“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.

