plan goes back through council so 
they can mold it to make sure it 
reflects their values.”

Smith emphasized the need 

for public input in order to attain 
sustainable zero waste as a 
community, since the results will 
have a significant effect on every 
resident in Ann Arbor.

“I think it’s easy to think that 

this isn’t a glamorous plan to work 
on just because it’s called Solid 
Waste Plan but I think it impacts 
every single person in the city, and 
I think there are a lot of issues we 
need to tackle on this plan so it’s 
going to be of critical importance 
to have good public engagement 
on this project,” Smith said.

COUNCIL
From Page 1

widely recognized as one of the 
worst humanitarian crises of the 
current age. While Ahmed had 
been thinking about the Syrian 
civil war — then in its fifth year 
— he decided it was time to take 
action after hearing the story of 
a local imam and Syrian refugee 
who fled from his home during 
the reign of Bashar’s father, Hafez 
al-Assad.

“He put the entire audience 

in his shoes,” Ahmed said. “He 
made us understand how truly 
lonely it is and how scary it is to 
be a refugee, to leave everything 
behind, to have absolutely nothing 
besides the clothes on your back 
… I couldn’t sleep for a week 
because, to me, I was faced with 
a paradox — how could I go to 
school, take tests, go to Espresso, 
grab a coffee, knowing what 
atrocities are happening halfway 
across the world, knowing those 
atrocities aren’t in the history 
books but are happening as we 
speak?”

Inspired 
by 
that 
speech, 

Ahmed decided to start the 
Syrian 
Orphans 
Sponsorship 

Association on campus, which 
focused on orphaned children 
in the wake of the conflict. 
According to UNICEF, a total of 
11 million Syrian children have 
been displaced because of the 
civil war. From that point, SOSA 
began to grow. During the first 
semester of the organization’s 
existence, SOSA raised $5,000; 
the following year, they raised 
$10,000.

As the scope of the organization 

changed, the name followed suit. 
Now as Students Organize for 
Syria, Ahmed said attempting to 
address the crisis is not an easy 
task. He said projects such as 
medical drives, which package 
medical supplies and ship them 
to areas in need of medical care, 
clothing 
drives, 
documentary 

screenings and more play a very 
large part in increasing personal 
participation and encouraging 
individual involvement but the 
length of the crisis adds a nuance 
to organizing efforts that is 
difficult to maneuver.

“It’s tough because it seems 

sometimes, no matter how much 
you try to do, nothing changes,” 
Ahmed said. “The crisis continues 
to go on. For us, it’s really about 
looking at the impact we can have 
as individuals and that’s why 
those engagement projects are 
so important … Longevity-wise, 
that’s how we hope to continue 
to inspire students and allow 
them to continue playing a part 
regardless of how long the crisis 
is going on.”

Public 
Policy 
junior 
Zoha 

Qureshi, public relations chair 
and incoming president of SOS, 
said the three main goals of 
SOS are advocacy, education 
and fundraising. She said the 
largest hurdle when organizing 
is continuing to keep a physical 
presence on campus as the 
war reaches its eighth year of 
devastation.

“The biggest thing is reminding 

everyone this is a crisis that’s 
been going on for such a long 
time, and we just need to continue 
to push forward and do whatever 
we can in the capacity that we 
have as college students to make 
an impact and to really help out in 
any way we can,” Qureshi said.

LSA 
senior 
Zoe 
Proegler, 

co-president of the Michigan 
Refugee 
Assistance 
Program, 

said MRAP, which was founded 
in September 2016 when many 
images of refugees from Syria 
were being shared online, focuses 
their efforts on volunteering with 
refugees in the area, and advocacy 
and education events such as 
teach-ins 
and 
documentary 

screenings. She said MRAP also 
grapples with staying relevant on 
campus given the extended time 
frame in Syria.

“That’s definitely a difficulty 

that we face and have to struggle 
with,” Proegler said. “How do 
we keep people engaged and 
informed when things have been 
so bad for so long?”

As a member of MRAP, Kutmah 

said the issues around organizing 
for victims in the Syrian conflict 
involve keeping Syria in the 
collective consciousness of the 
community and inspiring people 
to work to alleviate suffering.

“In general, whenever you 

want to have a social movement 
or try to start any movement 
regarding an issue, the issue 

becomes an issue of memory 
and an issue of time,” she said. 
“When something big happens, 
it suddenly feels very pertinent. 
Everyone wants to organize and 
… the one thing social movements 
or any movements have against 
them is time because the longer 
that time lapses, the less people 
are interested and the less people 
are advocating.”

Muslim 
Community 

Association of Ann Arbor and 
Vicinity, the local mosque near 
North Campus, has been recently 
responding to and promoting 
educational efforts on the war 
in Syria for its members and 
Ann Arbor residents, but faces 
similar issues as the campus 
organizations. MCA President 
Habib Hamidi said the war in Syria 
doesn’t have the convenience of 
organizing around a single issue. 
Hamidi cited rallies demanding 
the removal of troops during the 
Iraq War as a crisis that can call 
for one specific outcome while 
the Syrian civil war does not have 
an easily digestible conclusion.

“There is no end in sight and 

there isn’t one particular action 
that you can sort of advocate for,” 
Hamidi said. “We just try to say 
‘Hey, we just have to do our part’ 
and … As long as everybody does 
their part and raises their voice, 
then collectively we can have an 
effect.”

Kutmah said these specific 

points of protest allow for a very 
large presence on campus, but 
since the conflict has continued 
to ravage Syria for almost eight 
years, these rallying points are 
too far and few between for a 
continued activist effort.

“You’ll have rallying points 

like, for example, when chemical 
weapons were used or in Aleppo 
or right now you have eastern 
Ghouta but for the most part, 
there’s no continued activism by 
a large group of people,” she said.

In the past month, activism 

for Syria has become much more 
visible on campus and in Ann 
Arbor given the bombings in 
eastern Ghouta, which began 
in late February. The last rebel-
controlled 
area 
near 
Syria’s 

capital, 
the 
104-square 
mile 

district, which is home to about 
400,000 Syrian civilians, has 
been under heavy fire from the 

al-Assad’s regime since 2013. Last 
month, a large bombing campaign 
began in the region and, according 
to the Syrian Observatory for 
Human Rights, 654 civilians have 
been killed in the past two weeks 
as part of the attacks.

 
On 
Monday, 
the 
United 

Nations Human Rights Council 
adopted a resolution calling for 
an investigation into the bombing 
campaign in eastern Ghouta, 
as well as a failed ceasefire 
two weeks ago. United Nations 
Secretary-General 
António 

Guterres said it was “high time 
to stop this hell on earth” at the 
HRC’s opening session.

SOS, MRAP and MCA stepped 

up organizing in response to the 
crisis. SOS held an emergency 
phone bank in the Michigan Union 
on Thursday, February 22, where 
students 
could 
contact 
their 

state and federal representatives, 
asking them to take a stand and 
pass legislation condemning the 
attacks in Ghouta.

“Our goal is really for (the 

representatives) 
to 
publicly 

recognize the fact that this is 
going on because that’s something 
that I didn’t really see in any US 
news outlets,” Qureshi said. “I 
woke up Thursday (February 22) 
… I get the New York Times and 
get newsletters emailed to me 
every morning and I didn’t see 
any word of that and it just felt 
kind of weird like it’s not even 
being talked about.”

Proegler 
said 
MRAP 
has 

worked with SOS on events in 
the past and supported the phone 
bank method, saying it not only 
allows students to get involved 
with the organization but also to 
contribute to the collective goal 
of bringing attention to the crisis.

“When you’re able to give 

members things to do like call 
your representatives and advocate 
for this specific change, it allows 
them to feel more involved and 
actually taking steps to mitigate 
the crisis and it does make a 
difference,” Proegler said.

MCA, on the other hand, 

concentrated their efforts on a 
physical educational presence, 
staging an “Interfaith Rally for 
Syria” in front of the Ann Arbor 
Post Office Friday, February 23. 
MCA member Dr. Mohammad 

AlAzem, who helped pass out 
flyers on the Ghouta bombings 
with 
information 
on 
how 

members of the public could 
contact their representatives, said 
he believes it is his job to spread 
the word about the crisis in Syria 
to those who may not know about 
it.

“I (have been) living in Ann 

Arbor now for the past 29 years 
and … My duty as originally 
Syrian (and) American is to 
educate the public,” AlAzem said 
in an interview after the event.

Hamidi 
said 
an 
element 

of 
MCA’s 
organizing 
efforts 

is getting members involved 
in 
the 
democratic 
process 

through rallies and educational 
demonstrations such as the one 
he and AlAzem organized and 
attended.

However, a large issue for these 

organizers comes when there 
are lulls between large events to 
rally behind. Qureshi said staying 
relevant on campus is a struggle 
when there isn’t an emergency 
like Ghouta for members to 
interact with and for students to 
learn about.

“(We’re) 
periodically 
just 

having different kinds of events 
to show that we are active and we 
are continuously doing things,” 
Qureshi said. “We just want to 
continuously have events like 
bi-weekly 
just 
so 
(students) 

know that our presence is there 
on campus … One of our goals 
is spreading awareness about 
the campaign so we want to be 
able to make sure that as many 
University of Michigan students 
as possible know about what’s 
happening there and know that 
they can do something about it 
too.”

Another issue Ahmed and 

Proegler addressed with their 
respective 
organizations 
is 

reaching out to new students 
who aren’t already involved with 
the issue. When an issue such 
as Syria is addressed, Ahmed 
said a specific crowd of involved 
students is drawn to their events. 
While he said this base is good, 
there are more students at the 
University that might not know 
about the war. He said these are 
the populations SOS is working to 
interact with.

“Population 
penetration 
is 

something that we’ve been looking 
at pretty deeply,” Ahmed said. 
“We’ve 
actually 
implemented 

an expansion manager and an 
outreach manager, that’s on and 
off-campus communication so 
that we’re not just reaching out 
to more orgs on campus, whether 
that’s 
fraternities, 
sororities, 

different volunteer clubs, but 
also to the larger Ann Arbor 
population.”

MRAP has been working to 

create more cross-organizational 
communication as well to tackle 
the issue of the same people 
attending their events. Proegler 
said by collaborating with other 
organizations on campus, more 
students can get involved and a 
larger impact can be made.

“As we see broader coalitions 

forming sort of across a range of 
social and political issues, we’re 
definitely benefiting from some 
of that energy of people wanting 
to reach out and get involved with 
stuff that might be kind of outside 
of their realm of expertise or their 
focus as a service organization 
or as an affinity group but we’ve 
definitely been seeing people 
remain interested and engaged,” 
Proegler said. “As much as this 
isn’t something that has an end 
date in sight, I find a lot of hope in 
people who are still coming out to 
events (and) still taking action.”

In his own experience with 

organizing, Hamidi said MCA 
is working to stage more public 
events and reach out to members 
of 
all 
backgrounds 
in 
the 

community to increase education 
efforts and hopefully help the 
victims of this crisis.

“What I think is most effective 

is getting out in the streets and 
basically interacting with people 
one-on-one and trying to have a 
conversation with them,” Hamidi 
said. “Especially with a long 
conflict, when you do any type 
of rally or anything like that, 
people are desensitized to what 
you’re talking about, especially 
when they hear the word ‘Syria’ 
because it’s such a long conflict so 
I think one-on-one interactions 
and listening to people … is 
refreshing to me.”

SYRIA
From Page 1

wearing hoodies at night, told 
to say “yes sir” to officers no 
matter what and to take other 
precautions when dealing with 
cops.

Engineering 
sophomore 

Peighton Childress is a member 
of 
the 
NAACP 
University 

chapter and was glad the groups 
were able to get together and 
have a productive conversation 
about the matter.

“I think this is a really good 

event to have considering the 
climate in the country right 
now,” Childress said. “I think 
it’s important to let (people) 

know that there are (those) 
who aren’t on the negative 
when it comes to their safety 
with police.”

The discussion emphasized 

the importance of building 
relations between community 
members and law enforcement.

Orlando 
Simon, 
Student 

Legal 
Services 
attorney, 

explained how respect toward 
police 
was 
important 
to 

practice for everyone, but that 
the effects were magnified 
for 
minorities. 
Simon 
felt 

that fostering a relationship 
between police and citizens is 
crucial for helping understand 
one other better.

“I think bringing people 

together is always a good 

thing,” Simon said. “It’s easy 
to go in (a courtroom) and look 
at the police as the other side 
… But I find, over the years, 
a greater difference is the 
relationships. It’s crucial to 
bring law enforcement into the 
dialogue.”

Many 
students 
were 

concerned that even knowing 
your 
rights 
and 
doing 

everything right might not be 
enough to protect their life. 
They cited cases like that of 
Sandra Bland, who was found 
dead in a jail cell after she was 
pulled over for a minor traffic 
violation. Some students asked 
the panel what change they can 
expect, if any.

Washington 
had 
some 

advice for such students who 
felt disillusioned about their 
ability to change the status 
quo. He explained during an 
altercation, people have to 
do what they can to remain 
safe. However, he encouraged 
speaking 
out 
and 
writing 

complaints 
to 
the 
police 

department after the fact.

“Don’t 
believe 
nothing 

happened,” Washington said. 
“Just by making some noise, 
you’re helping yourself … and 
officers too. It’s one incident 
at a time. We can’t police 
without you as partners, and I 
don’t think the problem can be 
solved without us as partners … 
This is how we get better.”

NAACP
From Page 1

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

