ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM Friday, December 11, 2015
Ann Arbor, Michigan
michigandaily.com
RUBE GOLDBERG’S DEVICE
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
Commission on inclusion inactive after resignations Eleven members step down from their positions after chair’s termination By EMMA KERR DELANEY RYAN/Daily
Art & Design freshman Laura Desimine works on a Rube Goldberg project for her first-year 3D class at the Art & Architecture building on Thursday.
POLITICS
At his alma mater, mixed impressions of Ben Carson ‘U’, campaign not actively highlighting candidate’s time on Ann Arbor campus
an unknown name for most Americans. The now-presidential hopeful first made his mark as the first neurosurgeon to separate conjoined twins in 1987 — a feat rooted in the medical training he received at the University’s Medical School. But while he’s known to many Americans, his alum status at the University isn’t as well known — and little has been done to connect the presidential-hopeful
By EMMA KINERY Daily Staff Reporter
With a third-place position in the Republican presidential primary, Ben Carson is not
to his alma mater, by both the campaign and the University. Until Wednesday, Carson had yet to visit Ann Arbor while on the campaign trail, and when he did, the visit was brief — a closedpress meeting with Medical School leaders and students before a campaign stop in Ypsilanti and a fundraiser in Ann Arbor. The meeting on campus was closed per the University’s request, according to the Carson campaign.
TMD
By KATIE PENROD Daily Staff Reporter
With 2016 around the corner, The Michigan Daily staff has selected its new editor in chief, managing editors and section leaders for the 2016 calendar year. The editor in chief and editorial page editors were chosen during a staff-wide election, while other positions were elected within each section. LSA junior Shoham Geva, a senior news editor in 2015, will serve as editor in chief. Generally, her goal for the upcoming year is to move the Daily in a more digitally focused direction. “Specifically, I’d like to focus a lot on our online presence,” she said. “Two of the initiatives I’m planning on pursuing right away are really defining what our social media presence
WEATHER TOMORROW
looks like — so sitting down and creating a strategic plan about how we brand ourselves and how we promote ourselves. I’m also hoping to create a new position entirely focused on multimedia in recognition of the fact that it seems like a lot of newspapers have seemed to fold that more and more into their coverage.” LSA junior Laura Schinagle will serve as managing editor, and echoed Geva’s thoughts about creating an online presence that caters to readers. She added that she wants to make every staff member feel welcome in the newsroom. “One of our main initiatives is ramping up social media, something we’ve already started doing through Shoham’s strategic plan,” she said. “Also implementing more online packaging and working with web team to create more interactive things online.” LSA junior Emma Kerr, the incoming managing news editor, said she hopes to foster more long-form investigative work with her reporters while continuing to engage See EDITORS, Page 3
HI: 59 LO: 50
The Central Student Government’s Campus Inclusion Commission, which aimed to address campus issues related to race, gender and the LGBTQ community, has effectively disbanded, following the resignation of 11 of the group’s members. At last week’s CSG meeting, CSG President Cooper Charlton, an LSA senior, told the assembly that the commission’s chair, Matthew Fleisher, a School of Music, Theatre & Dance sophomore, had been terminated from his position. According to members of the commission, the 11 other members resigned shortly afterward in response. During an interview Tuesday, CSG executives declined to answer questions related to the commission, and at this time, there is no active CSG commission related to diversity and inclusion. Charlton did address the matter at the Dec. 1 CSG meeting,
SCIENCE
& RUBIK’S CUBE
Daily staffers elects 2016 leadership, section editors LSA junior Shoham Geva to serve as paper’s editor in chief
Later in the day, Carson introduced his health care reform plans not on campus but 30 minutes away, at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. During previous visits to the state, Carson hasn’t visited Ann Arbor, and the University hasn’t made much mention of the candidate since he launched his campaign in May. The University declined requests for comment about See CARSON, Page 2
Daily News Editor
saying he and the body’s other executives stand by Fleisher’s termination, citing “deceptive behavior, the misrepresentation of facts, and racially charged statements to members of CSG staff and colleagues.” Charlton addressed the situation after a Michigan in Color article, published in The Michigan Daily, criticized how the body’s executive leadership interacted with the commission and its members. The article was temporarily retracted, but an edited version has since been republished following additional review. Fleisher provided a written statement on behalf of the Campus Inclusion Commission, but declined to further discuss the circumstances surrounding the resignations and termination or the commission’s future. “The former Campus Inclusion Commission advocated for the inclusion of minority voices and perspectives in the common campus narrative, as well as the narrative within student government,” he wrote. “We are handling this situation with as much care for the community and ourselves with principles of truth, reconciliation, and justice. Going forward, we will continue our inclusionary work through other See INCLUSION, Page 3
‘U’ profs. create new software to detect lies Research uses clips from trials to identify deceptive gestures, words By ALYSSA BRANDON Daily Staff Reporter
RYAN MCLOUGHLIN/Daily
Engineering graduate student Martin Harris demonstrates how his team’s Rubik’s cube works in the GG Brown Building on Thursday. The cube could possibly be named the world’s largest Rubik’s cube that is solvable under human power.
GOVERNMENT
State reps. face challenges in majority GOP legislature
Warren, Irwin, Zemke focus on diverse range of policy goals in 2015 By LYDIA MURRAY Daily Staff Reporter
With the 2015 legislative session coming to a close, Ann Arbor’s representatives in the State House and Senate
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discussed the year’s successes and challenges as they played out in a Republican-controlled legislature. State House In January, Rep. Jeff Irwin (D–Ann Arbor) and Rep. Adam Zemke (D–Ann Arbor) spoketo The Michigan Daily about what they hoped to accomplish during the year. Both emphasized goals related to higher education funding, which has been in flux over the past five years. In 2011, Gov. Rick Snyder (R) cut state
NEW ON MICHIGANDAILY.COM SAM member sentenced for vandalism MICHIGANDAILY.COM/SECTION/NEWS
INDEX
funding for higher education by almost 15 percent. Since then, he has proposed modest increases each year, though overall funding has not reached pre2011 levels. With this year’s budget, higher education funding for the University increased by 1.9 percent. “We really have to work to preserve funding at the current levels,” Zemke said in January. “And really it should be See LEGISLATURE, Page 3
Vol. CXXV, No. 44 ©2015 The Michigan Daily michigandaily.com
What does lying look like? Two University researchers believe they have found the answer. Using video footage of highprofile court trials and hearings, Rada Mihalcea, professor of computer science and electrical engineering, and Mihai Burzo, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at UM-Flint, are leading a project to build liedetecting software that can gauge deception through a speaker’s words and gestures. Mihalcea said the research team first began developing the software by studying 120 video clips from media coverage of court trials. She said the team chose to analyze videos as part of building the software to add a real-life element to the software. “I think that one of the challenges in doing the research on deception is that usually you get your data in lab, which is fine, but I think that people who come See LIES, Page 3
NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 ARTS...........................5
SPORTS......................7 SUDOKU.....................2 CLASSIFIEDS...............6