ONE-HUNDRED-TWENTY-FOUR YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM michigandaily.com
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Ann Arbor, Michigan
ACADEMICS
Reviews of classes low despite reminders ‘U’ receives low course evaluation rates since switch to online platform By YARDAIN AMRON VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily
Heather Gerken, a professor at Yale Law School, speaks about the real problem with Citizens United at the Ford School of Public Policy Monday.
Alum talks Citizens United Yale professor discusses issues of 2010 Supreme Court case By NEALA BERKOWSKI For the Daily
University alum Heather Gerken, a law professor at Yale University, spoke about issues related to the historic Supreme Court case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case to more than 100 attendees. The 2010 case granted corporations the financial rights of indi-
viduals in regards to campaign finance, “dark money” and shadow parties. Undergraduate and graduate students in the Ford School of Public Policy, students from the Law School and community members were among those in attendance for Gerken’s threepart presentation. In the first section, Gerken offered a brief history of campaign finance reform. She argued that Citizens United plays an important role in the relationship between independent spending and corruption. Later, she explained how the court’s decision may push the party system toward one domi-
nated by powerful “shadow parties.” Gerken added that “shadow parties” risk undermine the influence of the “party faithful,” who connect party elites to everyday citizens. Audience members were given notecards to write down questions and people watching a live stream of the event tweeted their questions at the Ford School. “I have to say (the Ford students) asked fantastic questions, and I have a lot of hats,” Gerken said before the event. “I’ve been an elections lawyer for the Obama campaign, I’ve done reform work, and they had good questions on pretty much every topic. And for me this stuff is like
popcorn, so I’m happy to munch along.” “She is an important voice in the field and the topic was interesting,” Rackham student Conor McKay said. “The more that people know about these issues, understand these issues and can hear what’s in the media and get a sense of what they’re actually talking about, the better.” After the lecture, a reception was held outside the auditorium to allow students, faculty and community members to eat and continue the conversation. “I thought it was very thought-provoking,” Rackham student Dana Sherry said. “I was See ALUM, Page 3
Daily Staff Reporter
At the University, course and teacher evaluations are deemed vital to both administration and faculty, but often neglected by the students who fill them out. The data itself is kept in-house, locked away at the Office of the Registrar, and the response rates are low compared to other universities. However, for faculty, student evaluations can mean the difference between depositing a paycheck and dipping into emergency funds. “Turns out there are pretty high stakes for us,” Political Science Prof. Mika LaVaque-Manty said. “(Evaluations) are involved in promotion, for GSI’s in terms of retention and for lecturers — who are judged purely on the basis of their contribution to teaching — they literally may be a matter of job or no job.” When faculty members in line
for promotion are assessed by their respective departments, student evaluations play a large role in the decision. Deborah Loewenberg Ball, dean of the School of Education, said student evaluations weigh heavily on the whole portfolio and influence the committee’s ultimate decision. “You can’t get promoted at this University if you have bad teaching evaluations,” Ball said. “You could be a great researcher, you could be doing all types of things professionally, but if your course evaluations are poor, and there’s evidence that your teaching isn’t good, you won’t get promoted.” However the data suggests students aren’t as invested in the process. In the 2012 fall semester, only 56 percent of all students responded to course evaluation surveys. For the past few years, the rate has been treading just slightly above 50 percent. Two factors may explain the low response: the University’s transition from paper to electronic evaluations in 2008, and a lack of incentive for students to take the time to fill them out. Before the 2008 winter term, evaluations were filled out on paper and administered in class, meaning all students attending See REVIEWS, Page 3
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
PHILANTHROPY
CSG seeks to investigate the Gibbons case
With $1.3M, Taubman to create grant for research
Proppe signs executive order to establish task force for further probing By MICHAEL SUGERMAN Daily Staff Reporter
Late Monday evening, the Central Student Government has created an executive taskforce to examine the University’s relatively new sexual misconduct policy and review its implementation in Brendan Gibbons’ permanent seperation. According to documents reviewed by The Michigan Daily, Gibbons was permanently separated from the University in late December after being found responsible for a 2009 violation of the Student Sexual Misconduct Policy. Business senior Michael Proppe, CSG president, signed an executive order Monday night establishing the taskforce to probe into actions taken by the Office of Student Conflict Resolution in Gibbons’ case. “Following The Daily’s articles, there was a lot of confusion among students and across the entire University community about how exactly this new
WEATHER TOMORROW
HI: 25 LO: 5
sexual misconduct policy works, and how it works with respect to cases that took place under the old policy,” Proppe said. The University changed its sexual misconduct policy in September 2013, shifting from a complaint-driven model to one propelled by University investigators. Law student Jeremy Keeney, CSG student general counsel, said the University now pursues all cases of sexual misconduct regardless of whether or not the victim desires an investigation. “The old policy is more sexual assault-based and the new policy broadens that to sexual misconduct,” Keeney said. “So it seems that there may be things that are included in the new policy that weren’t in the old one.” Proppe added that the University’s policy in 2009--the year Gibbons allegedly violated the code of conduct--required “clear and convincing evidence” to take action, whereas the 2013 policy seeks “preponderance of evidence.” He added that this is a “much lower standard.” One of the taskforce’s goals is to determine which policy was applied in Gibbons’ removal from the University. Others include inquiring as to whether or not OSCR delayed the investigation See CSG, Page 3
Program will be funded by a Mellon Foundation gift By MAX RADWIN Daily Staff Reporter
ADAM GLANZMAN/Daily
Protestors gather in front of the Federal Building Monday to protest the Keystone Pipeline.
Protestors call for Obama to halt Keystone pipeline Construction of controversial oil route may endanger environment By AMABEL KAROUB Daily Staff Reporter
“Stop the pipeline!” The chant resounded across East Liberty Street and South 5th Avenue on Monday night, when more than 20 students and Ann Arbor locals peti-
GOT A NEWS TIP? Call 734-418-4115 or e-mail news@michigandaily.com and let us know.
tioned the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, an oil line expected to cause hazardous environmental effects. The protest took place outside of the Ann Arbor Federal Building. It was one of many united KXL protests that occurred throughout the country supported by CREDO, National Rainforest Network, the Sierra Club, 350.org and a number of other associations dedicated to environmental conservation. KXL is a proposed 1,179mile pipeline that will trans-
NEW ON MICHIGANDAILY.COM Former AD Martin: Gibbons incident ‘never came up’ MICHIGANDAILY.COM/BLOGS
INDEX
port up to 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, traveling through multiple U.S. states. Protestors gathered in response to the U.S. Department of State’s Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement regarding KXL, which was released Friday. Many of the protestors believe this statement invited presidential approval of construction. At the vigil, protestors See KEYSTONE, Page 3
Vol. CXXIV, No. 60 ©2013The Michigan Daily michigandaily.com
The Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning received a $1.3-million grant Monday from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The gift will fund architecture and humanities research on metropolitan issues in cities like Detroit, Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro for the next four-and-half years. The Mellon Foundation delivered the “Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities” grant to the University, which supports scholarship and higher education at the intersection of architecture and the humanities. The grant will go toward a new program in the college of architecture called “Egalitarianism and the Contemporary Metropolis,” which Taubman Associate Dean Milton S.F. Curry said will better educate student architects as to making the projects they’re working on “more accessible, more palpable and more positive as an experience for a variety of people.” See TAUBMAN, Page 3
NEWS............................ 2 SUDOKU........................ 2 OPINION.......................4
ARTS............................. 5 CL ASSIFIEDS.................6 SPORTS.........................7