At 
the 
intersection 
of 

Washtenaw Avenue and Hill 
Street, where the University 
of Michigan’s iconic painted 
Rock resides, residents have 
reported many dangerous car 
accidents that put drivers and 
pedestrians at risk.

Michigan 
Traffic 
Crash 

Facts, a tool developed by the 
University, compiles queries 
of 
accident 
information 

across the state of Michigan. 
According to MTCF, there 
were 245 crashes within 150 
feet of the intersection of 
Washtenaw and Hill from 
2008 to 2017, and 41 of those 
crashes were in 2017 alone. In 
fact, the number of crashes 
almost doubled from 2016 to 
2017 with 25 crashes reported 
in 2016. Information about 
2018 has yet to be synthesized.
Residents suspect the high 
frequency of accidents can be 
attributed to the sloping road, 
illegal left turns and the high 
speed limit –– 45 miles per 
hour.

Holde Dorcherts, a retired 

University 
of 
Michigan 

library researcher, has lived in 
a house at this intersection for 
the last 39 years. She claims 
accidents 
have 
increased 

since she and her husband 
have moved into the house.

“I’m saying that for the 

last 39 years, Ann Arbor 
has increased in size. It’s 

becoming a city instead of a 
cute little town, and we have 
enormous traffic coming into 
town –– thousands of cars,” 
she said. “This intersection is 
poorly designed. It was fine 
50 to 100 years ago, but now 
it is a major server into town. 
Because of this increase in 
population and traffic we 
have a lot more accidents 
here, but the intersection 
design has not changed.”

Dorcherts said it is not an 

uncommon 
occurrence 
to 

hear an accident across the 
street shortly followed by the 
sirens of an ambulance. 

“We built over the years a 

pretty solid hedge, and that 
hedge takes so much abuse 
at that corner,” she said. “It 
doesn’t matter what we plant, 
it gets demolished from cars.”

A similar event happened 

to resident Chad Brummett, 
a professor of anesthesiology 
at the Medical School, when 

his iron-rod fence was split in 
half by an automobile accident 
a few weeks ago. Brummett 
said he was shocked by the 
sheer force needed to dent the 
fence, let alone break it.

“We’ve lived in this house 

for almost nine years. We see 
accidents there all the time,” 
Brummett said. 

When the new University of 

Michigan’s 
Board 
of 
Regents 

convenes in 2019, it will have seven 
Democrats and just one Republican, 
the result of two new Democratic 
members, Jordan Acker and Paul 
Brown, replacing two current 
Republican 
members, 
Andrew 

Richner 
and 
Andrea 
Fischer 

Newman. This will shift the 
ideological balance of the board 
to the furthest left it has been in 
several decades.

The board has been comprised 

of eight officials elected statewide 
since 
1852. 
Members 
were 

initially mostly nonpartisan but 
increasingly identified with one 
of the major political parties. By 
the early 20th century, nearly all 
members of the board had political 
affiliations. Since this period, such 
partisan dominance that will be 
present next year has rarely been 
seen.

There were several brief periods 

of Republican dominance, but 
since the emergence of the modern 
party system, there have been only 
two such periods, from 1967 to 1968 
and from 1975 to 1984, both marked 

michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Monday, December 10, 2018

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

See REGENTS, Page 2A

Regents see
ideological
shift for 
’19, future

ADMINISTRATION

Changes in Regents’ 
parties’ will not effect 
decisions, says Schlissel

RILEY LANGEFELD

Daily Staff Reporter

8
11
17
14

24
20
27
23

27
27
25
41

2006
2007
2008
2009

2010
2011
2012
2013

2014
2015
2016
2017

Car accidents at the intersection of 
Washtenaw Ave and Hill St

CASEY TIN/Daily

Crashes at intersection of Washtenaw 
and Hill concern residents, students

Former students allege 40 years of 

misconduct by SMTD professor 

Residents suspect that the sloping road and high speed limit play a role

CATHERINE NOUHAN

Daily Staff Reporter

10 in a row

Michigan improved to 

10-0 after defeating South 
Carolina in a high-scoring, 

offensive shootout on 

Saturday.
» Page 1A

The University of Michigan 

approved 
a 
new 
Graduate 

Certificate 
in 
Computational 

Neuroscience, 
which 
will 
be 

jointly 
administered 
by 
the 

Neuroscience Graduate Program 
and 
the 
Michigan 
Institute 

for 
Computational 
Discovery 

and 
Engineering. 
According 

to its website, the program is 
“U-M’s response to the increasing 
prevalence 
and 
need 
for 

quantitatively trained researchers 
in neuroscience.”

To apply for the program, 

students must be enrolled in a 
graduate degree program at the 
University. 
Though 
enrollment 

for the certificate has not yet 
opened, the program is planning 
informational sessions for early 
2019. Victoria Booth, professor 
of mathematics and associate 
professor of anesthesiology, will 
oversee the program.

“The broad, practical training 

provided 
in 
this 
certificate 

program will help prepare both 
quantitatively focused and lab-
based students for the increasingly 
cross-disciplinary job market in 

See NEUROLOGY, Page 2A

‘U’ creates 
new Neuro 
graduate 
certificate

RESEARCH

The program plans to 
begin informational 
sessions in early 2019

JULIA FORD

Daily Staff Reporter

GOT A NEWS TIP?
Call 734-418-4115 or e-mail 
news@michigandaily.com and let us know.

INDEX
Vol. CXXVIII, No. 47
©2018 The Michigan Daily

N E WS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

O PI N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

A R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

S U D O K U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

CL A S S I F I E DS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 B
michigandaily.com

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Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

The University of Michigan hired 

Stephen Shipps as an associate 
professor of music on Sept. 1, 1989. 
Since then, he has had a successful 
academic career at the University. 
From 2001 to 2004, he served on 
the Executive Committee of the 
School of Music, Theatre & Dance. 
From 2002 to 2007, he served as 
the associate dean for academic 
affairs. He is currently the chair of 
strings and the faculty director of 
the Strings Preparatory Academy, 

a university-affiliated pre-college 
music program for local middle and 
high school students.

A Michigan Daily investigation 

unearthed previously undisclosed 
allegations of sexual harassment and 
sexual misconduct against Shipps. 
These reports span nearly 40 years, 
from Fall 1978 to a University-
affiliated 
summer 
program 
in 

the last five years. They include 
accusations of unwanted touching, 
sexual assault, prolonged sexual 
relationships with teenage students, 
and misogynistic and sexist verbal 
statements.

Shipps declined to comment for 

this article. His lawyer, David Nacht, 
also declined to comment.

The Daily also found reports that 

at least one faculty member in the 
Music, Theatre & Dance school, Prof. 
Yizhak Schotten, was made aware 
of some of these allegations soon 
after Shipps’s hiring was announced 
and before he started teaching. It is 
unclear whether he communicated 
these concerns to the University at 
the time, or if the University has ever 
been made aware of these concerns.

***
Shipps taught at the University of 

North Carolina School of the Arts — 
known then as the North Carolina 

School of the Arts before a 2008 
name change — prior to coming to 
the University of Michigan. The 
Daily spoke with a former North 
Carolina School of the Arts college 
student, who wished to remain 
anonymous, citing professional and 
privacy 
concerns. 
She 
currently 

serves as the associate principal 
second (the second-ranked member 
of the second violin section) in a 
full-time professional orchestra. In 
this article, she will be referred to as 
Meghan.

SAMMY SUSSMAN

Daily Staff Reporter

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

