“E-sports have been around 
for a very, very long time, and I 
think with our department and, 
‘Why now?’ is just the growing 
popularity of e-sports,” Barton 
said. “We see it on ESPN, and 
all over the news and it’s just 
a 
growing 
popularity 
among 
students.”
Mike Widen, the director of 
Recreational Sports, said in an 
email statement the desire for 
teams to compete and foster a large 
e-sports community on campus 
is growing. This new program 
will provide e-sports clubs with 
the same opportunity to develop 
communities as club-sports teams 
experience.
“We already have a number of 
other programs that are in place 
to help students build connections 
with each other and with the 
institution, and Esports will do 
the same for the students who 
are playing these games,” Widen 
wrote. “It was because of those 
opportunities for connections and 
the interest of the students that 
led us to develop this program. 
The students have shared a desire 
to compete with other University 
programs 
and 
represent 
the 
U-M. An Esports program in 
Recreational Sports will allow that 
to happen in the same way it does 
in our Club Sports program.”
Arbor Esports, the student 
organization 
of 
approximately 
250 students, currently meets in 
the Ross School of Business and 

each player is required to bring 
their own computer equipment 
to 
participate. 
Arbor 
Esports 
President 
Alexander 
Downs, 
Business sophomore, said the 
organization gives students a 
community to game together.
“People who don’t typically play 
traditional sports and are just more 
gamers and go to class, they’ll have 
something to do on campus other 
than just go to class and they can 
come to our events,” Downs said.
Barton said she hopes the new 
Recreational Sports program will 
be able to provide students with 
a space to play. According to the 
University press release, creating 
that space and obtaining proper 
equipment is dependent on private 
and 
corporate 
donations 
and 
corporate sponsorships.
“Right now, the group that we 
are working with a lot, the student 
group, they are operating just 
by reserving rooms on campus 
where they gather and compete, 
but we are really looking forward 
to the help from donors to have 
a space built specifically for our 
e-sports program,” Barton said. 
“Right now, there’s not a space 
dedicated to them. We hope that 
the sponsorship and really getting 
the word out about this e-sports 
program, that we’ll get some help 
from donors to create a space for 
them.”
Downs said potential spaces 
for e-sports on campus would 
be extremely beneficial for the 
membership.

The event ran from 8 a.m. 
to 3 p.m. and consisted of 
keynote speakers and panels on 
higher education and recidivism, 
programming 
in 
prisons, 
restorative justice and Inside-
Out.
The event was hosted by The 
Michigan Theory Group, a think-
tank comprised of incarcerated 
and 
non-incarcerated 
people 
aimed at changing the criminal 
justice system. The group is 
an extension of the Inside-Out 
Prison Exchange Program, an 
international program that brings 
college students into prisons to 
take classes with incarcerated 
people and challenges both the 
“inside” and “outside” students to 
listen and learn from each other.
Inside-Out 
has 
been 
implemented 
at 
more 
than 
150 colleges and universities 
in 46 states, in 12 different 
countries and in more than 200 
correctional facilities. Inside-Out 
Founder Lori Pompa said the 
program aims to create a sense 
of equality and kinship between 
the 
prisoners 
and 
college 
students and foster an open-
minded dialogue. According to 
Pompa, the classes are primarily 
taught seminar-style and try to 
transform teaching styles from 
“sage on the stage to guide on the 
side.”
Bantu Dawson, Theory Group 
member and an incarcerated 
individual, said Inside-Out was 
a catalyst for both social and 
academic change for himself and 
others at Macomb Correctional 
Facility. He claimed it offers a 
path for self-redemption.
Fellow Theory Group member 
and 
inmate 
Jemal 
Tipton 
discussed how Inside-Out is 
much more than just a classroom 
and how his experiences in the 
program changed his perspective 
on his role in society.
“You come in, and you think it’s 
just an educational experience,” 
Tipton said. “You don’t think 
it would change how you view 
the world and how you view 
your part in the world, and that’s 
what I think Inside-Out does — it 
makes me and a lot of the people 
I have interacted with take a look 
at the way we are in the world, 
individually and collectively.”
Theory group member John 
“Cowboy” 
Conklin 
is 
also 
incarcerated. He joined Inside-
Out in 2007 and said being a 
part of the program gave him 
his hope and dignity back after 
being imprisoned for 30 years 
and counting. He noted how 
inhumane 
the 
treatment 
of 
inmates can be and how Inside-
Out was able to provide an avenue 
for him to feel human again.
“When you first take the 
Inside-Out class after being 

treated like a number, not like a 
name, more like an animal, you 
walk in there and get treated as 
an equal human being,” Conklin 
said. “They give you a piece of your 
humanity back, and once you get 
a taste of that humanity, you don’t 
want it to quit. It is something you 
haven’t experienced in a very long 
time, for me it had been almost 
30 years. And I mean, I been in 
41 years and I got a taste of that 
humanity and I plan on keeping it 
as long as I can.”
However, according to Deputy 
Warden 
George 
Stephenson, 
Inside-Out 
is 
just 
one 
of 
approximately 30 programs at 
Macomb Correctional Facility. 
He claimed the facility is able to 
have so many due to available 
resources and volunteers, but 
many prisons nationwide and in 
Michigan are not as fortunate.
Inmate Tore Price, Theory 
Group member and general 
manager 
of 
Aioli’s 
II, 
the 
restaurant at the facility, said 
substance-abuse programs were 
essential to his transformation. 
He said not only did programs like 
Narcotics Anonymous help him 
help himself, they allowed him to 
give back to the community and 
help other inmates going through 
similar struggles.
Another 
well-liked, 
transformative 
program 
at 
Macomb Correctional Facility 
is Chance for Life. According to 
founder and President Thomas 
Adams, the faith-based program 
is in nine prisons and its goal is to 
change how inmates think, which 
will, in turn, change their actions.
“What we learned, way back 
when, is that it does not matter 
what you give a person, it matters 
how they think,” Adams said. 
“Anything you give them, if 
they don’t process information 
differently, then when they go out, 
they commit the same crimes and 
function in the same way. When 
we go into the institutions, we 
basically build mediation centers, 
so we’re teaching people how to 
solve their own problems from a 
peaceful perspective.”
However, the goal of the 
conference was not just to 
educate attendees about different 
programs at prisons — it was 
to demonstrate how dedicated 
incarcerated people can be to 
transforming their mindset and 
changing their lives.
Attendee Yusef Shakur, a 
formerly incarcerated individual 
and current Social Work student 
at the University of Michigan, is 
a self-described former “gang-
banger.” Shakur has been out 
of prison for 18 years and has 
used his time to self-reflect and 
improve. He said programming 
in prisons is so important because 
everyone has the potential to 
contribute positively to society, 
but factors like a lack of education 
or access can prevent those 
contributions.

“There’s, like, these weeds,” 
Shakur said. “These weeds that 
are preventing that flower from 
growing. It’s there, it’s that rose. 
But there’s all this stuff around it 
and you have to be able to remove 
that. So that self-education of 
learning about who you are to 
appreciate and get a certain 
amount of love to emerge so you 
can see the value of a different 
type of education, you can see 
the value of how to contribute to 
society that can be greater than 
what we see today.”
Shakur said the men inside the 
facility have been dedicated to 
their journey of self-redemption 
and he discussed the importance 
of 
empathy 
and 
forgiveness 
toward the incarcerated and 
formerly 
incarcerated. 
He 
claimed the United States has 
a history of committing worse 
crimes than the people in prisons, 
and he questioned why some 
people can forgive the U.S. but not 
the prison population.
“What I admire the most are 
the men inside who was once 
boys, who was once considered 
criminals or whatever and they 
transformed their lives,” Shakur 
said. “And showing that we all 
have a story of redemption; we 
all have a story of transformation. 
And the fact that we live in a 
country that has committed 
the most heinous crimes ever 
of enslaving a group of people, 
murdering a group of people, and 
the fact that we forgive them, why 
can’t we forgive these men?”
Attendee and panelist David 
LaGrand represents the 75th 
District in the Michigan House 
of 
Representatives. 
LaGrand 
discussed how, during re-entry, 
it can be difficult for the formerly 
incarcerated to find work due to 
having a public criminal record. 
He said, to resounding applause, 
he wants to introduce automatic 
expungement in Michigan.
“Only 6 percent of people who 
are eligible for expungement 
actually get it done, and that’s 
because you need a lawyer and 
you need money,” LaGrand said. 
“I am advocating for automatic 
expungement 
in 
Michigan. 
Right now, the gate is very 
narrow, there are a lot of people 
who aren’t eligible because they 
have a couple of misdemeanors 
on their record, they can’t get 
a felony expunged. I want to 
change that.”
LaGrand said he wants to 
create more economic equality 
and opportunities for people 
of all socioeconomic statuses 
in the criminal justice system. 
He said, for example, affluent 
people can hire lawyers to 
get criminal offenses off their 
records, but others do not have 
the same luxury.
“The 
criminal 
justice 
system works fairly well if 
you’re middle class or affluent 
— it doesn’t work very well if 

you’re poor,” LaGrand said. “I 
am very urgent that we do a 
better job of making sure that 
we’re not simply locking people 
up because they don’t have 
money.”
Tipton 
said 
a 
common 
problem with programming 
in prisons is that they are only 
available to those who are 
close to their release date. He 
said this takes the opportunity 
away from other inmates to 
learn, develop and grow. Tipton 
advocated for programs like 
Inside-Out and Chance for Life 
to be required upon entry into 
prison. 
“I want them to make some of 
these programs requirements 
for paroles and things like that 
because if you just give people 
certain programs, they may not 
get it,” Tipton said. “But if you 
give people programs that deal 
with their overall makeup, the 
mind, the body, the soul, and 
again how we interact, I think 
that would change people’s 
lives. For a lot of the programs, 
you have to be close to your out 
date. A lot of us are not close 
to our out date, so that’s why 
we’re so grateful for programs 
like Inside-Out and Chance 
for Life, because there’s not a 
prerequisite where you have to 
be close to your out date.”
Social Work student Megan 
Diebboll, a member of the 
Prison Creative Arts Project at 
the University of Michigan, said 
a crucial aspect of changing the 
way incarcerated people are 
viewed during both their time 
in prison and upon reentry is 
just listening to them.
“If we’re really wanting 
to take a stance in criminal 
justice, you have to have the 
voices of those who have lived 
experiences backing it up,” 
Diebboll said.
Shakur agreed with Diebboll 
and 
discussed 
how, 
while 
listening to those who have 
been incarcerated is a great 
first step, a lot more needs 
to be done. He claimed the 
system itself is unproductive, 
unfair and results in an endless 
cycle of incarceration for some 
communities.
“For 
prison 
reform 
to 
manifest itself in the way we 
desire, then the people most 
impacted by it have to lead 
that movement,” Shakur said. 
“We’re 
producing 
money 
but we’re not investing it 
back in our communities and 
our neighborhoods that are 
broken and that are producing 
broken 
men 
and 
broken 
women. If prisons become 
the opportunity to so-called 
restore these human beings, 
then we’re failing them and 
we’re failing society.”

INCARCERATION
From Page 1

According to the University’s 
fire 
evacuation 
protocol, 
people with disabilities inside a 
University building are directed 
to an “area of rescue assistance,” 
defined as “areas of refuge” by 
the state of Michigan building 
code. Floor marshals, if safe to do 
so, will conduct checks of these 
areas and convey information 
regarding people in the areas 
to emergency responders. The 
webpage does not specify where 
the areas of rescue assistance are 
in each University building.
Frank Marcinkiewicz, interim 
University fire marshal, said areas 
of refuge are readily accessible to 
individuals with disabilities and 
are conveniently located along the 
path of egress within a building. 
“These areas are clearly labeled 
with signage and will typically 
have an emergency phone device 
that connects them directly to 
University DPSS for immediate 
assistance,” Marcinkiewicz said. 
“Areas of refuge are designed 
per code to protect an individual 
from a fire-related incident for a 
defined period of time.”
According to Marcinkiewicz, 
the areas are constructed with a 
minimum of one-hour fire rating 
as required by code. This means 
the materials used to construct 
the area are able to resist 
standardized fire exposure for at 
least one hour.
Ebenhoeh 
isn’t 
the 
only 
student with concerns about 

the 
University’s 
emergency 
protocol for people with mobility 
difficulties. Elizabeth McLain, 
Music, Theater & Dance doctoral 
candidate, was a student at 
Virginia Tech in 2007 when the 
deadliest school shootings in U.S. 
history occurred on the campus, 
resulting in 32 deaths and 17 
injuries. In wake of the 12th 
anniversary of the Virginia Tech 
shooting next month, McLain said 
she was very upset that Saturday’s 
events were handled poorly.
“As a community, we’ve been 
working very hard to inform 
universities and try to prevent 
this from happening, and it kind 
of feels like a slap in the face when 
the universities don’t take what 
we’re saying seriously or don’t 
learn,” McLain said. “A delay of 
30 minutes between when the 
first people were notified and last 
people were notified is completely 
unacceptable.”
McLain, who uses a cane, also 
expressed concerns regarding the 
‘run, hide, fight’ protocol. She said 
the vast majority of people she 
spoke to did not know what the 
protocol meant and also thought 
the second and third messages 
sent out by DPSS were too vague.
“It’s a fact that when they 
send out a message saying, ‘Run, 
hide, fight,’ which is the standard 
shorthand for the advice for 
how to handle a situation, the 
vast majority of my friends who 
are fellow students, and some 
who are instructors and faculty 
members here, had no idea what 
that meant or how to use that 
guidance,” McLain said. “The 

second and third messages we 
received were so vague — they 
said, ‘You’re probably not in any 
danger,’ but they didn’t give any 
concrete instructions, so it was 
unclear if this meant we should 
shelter in place, this meant you 
should go ahead and go about 
your day — this should be clear in 
every communication.”
McLain is a graduate student 
instructor and she said she was 
not trained or made aware of 
protocol by the University on what 
to do in emergency situations 
such as the event of an active 
attacker. Though she is disabled, 
McLain said she has more options 
available to her because she uses a 
cane. She said she would not know 
the best way to assist a student 
with disabilities in her class in the 
event of an emergency.
“As 
a 
graduate 
student 
instructor, if I had a disabled 
student in my classroom while 
this was going on … I wouldn’t 
know how to help my students,” 
McLain said. “I wouldn’t know 
if I should just stay with them 
and wait it out, if elevators were 
an option — that hasn’t been 
effectively communicated to me, 
at least.”
At orientation, DPSS currently 
requires students to watch an 
active shooter safety training 
video. 
University 
community 
members 
can 
also 
request 
training workshops by going to 
the Presentations and Training 
section under Prevention and 
Education on DPSS’ website. 
While it is required for students 
to view the active shooter safety 

training video at orientation, 
Melissa Overton, deputy chief 
of police and public information 
officer for DPSS, told The Daily 
in a previous interview the 
decision to make other training 
sessions mandatory would have 
to come from a higher University 
authority. 
Overton also previously told 
The Daily that DPSS received 
many 
complaints 
of 
people 
receiving the emergency alerts 
late or not at all. She said DPSS 
is currently working to analyze 
the emergency alert system and 
determine what went wrong 
March 16.
“We 
did 
receive 
multiple 
complaints 
on 
the 
system,” 
Overton said. “… We are aware 
that some of the alerts took a lot 
longer than they should have, and 
we are looking into that.”
McLain further expressed her 
disappointment in the protocol 
and its lack of catering to disabled 
individuals. She said she hopes the 
University improves its protocol 
in the future.
“From my personal experience, 
if there had been an incident it 
would have been very, very bad 
because of these communication 
breakdowns,” McLain said. “I’m 
a little disappointed because most 
of what I’ve seen out of these 
universities, this just proves their 
system doesn’t work and that 
concerns me. This should actually 
be a wake-up call that we’re not 
doing what we should be doing, 
and we should do everything we 
can to improve it.”

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Tuesday, March 26, 2019 — 3

ALERT
From Page 1

She told a story about her 
own 
experience 
applying 
to the University — when 
someone from the Office of 
Financial Aid came to her 
high school, she asked a 
question about how she could 
receive aid with her DACA 
status. 
The 
representative 
told her he wasn’t sure what 
to do, and advised her to email 
the 
Financial 
Aid 
Office, 
something she had already 
done.
The 
second 
speaker, 
also a student member of 
SCOPE, 
discussed 
actions 
the organization has taken in 
previous years. According to 
the student, after the election 
of President Donald Trump 
and the increased uncertainty 
surrounding 
the 
Deferred 
Action for Childhood Arrivals 
program, SCOPE issued a list 
of requests to the University.
The organization requested 
the 
University 
fully 
meet 
DACA 
students’ 
financial 
need, hire a staff member to 
serve as a primary contact for 
DACA students and increase 
access 
to 
information 
for 
prospective 
undocumented 
students, among other things.
Hector 
Galvan, 
who 
works as the Undocumented 
Student 
Program 
Manager 
in the Office of Academic 
Multicultural 
Initiatives, 
also 
spoke 
at 
the 
event. 
He explained his role — to 
advise 
undocumented 
and 
“DACAmented” students and 
collaborate 
across 
campus 
to 
serve 
these 
students. 
He 
also 
gave 
information 
about 
resources 
available 
to undocumented students, 
including 
Student 
Legal 
Services 
and 
a 
website 
specifically for undocumented 
students.
The last student member to 
speak discussed his experience 
as an undocumented transfer 
student at the University. He 
explained 
that 
University 
policy indicates a student 
must apply within 28 months 
of graduating high school, 
something he believes greatly 
affects 
undocumented 
students.
After 
spending 
49 
months 
working 
full-time 
and 
completing 
courses 
at 
a 
community 
college, 
Galvan 
was 
accepted 
as 
a transfer student to the 
University’s 
Taubman 
College of Architecture and 
Urban 
Planning. 
Though 
he 
completed 
a 
summer 
semester, his status as a 
student is unclear as his 
financial aid information is 

being reviewed. Galvan is 
currently attending all his 
classes in hopes of getting 
retrospective credit after he 
is granted financial aid and 
his enrollment is confirmed.
Natalia Ipince, a senior 
in Taubman and the School 
of 
Art 
& 
Design, 
is 
an 
international 
student 
from 
Venezuela 
who 
moved 
to 
the United States four years 
ago. She came to the event 
after realizing the different 
barriers 
undocumented 
students have to face.
“I 
realized 
that 
I 
was 
interested in the boundaries 
people 
have 
to 
cross,” 
Ipince said. “In this case, 
I ended up realizing that 
undocumented students have 
a lot of boundaries that they 
have to cross to g˜et the same 
education a lot of us do.”
Ipince 
also 
explained 
she 
sympathized 
with 
undocumented 
students 
after experiencing the legal 
challenges of the immigration 
system.
LSA 
junior 
Rosa 
Avilez 
also attended the event and 
spoke to The Daily about her 
own 
experience 
applying 
to 
the 
University 
as 
a 
“DACAmented” student.
“Originally, I really didn’t 
think I could apply to the 
University 
of 
Michigan 
because I really didn’t know 
about the opportunities it held 
for undocumented students,” 
Avilez said. “I instantly knew 
I wasn’t going to be able to 
get federal aid, I might not 
be able to apply for in-state 
tuition, so money was a really 
big issue.”
She said the University 
initially 
gave 
her 
a 
scholarship, but she wasn’t 
able to accept it because of 
her DACA status. However, 
she also received a similar, 
privately funded scholarship, 
allowing her to attend the 
University.
“That only happened after 
I filled out another in-state 
application,” she said. “As a 
DACA recipient, I am not a 
permanent resident. I am not 
a U.S. citizen.”
She also explained that 
she wished more students 
on 
campus 
knew 
about 
undocumented students and 
DACA recipients.
“All of us, we’re just really 
hard 
workers,” 
she 
said. 
“We really just want to go to 
college, and if I didn’t have 
the in-state tuition policy 
that was just implemented a 
few years ago, this would not 
be possible. I wouldn’t be here 
and I know a lot of us wouldn’t 
be here.”

UNDOCUMENTED
From Page 1

ESPORTS
From Page 1

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com