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Central Michigan Life
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Mount Pleasant, Mich.
[cm-life.com]
u n i o n o f t e a c h i n g f a c u lt y
Uncertainty remains over contract Members say CMU’s handling leaves financial instability By Ariel Black and Maria Amante Senior Reporters
Sue Murphy has not left CMU despite what she considers less than ideal circumstances. The English language and
literature instructor picketed Monday outside the Education and Human Services Building with about 15 other temporary faculty members of the Union of Teaching Faculty. “I love teaching,” she said. “I love my students.” Like her colleagues, Murphy is dissatisfied with the university’s contract offers for temporary faculty. She said her salary is $20,700 for teaching nine credit hours after working 11 years at CMU.
UTF is asking for multiyear contracts, salary increases, regular cost-of -living adjustments, a reappointment and layoff system based on seniority and protection of existing benefits. UTF has 350 members. Jim Eikrem, assistant communication and dramatic arts professor and president of UTF, said the union presented its preferred proposal, but the university wants to stick with the “old system.” “We presented a proposal
which the university reviewed,” Eikrem said. “They have come back with an unacceptable agreement.” Steve Smith, director of public relations, said in a statement the university has been in negotiations with UTF since January. “The university will continue to negotiate in good faith as we work to achieve a contract which is fair and equitable to both parties,” he said. A utF | 2A
Sean Proctor/staff photographer
Sue Murphy, a temporary instructor in the English department for 11 years, holds a sign that reads “5 Deans get all the bean$” in reference to the College of Medicine deans Monday outside of the Education and Human Services Building during a protest for the Union of Teaching Faculty.
Student, professor to travel overseas for human rights meeting CMU just one of three schools in nation involved By Brad Canze News Copy Chief
photos by jeff smith/staff photographer
Grand Blanc junior Nikki Steffes sits next to a board, which she fills in with prayers every month, on Feb. 22 in the living room of her Lansing Street home. The numbers 57 and 36 represent the number of prayers that have been answered in previous months. Steffes has been on a number of mission trips, her most recent to the Dominican Republic to work with Orphanage Outreach, tutoring orphans and showing them they are loved.
Driven to give Student travels world helping children after religious conversion
By Mike Nichols Senior Reporter
Editor’s note: Every Wednesday, CM Life will publish an in-depth piece, examining different issues. The old Nikki Steffes never read her Bible, never traveled and never thought about much other than sports, boys and partying hard. Now the Grand Blanc junior writes a daily verse on her hand, has stamps in her passport and cannot stop talking about the orphans across the globe she misses every day. The change has blown her old crowd of friends away.
[inside] NEWS w City Commissioner David McGuire resigns, 3A w Sunscreens added to EHS playground, 5A
CAMPUS VIBE w DEAR DESIGN: Catch our latest advice, 3B
Sports w Heeke, Enos react to 2011 football schedule, 5B
cm-life.com w Watch for an update of comedian Nick Swardson’s coming to campus April 9 w VIDEO: Watch students discuss spring break plans
“She is being talked about in Grand Blanc like, ‘Wow, what happened to Nikki?’” said her mother Barb Steffes. “Her heart toward others has changed dramatically.” Since becoming Christian in fall 2009, Nikki Steffes said, her life mission was clear: To travel the globe helping orphans. “I think of my life as an adventure every morning,” she said. “I’m excited to see where it’s headed.” The journey began when she got involved with His House Christian Fellowship Steffes’ sophomore year and worked in the children’s ministry, His
Grand Blanc junior Nikki Steffes prays during a His House Christian Fellowship service Thursday night at Warriner Hall’s Plachta Auditorium. Steffes became a member of His House during her sophomore year and has remained an active member.
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A CMU student and associate professor will travel to The Hague, Netherlands to meet with law students from Duke University and University of North Carolina. Monroe senior Sarah Wills and Hope May, an associate philosophy and religion professor, will represent the CMU chapter of the International Criminal Court Student Network while meeting with ICCSN members from Duke and UNC, the other two active U.S. chapters. The students will visit the International Criminal Court as well as the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, a group of non-government organizations who do advocacy work for the ICC. They will also visit the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia. “We are going to be watching court proceedings, visiting the ICC and the ICJ and learning the court process,” said Wills, a world religions major and anthropology minor. Aside from Wills and May, the other seven ICCSN members going are law students at Duke and UNC. “There’s two things we’re trying to get out of this; one of them is trying to connect with other chapters,” said Matthew Rogier, a first-year Duke law student going on the trip and an Indiana native. “Kind of our second goal of this trip is to gain a better understanding of how these
institutions work and gain a better perspective.” The three U.S. chapters of the ICCSN, an international group of students who learn and educate about the ICC and international human rights law, will meet for a “working dinner” in a hotel in the neighboring town of Leiden, funded by the CMU College of Humanities and Social and Behavioral Sciences. “(CHSBS) Dean (Pamela) Gates supported this, because all the students are staying in a youth hostel, and there are really no facilities there, so we rented a room in the hotel I’m staying in, in Leiden,” May said. May is also going to The Hague to prepare for several summer programs. She will be working with the Jurisdiction, Cooperation and Complementarity Division of the ICC’s office of the prosecutor this summer. She will also be teaching PHL 397: Netherlands Human Rights, Theory and Practice as a study abroad course for CMU students at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies at Leiden University. “I’m meeting with them (at the Grotius Centre), going through the facilities and securing housing for myself,” May said. The International Criminal Court is a human rights court that prosecutes individuals for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. 114 countries are members of the court, but the U.S. is not. They began their first trial, against Thomas Lubanga, a Congolese militia leader, in 2009. “This court is so new it has not finished its first case yet,” May said.
Mural in Calkins dedicated to late student Creation a ‘coping strategy’ for artist By Anamaria Dickerson Staff Reporter
Students can find more than just a quiet place in the study room on the second floor of Calkins Hall. Painted on a 13-by-8-foot brick wall, a mural of black doves, a rose and a blue sky is dedicated to the memory of Williamston freshman Sarina Seger, who died in a car accident in October. The artists, Grand Ledge freshman Deanna Staton and Caledonia freshman Danny Karadsheh, created the mural to commemorate her. “Danny and I are really artistic, so we thought it’d be
a good idea,” Staton said. “It was also a coping strategy for me and something everyone can enjoy.” Once approval for the mural was granted Staton bought the paint supplies herself and went to work with Karadsheh on the project. “It took around 30 hours,” Staton said. “Brick isn’t ideal.” The two came up with the idea of a rose and doves to symbolize things that reminded them of Seger. The rose represents her middle name as well as her favorite flower. “We did the doves to symbolize peace, because I like to think she is in a peaceful place wherever she may be,” Staton said. Mesick sophomore Anelisa Bailey, who met Seger on their
first day of school and became a close friend, described her as a “hippie child.” “She was free-spirited, wore long skirts and tank tops and took care of people,” Seger said. Bailey said Seger liked to give others advice and always had friends coming to her with questions. “She wanted to be a teacher,” Bailey said. “And back home she helped out at her elementary school as at a mentor for immigrant children.” Staton said she wants the mural to be a way to remember not just Seger’s presence but also her qualities. “Come and enjoy the mural,” she said. “And have a moment of silence.” studentlife@cm-life.com
andrew kuhn/staff photographer
Caledonia freshman Danny Karadsheh and Grand Ledge freshman Deanna Staton stand in front of the mural they created in honor of Sarina Rose Seger. Seger died of injuries sustained in a car crash in October of 2010. “Deanna came up with the plan, she wanted to make a rose because her middle name is Rose. Her favorite flower was a rose,” Karadsheh said. Staton added, “We’re trying to get it out there so that people who know her can come and see it and show their appreciation.”
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