the
conduct
of
Ann
Arbor
police officers and investigate
complaints from city residents,
but concerns arose about the
legality of certain provisions in
relation to the city charter and
the police department’s collective
bargaining agreement.
Kailasapathy,
who
co-sponsored the task force’s
ordinance,
said
the
process
surrounding the formation of
citizen task force’s proposal
was the most democratic she
had seen in her six years on City
Council.
“I’m really proud to bring
this up because this is yours,”
Kailasapathy said to supporters
in attendance Monday evening.
“It’s what the residents have
told us,” adding the ordinance
was “not anti-police,” but rather
“pro-safety.”
While the mayor’s proposal
and the task force’s ordinance
both preserved anonymity for
complainants and clarified that
no city councilmember or active
duty police officer will sit on
the oversight board, Taylor’s
differed
in
its
appointment
of
independent
counsel
and
provisions regarding concurrent
investigations
by
the
board
and
the
Ann
Arbor
Police
Department.
The mayor’s proposal diverged
from the vision of the citizen task
force in giving the mayor more
power
over
the
appointment
process as well. In Taylor’s version,
the mayor would be responsible
for appointing members to the
oversight board, while the citizen
task force proposed the oversight
board itself and the Human
Rights
Commission
should
create a list of possible members
that would be appointed by City
Council.
While the citizen task force
sought to award the oversight
board subpoena power, a memo
from City Attorney Stephen
K. Postema noted “significant
legal issues with subpoenaing
residents
of
the
City,
City
employees, or police officers”
because the city charter does
not grant City Council subpoena
power.
Postema
maintained
Council’s
lack
of
subpoena
power implies its power to the
commission is questionable.
Additionally,
Postema’s
memo cast doubt on the the
commission’s ability to retain
independent counsel, an issue
that led to worries of conflicts
of interest during the September
work session. The memo stated
a commission created by City
Council “has no authority to
contract
with
outside
legal
counsel on its own.”
The Police Officers Association
of Michigan sent a letter to
Taylor opposing the citizen task
force’s ordinance, calling the
“blatant lack of trust” for the
AAPD “unconscionable.” POAM
did so in an effort to “protect
Ann Arbor police officers from
the venom which this proposed
ordinance spews,” saying, “The
proposed ordinance lacks moral
justification
and
lacks
legal
authority.”
The
ordinance
introduced
by Taylor will move forward
to a second reading at the City
Council meeting on Oct. 15.
five municipalities and sorts
through the trash generated by
the University.
According
to
Tracy
Artley, waste reduction and
recycling program manager
for the Office of Campus
Sustainability,
recycling
on
the
institutional
level
has
had increased standards and
thus requires education and
consistency.
“Manufacturers
have
a
lower and lower tolerance
for contamination — for non-
recyclables ending up in there,”
Artley said. “That’s a cost to
them, they have to sort those
out, and if they missed it, it
could ruin the whole batch
of
what
they’re
recycling.
Unfortunately, some people
do what we call wish-cycling,
where they put things in the
recycling
bin
hoping
that
because they put it there, it’ll
get recycled.”
Because of the University’s
close
relationship
with
WWRA,
consistent
communication
allows the Office of Campus
Sustainability to be notified if
a batch is contaminated, and
they can subsequently trace the
bin back to a certain building
or department. This way, the
office is able to directly address
consistent recycling errors at
certain buildings.
Artley
also
explained
how economic factors weigh
heavily on the lack of recycling
for paper products, especially
coffee cups.
“Recycling is this great
environmental effort, but at
heart, it’s an economic effort,”
she said. “When we recycle
things, they get sorted out and
set out for recycling. They are
being recycled for purchasing
by a manufacturer who wants
to make something new out of
that. With coffee cups, there’s
no company, at least around
the state, that wants these
paper coffee cups.”
said
earlier
in
September.
“We’re continuing to study
our current procedures … The
idea is to continuously improve
in this really important area,
so there will be more to come
in the months ahead on what
we can do to diminish the
frequency of misconduct on
our campus.”
The training was born out of
the Working Group on Faculty
and Staff Sexual Misconduct, a
committee which investigated
current
University
policy
and published findings. The
committee
was
co-chaired
by
Laurita
Thomas,
associate
vice
president
for
Human
Resources,
and former U-M Dearborn
Chancellor
Daniel
Little.
The
committee’s
published
recommendations
included
mandatory
faculty
programming, as the University
previously required only newly
hired staff to undergo such
training. Proposed modules
in the training include topics
of institutional commitment,
principles
and
values
and
behavior expectations.
The
University’s
annual
sexual
misconduct
report released in September
reported
data
from
only
student
misconduct
filings.
An
independent
crowd-
sourced database of sexual
misconduct
in
academia,
however, called the “whisper
network” attracted attention
last winter with a log of more
than a dozen incidents of
sexual assault, harassment and
rape perpetrated by University
faculty members.
American Culture Professor
Lisa
Nakamura
welcomed
the
trainings,
predicting
they would certainly raise
awareness
of
protocols
among faculty, but expressed
reservations about the long-
term efficacy of the online
course.
The Michigan Daily — www.michigandaily.com
News
Tuesday, October 2, 2018 — 3
TRAINING
From Page 1
SHAT TERING THE SILENCE
SARAH KUNKEL/Daily
Saline High School student Zaynab Elkolaly shows her support for political activism against gun violence at the Shattering the Silence Rally on the Diag Monday.
finding funding for humanities
research is generally difficult,
especially
from
sources
not
associated with the University.
Noting
a
funding
disparity
between humanities and natural
science
research,
Crisostomo
said he’s found the most success
receiving grants for humanities
projects
with
computational
aspects, like his contributions to
an online database of translated
texts.
“The digital humanities almost
is a way of making the humanities
seem more scientific,” Crisostomo
said. “Funding bodies are looking
more at these projects rather than
what have been the traditional
humanities
projects,
such
as
translations of texts or analyses of
texts or people groups, things like
that.”
According to the University’s
2017 Annual Report on Research,
the
majority
of
research
expenditures
go
toward
projects in the natural sciences
and
technology.
The
School
of Medicine topped research
expenditures last year, taking
up 41 percent of all research
costs, followed by the College of
Engineering at 17 percent. Only 13
percent of research expenditures
were attributed to LSA, the
largest college by population at the
University.
Several key sources of income
fund research at the University. Of
the $1.48 billion spent on research
in 2017, 56 percent was funded by
the federal government, mostly
in the form of grants provided by
agencies such as National Institute
of Health and NASA. Funds from
non-federal
sources,
such
as
industry sponsors, comprised 11
percent of research expenditures.
Internal funds, generated by
tuition, gifts and state support,
made up 33 percent.
Sara Blair, vice provost for
Academic and Faculty Affairs,
said though University faculty
have been successful in earning
humanities
research
awards
relative to other universities,
external
funding
for
the
humanities is generally limited.
“One really important fact
about funding for research in
the humanities and humanistic
social sciences, more broadly,
is that the amount of funding
available externally is regrettably
minimal,” Blair said. “Especially
compared with other disciplinary
areas, there just are not robust
opportunities for faculty to apply,
particularly
for
longer-term,
larger-scale research projects.”
Heather Offhaus, director of
Grant Review and Analysis for the
Medical School Office of Research,
noted there is some practical basis
for the funding disparity. She
said one reason medical research
dominates total expenditures at
the University is the school’s large
faculty size, leading to a higher
volume of research.
“The schools and colleges
are
arranged
by
where
faculty are employed and tenured,
and we have a very large engine,”
Offhaus said. “The three largest
schools on campus are the Medical
School, Engineering and LSA.”
Offhaus
added
scientific
research is often more costly than
research in the humanities or arts,
thus requiring larger grants.
“Compared to LSA, medical
research is far more expensive,
and so we’re applying to sponsors
that are prepared to cover the cost
of the research or part of the cost
of the research and so those tend
to be larger awards than, say, in
LSA,” Offhaus said. “Engineering
is a little more like we are in terms
of size and scope of awards.”
Though
Crisostomo
acknowledged
science
and
technology
research
can
be
costlier in terms of personnel and
equipment, he also attributed
the funding gap to a lack of
appreciation for the humanities.
According to Crisostomo, the
humanities are often seen as
purely academic, luxury fields
of study, whereas the natural
sciences are considered to have
more realistic applicability.
“There is a tendency for
the
natural
sciences
to
be
more easily understandable as
somewhat
practical
research,”
Crisostomo said. “You think about
the projects at U of M such as
automated driving that led to a lot
of attention, and you see how that’s
practical outside of academia.”
Crisostomo said he strongly
believes in the value of humanities
research,
because
it
builds
empathy and promotes the careful
consumption of media. He added
humanities scholars, especially
those who study the past, are able
to piece together fragmentary
information to better understand
historical events, a skill that
translates to modern politics
and global issues. In applying for
grants from funding agencies,
Crisostomo
said,
humanities
researchers must make a strong
case for the validity and value of
their work.
“We have to make the case,
whereas
for
some
natural
sciences it’s more assumed, it’s a
default thing that they’re really
applicable,”
Crisostomo
said.
“It’s not as obvious a case for the
humanities.”
In
spite
of
his
difficulty
finding
external
funding,
Crisostomo said he has noticed
the University’s efforts to direct
more internal funds toward the
humanities.
“One of the good things that
I’ve seen here at the U of M
is recently there has been more of a
push for getting some humanities
funding,” Crisostomo said. “For
example, I know that the college
of LSA has increased the amount
for the startup package, that is
the amount of money given to
incoming professors to get their
projects going, and that includes
the humanities, that includes
social sciences.”
Amy Dittmar, vice provost
for Academic and Budgetary
Affairs, said the University tries to
compensate for the lack of external
funding by supporting humanities
research with internal funds, such
as initiatives like the Institute for
the Humanities and Humanities
Collaboratory.
In
2017,
the
humanities,
arts
and
social
sciences received a combined
56 percent of grants and awards
distributed by the Office of
Research.
“We really are mindful in
making sure that there are
available resources for all of our
faculty to do research, and some
of those areas naturally have
external funding and some of
with the response of the
community.
Barabino
and
Cortina
discussed
how
women
and
members
of
other
underrepresented
groups
have to brush off instances
of gender harassment.
“You may brush it off,
say that was just today,”
Barabino said. “Well, it was
today, it was yesterday, it’s
coming tomorrow, and it
doesn’t get seen.”
University administrators
are currently working to
reduce
harassment
and
misconduct among faculty.
As of last month, faculty
members will be required to
undergo sexual misconduct
training
following
reccomendations from a staff
and faculty working group.
While
the
University’s
student sexual misconuduct
policy is subject to regular
reviews
and
revisions,
similar guidelines do not
exist
for
the
Standard
Practice Guide that governs
faculty and staff misconduct.
In
response
to
a
question asking how it is
possible to survey sexual
harassment,
Cortina
said
because of this issue, they
do
not
ask
respondents
point blank whether they
have
experienced
sexual
harassment or not.
“When we survey people,
we try to avoid all these
terms entirely,” Cortina said.
“We ask about specifically
defined behaviors because
people have such different
understandings
for
what
sexual harassment means,
what it means to be sexually
harassed. And oftentimes
what you actually find is that
people will say yes to a whole
list of behaviors, and all these
behaviors are examples of
sexual harassment conduct.
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
PROJECTS
From Page 1
POLICE
From Page 1
STEM
From Page 1
CUPS
From Page 1
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com