CAMPUS LIFE

RESEARCH

ADMINISTRATION

The University of Michigan was 

ranked the top-funded institution 
in social science research in the 
U.S., according to the Fiscal Year 
2020 Higher Education Research 
and Development (HERD) Survey 
recently released by the National 
Science Foundation (NSF). The 
survey 
measures 
the 
annual 

research and development (R&D) 
spending by academic institutions 
across all academic disciplines. 

Higher 
education 
R&D 

expenditures increased 3.3% from 
the previous fiscal year to $86.4 
billion in total, according to the NSF 
report. Out of the 915 universities 
and colleges included in the survey, 
the University’s Ann Arbor campus 
ranked second in FY 2020 R&D 
expenditures in all fields.

Across all social science areas, 

the University topped the list with 
a $187 million R&D expenditure. It 
was also placed in the top 10 in five 
of the six social science subfields. 

The University is home to 

Institute 
for 
Social 
Research 

(ISR), the world’s largest academic 
social science survey and research 
organization. Dr. Kathleen Cagney, 
director of ISR, said the way funding 
works in ISR is entrepreneurial-like. 

ISR researchers receive grants from 
different agencies and foundations, 
rather than having funds be 
allocated by a committee. 

“Researchers come together and 

they develop their own research 
programs,” Cagney said. “They will 
write lots of different types of grants 
… that go to places like the National 
Institute of Health (NIH), the 
National Science Foundation (NSF) 
and other agencies.” 

Cagney also emphasized ISR’s 

role in creating the environment 
that 
values 
multidisciplinary 

research.

“One thing that makes (the 

University) distinctive (is) to have so 
many social science disciplines that 
are engaging in novel and cutting-
edge research,” Cagney said. “The 
intersection of disciplines (is) where 
novel research emerges.”

To get an idea of what kind of 

social science research is being done 
at the University, The Michigan 
Daily sat down with three social 
researchers to discuss their work 
and contributions to the field. 

Getting older in America
Funded by the National Institute 

of Aging and the Social Security 
Administration, the Health and 
Retirement Study (HRS) is a 
longitudinal study that collects 
survey data from a sample of 
approximately 20,000 people over 

the age of 50 in America every two 
years to understand the challenges 
and effects of aging. The survey 
asks participants about a wide 
range of topics from income, health, 
employment and lifestyle factors — 
all data that can be used for aging 
research. With high scientific 
productivity, HRS is now a model 
for longitudinal studies around the 
world.

David Weir, director of HRS, said 

the study began in 1992 in an effort 
to combine economic and health 
information of elderly population to 
help inform older generations.

“Our job is not to write the paper 

about the elderly,” Weir said. “Our 
job is to collect data and get it out for 

other people to use.”

Weir said HRS has maintained 

funding for 30 years, which is 
impressive for any longitudinal 
study. 

“The longitudinal studies often 

go for five to 10 years and that’s it,” 
Weir said. “So to go 30 years is pret-
ty unique and to do that, we have to 
have very innovative applications 
every time.”

Minority representation in the 

study is one area Weir said the HRS 
is focused on, especially since many 
of these groups are underrepresent-
ed in social science research.

“One of the things that we’ve 

become really valuable for is the 
representation of Blacks and His-

panics,” Weir said. “A lot of NIH 
studies don’t have much represen-
tation of those groups and they’re 
definitely understudied in terms of 
biomedical research. So that’s one 
of our strengths … (and) so we have 
innovations around adding differ-
ent cohorts of minority traditional 
minority disciplines.”

HRS also uses innovative strate-

gies to collect genetic informa-
tion for quantitative analysis. 
Weir said the DNA collection 
can be used to assess general 
risks for diabetes, alcoholism 
and mental illness, among other 
factors.

“What we are finding is that 

when you look across the whole 

genome, millions of pieces of 
information, you can find clusters 
of things that do predict higher 
risk,” Weir said. “So in terms of 
the connection of genetics to social 
science, we’re not (saying) ‘Here’s 
the gene for diabetes’, but we can 
give you a score based on that 
person’s whole genome of their 
relative risk of developing (the 
disease).”

Weir added that collaboration 

among epidemiologists, psycholo-
gists and other researchers to ana-
lyze data across different disciplines 
is vital to the project. Weir said that 
being at the University of Michi-

The Board of Regents fired 

former University of Michigan 
President 
Mark 
Schlissel 

effective immediately on Jan. 
15 
following 
a 
third-party 

investigation 
revealing 
an 

inappropriate 
relationship 

between 
Schlissel 
and 
a 

subordinate. The investigation 
— 
which 
uncovered 
over 

two years of emails and text 
messages 
between 
Schlissel 

and the unnamed subordinate 
— marked the end of a 
tumultuous presidency since 
he first took office in 2014. The 
Michigan Daily took a look 
back at events that happened 
during the Schlissel presidency, 
year by year.

This article represents a 

summary of Schlissel’s presi-
dency over the past eight years 
and is not representative of all 
events which took place during 
that time. 

2014: Students, faculty 

express excitement over the 
prospect of a new president

On Jan. 24, 2014 the Board 

of Regents and now-Interim 
President Mary Sue Coleman 
held a special meeting to 
announce that then-Brown 
University 
Provost 
Mark 

Schlissel 
would 
succeed 

Coleman as the University’s 
14th President. 

At the meeting, Schlissel 

said he hoped not to lead from 
the “top down,” but to listen 
to students and faculty first 
and foremost. 

“The best ideas come from 

the people who do the teach-
ing and the learning, so that’s 
why I need to do some listen-
ing first,” Schlissel said. 

Schlissel had served as 

Brown 
University 
Provost 

for three years and Dean 
of the Biological Sciences 
Department at the University 
of California-Berkeley from 
2008-2011. With an MD-PhD 
degree 
in 
physiological 

chemistry, Schlissel was a 
prominent 
researcher 
and 

continued to publish papers 
throughout 
his 
tenure 
at 

Berkeley and Brown. 

“(Research) 
was 
his 

life,” Kwan Chow, one of 
Schlissel’s former students 
at 
UC-Berkeley, 
told 
The 

Michigan Daily in 2014. “He 
ran a lab. Two years doing 
administrative 
work 
isn’t 

going to erase that.”

On Oct. 26, graduate stu-

dents at Brown University 
penned an open letter warn-
ing graduate students at The 
University of Schlissel’s com-
mitment to anti-labor and 
austerity while he was their 
provost. 

“We ask graduate students 

at the University of Michigan 
to join us in reminding Mark 
Schlissel 
about 
a 
central 

lesson of liberal thought: 
Academic freedom isn’t clean 
and quiet, and civil discourse 
isn’t polite and restrained,” 
the letter reads. “Not all great 
ideas with public value are 
profitable. When it comes 
to 
racism, 
sexism, 
labor 

exploitation, appropriation of 
public resources and overall 
devaluation of the people who 
work, teach and research for 
the classroom, there can’t and 
won’t be consensus.”

Schlissel’s 
appointment 

came after an over $315,000 
presidential 
search 
that 

spanned over eight months 
and was met with initial hope-
fulness from students and fac-
ulty. Dentistry professor Rex 
Holland, then-vice chair of 
the Senate Advisory Commit-
tee on University Affairs, said 
he was impressed with Schlis-
sel’s credentials and excited to 
see him lead the University. 

“I’m very impressed with 

President-elect 
Schlissel’s 

credentials,” Holland said at 
the SACUA meeting in 2014. 
“I have great confidence that 
President-elect Schlissel will 
be a splendid leader for a 
splendid institution.” 

Members of the Central 

Student Government in 2014 
were also pleased with the 
student-centric 
approach 

Schlissel displayed in his 
announcement address. 

“(Schlissel) 
mentioned 

working with students at 

every opportunity that he 
had,” then-CSG Vice Presi-
dent Bobby Dishell said at a 
2014 CSG meeting. “That’s 
something that we’re very 
much looking forward to, and 
every student should be very 
excited about.” 

Schlissel began his initial 

five-year appointment on July 
1, 2014, with an initial base 
salary of $750,000.

In September 2014 — just 

four months into his tenure 
as President — a graduate 
student launched a petition 
calling for the removal of 
then-athletic director David 
Brandon. 
Brandon 
was 

criticized 
by 
students 
for 

raising the price of student 
tickets and for the slump in 
student attendance to football 
games, as well as ignoring 
player safety concerns. The 
petition — which garnered 
over 10,000 signatories in just 
over 24 hours — came amid 
concern that Schlissel’s Ivy 
League 
background 
made 

him incapable of managing a 
Big 10 football team. Schlissel 
ultimately accepted Brandon’s 
resignation on Oct. 31, 2014. 

“Dave feels that it would 

be in the best interests of our 
student-athletes, the athletic 
department and the University 
community if he moved on to 
other challenges and allowed 
the important work of the 
department and the University 
to continue without daily dis-
tractions,” Schlissel said at a 
press conference announcing 
the resignation. 

2015 brings struggles with 

Fraternity 
and 
Sorority 

Life party culture, sexual 
misconduct in first year of 
presidency

Schlissel began his tenure 

as 
U-M 
President 
with 

several initiatives including 
streamlining 
sustainability 

and 
addressing 
sexual 

misconduct on campus.

In September, Schlissel met 

with members of all University 
FSL chapters to discuss alco-
hol abuse and sexual miscon-
duct – two issues he said ran 
rampant within Fraternity and 
Sorority Life. Schlissel said the 

excessive party culture deval-
ued the University’s reputation 
for academic excellence. 

“The 
value 
of 
(alumni) 

degrees are gonna go down 
because the reputation of the 
University of Michigan won’t 
be the excitement in the Big 
House or our teams doing well 
under our fantastic new coach 
(Jim 
Harbaugh),” 
Schlissel 

said. “It’s not gonna be the 
kids who receive the Rhodes 
Scholarships and the Ful-
bright Scholarships, and the 
famous professors who do the 
work that you’re going to get 
reflected on for or the National 
Medal for the Arts that our 
faculty won this past week. 
It’s going to be the ‘Shmacked’ 
videos. So it’s really up to you 
what the value of your educa-
tion is going to be, what the 
reputation of this institution’s 
going to be.”

Schlissel’s meeting marked 

the first time members of all 
FSL chapters gathered together 
in their over 170-year history. 

The University also intro-

duced Wolverine Pathways — a 
rigorous mentorship program 
for middle and high school stu-
dents that would eventually 
accumulate with full tuition — in 
October. Pathways was an initia-
tive to increase racial and socio-
economic diversity amongst the 
student body. 

“Inseparable from our efforts 

to enhance our academic excel-
lence as a public good is our work 
to improve diversity, equity and 
inclusion at the University of 
Michigan,” Schlissel said. “We 
cannot be excellent without 
being diverse, in the broadest 
sense of that word.”

2016 brings debate sur-

rounding free speech on cam-
pus

The 2016 election introduced 

a point of contention on cam-
pus. Following former President 
Donald Trump’s surprise victory 
on Nov. 8, Schlissel penned an 
email to the University com-
munity providing resources 
for students seeking support 
in the aftermath of the elec-
tion.

News
Wednesday, February 9, 2022 — 3

ADMINISTRATION

A look back at eight years of UMich under 

former U-M President Mark Schlissel

The Michigan Daily recalls major administrative events from 2014 to 2022, year by year.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Design by Reid Graham

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Political activists, scholars 

speak on learning from 

Native American thought, 

environmental impact

Symposium explores contributions of 

Indigenous knowledge, legal framework

The 
Eisenberg 
Institute 
for 

Historical Studies conducted an 
online event Friday afternoon to 
discuss the possibility of “radical 
futures” through an analysis of 
Indigenous political thought. 

Featuring four panelists, the 

symposium explored the contri-
butions of Indigenous knowledge, 
science and political thought. The 
event also focused on recognizing 
the importance of Indigenous peo-
ple for the future instead of simply 
framing them in the past.

The event opened with remarks 

from Mrinalini Sinha, event mod-
erator and director of the EIHS. 
Sinha said the EIHS has worked 
extensively to foster a setting where 
individuals can participate together 
in vigorous intellectual exchange, 
as displayed by this symposium and 
other discussions.

“The inspiration for this event 

was a part of our year-long theme 
of recovery,” Sinha said. “We were 
wanting to think about the future, 
but not in a kind of linear way but 
rather by overcoming events from 
the past. On the issue of climate 
justice, for example, more privi-
leged people probably think of the 
environmental disaster as a future 
event. But Indigenous people have 
watched the extinction of species 
and seen environmental disasters 
committed for centuries and have 
figured out ways to adapt to it, 
which we can learn from.”

Ana María León, assistant Art 

History professor, began with a 
discussion of the legal framework 
of Indigenous thought and said the 
Constitution gives people the ability 
to litigate the ecosystem on behalf 
of their personal gain, which con-
sequently leads to environmental 
degradation.

“Environmental entities should 

realistically give people the abil-
ity to advocate for their environ-
ment and outdoor space,” León said. 
“However their actions, both on the 
left and right, are solely political. … 
The vast resources of capital that 
could be used to protect the envi-
ronment have no bearing if the state 
decides to go another way.”

Sinha 
then 
redirected 
the 

conversation to Rebecca D. Hardin, 
associate professor at U-M’s School 
of Environment and Sustainability. 
Hardin, who has conducted research 
in South Africa, said her work was eye 
opening, particularly her analysis of 
the Royal Bafokeng Nation.

“When I saw the inner workings 

of the Bafokeng Nation, I was in awe,” 
Hardin said. “The champagne flutes 
and Christian Dior suits were a deft 
and creative combination of not only 
their sartorial forms but also their 
governance form … these strategic 
acts are in danger of colonial roman-
ticization.”

Kyle Whyte, a professor in the 

School of Environment and Sustain-
ability, then spoke on his work in the 
climate change sector of Indigenous 
people.

“All that the term climate change 

indicates, is that people who have been 
sheltered against colonialism now think 
that they may have something to lose,” 
Whyte said. “But, (Indigenous people) 
have faced years and years of climate 
and environmental chaos that we 
have adapted to and if these methods 
are employed, people may not lose as 
much as they think.”

When asked about land defense 

strategies and government change, 
Whyte said it is relevant to compare 
the past and the present. He shared 
information about a tribe in Okla-
homa in the early 20th century, the 
same tribe’s situation today and his 
perspective on what should be done in 
response to the changes.

“The tribes were dealing with envi-

ronmental change that they didn’t 
cause, and their lands were in the 
process of being liquidated,” Whyte 
said. “Land was going unstewarded 
and the U.S. government was forcing 
them to adopt democratic processes. 
We’re engaging in land defense, seek-
ing to take back our government and 
make our own decisions about tech-
nology infrastructure.”

David Myer Temin, assistant 

professor in political science, said 
his side of the discussion aligned 
with an overview of the Land 
Back Movement — a movement 
aiming to return ownership of 
Indigenous lands to Indigenous 
communities.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

UMich ranked top-
funded institution 
in social science 

research in the U.S.

From aging impact to wealth 

inequality, take a look at some of 

these projects 

JINGQI ZU

Daily Staff Reporter

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

GEORGE WEYKAMP, 

ANNA FIFELSKI & 
BROOKE HALAK

Daily News Editor, 
Daily Staff Reporters
SEJAL PATIL

Daily Staff Reporter

