2020-02-18

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Ann Arbor, Michigan

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SACUA chair talks Philbert investigation, student voting Senate Assembly discusses civic engagement on University campus SAINI KETHIREDDY Daily Staff Reporter

DANYEL THARAKAN/Daily Former Clinc CEO Jason Mars, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at U-M, has been accused of sexual harassment and verbal abuse.

‘U’ professor faces allegations of sexual harassment, abusive behavior

Jason Mars, CEO of artifical intelligence startup Clinc, steps down from executive position in response to multiple misconduct accusations ALICE TRACEY

Daily Staff Reporter

The co-founder and former CEO of Clinc, an Ann Arbor artificial intelligence startup with ties to the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering, is facing claims of sexual harassment. Jason Mars’s behavior was investigated after Clinc received two official complaints from employees in December. He stepped down as

CEO Feb. 10 in response to the investigation.

An article published in The Verge Thursday morning detailed reports of sexually inappropriate behavior from Mars, who is currently a tenured associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University and the co-director of the University’s Clarity-Lab, an AI research group. The Verge based its reporting on accounts from 13 current and former employees,

including some who studied under Mars at the University, in addition to leaked phone calls, emails and documents.

Mars founded Clinc in 2015 with his wife Lingjia Tang and University alumni Michael Laurenzano and Johann Hauswald. The company, which creates intelligent chatbots, has worked with clients including Ford, Sprint and USAA and has raised approximately $60 million in investments.

Clinc has a close relationship with the University. Mars currently teaches EECS 498, section 3, a conversational artificial intelligence class that uses Clinc’s platform. Tang is also a computer science professor at the University.

The claims against Mars published by The Verge describe verbal and physical harassment of Clinc employees and business partners, as well as misuse of company funds.

See ALLEGATIONS, Page 2

The University of Michigan Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs met at Palmer Commons Monday afternoon to discuss how to increase civic engagement on campus in advance of the upcoming primary elections.

SACUA Chair Joy Beatty first began the meeting by addressing the sexual misconduct allegations against Martin A. Philbert, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. She said she emailed University President Mark Schlissel before this meeting regarding the matter, then read from his response to her email.

“While the allegations are serious, the investigation being conducted by an independent outside law firm is not yet complete and everyone should reserve final judgments until that point,” Beatty read from Schlissel’s email. “We all need to encourage people to come forward if they have any information on prohibited

STUDENT GOVERNMENT

‘Mobilize’ Artist explores role of witness in society, declares understanding truth in legal system candidacy Courtney McClellan explains philosophy behind new art installation at UMMA for CSG LOLA YANG

Party looks to engage campus organizations leading up to schoolwide election in late March ALEX HARRING Daily News Editor

Mobilize, a Central Student Government party “dedicated to running a campaign that prioritizes and empowers the voices of all students,” announced its intention on Monday night to have a slate of students seek CSG seats in the March election. Mobilize is the first party to publicly share its formation.

In an interview with The Daily, Public Policy junior Amanda Kaplan, Mobilize’s presidential candidate, said she and her vice presidential candidate, LSA junior Sav Nandigama, will operate as a team if elected. Kaplan said their campaign is about listening to student voices and this theme starts at the top of the ticket.

“It’s not one person at the top of a ticket saying I want to run for president, now let me find a team of people behind me,” Kaplan said. “Sav and I literally sat in a room together, decided together that we wanted to run and then said, ‘Okay, let’s flip a coin and see who’s going to be president and vice president,’ because, to us, it’s truly a partnership, and it’s really emblematic of the way that we’re running our campaign, where it’s not just about one person or an executive ticket.

See MOBILIZE, Page 3

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Witness Lab is an architectural courtroom installation and a performance series by Courtney McClellan, Roman J. Witt Artist in Residence at the School of Art & Design. On Feb. 17, about 100 people attended the Artist Talk featuring McClellan, hosted by the

University of Michigan Museum of Art, which explored the role of witnesses in society and how humans understand truth in our legal system.

From February to May, Witness Lab will host a series of public trial simulations, theater and trial advocacy workshops that invite the audience to ref lect on the role of truth in society. Art & Design

students will document the performances through drawing, photography, text and video. The accumulated products will result in the publication of a book.

While discussing her inspirations, McClellan talked about her upbringing in a community of lawyers and teachers and her experience studying journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel

Hill. She acknowledged that though she did not pursue a career in journalism, journalistic methodologies have stayed with her and became an integral aspect of her artistic production.

When she was teaching at the University of Georgia, McClellan said she followed and observed the mock trial team for three years.

See WITNESS, Page 3

conduct. The fact that people came forward to report misconduct is a positive sign.”

Beatty also explained changes proposed by the Senate Assembly, including the realignment of the committees. Instead of having nine standing committees as there are now, the Senate Assembly proposed to move to six standing committees and one ad hoc committee, which gathers only as needed.

“The downside of having an ad hoc committee is that if you got something that needs to be done quickly and you got to pull together a committee, I think it will be difficult,” Beatty said. “It seems like a type of committee where it would really help to have people who have the expertise (on the bylaws), whether they’re from law, from policy or some unit like that.”

Gina Cervetti, associate professor of the School of Education and chair of Student Relations Advisory Committee, discussed the committee’s role in civic engagement on campus.

See SENATE, Page 3

ACADEMICS

RC hosts chat with program director Catherine Badgley, Residential College members speak on diversity, inclusion SUNSKRITI PARANJAPE Daily Staff Reporter

The University of Michigan’s Residential College hosted a talk in East Quadrangle Residence Hall on Monday with Catherine Badgley, director of the RC and head of the Science, Technology and Society program. The RC is a multidisciplinary liberal arts program within the College of LSA and is one of LSA’s Michigan Learning Communities.

The event facilitated conversations about building community, increasing diversity and exploring the identity of the RC. About 10 members of the RC community attended the event, including students, faculty and staff.

The discussion began with attendees sharing their interpretations of what the identity of the RC truly is. Badgley commented on the curiosity and open-mindedness of RC students.

“I find RC students extremely curious,” Badgley said. “Despite the fact that I think we have a reputation of being kind of on a certain part of the political spectrum, I also find RC students fairly open-minded in terms of being willing to consider a wide range of ideas.”

RYAN LITTLE/Daily Roman Witt artist in residence Courtney McClellan explores how performance afffects a courtroom at the UMMA Monay evening.

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NATALIE STEPHENS/Daily Artist Leslie Sobel displays her work, titled “Shrines & Reliquaries: Memorizing Climate,” at the A. Alfred Taubman Health Center. The collection of mixed media boxes, using various mediums of painting, monotype, photography, and more, each showcase places being altered by climate change. The collection is being displayed though March 6, 2020.

ALLEGATIONS From Page 2 Mars reacts to allegations One allegation detailed in The Verge comes from one of Mars’s former doctoral students, who worked at Clinc alongside his girlfriend. He claimed Mars made inappropriate comments about his girlfriend at an event at Revel and Roll bowling alley. Allegedly, Mars said she had a “nice ass,” asked if she “shaved” and said, “She can sit on my face.”

The source, identified as Ryan in The Verge’s article, spoke to The Daily and corroborated this story, adding Mars’s wife was in earshot when Mars spoke inappropriately about Ryan’s girlfriend and did not speak up. He also clarified when he and his girlfriend left Clinc after the incident, his girlfriend explained to Mars and Tang why she was leaving, so the pair has been explicitly aware of Mars’s misconduct since June 2017, according to Ryan.

Ryan said since leaving Clinc, he’s become more aware of what a toxic environment the company was.

“Every weird way he acted towards people, I realized it was all just a sociopathic manipulation,” Ryan said.

Another Clinc employee told The Verge she was groped and verbally harassed by Mars at a bar during a business trip to San Francisco. She said she did not report the incident out of fear of losing her job.

Employees claimed a comparable incident happened on a business trip to San Antonio, during which Clinc was working on a project with one of its clients, USAA. At a social event at a bar, Mars allegedly groped a female USAA employee and told her, “I want to do nasty things to you.”

The female employee did not report the harassment to USAA. She told The Verge she did not want an HR investigation on her employee record.

The Verge’s article also described some instances of

conversations that crossed professional boundaries. For instance, Mars allegedly asked employees to name their sexual fetishes at a social event at his and Tang’s house.

Sam, a former Clinc intern and full-time employee kept anonymous in this article due to fear of retaliation, confirmed this story in an interview with The Daily. He said he was an intern at the time, and the event shook his admiration for Mars. He also said when Ryan, who was also present at the social event, called Mars out for acting inappropriately, Mars shrugged it off.

“I just remember him leaning into me, and he’s like, ‘So, tell me about your sexual fetishes,’” Sam said. “I just kinda made something up and it went around the circle.”

Mars provided The Daily with a statement on Saturday afternoon.

In an email to The Daily, he denied all accusations and emphasized the findings of the investigation into the two legal claims against him.

“I vehemently deny any and all allegations of sexual misconduct,” Mars wrote. “Moreover, many of the allegations made about me are without merit or are fabrications.

The outside investigator hired

by Clinc’s board concluded that certain events that were alleged did not happen as claimed, and that allegations of retaliation were without merit. I valued my relationships with my colleagues and have the utmost respect for the men and women with whom I worked on a daily basis.”

Mars added there have been no complaints against him from University students.

“To date, there are no complaints at the University of Michigan from anyone who was/is my graduate student nor undergraduate students in my class,” he wrote. “As there’s been no complaints from my students, there also isn’t and has never been any investigations into my conduct with students at the University throughout my years of service.”

Tang did not respond to The

Daily’s request for comment.

The recent investigation was prompted by two legal claims against Mars. One of these claims came from Brian Rider, vice president of innovation and strategy at Clinc. According to a letter from Rider’s lawyer, on a November 2019 business trip to San Francisco, Mars showed Rider pornographic videos and asked Rider to watch him receive oral sex from a prostitute. In its article, The Verge published a recording of a conversation between Mars and Rider regarding this incident.

In response to the official claims that surfaced in December, public relations firm MWWPR conducted a five-week, independent investigation into Clinc, interviewing 17 current and former employees and reviewing materials such as emails and company reports.

According to a statement from MWWPR, the specific allegations being addressed did not occur as claimed, but the investigation did illuminate some misbehavior.

“The investigation did highlight instances where behavior has been a distraction to the success of Clinc and also concluded that complaints concerning such behavior were promptly addressed by Clinc leadership,” the statement reads.

After stepping down as CEO Monday and leaving Tang and Laurenzano as interim co-CEOs, Mars, in a company email, criticized the allegations but acknowledged he had crossed some boundaries.

“Although the allegations against me are rife with embellishments and fabrications some of which came out in the investigation, the truth is there were cases where I drank too much and partied with employees in a way that’s not becoming of a CEO,” the email reads. “I’ve learned a hard lesson about seeing my employees as friends and the importance of setting proper boundaries when socializing outside the workplace.”

Clinc did not respond to The Daily’s requests for comment in

time for publication.

Clinc employees describe toxic company culture Jordan, a University senior who asked to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation and will be referred to using a pseudonym, interned at Clinc. They said the stories presented in The Verge did not come as a surprise. In fact, Jordan said they had heard of all the allegations in The Verge article.

“When this article came out, the scariest part was that none of it was news to me,” Jordan said.

According to Jordan, Mars’s alleged misbehavior was common knowledge among Clinc employees.

“It was just kind of company folklore to hear all these stories about him,” Jordan said. “I think everyone at the company heard the story about him sexually assaulting a customer one time, and it was just kind of thought of as, ‘Oh, this is our CEO, this is what he does and we have to deal with it.’”

Another former Clinc employee, referred to as Emily for the sake of anonymity, said she also heard about several instances of sexual harassment during her time at Clinc. She said she would deliberately avoid having to spend time with Mars — and Tang — one-on-one or outside of work.

Jake, an LSA student who interned at Clinc, said he knew about two of the incidents mentioned in The Verge article, including the one involving Ryan. Others came as a surprise, though he didn’t see them as out of character for Mars.

Jake said he first noticed Mars’s inappropriate behavior while at a bar with Mars, alleging that Mars drunkenly tried to convince a married Clinc employee to have sex with someone else.

“He was very lecherous in his behavior, talked about women in a demeaning manner,” Jake said. “I was an intern, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to call him out for it, but at the same time, it’s like, this is my livelihood, this is my job, I don’t want to get fired.”

See ALLEGATIONS, Page 3

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ALLEGATIONS From Page 2 Despite the common recognition of Mars’s alleged misbehavior, Jordan said employees felt uncomfortable speaking up about Mars.

“The company had such a culture where we were kind of trapped and we couldn’t really say anything about it and bring up that it was so fucked up,” they said.

Jake agreed, noting employees wouldn’t speak up because they didn’t want to lose their jobs and the company was doing well.

Sam echoed this, saying the company was lucrative and many of the employees had strong stock options.

Sexual misconduct was not the only trouble with Clinc’s culture, Jordan said. They claimed Mars was prone to angry outbursts at employees, and he and Tang would engage in intense fights at work.

Other sources The Daily spoke to supported this claim. Ryan suggested the fighting was a tool Mars and Tang used to intimidate employees.

“It was marital spats, but to an absolutely extreme degree,” Jordan said. “Swearing, storming out of the room, slamming doors. Married couples fight, but it was psychotic, almost.”

According to Jake, Mars crossed professional boundaries in the way he criticized and talked about employees.

“He definitely talked about employees in a very unprofessional manner,” Jake said. “He would mention people’s physical appearances, he would mention if they were a good worker or a bad worker. He would openly talk shit about employees pretty regularly.”

Jake said employees would be prone to personal attacks for their mistakes and Mars’s temperament could change instantaneously.

“He’s very outwardly friendly, like ‘I’m your best friend,’” Jake said. “But the instant you get on his bad side, you do something that upsets him, you’re dead to him. It flips like a switch, it’s crazy.”

Sam supported this, saying the workplace environment was confusing because Mars and Tang were volatile. For instance, he noted

RC From Page 1 LSA senior Camilla Lizundia, a member of the RC, discussed the academic attributes of a typical RC student and the sense of community she felt the RC embodied.

“When I think of an RC student, I think of someone who’s really engaged,” Lizundia said. “Someone who’s perhaps interested in organizing, someone who enjoys learning languages and who enjoys the arts. When I think of the RC as a whole, the word that comes to mind is community.”

Badgley further talked about her experience as a member of RC faculty and the learning that she feels comes with the RC community.

“One comes here as a faculty member, as a kind of a co-learner,” Badgley said. “So I feel as though in my classes, even though it’s true I have some expert knowledge that I can impart, I try to point out questions and topics for which I don’t have the answers. Because I’m genuinely interested in hearing what my students think, and they often have really unusual and valuable insights.”

MOBILIZE From Page 1 It’s about a team of people working together, respecting one another and elevating each other’s voices.”

Mobilize is holding a mass meeting on Wednesday night in the Ford School of Public Policy building.

Kaplan has previously served as CSG’s vice-chair of the finance committee and as a member of the Student Organization Funding Committee.

She was also chair of the Engage Party, headed by Ben Gerstein, current president of CSG and Public Policy junior, in last spring’s election and currently serves as chief of staff in his administration.

Before this, Kaplan held a seat in the Assembly as an LSA representative.

Nandigama previously served as CSG chief of staff in Daniel Greene’s administration.

Nandigama told The Daily that she and Kaplan created Mobilize

Tang could be kind — even hugging him on his birthday — when she’d just been screaming at someone in a conference room.

Commenting on the workplace dynamic at Clinc, Ryan said Mars and his wife would manipulate employees by playing “good cop, bad cop.”

“Once you’re on their radar, they choose which of them is going to be nice and which is going to be mean to you, so that they can always have one of their unit on your side,” Ryan said.

Jordan said the toxic culture got to the point where employees would freeze upon hearing even a video recording of Mars’s voice, afraid that he was in the room.

“His presence is just so dominating and it’s scary,” Jordan said.

A major part of Mars’s misbehavior, Jordan said, was substance use. They said alcohol is a focal part of Clinc’s workplace culture — employees store alcohol in the company fridge, drink during Friday meetings and often go to bars after work — and this fueled Mars’s toxicity.

Jake pointed out alcohol use and underage drinking are common at many tech companies, but claimed Mars was unprofessional in the extent of his drinking. According to Sam, at the first retreat he went to, the company brought 600 cans of beer and seven handles of vodka.

Emily noted Tang was a heavy drinker as well, participating in the many happy hours and after-work drinking sessions. She said the couple would often show up late to work as a result of their drinking.

“They show up oftentimes late because they both like to drink,” Emily said. “And then they have all the liquor in the office.”

Ryan said he thinks Mars used alcohol as an excuse for inappropriate behavior. Ryan added he was unimpressed by a statement Mars made in a company email, saying he had stopped drinking.

Referencing the incident at Revel and Roll, Ryan said he does not believe Mars’s inappropriate actions can be completely pinned on alcohol. According to Ryan, Mars winked knowingly at him the day after the incident.

“As far as I know, on bowling night, he was only just drinking

beer, so unless he slammed down 15 beers, he shouldn’t have been so out of control,” Ryan said. “It’s definitely not that he was blackout drunk the night before. It’s pretty clear that he knew he was trying to manipulate me, and then the wink was some sort of signal.”

Sexual harassment and alcohol abuse aside, Clinc was rife with professional issues, according to the sources who spoke to The Daily.

For instance, Ryan said, Mars and Tang would cite themselves in their research papers to inflate their citation counts. Sam added there was some suspicious use of funds; he claimed Mars and Tang used investor money to pay for a set of condos they owned downtown.

Emily said the couple would fire employees often, especially when employees expressed concern about the company. Sam agreed, sharing a story about an intern who told management he was not interested in pursuing a full-time position and was immediately fired.

Moreover, Ryan said, Mars would lie to clients about the capabilities of Clinc’s conversational AI platform. Mars’s exaggerations meant workers would have to pull all-nighters to deliver on his promises. Emily backed up this claim.

“When an investor or client would come in and they’d be like, ‘Oh, it would be cool if we could do that,’ as soon as that would happen, Jason would be like, ‘Oh, we already have that done, it’s so super intelligent, just give us two days to get it ready,’” Ryan said.

In addition, Ryan said Tang and Mars would select graduate students from their University lab that they knew they could easily manipulate into working overtime.

“That’s their perfect worker, someone you can pressure into working 70 hours a week, basically unpaid, for the company and for their own research,” Ryan said.

According to Emily, Mars would target lower-level employees or those with less power in order to avoid retaliation.

“He’s smart enough to pick on people who are lower level than he is, much lower level, to avoid some of the allegations,” Emily said.

Ryan, who quit shortly after the bowling alley incident and left his doctorate program, said it took him

The discussion then moved on to talk of diversity within the RC. Steven Ward, an associate professor at the RC, commented on how a perceived lack of diversity can be attributed to the RC being a microcosm of the broader University community.

“I do think that racial diversity in particular and other forms or types of diversity are problems and concerns in the RC,” Ward said. “And I will say that that’s also symptomatic of the RC, but also symptomatic of the University.

Something that I think we should be mindful of and talk about and try to work on, and maybe beat ourselves up a little bit but not too much. If we want to beat up on somebody it should be the whole University.”

Badgely responded with a comment on the active effort to increase diversity within faculty.

“We are trying to be more proactive in hiring,” Badgley said.

“For example, we just had a joint search with the English department for a position in creative non-fiction and we rewrote the job ad in a way that specifically encouraged people with experience with underrepresented minorities to apply. And we also sent the ad to

60 colleges and universities that are especially populated with underrepresented minorities.”

The discussion then moved to talk of alienation within the RC community and fitting in, particularly with respect to international students.

“Yes, we do have a very low retention rate,” Lizundia said.

“But there are a lot of factors that go into it … I would say to be more specific at what I’m trying to get at, the international community is not very welcome in a lot of social cliques. Absolutely I think we need to be having more conversations like this, more town halls … and I think the addition of task courses is excellent but there needs to be more.”

Speakers then reminisced about the roots and history of the RC. RC drama lecturer Kate Mendeloff talked about the tradition of student self-governance within the RC. “Certainly when the RC was founded, the students ran it,” Mendeloff said. “They had a student board that was as powerful in making policy as the faculty. I think it’s part of the tradition.”

Reporter Sunskriti Paranjape can be reached at sunspara@umich.edu.

with the goal of ensuring CSG is listening to student voices as much as possible.

“We really just want people to feel like we’re not going to sit on some pedestal being president and vice president, but we really want to work with students,” Nandigama said. “We’re really hoping to uplift different student voices because it’s not just us at the table.”

In addition to her work in CSG, Nandigama noted her roles within the South Asian Awareness Network, the University’s Office of Undergraduate Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs and Blueprints for Pangea, an organization committed to mitigating medical resource inefficiencies.

The party does not currently have a platform. On Mobilize’s website, it said it is meeting with student groups to “effectively grasp student needs and craft meaningful policy.” Mobilize is expecting to release a platform next week, though it noted it will be constantly changing as the party

hears from more people.

Public Policy junior Miriam Chung, outreach director of Mobilize, said the party wants to have conversations with student groups before creating policies to bring in multiple voices and better integrate CSG in the campus community. Chung said she joined Mobilize because this mission resonated with her.

“If we’re running as a body or as an entity that’s really supposed to represent student voices, then we should ask them what they want, and then implement it into our policy platforms and what we’re really advocating for,” Chung said.

“In turn, that really integrates a lot of different kinds of people and voices into our story.”

The website has forms for individual students to share ideas or for organizations to arrange meetings with party members.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

time to process how unhealthy the workplace environment at Clinc was.

“It’s so multidimensional how toxic it is,” Ryan said. “Once you’re there, it kind of infects your brain and it takes you like two months to actually withdraw from it and get back to normal.”

Overall, Sam said, the culture at Clinc was complicated. The management’s behavior was clearly inappropriate, but Mars also had many positive attributes, according to Sam — for example, he worked hard to get talented students from his parents’ native Guyana internships at Clinc.

“Jason’s so charismatic and so persuasive, he has a way of getting inside your head,” Sam said. “He has this way of looking at people where it’s like he’s looking into your soul.”

U-M responds to the claims against Mars In the wake of the allegations, University students and administration are reflecting on Mars’s role at the University.

Multiple students have commented on the blurred boundaries between Mars’s class and his startup.

Taylor, who took EECS 498 in Fall 2019, said Mars came to about three to five lectures over the course of the semester, saddling another lecturer — and Clinc employee — with the bulk of the teaching. He added Mars was unresponsive to emails related to the course.

“He was pretty explicit about one of the reasons he did the class was to try to recruit UMich CS undergrads to go work at Clinc,” Taylor said. “At the final demo, there was a Clinc recruiter there handing out business cards.”

Taylor said the distinction between Mars’s professorship and his outside work was hazy.

“My kind of perception was something along the lines of he didn’t really think that the rules and boundaries applied to him,” Taylor said.

Sam claimed Mars and Tang abused their ties to the University.

For example, he said, most of Mars’s graduate students also worked at Clinc, and they felt they had to stay at Clinc in order to keep their spot in the doctorate program.

SENATE From Page 1 This committee consults with and advises the vice president for student life.

Cervetti said they have been discussing how to think about the election in relation to the campus climate and issues facing students. She has been particularly interested in using the election to help University students think about their role as citizens and as an opportunity to support civic conversations on campus. She said this might help U-M win the Big Ten Voting Challenge, a competition across the Big Ten Conference to increase student voter registration and turnout.

MaryJo Banasik, director of the Faculty Senate Office, said she wants to foster different ways to promote student life. She said she will work to promote democratic involvement.

“We know at the University of Michigan, our students are interested in all kinds of pathways in impacting public life,” Banasik said. “We will be focusing on voting and some of

WITNESS From Page 1 “Even though just inherently in this mock trial room, learning that cases weren’t finite and outcomes were creative and many different things could happen inside them — after this long observation, I knew as an artist I must turn to some kind of action,” McClellan said.

McClellan also explored the role of storytelling in a courtroom and how it contributes to the infinite uncertainty of truth. She said she sees litigation as a place where storytelling and performance intersect.

She also said she considers “liveness” vital to a courtroom.

McClellan suggested that the act of witnessing contributes to a collective narrative in the legal space and that this public gesture

Tuesday, February 18, 2020 — 3 “Jason and Lingjia had a way of just intertwining everything,” he said.

In an email to The Daily Friday morning, University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald clarified Mars’s status as an associate professor remains unchanged.

He re-confirmed Mars’s employment Sunday morning.

“The behavior reported in this story is inconsistent with the values in the College of Engineering and entire University of Michigan community,” Fitzgerald wrote in the email on Friday.

In addition to retaining his employment status, Mars stayed on as a speaker at Friday’s TEDx event.

The day The Verge published its reporting on Thursday, an EECS 498 instructor made a post on the class’s Piazza page, acknowledging the article and clarifying the course has in no way been restructured.

An EECS 498 instructor made a Piazza post assuring students the class would not be restructured following the allegations against Mars.

On Friday morning, Engineering professor Westley Weimer sent out a lengthy statement to his EECS 481 class, addressing students’ concerns in light of the allegations against Mars and other University administrators and faculty.

In his statement, Weimer said though he cannot personally address investigations into sexual misconduct claims, he has set up an anonymous dropbox and wants students to feel comfortable coming forward. He also noted there are many other issues, like wait times at office hours, transparency in hiring processes and disrespect towards students from course staff, that the CSE department needs to address.

“I may not be able to personally affect university-level policy about sexual harassment allegations, but I am working with a number of faculty members and administrators who have generously volunteered time or money to address some of those other climate concerns,” Weimer wrote.

Also on Friday, computer science and engineering faculty released a statement calling for Mars to take a leave of absence, according to The

Verge. The School of Information announced it would be suspending its recruiting relationship with Clinc.

Late Friday afternoon, the Dean of Engineering Alec Gallimore sent out an email condemning the recent allegations of sexual misconduct and stating the college would soon take action.

“Let me state in the clearest terms — the reported behaviors are not consistent with our values,” Gallimore wrote. “Although I do not have details to share today, I want to assure you that we will address these matters and take action as appropriate. We are working toward solutions to not only address immediate issues, but to also support a culture of respect within the entire College.”

In an email to CSE undergraduates Saturday afternoon, CSE Chair Brian Noble said he had taken a few steps to address the allegations on Friday.

He said CSE faculty had discussed the department’s climate issues. In addition, he said he asked Weimer to accept a position as Associate Chair of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and had launched two new student committees.

“There are profound problems with CSE’s climate. I know that there is a lot of frustration, pain and anger, and I share it,” Noble wrote.

CSE Chair Brian Noble sent an email to undergrads Sunday addressing the climate in the program.

Jake said Mars should absolutely not stay on as a professor.

“If he’s being this touchy around employees, I would feel incredibly unsafe going to an individual office hour with him,” Jake said. “There’s no positives of him staying at Michigan.”

Emily said she takes issue not only with Mars’s status at the University but with his wife’s professorship as well. Tang is an assistant professor, not an associate, and her Linkedin says she is currently on leave from the University.

“I would not send my kids to a university like that, knowing the professors have that kind of conduct,” she said.

Reporter Alice Tracey can be reached at atracey@michigandaily. com.

the key skills and commitments toward democratic nature.”

Banasik also discussed declining support for democratic processes. She noted 17 percent of U.S. residents agree the government can be trusted to do what is right always or most of the time.

“It’s important to mention this to give you a sense of, ‘Where are we in this context, and why is there renewed focus considering civic engagement as part of the Michigan education?’”

Banasik said. “Our hope at Ginsberg Center and working with partners across campus and some of our national civic partners, we know we want change in that scenario, creating confidence in the democratic structures, processes, et cetera that go beyond voting and are also about discussion, dialogue and information in news media.”

Erin Byrnes, leader of the Big Ten Voting Challenge at the Ginsberg Center, mentioned there was a large jump in voting in 2018 with 41 percent voting, a 26.7 percent increase from 2014.

“It’s a lot of great work there,” Byrnes said. “We nearly tripled our voting rate and it was kind of

our high-in-the-sky goal … With the hard work of our student team and our staff we were able to do that.”

Byrnes also commented on the high projections for the voter turnout this year in the U.S. “In looking ahead to 2020, in the fall, projection is around 65 percent turnout among eligible turnouts which will be the highest turnout since 1908, so over 100 years,” Byrnes said. “We are seeing a lot of movement, a lot of activity, a lot of energy.”

Dave Waterhouse, associate director of the Ginsberg Center, discussed how to incorporate civic engagement into working with students. He mentioned the Ginsberg Center is compiling a group of resources for faculty to connect their work and disciplines to promote civic engagement among students in a nonpartisan way.

“Even just asking the questions: ‘Are you voting?

Do you have a voting plan?

Are you registered to vote?’ in your classes,” Waterhouse said.

is just as important as the performers in the trials. She said the openness of this space plays an important role in its subjectivity, which shows that truth is not an absolute but rather something people share with each other.

“Witness is a powerful act.

Witness is a presence but also a retelling,” McClellan said.

“It’s active and social and political in nature.”

After the Artist Talk, the audience headed to the Irving Stenn, Jr. Family Gallery to experience the performance itself. Different from, yet imitative, of the traditional courtroom, Witness Lab was painted in a shade of light blue with counsel tables on both sides.

Camille Casemier, School of Art & Design and Music, Theatre & Dance junior, said she has been a huge fan of McClellan’s work and is interested in her research-

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based art.

“The interaction in between the courtroom and the religious space is something that I wasn’t really aware of so I thought that was really interesting,” Casemier said.

“As an artist who also likes to do a lot of research, it felt really affirming to hear (from) someone a lot further along in their career.”

Conner Darling, a performance artist and University alum, expressed his interest in public ritual and McClellan’s medium of art.

“I enjoyed her point about simulation versus reenactment,” Darling said.

“Simulations can allow anything to happen effectively and a lot of what she has done is creating the space for things to happen as opposed to prescribing certain events.”

Reporter Lola Yang can be reached at lolayang@umich. edu.

Opinion

4 — Tuesday, February 18, 2020

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

NEIL SHAH | COLUMN

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All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

RILEY DEHR | COLUMN

The Regents are taking your money and your future

I

t’s no secret that Ann Arbor is a bastion for pizza lovers.

Smaller places — like New York Pizza Depot (NYPD) or Joe’s Pizza — offer some great options for paper-thin New York-style pizza, while places like Pizza House and Cottage Inn fulfill every other pizza lover’s desire. Everyone has their favorite place, memories of nights with friends and delicious pizza attached to each one. I was shocked when I heard that my sacred pizza place, South U Pizza, was being shut down this past December.

I was waiting for my red-eye flight back home for Christmas when my boyfriend texted me the bad news. My eyes welled up with tears, not only due to the countless memories I had made there but for the loss of their buffalo chicken pizza, which was lathered in a pool of buffalo sauce and grease so thick it soaked through their paper plates.

I mourned the death of the best pizza I ever had.

It was only after the loss of this great pizzeria that I realized how nostalgic a pizza pie can be. Most American childhoods are marked by this universally beloved Italian food, steaming on table tops at birthday parties and sleepovers.

Even former President Barack Obama isn’t immune to the greasy goodness of a Little Ceasar’s Pizza, albeit on a sterling silver plate rather than a paper one.

It was way back in 2011 when Obama made his way to Detroit, a pizza mecca in its own right, for a pizza party fundraiser. Hosted

by Denise Ilitch, the daughter of Little Ceasar’s founders Mike and Marion Ilitch, guests dished out $10,000 for dinner and a photo with the president. The cocktail reception, and the chance to talk to the president, set guests back another $30,000. These numbers are paltry compared to the millions of dollars Ilitch, the local philanthropist, businesswoman and University of Michigan Regent, spent to host it at her home in Bingham Farms.

Obama repaid Ilitch’s generosity in 2016, with an invite not to a pizza party, but to his final state dinner alongside celebrities like Gwen Stefani, Rachel Ray, Jerry Seinfeld and Chance the Rapper. It was her third time in the Obama White House after two visits with her family’s Stanley Cup-winning Detroit Red Wings.

While Ilitch’s political bona fides and connections may seem hard to beat, her position is hardly unique among her fellow regents.

University Regent Mark Bernstein (D) represents another famous Michigan pedigree, appearing on my television at least three times during the Super Bowl in his family’s famous Sam Bernstein Law Firm commercials. University Regents Paul Brown (D), Michael Behm (D), Katherine White (D) and Jordan Acker (D) are also prominent Democratic lawyers with more accolades and accomplishments to count. But the political influence of the University’s Board of Regents isn’t limited to the Democratic party.

The Regents are shirking their responsibilities to their students.

University Regent Ronald Weiser (R), the sole Republican on the board, served as ambassador to the Slovak Republic under George W. Bush and chairman of the Michigan Republican Party from 2009-2011 and 2017-2019. In this position, he oversaw the red wave that flipped Michigan’s legislature and helped them maintain their death grip on it in the 2018 elections. After working to raise $1 billion for President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign as national finance chairman of the RNC, he is now serving in the same role for the re-election campaign of Stephen King’s arch-nemesis, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. Even Regent Shauna Ryder Diggs (D), a Grosse Pointe dermatologist with her own line of skin-care products, holds great political power as one of Michigan’s 17 Democratic superdelegates.

Elected by millions of Michiganders to serve their eightyear terms, the Board of Regents is no ordinary school board. Besides the power they hold as individuals, regents manage the school’s roughly $12 billion endowment, investing in new programs, buildings and the stock market. The school’s Wall Street investments have proven controversial in the last few years. Last year, the University’s Central Student Government passed a resolution to investigate withdrawing money from businesses that work with Israel, citing their violations of international law against Palestinians. The regents

denied it to maintain the strength of the investment portfolio. This isn’t the only time regents have prioritized the wishes and futures of donors over those of their students.

Written in chalk on buildings and sidewalks around campus are various mantras calling for the regents to divest the more than $1 billion the University has invested in gas and oil companies, reminders of the Global Climate Strike this past September. The University and the Regents have ignored these demands and had climate protesters arrested at sit-ins, ensuring the University maintains its spot near the bottom of Big Ten schools when it comes to reducing emissions. Their staunch refusal has baffled teachers and students who expect better from what they thought was Michigan’s most elite and progressive institution.

Long seen as a role model for the state, the Regents’ refusal to act sends a message that inaction on this existential threat to humanity is fine by them. Coming from a group of people who have helped elect presidents and countless other government officials in both major political parties, this message is beyond worrisome with implications reaching far beyond Ann Arbor.

In an America where Citizens United all but ensures elections go to whoever has the biggest bank account, the positive influence of wealthy donors like Ilitch and Weiser is going to be essential in getting Michigan and the nation back on track to keep our climate liveable. If the Regents don’t vote for this essential progress in their official roles, then they are unlikely to push other people, many who rely on their financial support, to do the same.

While the Regents recently took a small step in the right direction by voting down a $50 million investment in gas and oil company Vendera Resources, they still have a long way to go before they prove themselves to be leading us in the right direction. With Earth’s climate quickly reaching a tipping point, the Regents are shirking their responsibilities to their students to strengthen the money-making machine the University has become. While South U and their iconic buffalo chicken pizza may be doomed, our world doesn’t have to be.

Riley Dehr can be reached at rdehr@umich.edu.

MADELYN VERVAECKE | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT MIVERVAE@UMICH.EDU

T

The role of the educator in light of Saline

he Saline School District was recently dealt a blow when racist incidents within the community made local and national headlines. The first was the discovery of a student Snapchat group that contained racial slurs and epithets like “White Power” and “The South Will Rise Again.” Students of color within that group chat reportedly felt marginalized, “unsafe” and “frustrated.”

The second occurred at the community response to this development: At a districtwide meeting regarding issues of diversity and inclusion, a Mexican parent was voicing concerns about these race-based incidents when another parent coarsely asked why he didn’t just “stay in Mexico.”

The occurrence of these incidents, to some community members, wasn’t surprising.

But for many, it served as a community awakening to an underlying culture of nonchalance regarding issues of race, ethnicity and other identities among both students and parents. These incidents speak to the unfortunate spreading of racist, unwelcoming language that is unbecoming of any community, especially a school district. Students shouldn’t need to worry about surface threats or racist messages. They shouldn’t feel ostracized in an educational environment by their peers or adults in the community.

Educational institutions and teachers, the enactors of the educational mission, should be bound — by the nature of the institution of education — to care for students’ complaints, level of comfort and overall well-being.

I’ll admit this is strange to think about as I’ve always been a believer that individuals should take personal responsibility for their actions. (My mantra, ever

since my stints with bullying in middle school, has always been: If you have a problem, figure it out.) However, this idea isn’t functional in educational settings, even if it applies to life.

Educators have important roles in the lives of their students as teachers, leaders and caretakers: They should take the personal experiences of students seriously, especially those dealing with borderline malicious things like what went on in Saline.

Otherwise, the mission of educating students becomes seriously jeopardized. How can some students be expected to learn in an environment in which they aren’t treated as equals?

I internalized this idea at the New England Literature Program (NELP). This was a spring semester educational program, offered by the University of Michigan, during which participants study English literature in the woods of New Hampshire, isolated from society and functioning as a transcendental commune. Before one of the trips we took outside our cabin grounds, we had a discussion about the politics of New Hampshire residents and the chance we’d see “Make America Great Again” signs and other things that are inconsistent with our transcendental bubble.

At the time, I thought this was a conversation appropriate for sheltered individuals who couldn’t fathom the existence of a politwically diverse population, or that someone might have matured into their politics by different and parallel means. I wrote in my journal that I was surprised that a “talk-around like this even needs to be done.”

There were some other acerbic bits of writing about this matter that were passionate and which I held true to my beliefs. But I’ve changed my mind on the matter, especially in light of these events

in Saline and discussions had with fellow Daily members on the Editorial Board. Conversations like the one I had at NELP — like the one Saline held in response to the racist social media posts — are a necessary response to student experiences. They are not indicative of some sort of cultural deficiency or emotional weakness, rather, they’re an appropriate product to the cultural artifacts of this time.

Saline recently held an inclusion rally in solidarity with the students who felt marginalized from these mean-spirited messages.

I commend the intention to make a communal effort to right these wrongs. To be clear, the school district doesn’t need to adopt politically correct language and get sucked into a race to the bottom, driven by identity politics. (I talk about the negative influence of identity politics on educational institutions like universities in my last column. Political correctness stymies free speech and debate because it invalidates ideas and individuals who don’t agree with the accepted dogma). This “inclusion rally” probably falls into the category of meaningless politically correct demonstrations, but it can serve as a step in the right direction. The school district needs to — rather than re-educate — re-engage students in the mission of educational communitybuilding by incorporating the values that make a community a virtue: trust, tolerance and work. An incident like this shouldn’t muzzle the victims, but encourage them to create useful change. I’m glad it is and hope it continues to be the case in Saline.

Neil Shah can be reached at neilsh@umich.edu.

ELIZABETH COOK | COLUMN

S

Why you aren’t thriving

tress is a commonality that underpins the experience of students.

Our lives are filled with a multiplicity of influences, whether we actively recognize them or not. The most obvious and trendy-to-criticize influence is social media. The vast majority of students on campus utilize some form of social media, with YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Whatsapp being some of the most popular platforms for young people.

Our 24/7 access to social media serves as a constant connection to influences and an inherent comparison to others.

But the pressure goes beyond the media. “Flex culture,” or the desire to show off aspects of your identity like your physique, belongings or social connections, is apparent both on social media and while crossing the Diag.

While cultural structures add pressure to a student’s role, this is only one factor of high expectations. Mounting assignments, essays and exams, job and internship applications, on-campus employment, degree and credit requirements, budgeting and student debt are daily challenges many of us face. There are explicit and implicit expectations students are pressured to meet; While the narrative of “leaders and best” is aspirational and motivating, the looming pressures of resume building and constant productivity almost certainly add anxiety to student experiences.

Living in Ann Arbor poses specific challenges as students transition from on-campus housing to living off-campus.

The housing market is lacking in providing an adequate amount of reasonably priced proper living spaces, while highrises multiply and the student and working population grow.

Renting practices are complicated by limited space and a short time frame of contract signing, which can expose vulnerabilities landlords tend to exploit.

There is also a noticeable lack of access to healthy food close to Central Campus; While you can get basic staples at

convenience stores, to get an adequate amount of fresh fruit, vegetables and protein, students must travel far off-campus.

This task is straightforward for students with cars or the financial freedom to get their groceries delivered to their door, but those who don’t have those resources must rely on public transportation.

The flaws in housing, access to nutritious food and other challenges stand in the way of students relieving stress in their daily lives.

Our well-being is often put aside in order to prioritize productivity.

Education burnout is an experience shared by many college students striving for degrees. This manifests when the stress of school and time management becomes unbearable, draining us of any motivation to complete daily responsibilities, at times even bleeding into our health and well-being. While it may seem obvious, selfcare is crucial to avoid this.

Audre Lorde, an inf luential activist and powerful orator, said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

Focusing on personal wellbeing is a challenge when students are already dealing with the stress of standards, inf luences, pressures and expectations.

Tales of downing one’s caffeinated beverage of choice and pulling all-nighters before exams are common. The caricature of undone laundry, dirty dishes and chaotic living spaces are a reality for many. Our well-being is often put aside in order to prioritize productivity — yet this very act makes us less productive.

There are industries that directly profit by advertising

to those who experience high stress without pinpointing the cause. Face masks and essential oils can help the symptoms, but we must address the disease itself.

This commercialized approach to self-care is certainly beneficial to some but is impractical for students who have little free time and extra cash to spend. Because of this quixotic presentation of self-care in the media, many do not take it seriously.

The luxury of taking time out of packed schedules to do menial tasks seems like a joke. It is portrayed as an expensive hobby rather than a fundamental aspect of our well-being — an unrealistic, romanticized ideal that is nonsensical to integrate into our daily lives.

Educating ourselves on the variety of forms of wellness beyond eating healthy and exercising shouldn’t be seen as a luxury, but as a mandatory element for our success. This includes practicing good hygiene for its positive effects on mental health, developing spirituality and maintaining a clean living space. For those who struggle with mental illness, these tasks can be daunting, and additional resources like Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) may be helpful — it has been beneficial for me.

Our success should not be defined by how many hours we study or how long our resumes are. Instead, we must recognize that self-care is fundamental to not only maintain our wellbeing and happiness but to our academic and professional pursuits as well. When we invest in ourselves, we are better able to be present and productive while working.

Activist Maya Angelou said it best: “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, compassion, some humor and some style.” Leaders and best, it is time that we do not simply survive the pressures and expectations of our lives. It is time to thrive.

Elizabeth Cook can be reached at elizcook@umich.edu.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Arts

Tuesday, February 18, 2020 — 5

FILM REVIEW

‘Downhill’ never summits

RESTAURANT REVIEW

KARI ANDERSON Daily Arts Writer

PENNY LAM/DAILY

Loomi Cafe, or the Rise of the Avengers of Starch BRENDON CHO

Daily Food Columnist

A “loomi” is the Oman word for a sun-dried lime: a Middle Eastern spice that is used as a souring agent.

It is quite small — about the size of a key lime with black, pebbly skin — yet looming and distinct in flavor without being overbearing. While originating from Oman, loomi limes are used throughout the Middle East. You will find some loomi limes providing bright but subdued acidity in Persian stews and soups, a rounded sweetness to many Iraqi meat stuffings and a voluptous funk to many Arabic fish dishes.

While Loomi Cafe may not always use its eponymous spice within its rotating menu, the flavors often present in the food are as playful as a loomi lime — titillating spices play behind a foreground of (usually citric) acidity.

Loomi Cafe is situated in a small diner-like space across from Monahan’s Fish Market inside the Kerrytown Market & Shops. Long time residents of the neighborhood may recall that Loomi Cafe now stands in the space formerly occupied by Kosmo’s Bop Shop, which has since moved to a new location next to Fleetwood Diner.

Unlike its predecessor, Loomi Cafe defies an ethnographic label on the theme of food that might be served; A Peruvian pork or a Hyderabadi

chicken dish presented one day may very well be replaced by a Nashville hot cauliflower dish a few days later.

You’ll find comfort and perhaps a sense of relief when you learn that all of these entrees have something in common: Every entree is always served with your choice of fresh in-house pita bread, roasted (well,

While Loomi Cafe may not always use its eponymous spice within its rotating menu, the flavors often present in the food are as playful as a loomi lime griddled) potatoes or white rice.

Each choice of starch has its own unique, tantalizing voice. The pita bread sings in its toasty, sweet and near charred aroma, amidst its chewy texture backing track.

The potatoes shatter with their glass-like crust yielding into wet but fluffy interiors. The rice is a most agreeable “fluffy bunny” companion to Loomi’s entrees —

you lean toward the rice on the days you crave a subdued, yet fuller meal (probably on a rainy or snowy day).

If you find the generous portion sizes of Loomi’s entrees challenging, and perhaps would only like to consume a small amount of food, consider Loomi’s pupusas: a griddled, puck-like Salvadorean snack made out of ground corn oozing with delicious fillings. An analogue of the Korean bindaetteok, it resembles an amalgamation of a tortilla and a Hot Pocket. The pupusas at Loomi’s provide a satisfying toasted crisp exterior that explodes with the hot, often fatty, juices hiding within. While the pork and cheese pupusa served last year contained juicy chunks of pork with intermittent salty globs of cheese, the current chicken and beans pupusa served recently shows a more delicate, fluffier interior. A good pupusa is always handmade to order; the pat-pat-pat of the cook preparing your pupusa comforts you as you settle in at the counter, salivating in anticipation.

After multiple visits, you find clarity in the theme and vision among Loomi’s food. Each starch option (whether pita, potato, rice or masa) is like an Avenger: It possesses its own delicious superpowers and characteristics uniquely catered to different palates. Loomi Cafe, therefore, is the Avenger’s Tower: all forms of starches assemble at the counter to save your day.

Loomi Cafe is located at 407 N 5th Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48104.

Going into “Downhill,” I was most intrigued not by the fact that it is a remake of a popular foreign film, or that it stars toptier talents like Julia LouisDreyfus (“Veep”) and Will Ferrell (“Anchorman”). When I saw the trailer, the first thing I said was, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie about skiing before.”

The premise of “Downhill” is simple enough: a family on a ski trip in the Alps is threatened by an apparent avalanche. The main source of tension, however, is the priorities between husband Pete (Ferrell) and wife Billie (LouisDreyfus) Staunton. As a cloud of snow approaches, Billie grabs Finn (Julian Grey, “Godless”) and Emerson (Ammon Jacob Ford, “Seal Team”), their two kids.

Pete, on the other hand, grabs his phone and runs away. This splitsecond fight-or-flight decision settles into a rift that sends the family into disarray.

Despite never having met before joining the project, Louis-Dreyfus and Ferrell are convincing as a couple. Pete and Billie feel very real as a married couple that has been together for so long that they have fallen into a rhythm. In one scene, they sit on the hotel bed eating french fries. In another, they brush their teeth in front of the sink, ducking and weaving around each other

with perfect timing. But after the near-miss with the avalanche, and after Pete refuses to admit his cowardice, they lose their rhythm.

Watching the conflict play out on the stunning background of the Alps is surreal. My family has gone skiing every year since I was four, so many of the “family ski trip” aspects felt true to me, whether it’s one sibling dive bombing down the mountain while the other takes his time or a family game of Uno in front of the fireplace. But this is what

Downhill The State Theatre Searchlight Pictures

gives “Downhill” its footing: it is a movie that is real and relatable, both in its comedy and its conflict.

The film is a remake of the Swedish film “Force Majeure,” a dark comedy that won critical acclaim and fan support back in 2014. “Downhill” was five years in the making, after “Force Majeure” director Ruben Östlund encouraged creating an American version of the film. As a result, this version in much lighter, finding comic relief during tense sequences via certain characters:

Charlotte (Miranda Otto, “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”), a woman at the ski resort with a shameless tendency for blunt and shocking declarations, and Zach (Zach Woods, “Silicon Valley”), Pete’s work friend who is hilariously bad at handling awkward situations, are particularly funny, as well as a brusque member of ski patrol played by Kristofer Hivju (“Game of Thrones”), a Norwegian actor who also appeared in “Force Majeure.” Still, there is something that seems to have been lost in translation, something that makes “Downhill” feel like it’s missing a beat.

Despite the comic relief and the acting backgrounds of its main actors, “Downhill” is not purely comedic. Ferrell’s tendency to play absurd characters is thinly veiled by his portrayal of Pete, who finds himself struggling to reconcile his current place in life with what he really wants. Louis-Dreyfus’s tangible emotions hold the film together, whether they are a well-crafted facial expression or the cracks in her voice as she explains the avalanche event to Zach and his girlfriend Rosie (Zoë Chao, “Strangers”). These performances, particularly Louis-Dreyfus’, turn this married couple into a pair of characters that are flawed and relatable.

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SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES

DAILY LITERATURE COLUMN

Like everybody else, except more so: On Andrea Lawlor EMILY YANG

Daily Literature Columnist

One of the many pleasures of Andrea Lawlor’s 2017 novel “Paul Takes The Form Of A Mortal Girl” is the realization I came to that this novel is more or less unreadable by a straight person. It’s saturated with vivid, unsparing depictions of not only gay sex but also the ecosystem that surrounds it — glances and recognitions and guesswork, a whole network of affiliations and signifiers that I doubt anyone at all uninitiated would be able to wade through without frustration. I even have some queer friends who tried to read this book and couldn’t get past what one called Lawlor’s “vulgar” style. The expectation that we can (and, more dubiously, should) untether queer community from the act of fucking is understandable, but an occasional reminder of the particular (maybe banal) site of queerness restores some revolutionary potential to the thing. There’s something lovely, anyway, about feeling at home in a book that your straight friends would likely throw across the room before too long, to be thrilled by recognition and curiosity that feels particular.

That being said, gayness is a lot more legible in the book than transness per se, despite the fact that Lawlor has become known as a member of a trans

fiction-writing vanguard along writers like Jordy Rosenberg, Imogen Binnie and Casey Plett.

That this imagined community is more of a listicle than a reality shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. “Trans literature” as a category was probably destined to be problematized out of existence before it could ever really come into its own.

Transness was always too multiple and mutable to ever coalesce into a canon or even really a section of a bookshelf.

It’s easy to see how one might think of this book as trans.

Lawlor’s titular anti-hero is a shapeshifter whose powers seem to mostly exist in the realm of human possibility: He can change himself into a woman and can become a more masculine man, adding and shedding muscle and fat in various places like picking out an outfit. This can easily be read, if you only look at the blurb, as a liberatory allegory of transness, Paul’s abilities easily packaged into a metaphor for genderbending.

Lawlor doesn’t seem to see it that way, though: They said in an interview that Paul isn’t trans. What they have said about the book — that they started the book as a way to talk about “picking up people in bars,” that the book is a sort of time capsule of the ‘90s — seems to indicate that their goals aren’t to make a trans vanguard book, or at least not a straightforward one. This is apparent to anyone who has read more than the first ten pages. The opening

fanfare, which involves Paul changing into his girl alterego Polly and getting picked up by a punk rocker dyke, moves quickly into a sequence of Paul

business with the rock star”).

The f luidity is from night to night, not moment to moment: Paul is, generally, either a gay man or a lesbian woman.

For those of us who are slightly gender-ambivalent anyway, this is an appealing choice if you can pull it off, and it’s usually less difficult than one might think. Trans people, like Robin says, are “like everybody else, only more so.” We know better than anyone else that the line between genders is thinner than you might think, and a lot is possible with a certain attention to detail.

in boy-mode hooking up with a bearded Visiting Writer.

Paul’s mores, though decidedly omnivorous, seem to rely on a sort of balance (“Paul wanted to fuck someone tonight, after the

Lawlor’s game is something other than a straightforward valediction of gender f luidity as we understand it today.

Their interest seems like it has more to do with

exploration, with knowledge, with covering as much ground as possible within the scope of the novel. That being said, it’s worth pointing out that the novel doesn’t really resemble any of the standard types — it’s not a hero’s journey or a bildungsroman. Lawlor said in an interview that they found some difficulty in writing Paul’s story with a conventional three-act structure, one that would involve him “learning a lesson.” They write: “I ended up doubling down on a more episodic structure because I realized my reluctance had to do with my understanding of how people change, how I’ve changed — really slowly, recursively, making the same mistakes over and over.” As the poet Brian Blanchfield pointed out in his excellent review in Bookforum, Paul’s story has more to do with the picaresque than with the bildungsroman, especially in that picaresque is a genre that calls for a certain kind of personality — adaptable, adventurous, forceful, wily — as well as an episodic approach to plot. He is able to read people’s affiliations and types based on little signifiers, and is also capable of applying the same scrutiny on himself. Paul is all of these things, an endlessly curious and savvy reader of people who is never content to stay in one place. His travels place him in dispirate places — Boystown in Chicago, rural lesbianism in Michigan and in off-season Provincetown, the “various”

atmosphere of androgynous, utopic San Francisco. Lawlor is, like Paul, interested in covering a lot of ground, finding things out. Sex is one way of learning about people; so are long-term relationships and parties and friendships. The shapeshifting could, in the end, just be Lawlor’s way of showing us what else exists, giving Paul access both to leather bars and to the famously transphobic Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. Paul isn’t transgender, he’s multiple.

If you’ll allow me a bit of an overread — reading this book as a bona fide transsexual was interesting because it reminded me that I know of more than one trans person (usually transmasculine) who refers to themselves as a shapeshifter. Based on several choices they could make, they could convincingly pass as one or the other gender. For those of us who are slightly genderambivalent anyway, this is an appealing choice if you can pull it off, and it’s usually less difficult than one might think.

Trans people, like Robin says, are “like everybody else, only more so.” We know better than anyone else that the line between genders is thinner than you might think, and a lot is possible with a certain attention to detail. In my case, sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have been predisposed to another path.

My curiosity has never really metabolized into desire, but I’m not ruling it out.

Arts

6 — Tuesday, February 18, 2020

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

ALBUM REVIEW

‘Spring Awakening’ can’t reach modern audiences without any comedic relief, or, for that matter, an intermission.

Even with this controversial For The Daily and slightly problematic script, the direction could have been what saved the show, but I did Inside the Newman Studio not find this to be the case. When of the Walgreen Drama Center, delivering their lines, most of two rows of actors wearing the actors employed the same white face paint silently sat strange mix of teen angst through facing each other on either side a somewhat Shakespearian tone.

Even more unsettling was of an empty black stage, while audience members filtered in. that, for the majority of the This was the student-run theatre play, every line seemed to be organization Basement Arts’ screamed. For yelling to be at “Spring Awakening,” the original all effective, it needs to happen play written by Frank Wedekind rarely. However, I found it in 1906 from which the 2006 hit hard to care more about a main Broadway rock musical of the character’s speech preceding his same name took inspiration. But death than his woes regarding the viewer experience was far his class rank because both were delivered in the same tone and from the same.

The play follows several volume. Given the consistency interwoven stories of teenagers in screaming across characters, growing up in an oppressive it seems more plausible that this provincial Germany in the was a directing issue rather than late 1800s. They grapple with a personal choice coincidentally newfound and unexplained made by almost the entire cast of sexual desires, spar with their drama students.

For a show that deals so parents and face the crushing pressure to succeed in school, heavily with female adolescence all while struggling with their and female sexuality, I was new identities as young adults. surprised to learn that both “Spring Awakening” is famous directors were male. It was for dealing with teen sexuality, definitely interesting to watch suicide and the dangers that the actors, both male and female, institutionalized pressure and work through this material silence can have on young people. knowing it was both written To no fault of Basement and directed by men. While it’s Arts, the major downfall of this admirable that these students production was the writing. The desired to shed light on female language was archaic and at issues, watching this raised the times incomprehensible. The play question of why we continue to opened with a scene supposedly perform and celebrate stories set in a schoolyard. However, written about women by men, as the actors played catch with instead of bringing the opinions a rubber ball, their antiquated and perspectives of women dialogue was a harsh contrast to themselves forward.

Despite the questionable their childish demeanors. The overly complex and philosophical directing, it was clear that language continued to detract the actors were well-trained from the powerful story. The play drama students. Particularly was also two hours of non-stop successful was SMTD junior darkly heavy content. While the Emma Steiner as Wendla Sudoku Syndication Steiner carefully and Bergmann. ideas may be timeless, the show was too serious to sit through maturely executed the innocence CAROLINE ATKINSON

BIG MACHINE

Pearce is open-hearted on self-titled sophomore LP KATIE BEEKMAN Daily Arts Writer

It’s no shock that Carly Pearce released her self-titled sophomore album on Valentine’s Day. She tied the knot with fellow country artist Michael Ray last October and hasn’t been very shy about her feelings for him on social media. It makes sense that her starry-eyed Instagram posts would carry over to her music.

Luckily for listeners though, Carly Pearce isn’t mushy gushy, but openhearted.

Sure, this album is stocked with its fair share of love songs. The most conventional of these sounds so sweet it feels sour: On “Finish Your Sentences” Pearce and her husband alternate verses, proving that they literally have the ability to accomplish the title’s cliche.

It should be cute, but when the answers to questions like “Should I wear this dress?” are obvious, it just comes off as trying too hard.

On “Closer to You,” “Call Me” and “You Kissed Me First” Pearce is far more in her element: flirtatious, lively and light-hearted. Using these

songs, one could easily trace the beginnings of her love story with her husband. That’s why it’s a little off-putting to discover that Pearce didn’t write any of them.

On an Instagram post for “You Kissed Me First,” Pearce wrote that she felt like songwriter Hillary Lindsey had written her story for her. Even though there’s a certain expectation in country music that singers write their own material,

Carly Pearce Carly Pearce Big Machine

Pearce’s choice to cut these tracks is commendable. She isn’t going to stop herself from singing a song that suits her just because she didn’t write it.

The stand out track is a song that Pearce did have a hand in writing — it’s about an ex. On “I Hope You’re Happy Now,” a soaring duet with Lee Brice, Pearce takes all the blame

for the failed relationship. “It’s all on me / it’s my mistake / I said ‘I don’t love you’ a little too late,” she admits.

The album’s throughline is Pearce’s vulnerability. Everyone loves a good party song or a bit of alcohol-related word play, but it’s refreshing that Pearce didn’t lean on either common country music crutch to compile her record.

Because country radio’s airwaves are male-dominated and beerloving, not playing into that kind of song is a risk. One that Pearce makes the most of.

For every party song slot she sacrifices, Pearce flexes her storytelling skills. “Woman Down” is a high-stakes late night drive following a woman “down on her luck.” “Dashboard Jesus” is a sunny update to “Jesus Takes the Wheel.”

And the most personal song on the album, “It Won’t Always Be Like This” catches Carly in the strangeness of feeling nostalgic for both the past and present. Anyone can (and pretty much everyone does) sing about love, but stories are a more difficult feat.

Read more online at

michigandaily.com

and sincerity necessary for Wendla. She had clear intention behind her actions, as well as an understanding of both the language and the objectives of her character. Consequently, her scenes were some of the most enjoyable, as she was able to more explicitly convey the plot points and underlying emotions.

SMTD junior Nathan Correll as Hansy/Mrs. Gabor also stood out because of the contrast in his portrayals of the overbearing, ultimately sympathetic Mrs. Gabor and the closeted gay schoolboy, Hansy. He was able to reach the audience because of the variation both between and within each of his performances, and he was exceptionally precise in his emotional delivery of each of his monologues.

Most importantly, audiences might be tired of shows that merely present how bad things were (or are). It’s harmful to present themes of homophobia, sexism, suicide and rape to audiences if there is no new or insightful take on them. We know that things used to be and still are bad, and a lot of times this stems from deep-rooted societal issues.

But what next? There needs to be an adequate justification to show these deeply personal topics in such a blunt and graphic way, and this play did not deliver this.

Furthermore, to present these heavy and extremely relevant topics so inaccessibly borders on irresponsible.

In the end, the content and delivery left me wondering why Basement Arts chose this play.

The reason why the 2006 musical adaptation was so successful was because it took a heavy yet important story and presented it appropriately for 21st century audiences. This return to the original play fell flat because neither the presentation nor the http://sudokus source material are relevant to modern viewers.

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52 Wear away, as a coin surface 53 Nervous twitch 57 Noble gas 60 Dancer Astaire 61 Spanish appetizer 62 Leave out 63 Verne captain 64 Work on a lawn 65 “Training Day” actress Mendes 66 “Superman” villain Luthor

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Sports

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Tuesday, February 18, 2020 — 7

Breaking down the Wolverines’ recent revival DANIEL DASH

Daily Sports Writer

Two days before the Michigan men’s basketball team’s thrashing of Indiana, Eli Brooks leaned against the blue curtains of the Crisler Center media room, his blue mesh practice pinnie almost blending in.

The junior guard fielded questions, most of which had nothing to do with the Hoosiers.

Instead, he was asked to discuss the Wolverines’ recent revival.

A conversation like Friday’s seemed unthinkable less than three weeks ago, when senior point guard Zavier Simpson was suspended for the Wolverines’ trip to Lincoln in the midst of the program’s longest losing streak in five years. With junior forward Isaiah Livers already unavailable due to a groin injury, a loss to lowly Nebraska could’ve put the nail in Michigan’s coffin.

That night, however, marked an inflection point. And since losing four straight Big Ten games from Jan. 12-26, the Wolverines have won five of their last six, evening their conference record in the process.

“It feels like the Bahamas again,” Brooks said Friday.

The most telling part? He wasn’t even going out on a limb.

Paradise Island, of course, was where Michigan first put itself in the early national-title conversation. The Wolverines rolled to a pair of top-10 wins in a hotel ballroom during Thanksgiving week, punctuating the first month of the Juwan Howard era with a No. 4 national ranking.

And after limping to a 3-8 record against high-major opponents in December and January, the Michigan of February is playing the same brand of basketball it did in November. In the last 10 days alone, the Wolverines have knocked off Michigan State and cruised to blowout wins against Northwestern and Indiana.

T

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily

Junior guard Eli Brooks said that Michigan’s recent run of five wins in six games, “feels like the Bahamas again.”

“It feels like we’re back to the beginning of the year a little bit,” sophomore forward Brandon Johns Jr. said Sunday. “We’re all so connected, trusting each other, knocking down shots. …

We’re having more team bonding sessions. We’re getting to know each other more, understanding each other as well.”

Added Brooks: “People are having fun and you can see the smiles.

Before the Northwestern game, something coach Howard preached was, ‘Go out there and have fun.’ I feel like sometimes you get lost that it’s a basketball game. We lose that sometimes, just having smiles on everyone’s faces.”

Winning helps, especially when it’s against an in-state rival or by margins of 20-plus over teams at the bottom of the conference standings. This elite level of winning, however, is comparable to the Wolverines’ victories over Gonzaga and North

Carolina in the Bahamas. Albeit a small sample size, Michigan has been the best team in the nation over its last five games, according to Bart Torvik’s power rating.

Though he suffered an ankle injury on Sunday — a “tweak,” according to Johns — Livers’s return from injury has improved the Wolverines’ 3-point shooting, defense and confidence.

Most importantly, though, one of their most impactful leaders is now more than just a voice coming from the bench.

But above all, Howard is beginning to come into his own as a coach. His hiring marked a storied icon’s return to Crisler Center, though he had no head coaching experience prior to this season outside of the low-stakes NBA Summer League.

Even as the successor to one of the finest minds in college basketball, Howard’s

It feels like we’re back to the beginning of the year.

NBA-style philosophies were unsurprisingly new to a team full of athletes recruited to play a role in previous coach John Beilein’s system.

“Some of our players probably never played in a defensive scheme like what I taught, what I brought to the program,” Howard said Sunday. “They bought in, for sure, but it takes time and development. It’s not always going to click right away.

The beauty of it is they trusted and continued building the habits and getting better with it. “… We’re getting better as the season goes. I didn’t expect for us to have a great start like we did, but it was beautiful to get off to a good start. But it takes time for a group to learn a new system on the defensive end as well as the offensive end.”

It took losing, it took slumps and, most of all, it took time. But now, spurred by the return of Livers, it most certainly appears the Wolverines are beyond their learning curve.

And because of it, a season that once seemed earmarked for a disappointing finish now has a new life.

Cameron Weston’s roller-coaster weekend JACK WHITTEN Daily Sports Writer

It’s hard to imagine a series of events more challenging for a freshman pitcher making his debut than that which befell Cameron Weston last Friday night.

On a macroscopic level, a neckand-neck rerun of the 2019 College World Series provided high stakes; even so, Weston’s circumstance of usage borders on cruel and unusual.

The right-hander emerged from the bullpen in the bottom of the seventh to relieve junior righthander Jeff Criswell, who’d held then-No. 1 Vanderbilt to two hits in six and one-third innings of work.

Weston took the mound with one out and two inherited runners.

Against his first hitter, Weston did what the rest of the pitching staff was quite happy to do: pitch to contact and induce a ground ball.

“We have an amazing defense,” redshirt freshman left-hander Steve Hajjar said. “Especially (junior shortstop Jack) Blomgren and (freshman third baseman Ted) Burton on the left side, and (redshirt senior Matt) Schmidt and (sophomore second baseman Riley) Bertram on the right side.

Those guys are absolute brick walls behind me.”

But in that moment, a hole

in the wall appeared. Michigan coach Erik Bakich elected not to shift against the left-handed pinch hitter Patrick Noland, and a grounder to the right side that could have originated an inningending double play turned into a run-scoring single. The game was tied: Weston had blown the hold and Criswell could no longer receive credit for the win.

“I thought our pitching was pretty good,” Bakich said. “(The weakness) was more in the department of allowing batted runners to get to second base, allowing guys to take the extra base.”

After coming up empty against his first career batter, Weston had to face Harrison Ray with runners at the corners. Ray belied his bottom-of-the-order assignment by using a 1-1 offspeed offering to lay down a safety squeeze bunt.

The ball trickled down the firstbase line, forcing Weston to make his first defensive play. By the time he’d picked up the ball, Ray was streaking by.

Weston had two options: throw home, where a tag would be needed, or turn around and throw to first, trading a run for an out. He chose the former, but the go-ahead run arrived ahead of the throw.

A fresh set of runners stood on the corners, the top of the order

ALEC COHEN/Daily

Erik Bakich took two chances on Cameron Weston last weekend.

was due up and there was still just one out. Bakich brought in redshirt senior left-hander Ben Keizer, who retired the remainder of the side. Keizer ended up tallying one and two-third scoreless innings and took home the win thanks to Schmidt’s go-ahead homer in the ninth.

“It was a team win for us,” Criswell said. “We battled. It was a back and forth game … It kind of had that post season baseball feel.”

Despite Weston’s struggles against Vanderbilt, Bakich remained confident in his young reliever — confident enough to call upon him in another high-leverage situation.

When Cal Poly made a comeback in the bottom of the

ninth the following day, scoring two runs and loading the bases, it was Weston’s time again. With the winning run at bat, he induced a ground ball out on the second pitch, earning redemption and his first save.

“There were so many different breakout candidates that could be on the horizon,” Bakich said.

“Just guys that had their moments in different games that could be positive contributors for the entire season.”

Bakich only knows of Weston’s in-game ability because he took two chances on the unproven freshman. Thanks to the risk, both know of the latter’s ability to record collegiate outs in the toughest of spots.

‘M’ faces toughest adversity yet

he Michigan women’s basketball team is no stranger to adversity, especially when it comes to injuries.

First, senior forward Kayla Robbins tore her ACL Jan. 19. Then her replaceBRENDAN ment, ROOSE sophomore guard Danielle Rauch, injured her hand before the Feb. 6 game against Purdue.

For a Wolverines team that started the season with only 11 players on the roster, losing a starter and sixth player spelled doom.

Then came the apocalypse.

In the first quarter of Thursday’s game against No. 19 Northwestern, where a win would have put Michigan in excellent position to make the NCAA Tournament, sophomore forward Naz Hillmon stayed down after diving for a loose ball and colliding with a Wildcat defender.

A silent Crisler Center crowd held its breath as the Wolverines’ leading scorer walked to the bench, visibly experiencing pain near her right shoulder. With Hillmon limited to just 15 minutes, Michigan fell, 66-60.

Still, things could have gone much worse. Strong performances from senior guard Akienreh Johnson, sophomore guard Amy Dilk and junior forward Hailey Brown meant the Wolverines could hang tough until the end, despite sustaining a few more bumps and bruises throughout the game.

“I could see their fight.

They were fighting like crazy,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico said. “(Johnson) was all over the place and selling out. On that last possession before (Johnson) went down, Amy stood in there and took a charge, we didn’t get that call. You could see the way that they were fighting for each other and that’s what we ask for them.”

That fight disappeared at the Rutgers Athletic Center Sunday, where Michigan played its worst game all season in a 62-41 loss. The offense looked frozen from start to finish. Passes f lew out of bounds. Nearly every shot

either hit the rim or the outstretched hand of a Rutgers defender. Hillmon played, but she clearly wasn’t 100 percent, tallying just five points. As a result, the Wolverines had just as many turnovers (15) as made field goals.

This bout of adversity felt nothing like what happened earlier in the season. In the first two games after Rauch’s injury, Michigan squeaked

by Purdue at home before beating Minnesota by 25 on the road. Both were quality opponents, too — like the Wolverines, they were still jockeying for spots in the NCAA Tournament. Michigan took an impossible situation and somehow kept playing just as well as it had before.

After those two games, the Wolverines looked unstoppable. Throughout the season, it had faced what felt like an unbreakable spell of adversity — from turnover problems, to bad losses, to heartbreaking injuries — and still competed with some of the Big Ten’s top teams. Even after Thursday’s loss to Northwestern, it looked like they weren’t completely dead in the water.

“I just think it’s the culture that’s been created in our program,” Barnes Arico said after that game. “Our kids have been really doing a great job of staying positive and trying to rally around the injured kids.”

Michigan’s season isn’t over. We don’t know much about the seriousness of Hillmon’s injury, and Barnes Arico doesn’t have a timeframe for when she’ll be back to 100 percent. Maybe she’ll be back at full strength on Wednesday and hang 25 on Illinois. Maybe she’ll go to East Lansing on Sunday hungrier than ever and bury the Wolverines’ rival for the second time this year.

But Sunday, Michigan finally found a problem that culture can’t fix. Make no mistake, its ability to respond to adversity this season has been nothing short of tremendous. Very few teams start the season with just 11 players on the roster. Even fewer would be able to compete after losing two key players to injury.

None would be able to win after losing a Naz Hillmon.

Roose can be reached at rooseb@umich.edu or on Twitter @ BrendanRoose.

MILES MACKLIN/Daily

The Michigan women’s basketball team must weather Naz Hillmon’s injury.

SOFTBALL

Over undefeated opening weekends, Michigan demonstrates consistency LANE KIZZIAH Daily Sports Writer

Carol Hutchins could teach a class on one-pitch softball. And, in fact, she did.

Over the offseason, Hutchins and the Michigan softball team read the book “Heads-Up Baseball” and met weekly to discuss their takeaways. It’s about a mentality — focusing on taking the game one bat at a time to achieve consistency at the plate.

And, if the past two weekends are any indication, the Wolverines took a lot away from those sessions. The team is starting off the season with a 9-0 record, including three wins against ranked opponents: one over

No. 7 Florida and two against No. 25 North Carolina. And Michigan hasn’t been squeaking by — six of its nine games have been won by a margin of four or more, including a six-inning run rule over the Gators.

This early road success is a far cry from how the Wolverines started last season. After the first two weekends, Michigan limped home with a 4-5 record, having fallen to teams it trounced a year later due to a lack of offensive consistency.

The Wolverines would end a game scoreless in the morning just to come back later that day and pull out 10 runs.

Even within games, they would hit a hot streak — scoring four or five runs in an inning — then lay

dormant for the remainder.

But, in 2020, consistency is the name of the game for Michigan.

Not only have the Wolverines managed to keep their bats hot from game to game but also from one inning to the next.

“We are doing a really good job of not going with the roller coaster of ups and downs whether we have good innings offensively, a bad inning offensively,” Hutchins said.

“Whether the other team has a good inning, we really just stay on task. We’ve been very good at the one-pitch softball and I think it’s our strength.”

In their second game of the season, the Wolverines got on the board early and kept the momentum

going, scoring in each of the second, third and fifth innings en route to a win. The weekend against the Tar Heels, they did it again, scoring in the second inning and slowly increasing their lead over the next three innings with one run each inning.

This comes from being able to rely on production from all parts of the lineup. Last year, the Wolverines’ RBI came mostly from the top of the order, anchored by then-freshman outfielder Lexie Blair, and seniors Natalie Peters and Faith Canfield.

Now, Michigan is firing on all cylinders with big hits coming from the center of the lineup, highlighted by junior infielder Lou Allan,

sophomore outfielder Morgan Overaitis and senior outfielder Haley Hoogenraad.

But the Wolverines are far from perfect. During opening weekend, they played two consecutive games in which they edged out their opponent by a single run. The contest against unranked Fresno State went into extra innings scoreless. With matchups against powerhouses like No. 1 Washington and No. 6 Texas on the horizon, one or two runs isn’t going to cut it.

“The most important thing I think our team manages is just kind of staying within ourselves, not making the highs get too high and the lows get too low — just kind of keep it a common ground between

the two,” Blair said. “And I think we’ve just done a really good job as a team of working on that and being cognizant of that.”

And it’s still early. The offense Michigan brought to Florida in last year’s opening weekend wasn’t the same offense that showed up to — and won — the Big Ten Tournament in May. Through the rest of their away tournaments and conference play, there’s time for the Wolverines to change — for better or for worse.

Nine games is a small sample size. Michigan’s offense could stall under the wear and tear of constant travel. Or it could keep applying the consistency it learned in the classroom, and that could make all the difference.

Sports

8 — Tuesday, February 18, 2020

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

POWERING FORWARD BEHIND TWO POWER PLAY GOALS, MICHIGAN CRUSHES SPARTANS, 4-1, MOVING TO THIRD IN BIG TEN BEHIND 8-1-1 RECORD IN 2020

KEEMYA ESMAEL / Daily

Design by Jack Silberman

Wolverines win Duel in the D, 4-1 ‘M’ goes 2-for-2 on power play in win TIEN LE

Daily Sports Writer

DETROIT — Nick Blankenburg extended his two hands out and wagged them up and down like paws. At first glance, it seemed like an innocent gesture. His teammates even imitated him as they wrapped him in hugs of celebration.

But the message from his mouth matched the motion of his arms in a more crude way.

“Sit down,” he told the Michigan State portion of the crowd at Little Caesars Arena.

The only problem was he and the Michigan hockey team gave the audience little reason to sit quietly in their seats in a 4-1 win over Michigan State on Monday night.

Blankenburg had just scored a goal, the third of the night for the Wolverines, in a highlightreel fashion. In the second period, Michigan drew a power play, and after an unsuccessful first shift, switched to their primary unit.

Blankenburg got the puck at the blue line and slung a bullet high.

And the top-shelf snipe rang off the post and into the net.

Only a few stayed in their seats.

“We had timely scoring,” Michigan coach Mel Pearson said. “I give Michigan State a lot of credit. … They’re a tough team to play against when you get behind them. We were fortunate, again, to play with the lead.”

The Wolverines had built that lead much earlier in the game, going back to five minutes into the first period.

Lockwood corralled the puck in the defensive and pushed down central ice. The line out on the

ice was desperate for a change, but that’s not what Lockwood had in mind.

There were two Spartans in front of him — one to the left and one to his right.

He beat both of them to the slot. He snapped his wrist, looking only at the net.

A strong start was what Michigan coach Mel Pearson had wished for before the game, and as it was, his wish was granted: Lockwood scored on his oneman breakaway into traffic.

Graduate transfer forward Jacob Hayhurst added to the early scoring with a power play goal from Lockwood and Slaker later in the first.

The start wasn’t without its caveats, however.

A minute after Lockwood’s opening goal, the Spartans answered with a two-on-one rush.

Senior defenseman Griffin Luce was conducting the transition defense, but as he started to commit to the puck handler, Spartan Adam Goodsir, he failed to notice Goodsir’s pass to the open man, Dennis Cesana.

Sophomore goaltender Strauss Mann had also committed on Goodsir and was unable to do anything to stop Cesana’s opennet shot.

It was the only mistake of the night for Mann, though the second period gave him plenty of chances to make another.

Michigan State had a gamehigh 13 shots in the second and there were plenty of saves to be made, of all difficulties. Two point-blank shots in the crease forced Mann to make highdegree saves. Minutes later, the Spartans had a Grade-A open shot, but Mann stuck out his stick

We were fortunate, again, to play with the lead.

at the last second to deflect it.

The puck bounced off his helmet, and teetered the goal line before freshman forward Nolan Moyle cleared it.

“I don’t know how it stayed out, honestly,” Lockwood said.

“He does that at practice day in and day out, so we’re kind of used to it at this point. But you see it live like that, it’s pretty spectacular.”

Mann had played what Pearson had called his best game of the second half of the season.

But as stout as Michigan was defensively, it was equally so on offense. And they hammered that point home in the third period.

A minute into the frame, Luce stopped the puck at the point and shot. It was unclear if Lockwood was there willingly, to screen or to try and top the shot, but he did both anyways. He held the flat of his stick to face the twine, and as the puck reached his stick, the shot was redirected. The puck slowly slipped between the goaltender’s blockers and to the back of the net.

Lockwood skated to the side. He had already raised his stick with one hand, but with the other, he swung upwards, motioning for all to rise. But there was no need. Everyone was already up.

MOLLY SHEA

Daily Sports Writer

DETROIT — Dennis Cesana didn’t have an answer for the two power play goals his team allowed.

“I’m not sure they changed anything up too much,” the Michigan State defender said about the Wolverines’ power play.

But Cesana was wrong.

All week long in practice, Michigan ran power play drills and made adjustments as it saw fit. It moved players around to different positions with hopes of throwing off the Spartan penalty killers. Monday night, the Wolverines did just that on their way to a 4-1 win.

“I don’t think they really had a game plan for some of the things we were doing,” senior forward Will Lockwood said.

Michigan scored two power play goals — good for a 100 percent conversion rate. Both came at pivotal moments in the game. The first gave Michigan the lead, the second separation.

The first power play opportunity came with just under five minutes remaining in the first period and the Wolverines wasted no time in capitalizing.

KEEMYA ESMAEL/Daily

The Michigan hockey team poses with the Iron D trophy after beating the Spartans.

Senior forward Jake Slaker and Lockwood connected on a pass in between two Michigan State defensemen. Lockwood was in the right faceoff circle, all alone. He stick-handled twice before throwing a pass to graduate transfer forward Jacob Hayhurst.

Hayhurst turned his hips toward the goal when he saw the puck coming his way, positioning himself directly in front of Spartan goaltender John Lethemon. With a quick flick of his wrist, he beat Lethemon and broke the 1-1 tie.

“The power play was good tonight,” Michigan coach Mel Pearson said.

“Scoring the power play goal was big because they came right back. You know, we scored, they come back to make it 1-1. To get that next one again. To play with the lead is important, especially against good teams like this.”

While Hayhurst’s goal ended up being the game-winner, the Wolverines’ power play units weren’t satisfied yet.

Ninety seconds into the second period, Michigan was presented with another man advantage opportunity.

This time, the goal came from the stick of sophomore defenseman Nick Blankenburg. At the blueline of his team’s offensive zone, freshman defenseman Cam York passed the puck to Blankenburg. With his head looking to the goal, he assessed his options. Lockwood and Slaker were drifting near the net, but rather than finding one of them, he passed back to York.

York took advantage of the few feet of open ice in front of him, drawing two Michigan State defenders to him. This movement freed up Blankenburg, still positioned at the blueline.

When he received the second pass from York, he’d already made up his mind — he was shooting.

A second later the puck blew past Lethemon.

The Wolverines now had a two-goal lead, and it was all due to their special team’s success.

“The puck movement, I thought we moved it really well,” Lockwood said. “We did all practice this past week. So leading into these two games we were expecting to succeed, and I think we did well.”

After Friday, Michigan’s power play conversion sat at 17.8 percent.

It’s not great, or even good.

It’s average. But it’s strides ahead of where it was a few months ago. In a November series against Minnesota, the Wolverines went 0-for-9 on the man advantage. The success rate sat at just 17.6 percent.

But in this series against Michigan State, the power play found its footing. The adjustments Michigan made — which Pearson declined to go into specifics about — clearly worked. In Friday night’s game against the Spartans, the power play went 1-for-5, and Monday night it was perfect, going 2-for2.

The Wolverines are becoming serious contenders for the Big Ten regular season title — something that a few months ago seemed out of the question.

Building on their power play success is a key to getting there.

I thought we moved (the puck) really well.