ONE-HUNDRED-TWENTY-FOUR YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM Friday, February 28, 2014
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Summary meetings of the regents draw ire Detroit Free Press lawyer questions board’s commitment to Open Meetings Act By CLAIRE BRYAN JAMES COLLER/Daily
John Negroponte, former US Deputy Secretary of State and former Director of National Intelligence, discusses his view on leadership and foreign policy at Weill Hall Thursday. Negroponte focused on his career in the foreign service to answer audience questions on current events.
Speaker chastised at vigil Ford School hosts controversial diplomat John Negroponte By ANASTASSIOS ADAMOPOULOS Daily Staff Reporter
Protesters were lined up Thursday night to condemn the Ford School of Public Policy’s guest speaker John Negroponte, a former director of national intelligence, deputy secretary of state and currently a professor
at Yale University. Public Policy Prof. Melvyn Levitsky, who previously served terms as the U.S. ambassador to Brazil and Bulgaria, led the event, which discussed Negroponte’s work. Following the discussion, a vigil awaited Negroponte outside the Annenberg Auditorium to chastise Negroponte’s alleged crimes. Negroponte served as an ambassador to Honduras, Iraq, Mexico, the Philippines and the United Nations. The discussion was largely about Negroponte’s career and his leadership positions. During the discussion,
Negroponte said the United States often gets too involved in international issues, and said other nations are able to find stability on their own. “Based on my experience in the foreign policy, I don’t think we’re too good at nation-building,” he said. “I don’t think we do that quite very well. I don’t think we are too good at regime change.” Negroponte, ambassador to Iraq from May 2004 to 2005, questioned whether the invasion in Iraq happened too soon. He was also very critical of torture as a means of extracting information. He denied that
there were covert torture centers while he was in Iraq and referred to Abu Ghraib — the prison in Iraq where members of the U.S. military and the CIA tortured inmates in 2003 and 2004 — as “a great humiliation and embarrassment to the United States.” He added that was not sanctioned by the government. “If you want your troops to be treated properly under the Geneva Convention you better treat other people likewise,” he said. Negroponte said his tenure in Honduras —from November See SPEAKER, Page 3
Daily Staff Reporter
While the monthly meetings of the University’s Board of Regents could be considered efficient, complaints have recently been surfacing that the University’s governing body is abusing Michigan’s Open Meetings Act. At the open and public meetings, held by the regents, members and executive officers address and pass new policies for the University and offer an opportunity for the public to share thoughts or concerns, as required by law. However, the regents rarely publicly disagree with one another at the meetings or even make statements for the record. Most discussions are assumed to occur behind closed doors and in informal sessions. According to Section 3 of Michigan’s Open Meetings Act, “all meetings of a public body shall be open to the public and
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Dean of School of Ed. receives national award Loewenberg Ball helped create program to train new teachers By YARDAIN AMRON Daily Staff Reporter
Deborah Loewenberg Ball, dean of the School of Education, received the 2014 Edward C. Pomeroy Award for Outstanding Contributions to Teacher Education, the University announced Thursday. The award will be presented Monday by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education — a national alliance of public and private colleges and universities dedicated to educator training — at its 66th annual meeting in Indianapolis. Loewenberg Ball said she was notified about the award via e-mail a few weeks ago. “I was very surprised, extremely honored — it’s a major organization of all the institutions in the country that prepare teachers — so it’s just a very big honor because there are about 1,400 different universities that prepare teachers,” Loewenberg Ball said. “It’s a very nice recognition of the amount of work we’ve been doing here at Michigan.” Gail Bozeman, vice presi-
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dent of meetings and events at AACTE, said the award is very prestigious and that Loewenberg Ball is a more than deserving recipient. “Part of the award deals with recognizing outstanding contributions to teacher education, especially around an individual or an institution that may have produced or developed materials that will promote more effective methods of teacher education at the collegiate level,” Bozeman said. Bozeman said out of 14 candidates, Loewenberg Ball stood out for her notable involvement in numerous national teaching initiatives including TeachingWorks, an organization dedicated to improving the quality of new teachers. Loewenberg Ball said historically, first- and second-year teachers often report learning the bulk of their skills only upon entering the classroom. “What TeachingWorks is setting out to do is to say that kids really deserve to have skillful teaching every year that they’re in school, and people who agree to become teachers deserve to be trained well enough to be responsible for children,” she said. TeachingWorks is dedicated to three main pillars: defining the key knowledge and practices a new teacher needs before See DEAN, Page 3
shall be held in a place available to the general public.” On Tuesday, Feb. 18, state Rep. Tom McMillin (R–Rochester Hills) held a legislative hearing before the Michigan House of Representatives Committee to listen to the public’s general concerns about the act. Herschel Fink, one of the Detroit Free Press’ legal counsel and a speaker at the hearing, stated publicly that the regents are “serial abusers of the Open Meetings Act.” Fink called for a constitutional amendment to make clear that the regents, as well as the Board of Trustees at Michigan State University and the Board of Governors at Wayne State University, are bound by the Open Meetings Act and Freedom of Information Act. “The quote-unquote ‘formal monthly meetings’ are nearly perfunctory,” Fink said. “They simply rubber-stamp the regents’ work committees to which the public is not allowed to participate or be present.” Fink is not the first to complain about the regents’ secrecy. In 2010, University alum Robert Davis sued the regents for not See REGENTS, Page 3
AATA may expand its operations if vote succeeds $700,000 plan is on to the voters for final approval of more transit services By EMMA KERR Daily Staff Reporter
JAMES COLLER/Daily
Students protest John Negroponte following his discussion about foreign policy at Weill Hall Thursday. The opponents of Negroponte claimed that he is a war criminal for his activities across several countries.
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Professor draws inspiration from multiple mediums Melissa Gross uses experience to take interdisciplinary approach By PAULA FRIEDRICH Daily Staff Reporter
In Rembrandt’s painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, inquisitive doctors in ruffled, white collars and goatees lean over a cadaver lit in the soft focus of the painter’s signature light. A print of this piece of inter-
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woven science and art is perhaps nowhere better placed than where it hangs above the desk of Melissa Gross, associate professor of movement science, in the Central Campus Recreation Building. “I’m really drawn to the edges,” she said. “To the inbetweens. That’s where I feel comfortable.” Recently honored with an Arthur F. Thurnau professorship, Gross has appointments in both the School of Kinesiology and the School of Art & Design. In her Behavioral Biomechanics Laboratory, she uses motion capture animation
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to quantify the way movement changes when emotion does. This line of questioning means her research reaches across and pulls from psychology, technology, art, physics and movement science. Thurnau professors are honored for their exceptional undergraduate teaching and innovation. The award comes with $20,000 as well. After finishing her Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles, Gross worked as a research scientist at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Palo Alto before coming to the UniSee PROFESSOR, Page 3
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The debate continues over the expansion of the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority. The future of the AATA’s services is hinged on a proposed $700,000 millage that will appear on the May 6 ballot in three Washtenaw County communities. While the “More Buses” campaign champions connecting people and better serving Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and Ypsilanti Township, the opposing campaign, “Better Transit Now,” questions whether expanding the current system of transit is best when there may be other — and potentially better —alternatives. State Rep. Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor) and councilmember Chuck Warpehoski (D–Ward 5) support the referendum while other councilmembers remain undecided in the matter. The referendum boasts a 44-percent increase in transit services at the cost of $33 per year for residents whose homes at valued at $100,000. This transit plan would include extending both evening hours and weekend hours, as well as services for the elderly or See AATA, Page 3
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