director Kurt Svoboda offered 
the following statement:

“We 
learned 
about 
an 

incident with Mr. Vetere on 
Oct. 10 and suspended him 
that day. He resigned from his 
position on Oct. 15 during our 
disciplinary review process.”

Svoboda said he “can not 

comment” on the identity of 
the 18-year-old student.

Vetere did not respond to 

a request for comment at the 
time of publication.

Vetere was hired as an 

assistant coach in 2017 and 
was a former gymnast at 
Michigan, 
graduating 
in 

2003. A 10-time NCAA All-
American, he was a member 
of the 1999 team that won the 
national championship and 

served as an assistant coach 
for the men’s team for five 
seasons, from 2005-09.

Previously, Vetere worked 

with the women’s team at its 
summer camps for six years 
prior to his hiring.

Ethan 
Sears 
and 
Max 

Marcovitch also contributed 
to the reporting of this story.

This is a developing story. 

Check back at michigandaily.
com for more details.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, October 24, 2018 — 3A

He resigned from 

his position on 
Oct. 15 during 
our disciplinary 
review process

enough resources so that they 
are not starving.”

Engineering 
sophomore 

Tony Xavier was unanimously 
confirmed to the International 
Student Assembly seat. Before 
his confirmation, he discussed 
specific 
issues 
relating 
to 

international students that he 
hopes to address.

“For international students, 

there is one thing that University 
of 
Michigan 
completely 

neglects,” Xavier said. “There 
is no financial aid giving to 
international students.”

He went on to say many of the 

reasons the University does not 
offer aid is due to a stereotype 
of 
international 
students 

being wealthy. Xavier said the 
stereotype does not apply to 

him or other people he knew in 
India.

“There were three of my 

classmates back in India who 
could not come to the University 
because they found out the 
tuition was too expensive,” 
Xavier said.

After the CSG town hall 

meeting next Monday, CSG 
will 
release 
their 
survey 

and guide for housing lease 
managing guide. This is an 
effort 
to 
compile 
lists 
to 

pinpoint landlord reliability and 
housing prices are accessible to 
University students.

Engineering senior Michael 

Nwansi 
proposed 
student 

organizations 
receiving 

funding from CSG to apply for 
compostable dining material. 
According 
to 
Nwansi, 
the 

Student Sustainability Initiative 
spends a lot of money on 
advertisements for students to 

apply for compostable material. 
He thinks the resolution will 
help the University’s goal of 
reducing landfill waste by 40 
percent in 2025.

Public Policy senior Alli Berry 

asked 
for 
CSG 
sponsorship 

for an event that will bring 
one Israeli orthodox Jewish 
person and one Palestinian 
person to campus to discuss 
their experiences and opinions 
on the current state of affairs 
in Israel. She said she knows it 
is a difficult topic to discuss, 
but hopes for a challenging 
yet respectful event and not a 
“kumbaya moment.”

The event comes at a time 

when the conflict is on the 
minds 
of 
many 
University 

students 
and 
professors, 

specifically 
in 
relation 
to 

Prof. 
John 
Cheney-Lippold’s 

recent decision to rescind his 
recommendation for a student to 

a study abroad program in Israel 
and the University’s subsequent 
sanctions against him. Berry 
hopes 
the 
discussion 
helps 

foster 
questions 
about 
the 

situation, not further divide 
campus.

“I think that this event could 

potentially leave people with 
more questions than they had 
coming in, but it’s an initial 
conversation,” Berry said. “And 
if we don’t sit down to start 
these conversations we will 
continue to see what we see on 
campus which are these isolated 
events 
hosted 
by 
multiple 

organizations that don’t foster 
diversity.”

CSG President Daniel Greene, 

a Public Policy senior, also 
emphasized how important it 
is to promote their Buses to 
Ballots initiative, which will aid 
students getting to the polls on 
Nov. 6.

CSG
From Page 1A

“I was happy to see the large 

attendance 
numbers,” 
White 

said. “There have been so few 
events like this so far. Seeing that 
many people, and not just seeing 
those seats being filled with 
black people or the white LGBTQ 
crowd that comes out for their 
events and things. It was good to 
see people who aren’t necessarily 
part of some marginalized groups 
show up, or not visibly a part of it, 
which in one sense is a privilege, 
to be honest. I really wish that 
more faculty came, I really do. But 
that’s not on the event, that’s on 
the faculty again. But I’m glad that 
this is happening on a University 
level.”

The dialogue was not mandatory 

for every department, although 
the 
umbrella 
organization, 

Program in Biomedical Sciences, 
did require its members to attend.

Many 
attendees 

were concerned faculty members 
were not required to be in 
attendance. 

“I’m not as worried about what 

another person in my cohort thinks 
of me, to a certain extent — yes, as 
I am about someone who’s going 
to be writing a recommendation 
letter for me, someone who 
basically my future’s in their 
hands, someone who contributes 
to my daily happiness, because I 
have to interact with every day,” 
White said. “That is way more 

power. Having this community is 
great, but it’s really important for 
(faculty members) to figure it out.”

Sherrica Tai, who recently 

finished her post-doctoral studies 
in 
pharmacology, 
believes 
a 

top-down approach is key to 
increasing faculty attendance at 
diversity dialogues.

“Just like the scenarios that 

were put into play, everyone kept 
saying it seems to be the victim’s 
responsibility to change this, 
but it can also be the top-down 
approach where their superiors 
need to tell the faculty that they 
need to attend these trainings,” 
Tai said. “I don’t remember seeing 
too many of the faculty members 
in the session, especially when 
they asked. If they were told to 
go, if it was mandatory for their 
employment here, to participate 
in an event like this once a year or 
every other year, that would make 
a difference. Why am I being the 
one educated on this issue, but yet, 
faculty are not.”

Rackham student Chiamaka 

Ukachukwu, a first-year PIBS 
student, thinks dialogue trainings 
are 
necessary 
to 
increase 

appropriate 
conduct 
within 

workspaces.

“Some of these professors don’t 

care, they just don’t,” Ukachukwu 
said. “So having them do these 
mandatory trainings, if this is 
not something you care about or 
something that you don’t agree 
with, I don’t need you to agree, 
I just need you to treat me with 
respect. For me, I think one of 

the main points is just making 
sure there is some sort of action 
plan whether you agree with this 
and are genuinely interested in 
learning how to be a better person, 
or this is something you have no 
interest in doing, it’s mandatory. 
Just don’t touch my hair, don’t talk 
about Colored People Time. You 
don’t have to agree with, just don’t 
do it.”

White emphasized this point, 

saying such remarks make it 
difficult to concentrate in the 
workplace.

“It’s 
accountability,” 
White 

said. “It’s not like, ‘Hey, don’t hurt 
our feelings.’ It’s like, ‘You are 
making my life harder for me to 
get my job done right now.’ I hope 
people can be empathetic and not 
treat people poorly, but that’s not 
apparently the world we live in. 
For a morality standpoint, that’s 
not enough for scientists.”

Carter believes the issue lies 

in 
representation 
and 
thinks 

increasing 
minority 
faculty 

members could help mitigate it. 

“I think the issue is also 

looking at the faculty themselves,” 
Carter said. “There are only a 
few faculty members of color at 
that level. So the bottleneck isn’t 
necessarily grad school or even 
post-doctoral level. It’s the faculty 
level. That’s where the change 
needs to happens. If you get more 
women. If you get more people 
who identify as LGBTQIA. If you 
get more people of color. There are 
more voices. And you have more 
advocacy.”

Rackham 
student 
Rachael 

Baliira said providing financial 
incentive 
through 
grant 

funding would increase faculty 
participation.

“A huge part of a grant should 

be, ‘Have you done this training?’ 
so that professors get rewarded,” 
Baliira said. “Some people, they 
only count points and that’s how 
they measure success. They need 
it to be measurable. For some 
PIs 
(principal 
investigators), 

attending these training courses 
doesn’t help them or they don’t 
think it affects their research. 
It’s a waste of time. But if it did 
financially affect their research, 
they would have to do it.” 

Carter said organizations like 

the National Institutes of Health 
are requiring diversity in research, 
which could serve as a solution to 
similar problems. 

“A lot of funding agencies, like 

the NIH, are asking for that now,” 
Carter said. “They’re really, really 
looking for that. They’re looking 
for that in terms of our studies, just 
in terms of designing experiments. 
You have to do research on both 
sexes. And if you’re looking at 
social sciences, you have to look 
at all gender spectrums as well. 
They’re also looking for that 
in terms of people of color and 
other, as they said, non-dominant 
culture. That’s something that’s 
also happening. That could be 
where that initiative is.”

DIVERSITY
From Page 1A

GYMNASTICS
From Page 1A

happen to our planet, not within 
the next century, but within 
decades and less if we don’t do 
something about climate change,” 
Rabhi said.

In 2011, the University of 

Michigan 
established 
a 
set 

of sustainability goals to achieve 
by 2025, chief among them to 
reduce 
campus 
emissions 
25 

percent below the 2006 level of 
680,000 metric tons of carbon 
dioxide-equivalent. In 2017, the 
University emitted approximately 
644,000 metric tons, representing 
a decrease of about 5 percent.

LSA senior Carly Rosenberg, a 

student studying in the Program 
in 
the 
Environment, 
voiced 

support of Rabhi’s bill and spoke 
on the importance of taking 
action at the state level to reduce 
harmful environmental impacts 
of climate change.

“I support this bill 100 percent,” 

Rosenberg said. “At the very least, 
I think it’s really important that 
he’s bringing in this bill because 
it’s calling attention to the fact 
that we need to do better and 
Michigan could be at the forefront 
of renewable energy and reducing 
our carbon footprint.”

DTE Energy, serving about 2.2 

million customers in southeast 
Michigan, 
has 
also 
released 

plans to improve upon their own 
energy sources. Earlier this year, 
the company announced plans 
to double their use of renewable 
energy over the coming four years 
through wind and solar energy. 
The company has also proposed 
plans to reduce carbon emissions 
by 80 percent before 2050, with 
the goal of having renewable 
sources power 40 percent of its 
energy by 2040.

Like Rabhi’s bill, DTE’s plan to 

increase use of renewable energy 
also has interim targets to meet 
their goals. These targets would 
reduce emissions by 30 percent 

before the late 2020s, 45 percent 
by 2030 and 75 percent by 2040. 
While Rabhi does expect some 
opposition from state energy 
companies regarding his proposal 
of 100 percent renewable energy, 
he also believes the 30-year 
timeline to accomplish the goal 
will allow companies adequate 
time to adjust.

Rabhi explained the current 

standards 
in 
Michigan 
have 

already set the precedent for 
increasing the use of renewable 
energy, 
and 
the 
bill 
would 

continue the practices that are 
currently used but would increase 
standards to higher percentages.

“There’s already a precedent 

and a mechanism in place to force 
the utilities to do these types 
of increases in terms of their 
ratio of alternative energy that’s 
generated of the total amount 
of energy,” Rabhi said. “The 
mechanism would really be the 
same that we currently have in 
the current system, and it would 
just be increasing the percentage 
standard … so that there’s sort of 
benchmarks and dates by which 
the utilities have to improve their 
renewable energy standard over 
that period of time, which is now 
only 32 years.”

Engineering 
junior 
Nathan 

Houghteling, who helped found 
the Michigan Energy Club last 
year and currently serves as its 
vice president, stated he agrees it’s 
necessary to set goals to reduce 
the impacts of climate change 
in the energy industry, and the 
energy industry is a place where 
this work can be done. However, 
he also thinks it is important to 
think about the implications of 
a 100 percent renewable energy 
plan.

“There’s a lot of complexities 

involved with renewable energy 
that 
our 
current 
grid 
isn’t 

equipped for,” Houghteling said. 
“A lot of it’s the intermittency 
of renewable sources, especially 
wind 
and 
solar, 
and 
to 

accommodate 
a 
100-percent 

renewable grid would require a lot 
of new technologies. What could 
potentially happen is the costs 
of these technologies don’t fall 
enough over the next thirty years, 
is we could see a dramatic spike 
in the price of energy per unit for 
residential users, for commercial 
users, for people across the board 
who are trying to buy energy if 
we’re trying to go to a 100-percent 
renewable grid.”

For Rabhi, the bill is a vision 

that sets goals for where the state 
and the country should be moving 
in terms of renewable energy.

“I wanted to set the goalpost of 

where we should be going. I don’t 
necessarily support an energy 
future that has any CO2 emitting 
sources, I think that we should 
ultimately have a carbon-free 
energy economy, and so I would 
like to see a day when Michigan, 
and quite frankly our country 
and our world, doesn’t have to 
use carbon to generate energy,” 
Rabhi said. “Instead of passing 
legislation or putting forward 
legislation that is sort of working 
around 
the 
margins 
of 
the 

problem, I’d like to actually aspire 
to something and address the 
actual problem.”

When considering the impacts 

this bill might have on students, 
Rabhi emphasized the effects of 
climate change on young people 
who currently see the climate 
changing and who might, in the 
future, witness even more drastic 
effects to the environment if steps 
aren’t taken soon to reduce global 
warming.

Rosenberg agreed and spoke 

on the actions the University 
is taking to reduce harm to 
the 
environment. 
She 
also 

highlighted the influence that the 
state legislative level could have 
on the University in continuing to 
improve their environmentally-
friendly decisions and projects.

“I know (the University of) 

Michigan has really lofty goals of 
becoming renewable and there’s 
a huge emphasis on serving 

local food in the dining halls 
and on campus to reduce carbon 
footprints,” Rosenberg said. “I 
think it could just be a really 
inspiring push for the University 
because obviously, they want 
to be at the forefront of what’s 
happening, and they’re already 
doing their part but it could be 
even more if the state of Michigan 
were to actually implement this 
… Long term, it could be really, 
really important in mitigating 
climate change.”

Houghteling 
urged 

consideration 
of 
the 
details 

that must be taken into account 
should a bill such as Rabhi’s 
be 
implemented. 
Specifically, 

he spoke on the importance of 
ensuring power is transmitted 
safely, 
efficiently 
and 
with 

a good quality of the power. 
Focusing on technologies that 
will be necessary for increasing 
renewable energy standards will 
be vital, he explained.

“I 
would 
say 
with 
some 

confidence that I don’t think 
there’s any grid on the scale 
of a state that could handle 
100 percent renewable energy 
today,” Houghteling said. “Just 
technologically it wouldn’t work, 
the grid would fail. I think that 
looking out towards 2050 there’s a 
lot of room for those developments 
to be made, but I’m looking at the 
technologies.”

Rabhi 
further 
spoke 
on 

activism he’s seen around campus 
on the issues of climate change 
and protecting the environment. 
He highlighted the impact this bill 
could have on living conditions in 
the future.

“It impacts us now and it 

impacts us in the future, and 
we need to be at the forefront of 
advocacy to push for a carbon-
free future,” Rabhi said. “I think it 
impacts everybody, and it impacts 
our climate, our environment, 
and ultimately it impacts each of 
our abilities to live on a planet that 
continues to be habitable into the 
future.”

Pieology, a pizzeria located 

at 620 E. Liberty St. in Ann 
Arbor, closed Tuesday, Oct. 
23.

On the restaurant’s front 

door hangs a handwritten 
sign 
stating, 
“due 
to 

unfortunate 
circumstances 

beyond 
our 
control, 
this 

Pieology location is no longer 
open for business.” 

University 
of 
Michigan 

student 
Jonah 
Erlich, 
an 

Engineering junior who said 
he eats at Pieology about 
every other week, read the 
sign with dismay. He said 
he was surprised, and noted 
the 
mystery 
surrounding 

“unfortunate circumstances.”

“I was mostly surprised,” 

Erlich said. “It kind of sucks, 
but I’m mostly just confused. 
Unfortunate circumstances is 
very vague.”

Pieology’s sudden closing 

reminded Erlich of BurgerFi 
closing in 2017, as they also 
notified customers with a 
sign on the door.

“What’s interesting is this 

is kind of how BurgerFi shut 
down a few years ago,” Erich 
said. “It was just kind of 
done one day. So I wonder if 
there’s some kind of city law 
or something.”

This 
Pieology 

location opened in summer 
2015, replacing the former 
Borders bookstore. It was 
the California-based chain’s 
first location in the state 
of 
Michigan, 
preceding 

the 
opening 
of 
a 
Grand 

Rapids location. It’s known 
for its customizable pizzas 
and salads.

According 
to 
MLive, 

Hughes Properties CEO Ron 
Hughes, landlord of 620 E. 
Liberty, said Pieology had not 
yet given notice of closing as 
of Tuesday.

Though Erlich feels sad 

about 
Pieology’s 
sudden 

farewell, he is sure he’ll 
keep eating delicious pizza 
elsewhere.

“There’s a lot of good pizza 

in Ann Arbor, so I’m not too 
worried,” Erlich said.

ENERGY
From Page 1A

A2 Pieology 
closes doors, 
reasoning is 
unknown

Hand-written sign said restaurant closing 
due to “unfortunate circumstances”

ELIZABETH LAWRENCE

Daily Staff Reporter

