The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
2 — Wednesday, February 23, 2022

From the age of five, LSA senior 

Ninnie Chiang knew she had a love 
for dance — a realization that came 
from her first kindergarten class 
performance, where she soared across 
the stage. 

After 
taking 
a 
break 
from 

dance, Chiang said she decided to 
re-immerse herself in the art upon 
arriving at the University of Michigan 

to take back part of her identity. 

Chiang said she planned to include 
dance into her collegiate education but 
there was one problem: a dance minor 
was not offered through the College of 
Literature, Science and the Arts.

Despite being recognized as a 

minor in other schools, including the 
School of Music, Theatre & Dance, 
LSA has yet to establish a dance minor. 
Even if LSA students complete all of 
the required classes for a dance minor, 
they will not receive a minor upon 
graduation.

In November 2021, Chiang and 

her peers, LSA seniors Kyla Hyatt and 
Yuyao Sun, decided to take action. 
They sent multiple emails to dance 

advisors, department chairs and the 
head of the LSA curriculum asking for 
answers.

Chiang said she is disappointed 

by the lack of action from the LSA 
department. She said that although 
she was previously notified about the 
absence of the minor in LSA by her 
advisor, she still chose to move ahead 
with the hope she would be able to 
eventually complete the dance minor 
as an LSA student.

“What seemed at first like an issue 

from the past 3-5 years now seems like 
a decade-long issue,” Chiang said. “It’s 
been passed for years from individual 
to individual.” 

In November 2021, Chiang, Hyatt 

and Sun created a petition to increase 
awareness and urge LSA to consider 
recognizing the dance minor. As of 
Feb. 15, the petition has received over 
800 signatures.

“I feel like there is a path for the 

minor to get approved, but for some 
reason it’s so convoluted and difficult,” 
Hyatt said. “I think it’s because the 
minor was denied before, but not for 
super clear reasons.”

Associate 
Dean 
Tim 
McKay 

reached out to the Daily about a possible 
explanation for this discrepancy. 

“The dance minor was proposed 

to the LSA curriculum committee 
about five years ago. At that time, 
several concerns were raised by the 
committee, including about the fact 
that the minor requires 22 credits 
(most minors require 15-18),” McKay 
wrote. “Those concerns are now 
being addressed by SMTD, and we are 
hopeful that a credential for the dance 
minor will be available to LSA students 
in the near future.”

LSA sophomore Isabel Reid – who 

also signed the petition – said she 
considered switching to the School 
of Kinesiology to complete the dance 
minor, but faced many challenges along 
the way. 

“I’m pre-med and the education 

that I really want in my undergrad 
aligns more with what LSA offers,” 
Reid said. “I knew it would be too big of 
a sacrifice to have to start over with pre-
reqs as well, and I wasn’t willing to give 
that up just for the minor, even though 
it does mean a lot to me.”

Reid 
also 
has 
an 
academic 

scholarship 
through 
LSA 
that 

would not transfer over to any other 
school, further preventing her from 
switching and being able to complete 
her intended dance minor.

The dance minor at the University 

consists of 22 credits over four areas: 
technique, composition, dance history 
and electives. According to the SMTD 
course website, applicants for the 
dance minor who have not completed 
a U-M Dance Department technique 
course at the 101 level or above should 
send a video “that demonstrates dance 
proficiency and a one-page dance 
resume.” While awaiting acceptance, 
students are able to enroll in Dance 
101, 102, 103, or 104 as an entry-level 
course in the program. 

Hyatt said she currently has a job 

teaching classes at an off-campus 
dance studio and plans to take a year 
off after graduation to teach full time. 
When it comes to finding future jobs 
in the dance industry, Hyatt said she 
worries that the lack of a recognized 
minor will limit her opportunities. 

“If I were to want to get another 

job similar to mine elsewhere, I don’t 
necessarily have the credentials,” 
Hyatt said. “So I guess I’d just have to 
tell a potential employer that I’ve met 
the requirements for a dance minor 
and hope they’ll take my word for it.”

The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is publishing weekly on Wednesdays for the 
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Petition with over 800 signatures calls for recognition, increased awareness

Students express frustration with 

dance minor not ofered in LSA

ASHNA MEHRA
Daily Staff Reporter

Design by Jennie Vang

Find answers to your biggest questions 

on climate change action at UMich 

 Curious about U-M’s 

carbon neutrality 
plan? Here are the 

latest updates.

ADMINISTRATION

ARJUN THAKKAR
Daily Staff Reporter

Various University of Michigan 

stakeholders for the past few 
years, including student as well 
as staff and faculty organizations, 
have pushed for the University to 
take an active role in combating 
climate change by reducing its 
greenhouse gas emissions.

The University has responded 

to these requests by presenting 
a path for the institution to 
become 
carbon 
neutral 
and 

limit emissions so they are 

equivalent to the amount of 

emissions sequestered from the 
atmosphere. The University has 
committed to eliminating its 
scope 1 emissions across all three 
campuses by 2040, achieving net-
zero scope 2 emissions by 2025, 
and establishing goals by 2025 for 
eliminating scope 3 emissions.

Scope 
1 
emissions 
are 

greenhouse 
gasses 
directly 

released 
by 
the 
University, 

including emissions from the 
campus power plant, heating and 
cooling for buildings and bus 
transportation. Scope 2 emissions 
are generated by the electricity 
purchased from other utilities to 
help power the campus. Scope 3 
emissions are indirect sources of 
emissions at the University and 
include commuting to campus 
(using cars and The Ride buses), 

food and University-affiliated 
travel.

This commitment to carbon 

neutrality followed months of 
research and deliberation from 
the President’s Commission on 
Carbon Neutrality, created in 
February 2019 and consists of 
various faculty members, students 
and advisors to deliver a report 
with a plan for the University to 
obtain net-zero carbon emissions. 
The 
final 
report,released 
in 

March 2021, outlined specific 
recommendations on how the 
University could achieve net-zero 
emissions.

Community members argue 

the 
University’s 
progress 
on 

achieving 
carbon 
neutrality 

has been too slow to address 
the ongoing climate crisis, with 
student 
organizations, 
such 

as Climate Action movement 
pressuring the University for a 
more aggressive timeline and to 
reduce emissions by 2030.

The Intergovernmental Panel 

on Climate Change, the scientific 
body under the United Nations 
that evaluates climate science, 
states humans need to reduce 
emissions to 45% below 2010 
levels by 2030 and achieve net 
zero emissions by 2050 in order 
to avert the damaging effects of 
climate change, including natural 
disasters. 

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Michigan Medicine, Detroit Zoo partner 

on non-invasive procedure

 Pediatric surgeons 
at C.S. Mott perform 
remedial surgery on 

premature chimp

JINGQI ZHU

Daily Staff Reporter

When Dr. Marcus Jarboe, director 

of Pediatric Minimally Invasive 
Surgery at the C.S. Mott Children’s 
Hospital, was approached by the 
Detroit Zoo to perform a therapeutic 
surgery on a newborn chimpanzee, 
he jumped at the opportunity to heal 
a non-traditional patient.

The premature chimp, named 

Zane, had developed an inguinal 
hernia — a painful bulge of tissue that 
develops in the groin region — five 
weeks after he was born, in January 
2020. For unclear reasons, Zane’s 
mother didn’t show any interest in 
her newborn, so the caretaker team 
began taking extra care of Zane in his 
early weeks. After Dr. Ann Duncan, 
director of Animal Health at the 
Detroit Zoo, and the team discovered 
Zane’s inguinal hernia, they reached 
out to Mott for help.

“Chimpanzee 
anatomy 
and 

human anatomy are very similar and 
the equipment needed for neonatal 
patients is specialized,” Duncan 
wrote in an email to The Michigan 
Daily. “For these reasons, we 
contacted a human pediatric surgeon 
with 
expertise 
in 
non-invasive 

laparoscopic repair techniques.” 

Contrary to the open hernia repair, 

the laparoscopic method allows the 
surgeon to visualize the hernia defect 
without making a large incision over 
the operating site. A camera called 

a laparoscope is inserted through 
the incision, and the surgeon uses 
the image relayed on a monitor to 
guide doctors as they perform the 
procedure. 

For his first non-human surgery, 

Jarboe said he decided to use the 
laparoscopic method because of 
his expertise in minimally invasive 
surgery. He also said the scope helps 
to better visualize the anatomy.

“I do most of my (surgeries)

laparoscopic and I think the hernia 
is easier to do laparoscopic,” Jarboe 
said. “I could figure out the anatomy 
easier with the scope.”

Jarboe also said pediatric surgeons 

have much expertise in performing 
surgery on human patients that 
are of similar size to Zane, so many 
of the procedures can be similarly 
performed on primate animals.

“Zane was somewhere around 

three kilograms,” Jarboe said. “It’s 
the same size we usually operate 
on.

In addition to two pediatric 

anesthesiologists assisting with the 
surgery, Jarboe said he invited senior 
pediatric surgeon Dr. Ronald Hirschl 
and two pediatric anesthesiologists 
to perform the surgery with him. 
He said inviting the pediatric 
anesthesiologists was important 
because of their expertise in 
inserting the endotracheal tube 
so the patient can breathe during 

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

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