MSC: That was never an official 

part of the Anderson settlement, as 
far as I’m told. I wasn’t part of the 
Anderson settlement, that was a 
confidential mediation, but I don’t 
think that was a real condition. 
However, I thought doing the 
settlement was the right thing to do. 
I’m glad that the University did it. 
It’s going to take a while to get it all 
through the process because when 
you’re talking about a large number of 
people who were involved and a large 
amount of money, it will take time. 
We’ll work through all that, but we are 
where we are.

TMD: What are your thoughts 

on Jon Vaughn announcing he is 
continuing his protest past his original 
plan of 100 days? Do you plan on 
speaking with Jon Vaughn during your 
term as interim president?

MSC: Everybody has to decide 

what they want to do, and I think the 
settlement was the right thing to do. I 
think we now have a responsibility to 
help with healing, and so I wish Jon 
Vaughn the best. 

TMD: The WilmerHale report 

regarding 
sexual 
misconduct 

allegations against former Provost 
Martin Philbert says you were made 
aware of allegations against Philbert 
but didn’t remember receiving them. 
The report states if you had received 
them, you and others “likely would 
not have given (them) the same weight 
in 2010 as they would today.” Can you 
clarify what you meant by this and how 
would you have handled this situation 
today? 

MSC: I’ve learned a lot since that 

happened, and part of my learning 
was being president of the Association 
of American Universities where we 
conducted the largest survey on sexual 
misconduct on university campuses 
that has ever been done. The first one 
was 150,000 respondents, the second 
one was 200,000 respondents, and 
they were undergraduate students 
surveys, but there was some indication 
within those surveys about faculty 
misconduct and staff misconduct. So 
our understanding really expanded. 

There are two things that have 

happened that I think have been very 

positive. First of all, victims are more 
willing to come forward. I think the 
#metoo movement has been very 
positive in that regard. And I frankly 
learned a lot more about the prevalence 
of misconduct. At that time, the reports 
that we got about Martin Philbert 
were anonymous, and we tried to 
investigate, but nobody would speak. 
Nobody would come forward because 
I think people were afraid. So now, I 
think they would come forward, and I 
think that’s a good thing. So that’s what 
I meant by that comment. I learned a 
lot and I think society learned a lot.

TMD: What are your thoughts 

on the new and revamped Office 
of Equity, Civil Rights and Title 
IX (ECRT), formerly the Office of 
Institutional Equity? 

MSC: I had the pleasure of seeing 

Tami Strickman and her team. They 
made a nice presentation at the Board 
of Regents meeting about the plans for 
the office and what they’re going to 
do, so I was very impressed with the 
team and Tami in particular. I think 
the plans they have for the office are 
extremely good. They want to do a lot 
of education. They want to provide 
services to the departments. They 
want to streamline investigations. 
They want to do all the things that we 
heard from the community that would 
be helpful in restoring trust, changing 
the culture and really getting us to 
the point where these incidents don’t 
happen. Or if they do happen, they are 
few and far between. I think this is a 
very positive step for the University. 
Though, eyes wide open, we have a 
cultural journey. We’ve got to change 
the culture, and that’s going to take 
time. We started with the survey that 
was done last week about “What are 
people thinking now?” I think that 
office will be very, very helpful to the 
community and I’m looking forward 
to it.

TMD: Current ECRT Director 

Tamiko Strickman is currently facing 
two lawsuits for mishandling cases 
of sexual misconduct and racial 
discrimination 
at 
the 
University 

of Nebraska-Lincoln. Do you have 
confidence in her ability to run this 
office based on these allegations?

MSC: I do. I absolutely have 

tremendous confidence in her. She is a 
very impressive woman. 

TMD: With the Omicron variant 

subsiding both on campus and across 
the country, Washtenaw County 
removed its mask mandate for 
K-12 education and other Big Ten 
universities, such as the University 
of Wisconsin-Madison, have also 
announced plans to phase out indoor 
mask mandates. Does the University 
have any plans to lift its mask mandate 
in the foreseeable future? 

MSC: I think what we’re focused 

on now is what we’re going to do in the 
fall, and a lot will depend on (scientific) 
evidence. We have a very, very 
excellent committee working on this 
headed up by our head of University 
Health Service, and they’re meeting 
weekly. They meet several times a 
week to look at case counts, illness and 
what’s happening in our community. 

What’s important to realize is 

that every community is different. 
What phase Washtenaw County’s 
community is in is different from our 
own University community. And so 
what we want to do is to make sure 
that we listen carefully to the evidence 
that (the committee) comes forward 
with. We don’t have any plans at this 
moment to lift the mask policy.

TMD: After Sunday’s situation 

with Juwan Howard, what were your 
conversations like with Wisconsin’s 
chancellor and Warde Manuel? What 
is your opinion on Juwan Howard’s 
actions?

MSC: Let me set the scene for 

you: My husband and I were at the 
women’s basketball game, and it was 
a tough game against Maryland and 
oh boy, we were sitting down close. 
One of the things when you’re sitting 
down close in a basketball game, you 
really see how physical the game is 
and, oh my gosh, it was an amazing, 
amazing game. But during the game, 
I got this video that was handed to 
me, and I saw the incident from the 
Wisconsin game. Immediately, I got 
up and went up and spoke with Warde. 
He immediately got on the situation. 
I called Chancellor Blank at the 
University of Wisconsin to apologize 
on behalf of the institution because 
I thought it was very important. It’s 
never acceptable, I don’t care what 
happens, it’s never acceptable to throw 
a punch. On the other hand, I was so 
impressed with Coach Howard and 
how he came forward with a very — I 
thought — sincere apology. He’s been 

suspended for the rest of the season, 
and it was appropriate. What was 
done by the Big Ten and by our 
own athletic department was the 
appropriate remedy here. I was 
proud of everybody in this situation, 
as well as Coach Howard, because I 
thought he did the right thing by 
apologizing. It’s what is expected of 
Michigan. You can make mistakes, 
nobody’s perfect, but then you can 
do the right thing after you make 
that mistake and I think he did.

TMD: With Provost Susan 

Collins stepping down in May 2022, 
who are you considering as interim 
provost? Do you have any idea on 
who the permanent provost will be? 

MSC: Yes, Provost Collins will 

be leaving May 15 and going to a 
very exciting job. I was so proud of 
her. I’ve been in conversation with 
an interim provost. I can’t reveal the 
name right now because we’re still in 
discussion. But that announcement 
will be made at the March board 
meeting. 

That position will take a year to 

be filled because what we need to 
do is to give the new president time 
to come in and sort of get the lay of 
the land. The permanent provost 
will be picked by the next president 
because the relationship between 
the president and the provost is 
really important, and that person is 
critical to the efficient and effective 
running of the University. 

 
I’m thrilled with the interim 

that we’re going to be announcing 
and just really so grateful to Susan 
Collins because she stepped in at a 
time of need for the University and 
has served admirably as provost for 
the last couple of years. 

TMD: Will the interim provost 

be an internal or external hire? 

MSC: You can’t do an external 

search in the few weeks that I’ve had, 
so you can assume that it’s internal. 
If it were external, we would have 
had to do an announcement, and 
we’d have to have a big search 
committee. I did shut down the 
search for the permanent provost, 
and we disbanded the committee. I 
talked to the committee so that they 
understood why I didn’t want them 
to go through all that work because I 
thought we needed a good solution 
for the next year. We really want 

to give maximum flexibility to the 
new president, and this does that, so 
I’m very happy with the outcome, but 
we’re still in the negotiation process.

TMD: I know you mentioned 

this briefly in your introduction, 
but what are your thoughts on 
the 
recommendations 
from 
the 

Presidential 
Commission 
on 

Carbon 
Neutrality? 
Are 
these 

recommendations a priority when 
looking for a future president?

MSC: Absolutely. The commitment 

of carbon neutrality is a University 
commitment. It’s not my commitment, 
it’s not a personal commitment 
from the President, it is a University 
commitment. 

Let me give a little bit about my 

background. My husband and I put 
solar panels on our house here, even 
though there’s not that much sun, just 
because we believe in it. We have an 
electric car because we believe that we 
have to personally reduce our carbon 
footprint. So I was so happy when I 
came and saw those recommendations 
from the committee and the fact 
that the University has has already 
begun to act on them. We’re going to 
build the Geothermal Facility up on 
North Campus, which I think will be 
groundbreaking. It’s really wonderful. 
The fact that we’re going out and getting 
the electric buses right away, and we’re 
trying to think about electrifying the 
fleet — all that’s going to take time. 
We’ve put about $5 million into trying 
to have LED bulbs across campus to 
reduce that energy use. There are all 
these things that we can do, and I hope 
that students will see what they can do 
to reduce their carbon footprint. We’re 
all part of this, and we all have to make 
an effort. I can’t imagine a president 
coming in not committing to carbon 
neutrality because this is such a high-
profile program for the institution. 
I’m assuming the search committee 
will probe that question. This has 
been happening at universities all 
over the country, so yes, I know that 
commitment to carbon neutrality will 
probably be there. That will be one of 
the factors that the Presidential Search 
Committee will question candidates 
about.

TMD: Could you speak more on 

other current initiatives from the 
recommendations that are in action 
right now?

MSC: We have a whole list. We just 

issued some bonds and $300 million of 
those bonds are going to be for green 
investments. We’re putting our money 
where our mouth is, and we really want 
to promote those efforts. I know the 
University is in discussion right now 
about a big solar farm and expanding 
that to renewable power agreements 
through DTE. We want to make sure 
what we’re sourcing through the energy 
companies is as green as it can possibly 
be. There are multiple initiatives going 
on across the institution, and in the next 
year or so, students will see more of that 
rolling out.

TMD: We always like to end these 

interviews with a fun, light-hearted 
question, so what’s the one thing on 
campus that you’ve missed the most? 

MSC: Oh, the students. During my 

tenure as university president before 
2014, we had these Fireside Chats; 
E. Royster Harper, who was the vice 
president for student life at the time, and 
I would do these together. Her office 
would invite students to come, so the 
students who came had an invitation, 
and we would normally invite students 
who were upset about something and 
had something to complain about 
because we thought, ‘come on in and 
talk,’ and so we had these over in the 
Union. They were usually four o’clock 
in the afternoon, and we’d have cookies 
and punch. At the end of the day, I 
would always think, ‘Oh, I’m so tired. 
I’m going to go to this session,’ but it was 
so much fun and so interesting that at 
five o’clock, when that session was over, 
I was completely re-energized again 
because it was just fun. Those sessions, 
even though people maybe had a 
complaint or something was wrong, we 
always had really good and interesting 
discussions. They weren’t complaint 
sessions at all, and they didn’t end up 
that way at all. I learned a lot about 
student life and what students were 
experiencing and how they felt about 
Michigan. 

One of the things that always just 

astonished me about the University 
is how students get connected to the 
place and how they love the place. It 
was very inspiring. So I missed that the 
most. 

Editor-in-Chief Jasmin Lee and 

Daily News Editor George Weykamp 
can be reached at itsshlee@umich.edu 
and gweykamp@umich.edu

‘WE HAVE TO’
From Page 1

CAMPUS LIFE

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

The descendants of late 

artist Lo Chia-Lun donated 
a Chinese calligraphy collec-
tion valued at over $12 million 
to the University of Michigan 
Museum of Art in January 
2022, making it the largest art 
donation in the museum’s his-
tory.

The collection is composed 

of works created by colleagues 
of Lo Chia-Lun, a leader of 
China’s May Fourth Move-
ment — an anti-imperialist 

movement that started after 
student protests in Beijing 
in May 1919 — including Cai 
Yuanpei, Chen Duxiu and Shen 
Yinmo. Works by other artists 
and cultural figures such as Xu 
Beihong and Zhang Daqian are 
also included in the collection. 
The collection includes a total 
of 72 pieces, with art from the 
Yuan, Ming and Qing dynas-
ties, spanning from the years 
1271 to 1911. 

Assistant professor of Chi-

nese arts and cultures Lihong 
Liu explained in an email to 
The Michigan Daily the sig-
nificance of calligraphy in 

Chinese culture throughout 
history. The art form can be 
traced back to the Eastern Han 
period — 25-220 C.E. — when 
people began to create treatis-
es on calligraphy. 

“It was this time the so-

called ‘cursive script’ (caoshu) 
became popular, marking a 
highly personal expression in 
calligraphy, with an unimped-
ed flow of energy across the 
linear 
movement 
instigated 

not only by the body, but also 
by an inner urge,” Liu wrote. 

News
Wednesday, March 9, 2022 — 3

ADMINISTRATION

 UMMA receives $12 million collection 
donation, largest in museum’s history

MADISON KRAFT

Daily Staff Reporter

Over 70 pieces of Chinese calligraphy pieces added to University 

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Design by Serena Shen

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Content warning: mentions of 

sexual assault

Over 1,300 University of Michi-

gan community members attend-
ed the annual TEDxUofM event 
Friday at the Power Center for 
Performing Arts with the theme 
SHATTERPROOF. Eight speak-
ers from across the University of 
Michigan community presented 
10-15 minute talks on topics relat-
ed to resilience and withstanding 
adversity. In addition to the talks, 

the event included musical perfor-
mances from Gmen and Groove, 
two music student groups on 
campus. 

Returning to an in-person 

event this year, TEDxUofM is a 
student-run initiative inspired 
by TED, but independently 
organized by U-M students. 
Throughout the event, Univer-
sity-affiliated 
presentations, 

performances and speakers 
discuss ideas across different 
disciplines, while all connect-
ing to a specific theme. The 
conference first launched in 
Ann Arbor in 2010, and has 
occurred annually since. 

LSA senior Amala Nayak, 

one of the co-directors of the 
event, told The Michigan Daily 
that organizing this event was 
gratifying because the process 
was very collaborative.

“It’s so rewarding to know 

that you are creating an event 
that people really care about 
and are excited to go to,” Nayak 
said. “I just love how dedicated 
our team is … I think we’ve 
done a really good job of creat-
ing a collaborative community 
this year.” 

TEDx event discusses meaning of 

‘shatterproof’ in 13th annual conference

CARLY BRECHNER 

& SEJAL PETIL

Daily Staff Reporter’s

Eight speakers focus on topics ranging from 

renewable energy to storytelling to mindfulness in media

 UMich students, healthcare professionals reflect on STI testing on campus

 Community members speak on reproductive health culture

ISABELLA KASSA
Daily Staff Reporter

With hookup culture and dis-

cussions on sex as common themes 
on college campuses across the 
nation, it’s important to know: how 
is reproductive health valued at the 
University of Michigan? 

In 2019, the University Health 

Services (UHS) discontinued free 
testing for sexual transmitted 
Infections (STIs) until students 
advocated for the need of these free 
and confidential services, leading 
to the program being reinstated 
months later. Since then, STI testing 
has increased at the University but 
what has changed? The Daily spoke 

with students and experts on the 
current state of STI testing and how 
reproductive health can continue to 
improve on campus. 

Dr. Susan Ernst, chief of Gyne-

cology Services at UHS, wrote in 
an email to The Michigan Daily 
that since September 2021, UHS 
has tested just under 2,700 students 
with appointments, and an addi-

tional 8,700 through asymptom-
atic testing, which screens for the 
most common STIs. Ernst also 
wrote that UHS has seen a 23% 
increase in the number of serious 
cases this year.

“We’re finding increased rates 

of STI this year compared to last 
year,” Dr. Ernst wrote. “Specifi-
cally we’ve noted an increase in 

the rate of chlamydia, gonorrhea 
and mycoplasma infections and 
in the more serious (infections) 
for people with a uterus – Pelvic 
Inflammatory Disease, or PID.”

STI testing at the University has 

also increased by over 40% since 
last year, according to Michigan 
Medicine health professionals. One 
of the students who tested positive 

for chlamydia in 2021 shared their 
experience with The Daily. The 
student has requested anonymity 
to preserve the confidentiality of 
their medical record and will be 
referred to as Sam for the rest of 
the story.

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

