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
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Read more at
MichiganDaily.com