ONE-HUNDRED-TWENTY-FOUR YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Ann Arbor, Michigan
michigandaily.com
FACULTY GOVERNANCE
Senate talks health care benef its and recruitFaculty and staff express concern about competitiveness KATHERINE PEKALA/Daily
By STEPHANIE SHENOUDA
U-M Flint Chancellor Ruth Person attends the Board of Regents meeting in Flint, Mich., Friday.
In Flint, a different campus UM-Flint has unique challenges compared to A 2 By SAM GRINGLAS Daily Staff Reporter
FLINT, Mich. — Just a 55-mile drive up US-23 from Ann Arbor, the University’s Flint campus is by no means geographically distant. On the satellite campus, streetlight banners display the same Block ‘M,’ and in a conference room at the Harding Mott University Center, the same regents and execu-
tive officers crowded a long table at the annual meeting at the Flint campus on Friday to discuss an array of University proposals. But in many ways, UMFlint faces very different challenges than the University’s flagship campus in Ann Arbor. In an interview Friday, UM-Flint Chancellor Ruth Person said recruiting and enrolling students presents the campus’s greatest challenge. “For institutions like this, continuing to have a robust enrollment in the future is always going to be a chal-
lenge,” Person said. Person partly blamed Michigan’s decline on demographic shifts, as the population ages and fewer families with children move to the state. “You can see that curve of high-school students going down,” Person said. “They’re gone, and they’re not going to come back immediately.” But UM-Flint has coped — and excelled — in creative ways, as Jon Davidson, director of admissions for U-M Flint, explained in a presentation to the regents. Undergraduate enrollment has increased by 22.6
percent since 2007, according to U-M Flint data. Current undergraduate enrollment is 8,555 — a record high despite a challenging recruitment climate. Davidson said enrollment growth is a strategic necessity. UM-Flint, like the rest of the University, has been forced to contend with shrinking state funding. With the capacity for more students, Davidson said increased enrollment provides further financial resources via tuition dollars. “Clearly Ann Arbor doesn’t have enrollment challenges,” See CAMPUS, Page 5
ANN ARBOR
CAMPUS LIFE
A2 city council asks pension board to divest
Founder of Reddit discusses innovation
Members vote in favor of removing fossil fuels from stock portfolio By WILL GREENBERG Daily Staff Reporter
Monday’s Ann Arbor City Council meeting continued the discussion on approving the addition of Ypsilanti Township as a member of the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority and finally reached a vote on divestment from fossil fuel industries. A resolution asking the pension board to was passed Monday evening following an amendment from Councilmember Christopher Taylor (D–Ward 3) that softened the resolution language to “request” action from the pension board rather than “urge” the board. Arguments for and against the resolution echoed those voiced at previous meetings: Those in favor are looking to support the mostly symbolic resolution, whereas those opposed raised concerns of the implications of actually divesting. LSA sophomore Laura Hobbs, an organizer of the Divest and Invest Campaign
WEATHER TOMORROW
on campus, said in an interview Monday evening that the passed resolution was a success for the group — even with the lighter wording. “Ann Arbor really made the decision tonight to join a handful of other cities nationally that have committed to divestment,” Hobbs said. “However it’s worded, I think taking that step is great.” COUNCIL VOTES ON ADDING YPSLIANTI TOWNSHIP TO AAATA The decision to add Ypsilanti Township as a member of the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority was postponed by an 8-3 vote following a long discussion between members of City Council and Michael Ford, the chief executive officer for The Ride. Ann Arbor Mayor John Hieftje spoke in favor of adding membership, saying the seat is long overdue and won’t affect specific budgetary issues. Ford repeatedly stressed to council members that Ypsilanti Township has met all the requirements laid out in the past and the proposal asked for including the township only as an AAATA member. In an interview after the meeting, Ford, having spoSee COUNCIL, Page 5
HI: 50 LO: 31
Daily Staff Reporter
The Senate Assembly convened at Palmer Commons for a conversation with faculty and administrators about proposed changes to retirement benefit packages after data at discussed the mostly private meeting in early October was made public. These changes are one part of a University initiative to cut spending by $120 million that will be re-invested with the stated goal of making tuition more affordable. Laurita Thomas, executive vice president of human resources and the guest speaker at the meeting, said the administration will be “as transparent as possible” with the faculty and staff about the changes being considered and implemented. Thomas explained that the University has guidelines in place to ensure that any policy changes made will continue to meet the standards
to which faculty and staff are accustomed. A main concern of the Senate Assembly is that the University remains competitive as an employer, as benefits packages are often important to potential employees. Thomas also encouraged faculty to subscribe to long-term disability insurance coverage, which only a third of faculty and staff at the meeting said they currently have. She noted that this would also help keep the University competitive with other top institutions. Several faculty members used the open discussion to express concern about the effects policy changes will have on them, including the lack of a dependent tuition policy, which allows faculty and their dependents discounts on tuition after a period of employment, which most comparable institutions offer. Though many seemed in favor of the policy, Thomas was firm that the policy isn’t affordable and was never on the table. Others expressed concern that making cuts to the health and retirement programs would lessen the University’s credibility among See BENEFITS, Page 5
PAT T E R N O F E X C E L L E N C E
Ohanian answers questions from students at event By SHOHAM GEVA Daily Staff Reporter
Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, didn’t give a typical speech. But then again, Ohanian, who has the self-professed aim of “making the world suck less,” isn’t your typical speaker. Ohanian, co-founded what is now one of the Web’s most visited sites with friend Steve Huffman after the two graduated from the University of Virginia in 2005. He spoke here Monday night to promote his new book, “Without Their Permission: How The 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed.” The book discusses the power of Internet entrepreneurship and how it can be used to achieve philanthropic goals. The event, co-sponsored by the School of Information and the University’s chapter of the Alpha Kappa Psi business fraternity. The talk drew a crowd of about 500 University students, faculty members and the public. Ohanian started off the event with a 40-minute presentation discussing why he wrote the book and finished with a catalogue of pictures, as he jokingly compared images of the Wolverine action figSee REDDIT, Page 5
GOT A NEWS TIP? Call 734-418-4115 or e-mail news@michigandaily.com and let us know.
NICHOLAS WILLIAMS/Daily
Art & Design junior Katie Parks weaves on a loom in the Fibers studio in the School of Art & Design Monday. The weaving, made from yarn and raw wool, can take upwards of 75 hours to complete.
RESEARCH
Symposium showcases research partnerships with Israeli scientists Leaders from top Israel instituitons join colleagues in Ann Arbor By SARA YUFA For The Daily
This weekend, scientists from two of Israel’s premier universities, Technion Israel Institute of Technology and the Weizmann Institute of Science, joined University Medical School faculty for the annual UM-Israel Partnership for Research Symposium. The conference ran from Oct. 18 until Oct. 21, concluding Monday after more than 35 presentations and discussion sessions.
NEW ON MICHIGANDAILY.COM The Podium: The true severity of income inequality MICHIGANDAILY.COM/BLOGS
INDEX
The partnership conducts and funds joint scientific investigations, student and faculty exchanges, institutional collaborative ventures and technology commercialization. Cardiology prof. David Pinsky, the symposium’s coordinator and the director of the University’s cardiovascular center, said the goal was to bring people of different backgrounds together to make breakthrough discoveries in human health. He added that the symposium works to promote academic freedom, regardless of global politics. “There’s no politics behind this; there’s not religion behind this,” Pinsky said. “It’s just saying that science is an area of inquiry and discovery and the benefits are for all mankind”
Vol. CXXIV, No. 15 ©2013 The Michigan Daily michigandaily.com
Eliezer Shalev, dean of medicine at Technion in Haifa, Israel, said collaboration is the key to success in research. “Collaboration is the right means to get to a good fruitful research because there are very few scientists that they can do by themselves all of the work that you need,” Shalev said. “The life science and medical science has had a huge change in the last 30 years on the verge with engineering, physics, mathematics, computer science.” The first symposium, which focused on cardiovascular disease, was held in Ann Arbor in 2011 after philanthropist D. Dan Kahn funded the effort to bring the University and Technion together in research. In 2012, Pinsky led a group See RESEARCH, Page 5
NEWS............................ 2 OPINION.......................4 ARTS.............................6
SPORTS.........................8 SUDOKU........................ 2 CL ASSIFIEDS.................6