The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
2 — Wednesday, September 8, 2021 

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Many of the participating 

organizations 
also 
tried 
to 

reduce the amount of close 
contact between attendees by 
asking them to scan QR codes 
to access information and sign-
up forms rather than handing 
out large paper flyers. Guenther 
wrote the amount of paper 
waste left behind at the end of 
this year’s event was “notably 
less” than it was at previous 
in-person Festifalls.

LSA senior Sara Trumza 

said 
her 
organization, 
the 

Multicultural 
Association 
of 

Pre-Health 
Students, 
posted 

QR codes linking to their social 
media accounts to limit paper 
waste and touchpoints.

“We thought with COVID it 

would be a lot easier for people 
to just use their phone to scan 
the QR code and then they would 
have access to our Instagram 
page,” Trumza said. “It is just 
a one-stop for everything that 
we have, just in case students 
don’t feel comfortable touching 
anything.”

Apart 
from 
student 

organizations, 
several 
local 

businesses set up tables in a 
closed-off section of North 
University Avenue to pass out 
free gifts and showcase their 
merchandise. 

Josh 
Lee, 
the 
program 

manager 
for 
student 

development at the Center for 
Campus Involvement, helped 
organize Festifall and wrote 
in an email to The Daily that 
vendors first participated in 
Festifall in 2019 but were not 
present in 2020 due to the 

virtual format. 

“The big change this year 

was 
placing 
Vendors 
on 

North University,” Lee wrote. 
“Community 
vendors 
are 

another great pathway to get 
students 
connected 
to 
the 

greater A2 community, and 
we felt that the partnership 
was important and warranted 
continuing this year.”

In her email to The Daily, 

Guenther wrote that funds 
collected 
from 
vendor 

participation helped to offset 
the operating costs associated 
with Festifall, reducing the 
cost to $30 this year for student 
organizations to secure a table.

U-M alum Rishi Narayan, 

founder 
of 
local 
business 

Underground 
Printing, 
said 

this is his company’s first time 
participating in Festifall. 

“We just want to meet our 

customers, maybe meet some 
new customers and hand out 
some free stuff,” Narayan said.

Another 
local 
business, 

Sweetwaters 
Coffee 
and 

Tea, attended Festifall with 
a 
different 
goal 
in 
mind. 

Though they were handing 
out free cold brew samples to 
students, Megan Paddock, the 
manager of the Sweetwaters at 
the Michigan Union, said her 
main objective was to hire new 
student baristas. 

“We’re hoping that this is going 

to be a good hiring event and 
giving students the opportunity 
to find a job that is flexible with 
their schedules, and that’s also 
fun,” Paddock said.

Daily Staff Reporters Roni 

Kane and Kaitlyn Luckoff can be 
reached at ronikane@umich.edu 
and kluckoff@umich.edu.

FESTIFALL
From Page 1

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily

Students gather for Festifall on the Diag Sept. 2.

ADMINISTRATION
Schlissel, Strickman discuss new Equity, 

Civil Rights, and Title IX Office

ECRT replaces the oft-criticized Office of Institutional Equity

University 
of 
Michigan 

President 
Mark 
Schlissel 
and 

Tamiko Strickman, director of 
the new Equity, Civil Rights and 
Title IX Office, sat down with 
The Michigan Daily on Sept. 2 to 
discuss updates to the University’s 
mechanisms 
for 
investigating 

allegations of sexual misconduct 
and other crimes. The interview 
began with Schlissel and Strickman 
giving opening remarks regarding 
the status of the new ECRT office, 
followed by an interview with 
The Daily. This article has been 
condensed and edited for clarity.

You can read part one of the 

interview, which discusses past 
controversies 
with 
OIE 
and 

lawsuits against Strickman from 
her time at the University of 
Nebraska-Lincoln, on our website 
at michigandaily.com.

Mark Schlissel: For us to 

really change and improve, we’ve 
got to look at three categories 
of things: the structures we use 
around our issues of misconduct, 
the 
actual 
policies 
and 
our 

culture. We’ve been announcing 
policy changes, like the policy 
about 
relationships 
between 

supervisors 
and 
supervisees. 

Along with those policies, the 
ECRT is a structure that allows 
us to do many things. We really 
want to be a place where every 
member of our community feels 
respected, safe and supported. 
We’re working hard on a new anti-
retaliation policy, and that’ll come 
out in the coming months. We also 
are committed to education and 
prevention so that we can prevent 
(misconduct) to begin with. We 
hope all these things, when you 
put them together, really put us 
on a path to be amongst the best 
universities when it comes to 
sexual misconduct. 

The Equity, Civil Rights and 

Title IX Office is central to 
these efforts. We took the Office 

of Institutional Equity apart 
and rebuilt a new organization, 
covering the functions of the 
old OIE but in a different way — 
one that’s designed to provide 
better support, more outreach, 
better education and integrate 
prevention efforts along with our 
other investigatory efforts. 

Tamiko Strickman: It’s a 

really exciting time right now. 
Shortly after the announcement 
in July, we were able to post 
the positions for the equity 
specialists, who are a critical 
change for the ECRT. You’re 
familiar with the critique of 
OIE-type offices, that oftentimes 
the initial contact feels cold and 
intimidating when it’s from an 
investigator. 
Survivors 
aren’t 

prepared sometimes for that 
outreach, 
and 
these 
equity 

specialists will serve as what 
I like to call a soft outreach, or 
a buffer between the survivor 
and the initial meeting with the 
investigator. 

Once that survivor makes a 

decision on the most appropriate 
and 
comfortable 
path 
for 

themselves, the equity specialists 
will 
work 
alongside 
the 

investigator to continue providing 
that support for both parties who 
are involved in an investigation. 
So when somebody says, “This 
has just been an emotional time 
for me, I have an exam coming up 
and I really need a modification,” 
it would be the equity specialists 
that would help to facilitate that. 
We will start our final interviews 
in the coming weeks and engage 
some of our campus partners to 
help make those decisions. 

We are very close to finalizing 

the position for an outcomes 
officer. That will be a critical 
position as well to ensure that 
these cases are completed, and if 
there are recommended steps or 
sanctions, that they are followed 
through upon. 

The third position that we are 

hoping to post next week will 
be the Director of Prevention 
Education 
Assistance 
and 

Resources. And we’ll start to 
build out all of the prevention 

and education efforts, working 
very 
closely 
with 
SAPAC 

(Sexual Assault Prevention and 
Awareness Center), collaborating 
with 
our 
faculty 
research 

expert partners, partnering and 
continuing working with the 
Center for Research on Learning 
& Teaching.

MS: Tami and I now work 

directly together, so this will 
come to me to make sure that 
it has the full attention of the 
campus and the resources it 
needs to be successful.

The Michigan Daily: In July, 

it was announced that ECRT 
will oversee a new department of 
Prevention, Education Assistance 
and 
Resources 
(PEAR) 
that 

aims to develop and distribute 
materials 
on 
sexual 
assault 

prevention and support. Under 
the new department, PEAR would 
also institute a liaison program 
that would “designate a member 
of each department to be a point 
of contact for any information 
or resources regarding sexual 
misconduct and discrimination.” 
How 
will 
said 
department 

members be selected, and what 
will they be trained to do with the 
information they receive? 

TS: One of the ways that we’re 

starting to get some information 
on these liaisons are people who 
are interested in the cause. For 
example, when ECRT goes in 
and does a training program 
in a particular unit, I will have 
particular people reach out to 
say, “Look, I’m really interested 
in this subject matter and any 
opportunities for partnership.” 
I’m a big believer that people 
are most receptive to messaging 
through their peers and their 
colleagues. 

The training will be through 

ECRT in the beginning to talk 
about things like if somebody 
comes to you and asks a question 
about reporting, here’s a bullet 
point list of talking points. So it 
would be an ongoing training. We 
would build it out more robustly 
as the program develops more 
and more. 

TMD: In the past, OIE has 

investigated less than 10% of 
reported 
allegations 
due 
in 

part to some allegations falling 
“outside the scope of University 
policy,” according to a 2017-2018 
OIE report. Under the ECRT, do 
you plan to expand the scope of 
University policy to investigate a 
greater percentage of allegations? 
What constitutes an allegation 
to be “outside the scope of 
University policy”?

TS: A lot of factors come 

into play, because oftentimes 
somebody may say “I don’t want 
an investigation, I’d like to be 
able to drop out of this course 
right now because somebody is 
in that course who makes me feel 
uncomfortable, but I don’t need 
an investigation, I’m just looking 
to withdraw with no penalty or 
adverse impact to my academic 
record.” A lot of times people 
will say, “I’m looking for some 
alternative form of resolution,” 
perhaps student-to-student, so 
we go over to the OSCR (Office 
of Student Conflict Resolution) 
office, sit down with the experts 
there and come to some type 
of agreement. So we continue 
to address every civil rights 
allegation or report that comes 
into our office; there are just a 
menu of ways to handle it and we 
try to take into account what that 
person is requesting. 

MS: There are some reports 

that we don’t have jurisdiction 
over, like somebody who’s a 
member of our community but 
is complaining about someone 
who has nothing to do with the 
University at all. Other instances 
where 
there’s 
a 
complaint 

about 
troublesome 
behavior, 

but it doesn’t qualify as being 
harassment or violation of civil 
rights, it’s just a complaint. So 
there are lots of reasons, but 
the goal is to investigate and 
have a good resolution of every 
complaint that comes forward, 
and sometimes it’s through an 
investigation. Other times it’s 
through these other mechanisms 
that Tami mentioned.

CALDER LEWIS & 

GEORGE WEYKAMP

Daily News Editor & 
Daily Staff Reporter

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Associate Editor: Julia Maloney

