2A — Thursday, March 8, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

FRIDAY:

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WOLVE RINE OF THE WE E K

AARON BAKER/Daily

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This Week in History 

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THURSDAY:
Twitter Talk

Jessica Evans
@ms_evans

Going to @UMich was one 
of the best decisions I ever 
made.

Ashley M
@aclay21

Kardashians talking about eating 
their placenta reminds me of 
when I jokingly asked my Dr at 
@UMich if I should consider 
that and his answering was a 
resounding “hell, no”

Nick Carroll
@Nickkkkowaaasss

ok nick ya just spend ur spring 
break at umich attending 
random architecture lectures 
(archilectures, if you will) w 
ur pal!!!! #LivinLaVidaLoca 
#LocaCabeza

Sophia Broesamle
@SophiaBroesamle

I’m so ready for my next 
adventure! #goblue

Michigan Sports Zone
@MichSportsZone

Who else is still hype that we 
are B1G Champs? #GOBLUE

Knicki
@kbergy4

The only downside to @
umichbball winning the @bigten 
champ a week earlier than usual 
is now I’m way too hype for 
March madness and have to wait 
even longer :/ #GoBlue 

Professor advocates for diversity of 
thought in classroom & group work

Page shows studies on benefits of variant perspectives in kickoff for Munger case competition

If you could have anyone 
as an imaginary friend, 
who would you choose?

“I would probably 
say Jim Harbaugh. 
I feel like he 
would be a great 
motivator, would 
probably actually 
get me to do my 
work instead of 
just sitting here not 
doing my work. I 
think that would be 
great motivation.”

LSA junior Marco Lewis

After being pushed by a 

colleague to spread his findings 
on diversity, Scott Page, a Leonid 
Hurwicz Collegiate professor 
of complex systems, political 
science and economics at the 
University of Michigan, now 
travels the country discussing 
why diverse perspectives and 
ideas are so crucial to group 
work.

Wednesday afternoon, Page 

discussed diversity of thought 
in a talk concentrated on the 
findings in his most recent novel, 

“The Diversity Bonus.” About 50 
individuals attended the event 
focused on the benefits diversity 
brings to groups solving complex 
problems.

The 
talk 
was 
hosted 
in 

concordance with the founding 
of a new Diversity, Equity and 
Inclusion certificate offered by 
the Rackham Graduate School 
and the start of the Winter 
2018 Munger case competition, 
challenging graduate students to 
solve complex problems within 
diverse groups.

Lindsay 
Trahan, 
a 

transdisciplinary 
program 

manager at Munger Graduate 
Residences, 
explained 
the 

Munger case competition and its 
importance in honing graduate 
students’ group skills.

“Every 
semester, 
Munger 

hosts a case competition. So, 
over the past couple of semesters, 
we’ve reached out to strategic 
partners interested in some 
larger topic or issue that is best 
addressed 
through 
diversity 

of thought, getting graduate 
students from across different 
disciplines and having them 
come together to form teams to 
address certain issues, such as 
poverty,” Trahan said. “We want 
to offer students the opportunity 
as they are working through this 
action plan to address diversity 

and inclusion. We want them 
to think about it through 
different lenses.”

Page began his talk by 

explaining the idea behind 
a 
“diversity 
bonus” 
–– 

diversity having a functional, 
pragmatic value in group 
settings, leading to an added 
bonus to efficiency.

Page 
discussed 
how 

the 
term 
“diversity” 
is 

often 
misunderstood 
and 

fundamentally 
based 

on 
experience. 
When 

referencing 
diversity, 

he 
spoke 
on 
different 

perspectives 
and 
ideas 

permeating society.

“When 
dealing 
with 

complexity, you need lots 
of different frameworks to 
make sense of the world,” 
Page said. “What we really 
mean when we say diversity 
is people who think about 
the world in different ways. 
The core takeaway is that 
cognitive diversity improves 
outcomes on complex tasks.”

Page went on to discuss 

the 
logic 
and 
evidence 

behind this finding. Citing 

multiple 
studies 
in 
fields 

ranging from political science 
to biology to economics, Page 
emphasized the concept that 
working in combination, rather 
than isolation, produced higher 
rates 
of 
efficiency, 
accuracy 

and productivity in groups. He 
stressed how group creativity 
outweighed individual creativity 
in almost all situations.

Page refuted the commonly 

held notion that diverse groups of 
individuals counterbalances one 
another to be merely average. In 
fact, he claimed, there is almost 
always a bonus to efficiency 
because of diversity.

“People sort of think there is 

this trade-off between excellence 
and diversity,” Page said. “By 
being inclusive and diverse, we 
will actually achieve excellence.”

Finally, 
Page 
discussed 

identity diversity. He explained 
how 
identity 
fundamentally 

lies in the different attributes 
making up an individual and 
how these identities change 
over time. He then stressed the 
crucial relationship identity and 
diversity share.

Rackham 
student 
David 

Morphew 
discussed 
why 

learning about the importance 
of diversity is crucial to graduate 
students.

“I was very interested in 

the topic because I wanted to 
see some data to back up why 
diversity is so important for 
solving problems on a grander 
scale” Morphew said.

Page closed by reinforcing the 

correlation between success and 
diversity.

“If you want something really 

interesting you have to bring in 
people trained differently, from 
different places, from different 
groups, if you really want to have 
something amazing,” Page said.

MADELINE MCLAUGHLIN

For the Daily

