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Thursday, May 17, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
NEWS

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New Ford program
funds collaboration

Research and public 
policy program helps 
students engage with 
organizations

By SAYALI AMIN

Daily Staff Reporter

Made possible by a $1.5 million gift 
from the Power Foundation, a new 
program for the University of Michigan 
will be housed in the Ford School of 
Public Policy to engage students and 
faculty with people and organizations 
in public policy.
Elisabeth Gerber, Public Policy 
associate dean for research and policy 
engagement, will be leading the new 
program known as the Program in 
Practical Policy Engagement (P3E). This 
program creates learning opportunities 
for students outside of a classroom 
setting, while allowing students and 
faculty to collaborate with different 
types of organizations whether they 
be governmental organizations or 
nonprofits.
“The intention of the program is to 
make it easier and more accessible for 

students and faculty to engage with real 
world policy organizations, working 
on real problems,” Gerber said. “We’re 
not really organized to engage with 
organizations outside of our campus.”
When finding organizations to work 
with, Gerber said it is important to 
ensure that the skills of the students and 
faculty match the type of problem that 
needs to be solved. P3E can help with 
the matching of these organizations. 
“Finding that match, it’s time 
consuming, it takes practice, it takes 
patience, it takes cultural competency 
depending on the types of organizations 
that we’re working with,” Gerber said.
Methods of engaging with outside 
organizations currently exist within the 
University, however they are disjointed. 
P3E’s goal is to bring together those on 
campus who are working with these 
organizations.
Matt 
Naud, 
environmental 
coordinator for Ann Arbor, has worked 
on projects with Public Policy students 
before. One of the projects involved 
water equity, or how payments for 
water are determined, in Ann Arbor. 

City Council 
tables discussion 
of controversial 
new zoning

By RACHEL CUNNINGHAM

Summer Daily News Editor

 
The Ann Arbor City Council 
has tabled a discussion regarding 
potential zoning code changes 
to 
University 
of 
Michigan 
fraternities and sororities until 
June, hoping to work out details 
in the legislation before a vote. 
The 
zoning 
code 
changes, 
which have caused tension with 
U-M Greek life members and 
lawyers, would require future 
fraternities and sororities to 
maintain an affiliation with the 
University or another academic 
body to acquire a city permit. 
Under the proposed changes, 
if a sorority or fraternity loses 
University recognition in the 
future, it can apply for a two-
year special exception before it 
would lose its house.
Councilmember 
Zachary 
Ackerman, D-Ward 3, wrote 
in an email interview that the 
zoning code changes entered 
discussion 
after 
numerous 
complaints from neighbors of 
fraternity and sorority houses 
and a recommendation from the 
Planning Commission.

“The 
City’s 
Planning 
Commission 
(a 
body 
of 
volunteer 
experts 
in 
real 
estate, 
architecture, 
and 
sustainability) first took this 
up in response to neighborhood 
concerns,” 
Ackerman 
wrote. 
“Many neighbors of Fraternities 
and 
Sororities 
(more 
often 
Fraternities), have has serious 
issues, which our current Noise, 
Litter, and Nuisance regulations 
cannot 
effectively 
control. 
These existing regulations only 
punish the student tenants, not 
the property owners. By using 
zoning code, the City is better 
aligning the priorities of the 
property owner with the needs 
of the community. For example, 
a landlord may not care if 25 
of their tenants received noise 
complaint tickets. However, that 
same landlord probably cares 
about paying off their mortgage, 
which higher tenant capacity 
allows him to do more quickly. 
Our goal is to get the landlord 
more 
engaged 
in 
problem 
properties and tenants because 
they now have a financial stake 
in their behavior.”
Ackerman 
also 
said 
the 
ordinance would set a cap on 
the number of people allowed 
to live in a fraternity or sorority 
house.

New zoning code 
worries Greek life

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