“This year we really wanted 
to build up the festival,” Singh 
said. “So really focusing on 
what 
different 
sections 
we 
want, so arts and music, live 
service, sustainability and so on 
… . We really wanted to focus on 
bringing out more interactive 
organizations — we want this 
to be more about showcasing 
what exactly your org has to 
offer to the University and what 
community value you bring to 
campus.”
Singh also said the group 
invited Ann Arbor artisans to 
showcase their businesses for 
the first time this year.
“This year we really tried 
to reach out to artisans — that 
section of the festival is new, 
we’ve never had that before,” she 
said. “We tried to find smaller 
sellers 
and 
student 
sellers 
that might want to come to 
SpringFest.”
The artisan corner of the 

festival featured familiar local 
stores, 
including 
University 
Flower Shop and The M Den, as 
well as specialty boutiques for 
soaps and art. Stacey Hansen, 
owner and artist of Slow My 
Flow Art boutique, said it was 
meaningful to her that the 
student organization worked to 
include local businesses.
“They reached out going, ‘Hey, 
we’re running this and it would 
be a wonderful opportunity,’” 
Hansen said. “It’s definitely good 
for local businesses to be able 
to get their name out there, and 
you, the students — you guys are 
the shopping future.”
SpringFest also showcased 
student-run 
businesses 
like 
Star Laces, created by LSA 
sophomore Jordan Furr and 
Business 
sophomore 
Julia 
Reguera, which makes shoe laces 
featuring gender pronouns.
Reguera 
said 
Star 
Laces’ 
shoelaces are a fashionable way 
to make a social statement.
“As a cis person, it’s a really 
good way to show you’re an ally 
and it can help bridge the gap 
between not wanting to assume 

someone’s 
gender 
expression 
but also not wanting to target 
someone by asking,” Reguera 
said.
Furr elaborated further on the 
original goal and inspiration for 
the project.
“I wanted to make something 
that was fashionable so not only 
trans people want to be wearing 
their 
pronouns,” 
Furr 
said. 
“These have a very street style 
sort of energy and it’s just really 
exciting because there’s a lot 
of cis people who want to wear 
them and are really interested in 
them.”
The lines for trendy food 
trucks 
like 
Shimmy 
Shack, 
Regina’s Food Truck and the 
Detroit BBQ Company extended 
down State Street.
Student 
organizations 
promoting 
health, 
wellness 
and sustainable food practices 
on 
campus 
also 
attended 
SpringFest, with representatives 
from 
groups 
including 
the 
campus farm and Counseling 
and Psychological Services.
Another of these organizations 
was CAPS In Action, an group 

for 
students 
committed 
to 
improving the holistic health 
of the campus community. LSA 
freshman Alyssa Moore, a CAPS 
In Action volunteer, spoke on 
self-appreciation.
“I really like these tabling 
events because for mental health 
outreach, it’s just really nice 
to be able to see people on the 
street and see how much they 
enjoy spinning the wheel and 
saying something good about 
themselves.”
MUSIC 
Matters’ 
invited 
multiple local artists to perform 
during 
the 
daytime 
festival 
before A$AP Ferg’s nighttime 
concert. Ben Robertson, lead 
singer for the band Leland Blue, 
spoke about the experience of 
performing at SpringFest for the 
first time.
“It’s our second time playing 
in Ann Arbor and I think this 
time was a lot more fun because 
it’s right downtown, really in the 
heart of the city,” he said. “This 
was cool because it was right 
by the campus and I felt more 
immersed in Ann Arbor as a 
city.”

The rule was implemented 
by the state of Michigan as 
a result of the Flint water 
crisis in order to establish 
stricter lead in drinking water 
protections. Given the issue, 
the responsibility for fixing 
the water main line falls on 
the city of Ann Arbor. The 
city would need to replace the 
pipe entirely, but Esmael was 
told their property would be 
put on a waiting list. As of two 
weeks ago, there were still 
two houses before them on 
the list that require the same 
replacement.
According to Esmael and 
Goldstein, the city employee 
asked the residents of their 
neighboring 
property, 
a 
house managed by Carlson 
Properties, if they paid for 
their own utilities. If utilities 
were paid for by the landlord, 
then the landlord’s permission 
would be required. However, 
the 
residents 
confirmed 
they paid for utilities and 
the city employee received 
verbal 
permission 
from 
the 
neighbors 
to 
connect 
Goldstein’s house to their 
water system. The parties 
established an agreement that 
Goldstein and her roommates 
would pay for the water they 
used.
For several days, Goldstein 
said the issue seemed to be 
resolved, at least until the city 
could replace the pipe. Their 
water worked until the Friday 
before Spring Break. Esmael 
then received a call from a man 
who identified himself only as 
a representative of Carlson 
Properties. Esmael claims the 
man berated him, accused him 
of being a “water thief” and 
screamed profanities at him. 
Esmael told the man he could 
check with the city about the 
legality of the connection, but 
the man hung up the call. 
Allegedly, 
the 
representative from Carlson 
Properties 
unhooked 
Goldstein’s house from his 
property’s water system and 
took the spigot with him, 
leaving Goldstein and her 
roommates 
without 
water 
again.
“What he did was a gross 
violation 
of 
our 
rights,” 
Goldstein said. “Water is a 
human right. You can’t just 
turn off somebody’s water — 
it’s not okay.”
Nursing 
senior 
Olivia 
Hamilton 
resides 
in 
the 
house next to Goldstein’s, 
managed 
by 
Carlson 
Properties. Hamilton claims 
her landlord, Garret Carlson, 
who 
manages 
Carlson 
Properties, came to their 
house to fix a maintenance 
issue they were having when 
he 
saw 
the 
neighboring 
property, 
Goldstein’s 
house, was connected to his 
property’s 
water 
system. 
According 
to 
Hamilton, 
Carlson asked her roommate 
if she knew the neighbors 
were “stealing their water.” 
Although 
Hamilton’s 
roommate assured Carlson 
they had spoken with a city 
employee, 
Carlson 
called 
Esmael 
from 
Hamilton’s 
roommate’s cell phone and 
then told his tenant to block 
Esmael’s phone number.
“He 
basically 
told 
my 
roommate 
to 
block 
that 
number,” 
Hamilton 
said. 
“I was like, ‘That’s really 
unacceptable.’ 
I 
was 
like, 
‘Why did you even let him 
use your phone?’ That’s really 
sketchy.”
Esmael 
said 
a 
landlord 
has no right to interfere in 
an agreement between two 
tenants if the tenants pay 
for their utilities and the 
bill is in their names. While 
Esmael did not verify that 
the neighboring tenants pay 
for their own utilities, they 
verbally confirmed they do to 
the city employee. Hamilton 
confirmed to The Daily that 
she and her roommates pay 
for their own utilities, and 
on the website for Carlson 
Properties, there is a list of 
rules and regulations that 
directs all tenants to set up 
their own utilities.
“He has no right to say 
anything about the water,” 
Esmael said. 
According to Esmael, he 
contacted 
Paul 
Matthews, 
Ann Arbor assistant public 

works manager, and told him 
about the situation. Matthews 
then 
attempted 
several 
times 
to 
contact 
Carlson 
Properties to assure Carlson 
the connection was legal, but 
was not able to reach anyone. 
Esmael said his encounter 
with Carlson Properties was 
especially frustrating because 
instead of contacting him 
and sorting the situation out, 
Carlson Properties chose to 
shut off Goldstein’s water 
connection.
“This is a human rights 
violation,” 
Esmael 
said. 
“Water is the first necessity. 
You can’t use your power, your 
position or your influence 
with whoever you are to cut 
water on any human being.”
Carlson 
Properties 
and 
Garret 
Carlson 
did 
not 
respond to multiple calls and 
messages from The Daily.
Goldstein said she wanted 
to 
speak 
up 
about 
this 
experience because Carlson 
Properties manages several 
properties 
in 
Ann 
Arbor. 
Goldstein 
said 
seeing 
the 
way this company treated her 
landlord made her concerned 
for how they may be treating 
their tenants.
“I think there’s a general 
feeling on campus that Ann 
Arbor landlords can kind of 
drop the ball sometimes, and 
this is a prime example of 
landlords abusing their power 
and walking over students 
and 
taking 
advantage 
of 
students,” Goldstein said. “I 
think it’s important that we 
call out this bad behavior and 
keep them accountable.”
Hamilton 
said 
she 
and 
her 
roommates 
have 
had 
numerous issues with the 
property but claim Carlson 
is not responsive to their 
concerns. 
According 
to 
Hamilton, their washer and 
dryer have been broken for 
seven 
months. 
Hamilton 
claims Carlson was actually 
at their property the day he 
accused Esmael of stealing his 
properties’ water to look at 
the washer after they had to 
“bug him” about the issue.
In 
addition 
to 
other 
issues that Carlson ignored, 
Hamilton claims they also 
had a wasp infestation in their 
home, but Carlson would not 
address it until she got stung 
twice in her own bedroom. 
“I just sent him several 
messages — he won’t answer 
his phone,” Hamilton said. 
“And when he does come over, 
he’s just not listening to what 
you have to say. I don’t know 
what I should do. I don’t know 
if there’s someone I can tell, if 
there’s a housing department 
I can go to with issues. It’s 
been frustrating.”
Goldstein said she feels like 
there is no real system to hold 
landlords 
accountable. 
On 
the Ann Arbor city website, 
there is a page with rental 
housing 
services, 
which 
includes 
tenant 
resources. 
Through that page, Ann Arbor 
renters can file a complaint 
about a landlord and check 
that a rental property has 
been inspected by the city. 
However, students may not 
be aware of this resource. 
Goldstein said she believes 
young 
people, 
especially 
students like her, should feel 
comfortable speaking up for 
themselves.
“We’re students, we’re here 
to get an education,” Goldstein 
said. “Yes, we’re young, but 
it’s important we advocate for 
ourselves,” Goldstein said.
Currently, 
Goldstein’s 
house is connected to the 
water system of their other 
neighbor’s property. Esmael 
said 
the 
exchange 
with 
this other landlord was far 
different than his interaction 
with 
Carlson 
Properties. 
He said this other landlord 
volunteered to facilitate the 
connection because Esmael 
could not be present when 
the city returned to hook 
Goldstein’s 
house 
up 
to 
their other neighbor’s water 
system.
Goldstein praised Esmael 
for sticking up for her and 
her 
roommates. 
Esmael 
said he has children at the 
University of Michigan and 
as a landlord, and he tries to 
treat his tenants as he hopes 
other landlords would treat 
his kids.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, April 17, 2019 — 3A

LANDLORD
From Page 1A

MUSIC
From Page 1A

FELLOWSHIP
From Page 1A

RESEARCH
From Page 1A

The second area we have done 
well is change the culture in 
research compliance. We have 
a research safety committee 
— that committee works with 
faculty 
and 
students 
across 
campus, trying to improve the 
culture around research safety. 
We also strengthened an animal 
care and use program … In 2016 
and 2017, we went through a 
transformation of the program 
— 
integration, 
centralization 
… Through the integration we 
improved the centers of care, 
improved the consistency in the 
monitoring … Michigan now is 
recognized as a university who 
went through a transformation 
and are achieving excellence 
in animal care and use. So our 
staff now get invited by other 
universities 
and 
professional 
societies to teach them how 
to transform animal care and 
use programs. So those are 
just examples of what we do in 
research.
I think a third area is 
enhancing 
innovation, 
continuing to improve faculty 
engagement in innovation and 
entrepreneurship. I think our 

technology transfer every year 
we seem to do more, faculty 
reports more innovation … We 
spent a lot of effort by building 
interdisciplinary 
initiatives 
for research. When you bring 
multiple faculty from many 
different units together, to bring 
faculty from U-M Ann Arbor, 
Dearborn, Flint together so we 
spent a lot of effort cultivating 
the collaboration.
TMD: What is something you 
feel you have not quite completed 
or seen come to fruition?
JH: We want to create an 
innovation 
hub 
on 
campus. 
That is still a work in progress 
— we’re just at the beginning. 
Schools 
and 
colleges, 
they 
all 
have 
entrepreneurship 
programs, they’re distributed. 
It would be nice to have some 
common space where we could 
bring faculty startups, student 
startups together and also maybe 
have space for companies to 
locate, whether research centers 
or advanced offices. Some place 
that is central but closely tied 
with our academic operations. 
That’s something we just started 
discussing, but we’ll need a few 
years to really have a finalized 
plan.
TMD: Three decades is a 
significant amount of time — 

what made you stay here for so 
long?
JH: I never had to pursue 
any outside opportunities — 
different 
opportunities 
just 
came. I embraced those, tried 
to do my best in each and every 
leadership role, so I think 
that’s why I have been here. I 
mean the University and Ann 
Arbor of course — both are 
excellent. Outstanding academic 
reputation, outstanding quality 
of life, really can’t find too many 
combinations of such, not many 
universities that have such a 
combination. I would say it’s the 
quality of the faculty and the 
quality of the students that is a 
draw for outstanding faculty.
TMD: What are you most 
looking forward to in your new 
position at the University of 
Georgia?
JH: The senior vice president 
and provost has a very diverse 
set of responsibilities, so the vice 
president for research reports to 
the provost, in addition of course 
(to) education, faculty affairs, 
public engagement and also IT 
— information technology — 
they all report to the provost. 
In such a role, with such broad 
responsibilities, (it) will allow 
me to learn how a university 
operates in a much more holistic 

(sense) rather than just one area. 
I will be able to leverage my 
experience from Michigan — so 
research, faculty affairs, budget, 
space, graduate education — and 
also strengthen my leadership 
experience 
in 
undergraduate 
education because the University 
of 
Georgia 
does 
have 
an 
outstanding 
reputation 
for 
undergraduate education.
TMD: 
Is 
there 
anything 
else you want to add about the 
University or your time here?
JH: When I was associate 
dean for academic affairs in 
engineering, I helped recruit 
many 
faculty 
members 
to 
engineering, so now after 8 to 9 
years, they’re all doing extremely 
well, 
(everyone) 
sees 
them 
getting awards in the University, 
in other professional societies — 
that makes me very, very happy. 
Even though I was just part of 
the recruiting, I’m very proud of 
the faculty the University has.
The best research is… always 
at the leading edge, so you start 
something and then other people 
will follow and do the research. 
That process will never end, if 
you’re leading researchers at a 
leading research university we 
should be creating ideas and 
pursuing research in those. 

“I know a lot of people who 
just simply don’t know what’s 
possible or what they’re allowed 
and what they deserve, and 
that’s part of what we’re being 
told from the media, from the 
government,” Bazile said. “ ... 
I think ‘opportunity’ is a very 
loaded word — sometimes people 
see it as, ‘Everybody should 
pull themselves up from your 
bootstraps, everybody should be 
able to do it,’ and I think that’s very 
harmful and very wrong because 
some 
people 
have 
legitimate 
blockages to that.”
Paul and Daisy Soros, Jewish 
immigrants 
from 
Hungary, 
founded 
the 
fellowship 
to 

offer 
other 
immigrants 
and 
first-generation 
Americans 
opportunities to pursue higher 
education. 
Henry 
Dyson, 
director of the Office of National 
Scholarships 
and 
Fellowships, 
said the Soros family’s generosity 
continues to embody the values of 
the fellowship.
“They were part of a generation 
of Jewish immigrants that came 
to New York from Europe and 
found a new home there and 
were able to contribute vitally,” 
Dyson said. “I think that’s the 
heart of the Soros fellowship: the 
recognition that it’s successive 
waves of immigrants and children 
of immigrants that have really 
been major contributors towards 
the vitality and the drive and the 
creativity and the ingenuity of 
American industry and finance 

and culture.”
According to a press release 
from Craig Harwood, director 
of the PD Soros Fellowship, 
the applicant pool for the 2019 
cohort included more than 1,700 
candidates, resulting in a 1.7 
percent selection rate. The fellows 
originate from 19 countries and 
join distinguished past awardees 
like Fei-Fei Li, co-director of 
Stanford 
University’s 
Stanford 
Human-Centered 
Artificial 
Intelligence Institute, and Abdul 
El-Sayed, a University alum who 
ran as a Democratic candidate in 
Michigan’s 2018 gubernatorial 
primary election.
To be considered for the 
award, applicants must provide 
documentation 
showing 
that 
both parents were born outside 
of the U.S. as non-U.S. citizens. 

The PD Soros Fellowship requires 
applicants to submit three letters 
of recommendation and two essays 
describing what the scholarship 
would mean to them and why they 
are pursuing their chosen field of 
study.
Bazile attributed her success to 
her own work, but stressed how 
important it was for her to have 
supportive friends and family 
members during the application 
process.
“I do work hard, so (the awards) 
are often a product of the work 
I do, but also the people around 
me,” Bazile said. “I had a group of 
friends and we had a day where 
everyone would read my essays, 
and they’ve seen my essays for 
grad school, my essays for the 
fellowship, and probably some of 
them know the narratives more 
than I do. Not everybody has 
that, so I feel so lucky to have 
people in my life who are 
genuinely happy for me when 
good things come my way.”
Law School student Akash 
Patel, a 2016 recipient of the 
PD Soros Fellowship, said the 
scholarship is unique in that 
it provides awardees a similar 
kind of tight-knit community 
that stays with them once 
they’ve 
completed 
their 
graduate programs.
“Once you’re in, you get 
to be part of this really large 
immigrant 
family,” 
Patel 
said. “And it really feels like it 
and they really treat you like 
it. I feel like it’s something 
that people feel themselves, 
it’s 
something 
that 
the 
organization intentionally tries 
to cultivate and I definitely feel 
personally.”
Dyson said while applicants 
must 
have 
impressive 
qualifications and thoughtful 
essays to be considered for 
the fellowship, the selection 
ultimately comes down to fit. 

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