“We realize that it is deeply complicated to ask to divest completely from fossil fuels cold turkey, so we’re just asking for no more from here.” Student groups and CSG have lobbied the University to divest from fossil fuel companies. While the University Board of Regents voted in December against investing $50 million in a company with ties to oil and gas production, members of the Climate Action Movement released a statement on Jan. 13 urging Michigan to divest its existing $1 billion invested in fossil fuel companies. Engineering sophomore Carla Voigt, liaison to the ABTS, said the legislation will send a loud and clear message to administrators that students are concerned about climate change and want to see schools take action to reduce their environmental footprint. “There was a divestment passage in the University of Michigan’s CSG a few years ago, and that went worldwide, these can also have the possibility of doing that,” Voigt said. “If we take a stance on something and the entire Big Ten is agreeing on this, there’s a potential to have an impact. Especially if the legislation that they take back is able to be built upon in each of the schools.” The delegation is bringing two newly created positions, government relations chair and deputy government relations chair, to learn the best practices for lobbying local, state and federal representatives on behalf of the University of Michigan’s student body. LSA senior Tyler Ziel became government relations chair in November 2019 and said he wants to learn how other students have successfully lobbied their state and federal governments. “Since we started this year, I’ll get a better understanding of how specifically student advocacy works, and the roadblocks that come with it,” Ziel said. Since becoming the liaison to ABTS in June 2019, Voigt has helped the Association make an impact on U-M students. The Association launched a week of action in November across the Big Ten to advocate for the reauthorization of the Aim Higher Act, a federal program working to make higher education more affordable. Voigt, along with CSG, organized a Diag Day last semester to raise awareness for the AHA and handed out postcards students could send to their federal representatives encouraging them to reauthorize AHA. He had a unique sense of humor, adored by students and colleagues alike, and a deeply caring nature. Baptista said Epstein’s office door was always open, welcoming in students and colleagues. “He would go down to the mezzanine level and pester graduate students, of course in a positive way, asking them ‘what are you up to?’” Baptista said. “And this is their refuge, and every other faculty would respect that space, that it’s theirs, but Sam would just barge in. And he was always very welcome, because he really cared.” Richard Lewis, current Weinberg Institute director, remembers his first job interview at the University in 2000, where Epstein was one of the first professors Lewis met. Lewis immediately knew Epstein would be someone he’d want to work alongside, and notes Epstein’s integral role in setting a positive climate in the department. “He was like a beacon on campus, both for linguistics and the campus as a whole,” Lewis said. “A beacon for humanity. I’ve never met anybody who was such a dedicated scholar, and such a warm, gentle human being.” Acrisio Pires, former mentee of Epstein and current linguistics professor, expressed how Epstein’s work, primarily in theoretical syntax, was a catalyst for establishing new groundwork in cognitive science and linguistics. “He worked in a framework called minimalist syntax,” Pires said. “One of the goals of this framework is to actually look at what has been done, and what’s still being done in linguistics and say, ‘Look, we can do better theories, we can do theories that are much more unifying and that are really built upon the most foundational aspects of what could represent human knowledge of language. “ However, Pires said Epstein proved science and personality were not mutually exclusive in the learning process. Epstein was a humorous professor who engaged curious students in introductory classes and always remembered their names despite large class sizes. “People got this sense of him being a very caring person, and very committed to helping them and contributing to their intellectual development — to their scientific development — as people who are doing research and contributing to science,” Pires said. “But he didn’t leave the personal side out. He was able to clearly convey to people that he cared about them as people, that was a very important thing which made a huge difference.” One of these students was 2018 University alum Claire Butz, a close family friend to the Epsteins, who met his daughter in kindergarten. She decided to take the introductory Linguistics 209 course when she was a sophomore, and ultimately declared cognitive science as her major. She recalled his skill in connecting with people and his “utterly hilarious and goofy” personality while teaching. “He did have this incredible academic legacy and this legacy in the field of linguistics, but he was able to meet people where they were at intellectually,” Butz said. “The concepts were challenging but approachable, because of who he is. He had the emotional and social intelligence to communicate really complex things to people who didn’t have his experience and his unbelievable mind.” Butz said his welcoming nature and natural ability to create a meaningful learning experience is one of his greatest legacies at the University. “Anyone who knew him as a professor will remember him as someone who connected deeply with his students,” Butz said. “He was someone who created space for every person in the room, and kept his door open to all students, and who found tremendous joy in others learning what he loved, and being able to see their excitement grow.” Butz expressed her gratitude to have known such a special person, and to have a close relationship with his family and loved ones. “Nothing made him happier than seeing the people who he loved be happy in such a real way, and I think that was definitely special.” Butz said. “Anyone who knew him laughed more, loved more, and knows more because of him, and has endured a great loss.” Epstein’s memorial is Sunday at 1 p.m. on the 10th floor of Weiser Hall. The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com News Friday, January 24, 2020 — 3 Student organizations, campus resources and local businesses set up more than 30 booths in the Central Campus Recreational Building on Thursday afternoon to represent different aspects of mental, physical and emotional health. Arranged in a circular pattern for students to walk through, the event aimed to address all “360 degrees” of wellness. Sarah Button, the assistant director for marketing, sponsorship and academic partnerships with Recreational Sports, organized the event. Button said she and other Student Life partners have wanted to host an event encouraging a more holistic approach to well-being. “This is a great time in January, being that it’s the new year,” Button said. “You can refocus on your health, your well-being … so it’s kind of an ideal scenario.” Visitors were encouraged to play with therapy dogs, pot small plants, eat healthy food and enter giveaways. Throughout the event, MDining, University Credit Union and Counseling & Psychological Services hosted hourly free educational workshops. Engineering junior Devin Gohel, a student manager at the Computer Showcase, described how the Showcase is currently exploring fitness technology in hopes of encouraging people to improve their physical health. “We’re here showcasing some of the fitness technology we offer … like demonstrating different features, especially the workout app on the Apple Watch,” Gohel said. LSA senior Caroline Baloga worked a booth representing the student-led campus farm. She said the organization wants to increase access to produce for students who live off-campus by selling their produce in retail locations such as Maizie’s Kitchen and Market and Munger Graduate Residences. “Our motto is that we grow food for students, by students,” Baloga said. EPSTEIN From Page 1 To adjust to the influx of customers, the location has hired six additional staff. The store is staying open for an extra three hours to reduce lines and wait times once the new staff are trained. Currently, approximately 93 percent of customers at Skymint’s Ann Arbor location are recreational users, according to Ransom. However, Skymint has taken measures to ensure medical users are minimally affected by the inflated wait times caused by crowds of recreational users. Ransom said medical customers are permitted to skip lines to enter the store. Additionally, she said one of four registers at checkout is an “express lane” intended to accelerate their experience. “Recreational customers need a lot more assistance; they have a lot more questions, so one-on-one time with them is probably triple what we would spend on a med patient,” Ransom said. “We want to make sure med patients aren’t kind of feeling that pain, so we do what we can to expedite their process.” Currently, there are more products available to medical users than to recreational users within the store due to state limits on the amount of product available to transfer from medical to recreational inventory. Ransom said Skymint is working toward increasing its recreational inventory because their growing facility received licensure to grow marijuana for recreational use.That product can be shipped directly to the store. However, Ransom said the company aims to continue to serve both medical and recreational users in the long run. “I think most people, once rec comes on, pretty much go only rec, but we’re trying to continue to serve med, so eventually I see our inventory being split fifty-fifty, and hopefully we’ll be able to serve the same exact skews and products to both med and rec,” Ransom said. The layout of the Skymint store, with product displayed in cases on the floor and on the walls, is meant to encourage new recreational users to browse and learn about products at their leisure, Ransom said. Customers can find informational signage next to each product explaining how they work and what to expect. She said that this sets the store apart from most other dispensaries, where product is typically kept behind the register. LSA sophomore Gabriel Ferguson, a medical marijuana user, said his experience was positively impacted by interactions with staff and recommends Skymint to recreational users. “(The staff is) very friendly, they talked with me for like an hour about picking out the best stuff,” Ferguson said. “It’s the kind of place that you would want to chill in. It’s very homey. I came out of there and talked for like an hour about the experience I had, because it was the coolest dispensary I’ve been in.” Ransom said the company has submitted applications for recreational licensure at all its locations within municipalities that have opted in to recreational sales. However, the applications have yet to be approved at any location outside Ann Arbor. Supporters of marijuana legalization point to recreational availability as a step forward in terms of safety and destigmatization of marijuana use. Jeff Radway, Green Peak Innovations CEO, echoed this sentiment in a news release. “This is a historic moment for our company, but more importantly, it’s another step towards destigmatizing and legitimizing our industry,” Radway said. “We are thrilled to offer patients and recreational consumers a full range of premium marijuana products through a safe and secure supply chain.” Eighty percent of Skymint’s inventory is grown by Green Peak Innovations, with the remaining amount sourced from other businesses. Ferguson viewed this as an attractive feature of the dispensary. “It’s all homegrown, so you don’t have to worry about what’s in it,” Ferguson said. “It’s not a GMO weed with who-knows-what inside … it’s ‘healthy weed.’” Ransom believes knowing the source of the marijuana is a crucial factor that sets recreational marijuana sold in dispensaries apart from the black market. “This offers clean, clean product,” Ransom said. “They know where it’s grown, they know how it’s been processed, it’s all been tested, it’s safe. It’s nothing but beneficial really.” MARIJUANA From Page 1 CSG From Page 1 Read more at MichiganDaily.com LSA senior Yara El-Tawil, Egyptian Students Association representative, shared the process of making bookmarks decorated with hieroglyphics. She said this is a part of her culture’s history. “Culture night is a night of a unity of a bunch of cultures to come together and showcase something about themselves that they’re really proud of,” El-Tawil said. “It’s a night of appreciation of everyone else.” Murad Ali, a graduate student at the University of Texas at Dallas, said he traveled to Ann Arbor to attend the event. “Paani is the reason we’re here,” Ali said. “It’s pretty cool to see the different cultures, different perspectives, and the different dresses. … So it’s cool that they’re putting their name out there by combining all the cultures and introducing themselves to all these cultures and ethnicities.” Himmati said she believes the event helps attendees contest negative media representation of their countries and cultures. “The reason culture night came to be was because modern media usually portrays a lot of the countries that are going to be showcased at this event solely as victims of political warfare,” Himmati said. “We wanted to have a celebration where we could showcase more than that.” According to Himmati, Paani ultimately hopes to bring together different cultural communities toward positive change. “These are all so rich and beautiful, and culture night is supposed to be a celebration of that cultural empowerment, so that all the different orgs on campus can be at a unified front,” Himmati said. “We can not only learn to honor the generations of love and pride from where we come from, but also to take away that victimized narrative and highlight the diversity of all of us.” can be a little awkward or confusing, you know, who’s your boss … And while those offices worked very closely together, the analysis was they were going to streamline the reporting relationship to the office.” OIE has undergone a number of additional operational changes in the past year. Tamiko Strickman became the director of OIE on Jan. 6 and Elizabeth Seney was appointed Title IX coordinator over the summer. This is not the first time a University employee has faced sexual misconduct allegations, nor is it the first time OIE has faced criticism. In October 2018, The Daily released an investigation into OIE’s process when a student filed a complaint alleging that her graduate student instructor sexually assaulted her. The student told The Daily she found the process to be protracted and difficult for survivors to navigate, requiring months for any substantial action to be taken. In the middle of this student’s OIE investigation, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling mandating that the University allow students accused of sexual assault to directly question their accusers through cross- examination. This ruling has been widely criticized by the campus and outside community, with claims that cross-examination retraumatizes survivors when they have to face their assaulters. In November 2018, The Daily published an investigation into David Daniels, a well-known Music, Theatre & Dance professor and opera singer. The Daily found that OIE knew of several allegations of misconduct against Daniels as early as March 2018 — and the University still awarded him with tenure in May 2018. One of his accusers, Andrew Lipian, claimed the University knew Daniels had been assaulting him for years and ignored the information. Similar to Philbert, Daniels was placed on paid leave for months during the investigation. Daniels remained on paid leave while he underwent the subsequent trial. The University is still in the process of firing Daniels. In Fall 2019, following the Daniels case, the University created a faculty working group to suggest changes to the tenure bylaws procedure for faculty dismissal and severance pay. In an interview with The Daily, Information professor Kentaro Toyama, one of the faculty members in the working group, described how their goals include looking at how tenure affects the process. “Our involvement is basically thinking through what the key principles are and the values we want to uphold in that process are, especially with regard to tenure,” Toyama said. “But (we’re) also thinking about the responsible use of public resources for people who do end up going through that process.” About a month after the publication of The Daily’s article on Daniels, Music, Theatre & Dance professor Stephen Shipps retired following reporting in The Daily documenting sexual assault allegations against Shipps spanning 40 years. The Daily confirmed in its investigation that at least one Music, Theatre & Dance faculty member was aware of these allegations prior to Shipps’ time at the University. In April 2019, shortly before OIE began reporting to Philbert, The Daily spoke to six students about their experiences with OIE’s reporting process. These students spoke about how they felt unsupported. One student told The Daily that OIE’s process negatively affected her well-being and her academic work as a student. “Honestly the school is supposed to support the student, (and) that is the biggest problem that is the most heartbreaking,” she said. “I came here for an education and they’re not going to give it to me, they’re just going to make it worse and I have to walk out of school with a GPA that’s not mine because of this and the school’s the one that’s giving me the problems.” In this article, The Daily found that less than 10 percent of OIE reports are investigated. In 2019, OIE received 272 reports and conducted 16 investigations. Daily News Editor Emma Stein can be reached at enstein@umich.edu OIE From Page 1 PAANI From Page 1 Wellness 360 hosts event, promote student wellbeing MDining, CAPS and Rec Sports provide hourly workshops, activities MEGHANA LODHAVIA For the Daily He was someone who created space for every person in the room, and kept his door open to all students, and who found tremendous joy in others learning what he loved, and being able to see their excitement grow.