On
Tuesday,
March
7,
University President Santa Ono
gave his inaugural address to
the
University
of
Michigan.
In it, he focused on setting an
optimistic tone for his term,
outlining his plans for DEI 2.0,
achieving carbon neutrality and
restoring the health of the U-M
community. Through these bold
ideas, he successfully energized
students and professors, ushering
in a new era of leadership.
While the plans he discussed
represent critical components
of
the
University’s
long-
term success, his speech was
noticeably light on details for
short-term
improvements
that could make an immediate
impact on student life. Though
the University is known for its
bold projects and wide reach,
an
overemphasis
on
major
initiatives can often detract from
basic improvements that are
easier to achieve but still highly
impactful. As Ono embarks on
his first term, it’s imperative that
he not allow the administration’s
long-term focus to lessen its
involvement
in
smaller-scale
campus issues.
One of the first areas the
administration
could
make
an immediate impact on is
hiring resources. While certain
colleges, such as the Ross School
of Business, have access to
extensive resources, including
school-specific portals, industry-
tailored
career
counseling
and
numerous
major-specific
recruiting events, many of the
University’s other schools and
colleges lack similar support.
Though
promoting
student
recruitment
is
critical
for
the University, it has made
surprisingly little progress in
allocating resources to other
schools.
Even
in
popular
departments
like
economics
and computer science, where
students
achieve
starting
salaries well above the median
U-M undergraduate, most hiring
is self-directed, with limited
U-M involvement. The gaps in
recruiting support across those
majors are primarily filled by
student organizations such as
consulting groups and project
teams, but other majors lack
similar resources.
In departments with more
niche
recruiting
processes
and smaller alumni networks,
students are often left grasping
for
career
guidance.
With
professors
serving
as
major
advisors
for
most
students,
undergraduates
not
pursuing
academia often lack insight into
industry recruiting processes.
Since most professors haven’t
worked outside academia, they’re
typically ill-equipped to provide
the type of support students need
for other career paths.
In order to improve U-M-wide
recruitment,
administrators
should
hire
more
industry-
specific career counselors for
each department and allocate
greater
funding
toward
organizing
recruiting
events
that bring employers to campus.
As one of the top universities
in the country, U-M graduates
are highly sought after across
industries, so the University
has an opportunity to make a
tremendous
impact
through
a concerted effort to connect
more company recruiters with
U-M students. In addition, by
offering industry-specific career
counseling,
students
would
have the opportunity to meet
with
counselors
who
better
understand recruiting timelines
and networking strategies for
their desired fields.
Implementing
these
basic
strategies
could
have
an
immediate impact on current
undergraduates and significantly
boost the value of a U-M degree.
Further,
compared
to
other
long-term initiatives like carbon
neutrality, the cost of hiring
additional
counselors
and
restructuring
hiring
support
is relatively low, making it an
easy area for the University to
dedicate resources.
Another critical area where the
University falls short is its merit
scholarship offerings. Though
the University maintains an
extensive financial aid program,
it has only a small number of
merit
scholarships
available.
Especially when competing with
other top universities for student
talent, these programs serve
as critical differentiators that
convince top students to attend
the University. In addition to
their financial support, programs
like the Stamps Scholarship offer
students
individual
research
budgets and internship funding
that enable them to thrive at the
University.
Sadly,
with
the
Stamps
Scholarship being phased out
and the Bell Scholarship and
Bentley Scholarship among the
few remaining at the University,
most departments lack access to
scholarship budgets that could
help existing students and bring
additional talent to colleges. In
order to revitalize this critical
component of the University’s
undergraduate experience, the
administration
should
work
with donors and college heads
to create department-specific
scholarships for students. By
doing so, the University would
have an opportunity to cultivate
talent through specialized grants
supporting
undergraduate
research, internships and other
programs.
The final area where the
University
should
dedicate
immediate
attention
is
the
ongoing
professor
shortage
across
departments.
As
the
student body has grown rapidly,
several
popular
departments
have been unable to keep up with
hiring goals. As a result, many
professors have been forced to
teach increasingly large lectures,
with
individualized
student
attention suffering as a result.
Opinion
President Ono, let’s focus on
immediate problems alongside
long-term initiatives
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
7 — Wednesday, March 22, 2023
NIKHIL SHARMA
Opinion Columnist
Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.
SHANNON STOCKING
AND KATE WEILAND
Co-Editors in Chief
QUIN ZAPOLI AND
JULIAN BARNARD
Editorial Page Editors
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
Ammar Ahmad
Julian Barnard
Brandon Cowit
Jess D’Agostino
Ben Davis
Shubhum Giroti
Devon Hesano
Jack Kapcar
Sophia Lehrbaum
Olivia Mouradian
Siddharth Parmar
Rushabh Shah
Zhane Yamin
Nikhil Sharma
Lindsey Spencer
Evan Stern
Anna Trupiano
Jack Tumpowsky
Alex Yee
Quin Zapoli
JULIA VERKLAN AND
ZOE STORER
Managing Editors
Debates
on the
Diag
A
ltruism
is
a
characteristic
that
all graduate schools
seek in potential candidates.
It’s a soft skill that admissions
committees
find
in
students’
essays, extracurricular activities,
letters
of
recommendation,
interviews and lived experiences.
After all, the way you use your
free time says a lot about what
you truly value and how you
will contribute to your future
profession.
Historically,
the
most straightforward and sure-
fire way undergraduates have
demonstrated
a
commitment
to serving others is through
volunteering. For the past three
years, for example, 92% of the
University of Michigan Medical
School’s incoming class had at least
one community service experience
listed on their application.
While there is no hard and
fast rule about what kind of
volunteering looks the best on an
application, the competitiveness
of graduate school admissions
has driven students to pursue
larger-than-life and disingenuous
volunteering
projects.
Volunteering at local food banks,
nursing homes, hospitals and
homeless shelters is no longer
enough for aspiring professionals;
when everyone and their second
cousin is logging their hours at
local organizations, many have felt
compelled to take their free labor
to places that will score them more
brownie points. And thus, pre-med
students have joined in the trend
of voluntourism, a form of tourism
in which travelers participate
in volunteer work. Developing
nations, in particular, are most
affected by these undergraduate
“saviors,” although the net impact
of their “charity” work is often
severely overestimated.
Various pre-medical, pre-law
and other pre-graduate school
clubs
and
organizations
on
campus host alternative Spring
Break trips and short summer
trips to underserved areas to give
their members an opportunity
to gain volunteer experience.
The U-M pre-medical club, for
example, hosts a whopping eight-
day
alternative
Spring
Break
trip to the Dominican Republic
each year. Students participate in
health education advocacy, the
installation of water filters and
the construction of structures
that promote health. While well-
intentioned, trips like these don’t
do much to actually affect the
long-lasting change that local
communities
need.
Instead,
students purchase plane tickets
worth hundreds of dollars for
a trip during a convenient time
for them to witness enough
disparities to blast on social media
as a pivotal “I’m more aware now”
moment. With the majority of the
University’s student population
being both white and in the top
20% for family income (as of 2017),
I doubt that students have the
language and professional skills
to truly connect with indigenous
populations and build lasting
structures.
In fact, a study of 162 Americans
conducted after 1998’s Hurricane
Mitch found that years after the
Honduran natural disaster, their
work in building houses didn’t
even make a difference. Instead,
the houses that didn’t fall over
were given a price tag 10 times
the annual salary of the average
Honduran. It was also found
that 15 times more houses could
have been constructed had the
Americans donated money instead
of their time. And, sometimes, the
damage from voluntourists had to
be rectified by locals themselves.
M-Heal,
an
engineering-
focused club of over 250 students,
prides itself on innovating health
care technologies intended for
underserved
communities
in
countries like Ghana, Bangladesh
and Mexico. However, many of
their annual service projects occur
during a series of one-week Spring
Breaks. It is not believable that a
group of 10-15 students can both
gauge the landscape of health care
needs of an entire community and
“uncover” disparities from a days-
long trip they are centered in.
While
M-Heal
does
have
partnerships
with
local
organizations
in
their
target
countries and spends the rest of
the year designing technologies,
their trips do not adequately
entrench their group into the
communities’ long-term needs.
While it is quite venerable of them
to have designed perioperative
warming
devices,
portable
exam tables and solar fridges,
a community may have acutely
different health care challenges in
the span of just a few months. The
2014 Ebola epidemic illustrates
this discrepancy. For over three
years, West African countries were
fighting a lethal and potent virus
— one that had treatment centers
overflowing
and
physicians
rationing care. Collegiate health
care and biotechnology groups
previously working on projects
related to, say, surgical innovations
for this region, were deaf to the
larger climate of infectious disease
transmissibility and the precedent
effect it would have.
In their Michigan in Color
column “The Problem with white
saviorism,”
columnist
Victoria
Tan
succinctly
characterizes
organizations like M-Heal when
she writes, “People participating
in white savior behavior may also
presume that they know better
and hold all the solutions because
their higher education makes them
intellectually superior. However,
it is more complicated than that.
The issues the residents have been
dealing with are not ones that can
be fixed in a three-week getaway
because they are the consequences
of much more intricate problems.”
They continue to cite author Pippa
Biddle, who notes that during a
high school service trip to Africa,
her bricks were relayed in the night
by local Tanzanians altogether so
that the resulting buildings would
stand correctly.
While many other campus-
specific examples remain, one
common truth stands: the money
used to cover lodging, travel
and
accommodation
fees
for
voluntourists would be much
better
spent
supporting
local
leaders whose physical presence
can work to enact the grassroots
change communities need. In
the same vein, supporting local
leaders shifts resources back onto
the shoulders that know how
to use them best. In this way,
global aid is done with reverence
to the thoughts, opinions and
independence
of
the
local
community.
The
pandemic
was
an
opportunity to see another way
to run volunteering missions.
International service organizations
switched many of their positions
to fully remote work, changing
the invasive relationship between
international
volunteers
and
underserved communities. New
tasks such as online fundraising,
advocacy and administration from
volunteers thousands of miles
away contributed greatly to the
efforts in host sites. For example,
Habitat for Humanity, a Christian
non-governmental
organization
focused
on
building
houses,
hosted successful “virtual builds”
during
the
pandemic
where
volunteers connected asylees with
information, coordinated staffing
and raised money — all from their
own homes.
But
online
volunteering
is
just one way to put an end to
treating projects in developing
nations as an accessory. From
Ann
Arbor,
students
can
produce
journalism
covering
global disparities, organize food
drives, lobby for foreign aid to
underserved places, engage in
workshops or advocacy panels,
contribute
to
socioeconomic
disparities research and even
learn threatened languages. Not
only are the possibilities to effect
change from home endless, but
local efforts also do not force aid;
they redirect acknowledgements
to on-the-ground volunteers and
they place you where you are most
useful. I’m confident that the
interpersonal skills and experience
garnered from the aforementioned
initiatives will do just as much of
a service for undergrads’ future
endeavors as a short mission trip.
We would find it bizarre
if
college
students
from
impoverished countries spent eight
days volunteering at the Maize and
Blue Cupboard, and then offensive
if they later wrote about their
experience in graduate school
applications as taking part in a
heroic and life-changing endeavor
for voiceless Americans. With this
all-too-manufactured
narrative
about
“helping
impoverished
people abroad” in mind, consider
ways to make a difference in your
home community. After all, local
impact over four years ultimately
empowers you to see projects
through to the end — long after
you’ve submitted your application
to grad school.
Voluntourism won’t get you
into grad school
MOSES NELAPUDI
Opinion Columnist
Design by Hannah Wilingham
Design by Joanne Jung
Flowers won’t do
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