End the Cycle, a student 
organization at the University 
of Michigan working toward 
improving equity in Michigan 
schools, 
raised 
over 
$5,000 
during the winter semester to 
completely pay off student lunch 
debt at Carpenter and Allen 
Elementary 
Schools 
in 
Ann 
Arbor. 
End the Cycle was founded at 
the University in 2020 to address 
inequality in Ann Arbor schools, 
with the city being one of the 
most economically segregated 
in the nation. The organization 
provides virtual supplemental 
tutoring services to elementary 
students and organizes various 
committee projects. 
LSA senior Rija Awan is the 
co-founder and current president 
of End the Cycle. In an interview 
with 
The 
Michigan 
Daily, 
Awan said the organization was 
originally founded to address 
the impact of homelessness on 
students, though they have since 
expanded to helping underserved 
students from a greater variety of 
backgrounds.
“The original goal was to bridge 
the gap in educational disparity 
for students facing homelessness 
in Ann Arbor,” Awan said. “We’ve 
expanded to online tutoring 
for underserved students and 

then these committee projects … 
It’s a very community-engaged 
organization.”
End The Cycle has a committee 
centered around food insecurity, 
which 
is 
chaired 
by 
LSA 
sophomore Elizabeth White and 
led by LSA junior Zubaida Azeeza. 
In an interview with The Daily, 
Azeeza said they saw providing 
funds for school lunches as a step 
toward 
achieving 
educational 
equity within the district.
“We saw a TikTok, actually, 
about other schools paying off 
lunch debts and we thought 
that would be a great idea,” 
Azeeza said. “We know that food 
insecurity 
goes 
hand-in-hand 
with educational instability, and 
by making sure that a student has 
food, they’re less likely to drop 
out.”
Azeeza 
said 
she 
believes 
lunch debt can not only affect 
the students who cannot afford 
lunch, but can also lower the 
quality of educational resources 
at these schools if the school 
district has to cut into its budget 
to cover the accumulated debt.
“Students who aren’t part 
of the free and reduced lunch 
program can accumulate debt 
and the debt still has to be paid,” 
Azeeza said. “The school has 
to address it in some way, and 
that can cut into educational 
resources.

The Michigan Daily sat down with 
Martino Harmon, vice president 
for Student Life, to discuss student 
activism 
following 
international 
crises, how to find community at 
the University of Michigan with 
increasing 
enrollment 
numbers, 
the ongoing Graduate Employees’ 
Organization strike, sustainability 
initiatives and Diversity, Equity and 
Inclusion 2.0.
This interview has been edited and 
condensed for clarity.
Campus 
activism 
and 
experiences
The 
Michigan 
Daily: 
How 
has Student Life responded to 
international crises, such as the 
war in Ukraine and the earthquake 
in Turkey, that are important to 
the U-M campus community this 
semester?
Martino Harmon: So many 
tragedies happen in the world and 
in our country, so it’s good when the 
University community — students, 
faculty and staff who are concerned 
about these issues and how they 
impact members of our community 
— can come together. Specifically 
within Student Life, the Dean of 
Students Office serves as the point 
unit for support. They regularly run 
a list of students who may be from an 
affected area, and then they conduct 
specific outreach to those students. 
Outreach usually comes in the form 
of sensitivity toward what happened 
and how that event may have 
affected students, and then pointing 
them towards support that could 
be in the form of Counseling and 
Psychological Services, Wolverine 
Wellness or other more specific 
services.
TMD: 
With 
the 
Graduate 
Employees’ Organization currently 
on strike, how do you balance your 

commitment to the student body 
with your responsibilities to U-M 
administration during times of 
tension as the VP of student life?
MH: For myself and all members 
of the administration, our primary 
concern is for the success of all of our 
students. We want students to have 
a positive experience, even through 
this difficult and challenging time. 
It’s difficult because the GEO strike 
is a labor negotiation that involves 
students, but it’s important for us 
to make sure that we can continue 
operations as much as possible, 
although this is very disruptive. 
We 
want 
to 
make 
sure 
our 
undergraduate students receive the 
services through Student Life and 
that Academic Affairs is focused on 
continuing the classroom experience 
and the academic experience. Our 
position is that the best way to 
resolve this issue is at the bargaining 
table — that’s where the issues have 
to be resolved. Student Life’s role 
is not to be at the bargaining table, 
but our role is to support all of our 
students.
TMD: As the University continues 
to accept more freshmen and build 
more housing to accommodate 
students, how does Student Life plan 
to make all students feel involved in 
a large and growing community?
MH: The really beautiful part 
about the University of Michigan is 
we are a large and comprehensive 
institution and students have a lot 
of different opportunities to make 
connections and to get involved — 
there are really no limits to what 
students can experience. But we 
also work very diligently to make 
the community feel smaller, to help 
students make those connections 
during the welcome period. It’s 
really several weeks of different 
activities like Festifall, the UMix 
events in the Michigan Union or 
events that may be held by student 
organizations that we host through 
our Center for Campus Involvement 
that make a difference. In reference 
to housing, we actually are planning 

to build more housing, not just 
because of the growth of the first-
year class of students, but to have 
more beds for students who want 
to continue to live with us beyond 
their first year. Research shows that 
living on campus, whether it’s your 
first year or even your second year, 
is very beneficial to students making 
connections, to overall student 
development and just to student 
support in general. 
Student health and safety
TMD: How is Student Life 
accommodating 
students 
who 
feel unsafe on campus and how 
do you believe the University can 
prioritize the health and safety 
of these students following the 
tragic shooting at Michigan State 
University?
MH: The shooting at MSU 

is really such a tragic situation 
that really touched many people 
in the community on a personal 
level. We’ve had too many of these 
incidents of mass shootings across 
the country, but this one was really 
close to home. In Student Life, our 
first reaction was to find ways to 
communicate to students that we 
were certainly there for them in 
terms of support — whether it be 
through CAPS, Wolverine Wellness 
or all of our departments — in 
formal ways, but also in informal 
ways. Also, we launched a series 
of communications that went to 
students, and also communications 
to parents and family members, to let 
them know that support is available. 
We included links to the Division of 
Public Safety and Security and some 
of the measures that they were taking 

to keep the campus safe because 
people need to feel supportive, but 
they also need to feel safe. We also 
launched a teletherapy program, 
which we piloted in the fall — it’s 
called Uwill. This program provides 
counseling services through virtual 
services from counselors across the 
country, which provides an option 
for students in addition to CAPS 
counseling and Wolverine Wellness. 
Sustainability and DEI
TMD: In light of the University 
recently meeting two of its 2025 
sustainability goals, how is the 
University planning to adapt their 
goals to keep pushing forward? 
MH: Moving forward, the new 
dorm on Elbel field will have a dining 
center 
that 
uses 
GeoExchange 
heating and cooling, and also all 
electric cooking equipment. Within 

the building, we’re planning for a lot 
of solar installations as well. Student 
Life has taken a more formal role in 
supporting Student Sustainability 
Coalition, through providing staff 
support and also budgetary support. 
I’ve been able to go to a few of their 
events — I went to the Farm Stand 
and also Harvest Fest, and also their 
leadership 
summit. 
Supporting 
that organization is really critical 
because it’s tied to our mission of 
directly supporting students. We 
also work closely with Graham 
Sustainability Institute as well as 
the Office of Campus Sustainability. 
We’re not just sort of off on our own; 
we’re partnering with other units 
within the University to reach our 
sustainability goals. 

On an intricately-patterned mat 

in the School of Public Health at the 

University of Michigan lay dozens of 

instruments: Tibetan singing bowls, 

gongs and chimes, as well as hammers 

of all shapes and sizes. As eight U-M 

students laid down in Shavasana — a 

resting yoga pose — practitioners 

Julie Kouyate and Roberta Maxwell 

from Sacred Sound Journey aimed 

to send the entire room into another 

world.

The experience was a sound 

bath — a meditative experience 

where participants are surrounded, 

or ‘bathed’ in, sound waves. The 

event was a part of a healing circle 

experience hosted by Roe v. Rape 

Friday evening for sexual assault 

survivors on campus. Aside from the 

sound bath, women’s rights activist 

Jan BenDor and Washtenaw County 

Treasurer Catherine McClary were 

invited to talk about the history of 

Michigan state legislature concerning 

sexual violence.

Andrew Panter, co-president of Roe 

v. Rape, said the organization decided 

to host the healing circle in addition to 

their usual forms of activism, such as 

rallies, to help survivors on campus in 

a more personal way.

“It really fits into our mission of 

helping support survivors on campus,” 

Panter said. “This is one of the most 

direct ways we can do it. Typically we 

do activism and advocacy, but this is a 

way to be more inward.”

In the 1970s, BenDor and McClary 

founded the Women’s Crisis Center 

in Ann Arbor, a nonprofit counseling 

service that used to provide telephone 

support 
to 
women 
who 
were 

experiencing sexual violence. Though 

the center closed in 1990, it was one 

of the first groups to collect data 

and conduct research about sexual 

violence in the country.

“We set up a hotline and we started 

responding to calls,” BenDor said. “At 

the same time we went all over the 

(University of Michigan) campus and 

tacked up a survey to find out who had 

been a victim and asked them because 

we were doing research (and) at that 

time there was no data.”

Today, there are 1,580 crisis centers 

around the country for sexual assault 

victims. According to the National 

Institute of Justice, the rape reporting 

increased from 1992 to 2000 and more 

survivors, rather than third parties, 

are doing the reporting now.

Through hearing from survivors 

and pioneering research in this 

field, BenDor and McClary aimed to 

change the narrative that rape is just 

about sex. They said they sought to 

show the public that rape is a matter 

of power and control.

“Everybody blamed the woman 

and everybody assumed that rape 

and sexual assault was just a matter 

of sex,” BenDor said. “It wasn’t until 

we started working on (the research), 

that we finally got across the point 

that sexual assault is about power and 

is about control. And it has next to 

nothing to do with anything you want 

to refer to as sex or sexual needs.”

BenDor and McClary said they also 

brought law students from around the 

state together with Michgian state 

legislators to draft major legal reform 

that expanded the definition of a 

sexual assault victim. It was signed 

into law by then-Michigan governor 

William Milliken in August 1974.

“We made a major structural 

change in the whole area of law; it 

wasn’t just rape in the traditional 

sense,” BenDor said. “We just covered 

every form of sexual assault in this 

law. We also covered every possible 

victim, male or female. Amazingly, it 

passed in four months from the time 

we introduced it.”

Andrew Yang, a Public Health 

graduate student, said he believes that 

BenDor and McClary’s efforts are 

significant because it can be difficult 

for sexual violence survivors to heal 

from their trauma. He also said he 

believes sexual violence is a problem 

that needs to addressed on a legal 

level.

“(Sexual violence) is an external 

thing that affected them, so it has to 

be treated externally too,” Yang said. 

Kouyate said survivors of trauma 

often suffer from feeling like they are 

not in control and may experience 

feelings of insecurity. 

“A lot of times when we have a 

traumatic experience what happens 

is, we don’t feel safe in our bodies 

and we feel like we’re guarding our 

experiences,” Kouyate said. “So, you 

don’t even feel like you have control 

over it. You’ll find the dangers: 

anything that smells similar to 

something that was unsafe, any colors 

that are associated with something 

that was unsafe.”

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INDEX
Vol. CXXXII, No. 110
©2023 The Michigan Daily

N E WS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

A R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

S T A T E M E N T . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

M I C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

O P I N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 0

S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
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Ann Arbor, Michigan
Wednesday, April 19, 2023

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY TWO YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

VP of Student Life talks enrollment, GEO strike
The Daily sat down with Martino Harmon for the end of the winter semester

Survivors came together with activists to heal and call for change 

A UMich student organization 
raised $5,000 to pay off 
lunch debt at two Ann Arbor 
elementary schools

JOEY LIN
Daily News Editor

 MADISON HAMMOND
 Daily Staff Reporter 

 Roe v. Rape hosts student healing circle
UMich students help pay 
off lunch debt at Ann 
Arbor schools

RACHEL MINTZ, 
MADISON HAMMOND 
& NATALIE ANDERSON
Daily News Editor & Daily Staff 
Reporters

The Michigan Daily sat down with Dr. Martino Harmon on Thursday, November 18, 2021 at the Fleming Administration Building to discuss the state of student affairs.

GRACE BEAL/Daily

Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Read more at MichiganDaily.com

EMMA MATI/Daily
Julie Kouyate, a group healing circle facilitator, facilitates a healing circle for students at the School of Public Health Friday evening.

CAMPUS LIFE

ANN ARBOR
CAMPUS LIFE

Read more at MichiganDaily.com