At the June Board of Regents
meeting, it was announced that
Regent Paul Brown (D) would
succeed Regent Jordan Acker (D) as
Chair of the University of Michigan’s
Board of Regents for the 2022-2023
academic year. The Michigan Daily
sat down with Brown, who officially
assumed his new role on July 1, to
discuss his goals for his tenure as
chair, the presidential transition and
more. This interview has been edited
and condensed for clarity.
The Michigan Daily: As we
head into the fall semester, what
are your personal goals for your
term as Chair of the Board of
Regents?
Paul Brown: Going into fall
semester, my number one goal is a
safe and smooth entry for all the
students, especially those who
have had to experience some of
the inconveniences of the COVID
period. We may only have another
year with them on campus, and
we really want to make sure that
experience is the full Michigan
experience that we have to offer. I
recognize those were really, really
hard times for everyone and I hope
that they don’t have to experience
it again.
Some of the goals I have just as a
regent are, number one, to provide
a world-class education to all of our
students at an affordable rate. Now,
affordability is different for every
student. As you’ll notice, with our
last budget that we approved, we
had a tuition increase. But that
tuition increase is really designed
to make Michigan more affordable
to everyone, whether it be to those
who are fortunate to have a home
with a high family income or those
that are not. State government
has
obviously
decreased
its
contribution percentage to higher
education. It’s been left to the
universities to redistribute that
wealth. So it’s really important to
me that we are disciplined in our
cost structure and also progressive
in our fee structure. I think we’re
doing a very good job at achieving
at least the latter.
Again,
COVID-19,
and
the
shutdown that occurred because of
it, gave us a vision of different ways
to provide education, different
ways to provide student experience
and different ways to provide
mental health services to students.
I hope and want to make sure that
we use those lessons to increase
efficiency as well as improve the
services that we provide to the
students.
TMD: As Robert Sellers retires
from his position as chief diversity
officer, how do you expect the
role will change during Tabbye
M. Chavous’ time in that position?
How do you think Chavous will
uphold Sellers’ legacy, especially as
we shift to DEI 2.0?
PB: A lot of it is to be determined.
Robert did an amazing job of really
building the program from the
ground up. And that was a huge
Herculean effort that he had to do to
achieve that. I really think we have
a good foundation and structures
throughout the institution. I would
say that because so much work has
been done to build the structures,
there wasn’t enough progress in
creating diversity, whether it be
the actual objective numbers that
equal diversity in some metrics,
or the actual climate on campus,
and that’s understandable because
it was just building it from the
ground up.
Now, what I’ve encouraged
When LSA sophomore Josie Conti
first stepped foot onto the University
of Michigan’s campus last fall, she
immediately started looking for ways
to connect with other Native American
students, a group that makes up just 1%
of the undergraduate population at the
University as of fall 2021. Conti, who
identifies as Cherokee, has since found
a place in the Native American Student
Association (NASA). This past summer,
Conti and 14 other U-M students
had the opportunity to connect with
various Indigenous tribes in northern
Michigan on the University’s first ever
Native American Student Trip.
The trip, which took place in
August, was sponsored by the Office of
Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs (MESA)
and NASA, who hoped this would be
the first of many trips to Indigenous
communities. The trip took place Aug.
11 to 14 and allowed the participants to
travel to various locations in northern
Michigan where they visited native
cultural sites, met with tribal elders
and attended the 29th annual Odawa
Homecoming Pow Wow — an annual
celebration organized by the Little
Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians
that takes place in Harbor Springs.
Conti, the secretary of NASA, took
part in planning the trip over the
summer. She said her Native American
roots stem from Oklahoma and that
in Ohio, where she lives now, there is
little Native American presence. Conti
said the trip helped expose her to the
culture of native tribes outside of the
Cherokee.
“It was really cool because I’m not
associated with a Michigan tribe, so it’s
really cool to learn some cultural facts
about native tribes that are outside of
your own,” Conti said. “It’s different
because where I spent the last few
years, there is not a very heavy Native
American community presence. The
Pow Wow we went to was huge, it was
a huge community gathering. There
was a very large Native presence.”
The students who went on the
trip to northern Michigan were all
members of NASA, and they were
able to participate in community
discussions with the tribes they visited.
Along the way, the students also had
the opportunity to meet with the Little
Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians
and the Burt Lake Band.
“NASA is really awesome because
I am learning a lot about Native
Americans in general,” Conti said. “I
don’t (usually) have the ability or the
opportunity to sit in and have lunch
with 20 or 30 other people who share
some of my heritage. It’s amazing.”
Co-chair of NASA Zoi Crampton,
Environment & Sustainability and
Art & Design senior, said one of the
main goals of the trip was to foster
connections between U-M students
and Indigenous communities. She
said NASA membership has been
steadily growing over the past couple
of years, which hopefully represents
an increased interest in Indigenous
culture at the University.
“I thought it was important to foster
community building,” Crampton said.
“We’ve been getting a little bit bigger
each year in the past couple of years
with NASA. So it’s kind of important to
get comfortable with one another and
kind of establish those relationships
and hope to carry that out through the
school year.”
MESA
Program
Manager
Andrea Wilkerson also helped plan
and attended the trip. Wilkerson,
who identifies as Native American,
graduated from the University in 2012
and was a part of NASA when she
was an undergraduate. Though she
started having conversations about
the possibility of a Native American
Student Trip in the fall of 2020, the
planning process was put on hold
during the pandemic. At the beginning
of this past summer, NASA and MESA
picked up right where they had left off
and started coordinating the in-person
trip once again.
“(MESA) builds lots of relationships
with student organizations like NASA,”
Wilkerson said. “Being the (NASA)
adviser and being in the (Indigenous)
community (means) knowing some
different experiences that students
would be interested in and working
closely with the NASA leadership over
the last three years … (until) things
became extraordinarily more safe to be
able to make that trip out of town.”
Wilkerson said one of her favorite
activities on the trip was a visit to the
University’s Biological Station and the
nearby Burt Lake Band property in
Brutus, MI. There, students were able
to engage with the Burt Lake Band
tribe and visit a garden the tribe refers
to as Izhi-Minoging Mashkikiwan,
or the “Place Where Medicines Grow
Well.” The garden, which includes
a variety of symbolic plants used for
medical and ceremonial purposes, was
designed in part by past U-M students
in collaboration with the tribe.
Ask almost any student who
attended the University of Michigan
in the past decade to tell you about
“Billy Magic,” and they will regale
you with tales of their freshman
orientation — of sitting in a stuffy
assembly hall and watching “The
Michigan Transportation Musical.”
The student-directed musical has
been shown since 2012 to inform
students about the “magic” of the
bus system at the University.
But for the past two years, the
video
has
been
conspicuously
missing from freshman orientation,
leaving older students with one
question: where did Billy Magic go?
The musical was written by
Music, Theatre & Dance alumna
Emily Lyon in 2012 through a
student-run production company
called Filmic. It is a PSA-style
musical sharing tips and tricks
for getting around campus with
freshmen. The musical includes
the U-M Blue Buses, the Ann
Arbor public bus system known as
“TheRide” (AATATA) and other safe
transportation options for students.
The video features a charismatic
character
named
Billy
Magic
who embodies an unparalleled
enthusiasm for mass transit and
teaches his co-star “the Kid” about
it. Billy has ascended to “meme-
status”
among
students
who
watched the video at orientation,
appearing in various memes, posts
and accounts on social media, even
dominating the splash screen of
campus Facebook group UMich
Memes for Wolverteens for a time.
The last time new students were
introduced to Billy, however, was
in the summer of 2020, though
orientation
was
virtual.
The
video was not played at freshman
orientation in 2021, and did not
make a return this summer either.
The musical’s absence will be felt
by the community, upperclassmen
say, though it is unclear how many
students still remember Billy on
campus today. LSA senior Noor
Khan watched Billy Magic when
she first came to campus as a
freshman three years ago. She said it
is hard to think the past two years’
incoming freshmen have missed out
on what was, for so many years, an
instrumental part of orientation.
“The fact that the freshmen
for the past two years haven’t had
that experience is a little crazy
to imagine because I feel like, as
small and short as that clip was, it
was definitely a part of Michigan
culture,” Khan said.
Engineering
junior
Ethan
Kopicko
does
not
remember
Billy Magic, though he would
have
included
the
Michigan
Transportation Musical as part of
his online orientation materials.
He said he learned to navigate the
University’s bus system through the
third-party app, Reddit, instead of
with Billy’s help. He said he watched
a video about the transportation
system, which he thinks might have
been the Billy Magic video, but is not
certain
“I didn’t go out of my way to look
at what the University was saying
about
(campus
transportation)
because my solution for a lot of stuff
has been literally looking on Reddit,”
Kopicko said. “That’s where I got my
information from.”
University
spokesman
Rick
Fitzgerald wrote in an email to The
Michigan Daily that Billy Magic was
removed from this year’s orientation
since the video includes outdated
information from 2012 that may
confuse incoming students. Still,
Fitzgerald acknowledged the impact
of the video and the historic role it
has played in orientation.
“It’s amazing that The Michigan
Transportation Video, originally
released in 2012, still has such a
huge fan base among students,”
Fitzgerald said. “We truly appreciate
the love that everyone has for Billy
Magic and all of those involved in
the video.”
Kopicko is not the only one to
have sought external resources
when
attempting
to
navigate
U-M busing. In 2021, Engineering
sophomore Efe Akinci created an
unofficial app, M-Bus, which tracks
Michigan Blue Buses and lists
expected arrival times. The app had
650 downloads after just one day on
the Apple App Store.
According to LSA freshman
Alyssa Peek, instead of watching
Billy Magic’s performance this year,
the University provided her with
QR codes for information about
utilizing the Blue Bus system at
orientation. She had never heard of
Billy.
“They just told us about the
different apps and that was it,” Peek
said. “They said ‘Download these
two apps and you will find your way
to the buses. It was short and sweet.”
Fitzgerald
added
that
the
orientation team collaborated with
Logistics, Transportation & Parking
on the orientation presentation this
year to create a section that focuses
on buses and other transportation
options. The presentation includes
information about the U-M Blue
Bus system, TheRide and other
on-demand transportation services
such as SafeRide, according to
Fitzgerald. It’s all of the same
information,
just
without
the
“Magic.”
Khan said she will not forget
about Billy anytime soon. Almost
ten years’ worth of U-M students
will have graduated with the shared
memory of Billy, ensuring that
for them at least, he will remain a
cornerstone of campus culture.
“Billy Magic was kind of a
symbol, a bit of an icon, that you
experience during your freshman
year,” Khan said. “I haven’t seen that
video in three years, but I vividly
remember it.”
Daily
Staff
Reporter
Sarah
Williams can be reached at smwi@
umich.edu.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, September 14, 2022 — 3
Beloved transportation musical removed
from first-year orientation programming
SARAH WILLIAMS
Daily Staff Reporter
NEWS
Q&A with Regent Paul Brown on presidential transition, UMich athletics
RILEY HODDER
Daily Staff Reporter
NEWS
U-M community visits
Indigenous groups in
northern Michigan, connects
with culture and tradition
RACHEL MINTZ
Daily Staff Reporter
ROSS, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
“I don’t understand why there’s
zero COVID exceptions, because
we’re definitely expected to not go
to class if we’re sick,” Sam said.
The syllabus specifically lists
religious
obligations,
funeral
attendance and athletic travel as
reasons students are likely to be
excused from more than three
classes; COVID-related absences
are not listed.
That’s a change from last year,
when RIS course syllabi specified
that the three absence policy
referred to absences for career
recruiting, events and “non-COVID
related illnesses.” According to
the 2021 RIS syllabi, students with
COVID-19 were asked to email RIS
faculty to get their illness-related
absences excused separately, which
is no longer an option to students
this year.
The change is leaving students
like Sam who contracted COVID-
19 during the first week of classes
concerned that their illness will
count against their attendance
record. With two strikes already,
and the possibility of subsequent
absences, Sam fears for their
participation grades in the future.
“I understand you’ll be fine if
you only get COVID once, but then
it’s so likely that someone might
get COVID (again) or the flu or
something crazy and miss two
more classes,” Sam said.
Business
junior
Pari
Patel
said she does not see why the
RIS policy was changed from
last year’s while the University’s
mandatory COVID-19 isolation
policy remains in effect. She also
emphasized that her professors
are not recording classes this
semester, potentially making it
more difficult for students who
are isolating to stay on top of their
coursework.
“I do think there will be COVID
outbreaks, so there should be
separate absences in case you get
sick,” Patel said. “Last year they
recorded classes, too … but this
year they don’t even do that.”
In the Fall 2020 semester, RIS
students were allowed to attend
class virtually without using up
an absence if they were unable
to come in person. That is not an
option this year, as there is no
way for students to join remotely.
Though the RIS syllabus does not
prohibit faculty from recording
lectures, in emails obtained by The
Daily from Business School faculty
to COVID-positive students, 2022
RIS standards do not support
sharing video lectures.
When asked to clarify whether
or not RIS faculty can record
lectures for sick students this fall,
University
spokeswoman
Kim
Broekhuizen did not answer.
When asked about the policy
in general, Broekhuizen said it
aligns with University isolation
guidelines. She said the University
is encouraging faculty to be
flexible with students who test
positive for COVID-19 especially
at the beginning of the year.
“On a decentralized campus,
there is of course variability
between schools and colleges
on how absences are discussed
and handled,” Broekhuizen said.
“Faculty are encouraged to be
flexible in their expectations as
community
health
conditions
continue to evolve, particularly
over the first few weeks of the
semester.”
Still, Sam said they are not
confident they would be able
to miss a RIS class again this
semester without penalty. It’s
a Catch-22 situation, though,
Sam said, because their course
syllabi also suggest they could be
punished for coming to class in
person if they are sick. In each
of the individual syllabi for RIS
courses,
except
for
Business
Communications, there is a shared
“Health
and
Safety”
section,
which asks students to adhere
to campus health and safety
measures. If students violate those
measures and come to RIS classes
sick, they may also face academic
repercussions, according to their
syllabi.
“Your ability to participate in
your courses in-person as well as
your grade may be impacted by
failure to comply with campus
safety
measures,”
the
syllabi
reads.
Sam said they are concerned
the combination of these policies
will lead Business students to not
take COVID-19 tests if they have
mild symptoms or have knowingly
been exposed to the virus.
“I definitely think people are
going to go to class with COVID,”
Sam said. “When I told my friend
I had COVID, she was like, ‘I’m
just never going to take another
COVID test.’”
With Washtenaw County at a
medium transmission community
level and University COVID-
19 isolation housing at 40%
occupancy after the first week of
classes, the virus continues to be
present in the campus community.
While testing is not required for
most students this fall, University
officials have been continuing to
encourage tests to mitigate the
spread of COVID-19.
When
asked
whether
the
Business School is at all concerned
that the policy might encourage
students to attend class in spite
of illness or refrain from testing,
Broekhuizen did not answer.
None of those recommendations
will
be
effective,
though,
if
students believe they have to make
a choice between their grades and
their health, Sam said.
“Ross is definitely more strict
than some other schools,” Sam
said. “I don’t really see how it’s
contributing to our education.”
Daily News Editor Roni Kane
can be reached at ronikane@umich.
edu.
Students reflect on campus icon Billy Magic, bus system education
First-ever trip organized by Native American Student
Association, Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs
The newly elected Chair discusses goals for upcoming year
NEWS
Design by Madison Grosvenor
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Read more at MichiganDaily.com