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SEXUAL ASSAULT
Amid calls for change, survey to test climate
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Charles Eisendrath, Director of the Knight Wallace Fellows Program speaking at the panel on the Refugee Crisis Monday at the Ford School of Public Policy.
Award-winning journalist discusses Afghan refugees Ford Policy Talk features panel on human rights, Middle East policy By JOEL GOLDSTEIN Daily Staff Reporter
The Ford School of Public Policy kicked off the semester of Ford Policy Talks with a panel discussion on the refugee crisis in the Middle East, featuring journalist Luke Mogelson, NPR editor Joel
Lovell, Public Policy Prof. John Ciorciari and Public Policy Prof. Susan Waltz. Much of the talk featured Mogelson discussing his 2013 New York Times Magazine article, “The Dream Boat,” which examines his journey across the Indian Ocean with Middle Eastern refugees in search of asylum in Australia. For the article, Mogelson won the prestigious Livingston Award, which is sponsored by the University. Awarded to top journalists under 35 years old, the award’s previous recipients
include CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. Working in Kabul, Afghanistan, for The New York Times Magazine, Mogelson embarked on the dangerous trip undertaken by Afghans trying to escape the country. He began his journey in Sarai Shahzada, Kabul’s currency market. Posing as Georgian asylum seekers, Mogelson and his photographer paid smugglers $4,000 each to transport them to Australia’s Christmas Island. “The fact that your smug-
gler could call at any time, day or night, meant that you were forever suspended in a state of high alert,” Mogelson wrote in the article. “It also meant you couldn’t venture far. Most of the asylum seekers, additionally fearful of police, never left the building.” Like refugees, the journalists flew to Indonesia and took a small boat from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Australia. In the article, Mogelson explains that a refugee could wait for months in Jakarta, drown in the open See JOURNALIST, Page 3
Schlissel announces campus-wide study on ‘U’ culture, misconduct policies By ALLANA AKHTAR Daily Staff Reporter
University President Mark Schlissel announced early Monday morning the University’s plans to conduct a student survey gauging the climate surrounding sexual misconduct on campus. In an e-mail distributed to the student body, Schlissel said 3,000 randomly selected students will receive the roughly 15-minute long survey asking about their knowledge, perceptions and opinions of the University’s resources, policies and culture related to sexual misconduct. “Learning about the experiences of students and the degree to which students feel safe and respected will help us
GOVERNMENT
ANN ARBAUGH
Snyder signs bill to advance road upgrades Funding plan could impact higher education funding allocations By JACK TURMAN Daily Staff Reporter
Republican Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation Monday afternoon to advance a plan for funding upgrades to Michigan’s aging roads and bridges. The plan will remove the current sales tax on fuel, which currently supports schools and local governments, and replace it with a wholesale tax on motor fuels, such as gas and diesel, earmarked for funding transportation. The plan is expected to result in a 20-percent drop in yearly appropriations from the School Aid Fund to public universities, though the legislation includes provisions to offset the losses with General Fund dollars. To protect schools and local governments from losing revenue as a result of these alterations to the fuel sales tax, a proposal will go before the electorate in May that includes a 1-percent increase in the sales tax to 7 percent. The result from this 1-percent increase would be an additional $300 million per year for schools and $94 million per year for local governments. The legislature would raise approximately $1.3 billion per year for transportation. Approximately $1.2 billion would go
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to restoring the roads and $127 million would be allocated for public transportation after two years of debt reduction. “This is a solution that takes care of our roads in terms of a billion dollar plus investment, does it in a way that does not harm other parties,” Snyder said. “In fact, it actually provides more resources for our schools, for our local governments, for our mass transit, mass public transportation.” Gretchen Whitmer, former State Senate Democratic leader, said there were tough negotiations in determining the legislative package, but she noted she was proud of being a part of this process. “This represents an investment in critical things, like our infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, which translates into the safety of our people, but it also represents a real investment in our schools, which I think is something that is going to be critical as we go to the ballot in May. That is something I think we are all invested in making sure we’re successful,” she said. In an interview with The Michigan Daily on Dec. 18, Snyder Press Secretary Sara Wurfel confirmed that if the proposal is approved, General Fund dollars will be allocated to substitute higher education funding no longer provided by the School Aid Fund, though it is unclear if this funding will fully make up for anticipated losses. In an e-mail interview on See ROADS, Page 3
better understand how we can more effectively address and prevent sexual misconduct,” Schlissel wrote. Though the survey data will be made public, student identities will remain confidential. The University will offer participating students the choice of either personal payment or a donation to United Way, a support group that promotes education, financial stability and good health for Washtenaw County citizens, as compensation for completing the survey. The University has hired Ann Arbor firm Survey Science Group to conduct the survey. University spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald said the University has worked on the survey for some time based on a recommendation from a White House task force designed to combat sexual misconduct on college campuses nationwide. “We hope the survey will give us an initial information on what students understand about the policy, what services are See SURVEY, Page 3
Students apply for rights to viral slogan Students sell apparel following appointment of new football coach By LINDSEY SCULLEN Daily Staff Reporter
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SACUA meets for their weekly meeting Monday in the Regents Room at the Fleming Administration Building.
SACUA discusses changes to Information Tech. policy
IT officials update faculty body on changes to University guidelines By CARLY NOAH Daily Staff Reporter
The Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs convened in the Fleming Administration Building Monday to discuss potential updates to University Information Technology Policy. Alan Levy, IT policy and compliance lead for the University, and Sol Bermann, the University’s interim chief information security officer, joined the committee to review IT-related
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revisions to the University’s Standard Practice Guide, the document which includes University-wide policies regarding specific standards and expectations for University employees. Levy introduced updates to three policies that applied specifically to SACUA and have not been revised since their initial implementation, including the Proper Use Policy, an umbrella IT policy written for University employees to abide by in 1990. Proposal use policies are intended to stipulate the ways in which networks or websites are used. The second program, a subset of the Proper Use Policy, was written in the mid-1990s and has also never received revision. Levy said the IT depart-
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ment wishes to add a paragraph to clarify that the program will apply to students. “We want to represent the culture and ethos of this institution,” Levy said. “We have written drafts that we hope and believe are the U-M way of doing things.” The third proposal was to implement a new softwarelicensing standard to replace the previous versions, which were developed in 1979 and 1993. “We have not done a good job with keeping up with what is going on in the software world,” Levy said. SACUA also discussed the election process for LSA’s executive committee, which includes several faculty members See SACUA, Page 3
Vol. CXXIV, No. 45 ©2015 The Michigan Daily michigandaily.com
Since the departure of Brady Hoke, former Michigan football coach, LSA juniors Zachary Bruch and Ryan Luck have been eager to welcome Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh to Ann Arbor — or as they call it, “Ann Arbaugh.” Bruch and Luck filed to trademark the phrase “Ann Arbaugh” on the day of the press conference announcing Harbaugh’s arrival Dec. 30. They started selling affiliated products the day before. “Before the press conference, we went ahead and decided to file for the trademark. We kind of just took the risk,” Luck said. With the help of Luck’s friend Benjamin Frost, owner of Frostees Apparel, a Tallahassee-based screen-printing T-shirt company, Luck and Bruch designed apparel, most of which reads “Ann Arbaugh” across the front. “We wanted that ‘Ann Arbaugh’ name on the chest,” Luck said. “Everyone’s been proud to rep that.” Bruch and Luck now sell a variety of products through
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See ARBAUGH, Page 3 SPORTS....................8 SUDOKU.....................2 CLASSIFIEDS...............6