ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM Tuesday, December 1, 2015
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CAMPUS LIFE
Survivors share their stories at Speak Out Students recount experiences with sexual assault at 29th annual SAPAC event By RIYAH BASHA CLAIRE ABDO/Daily
Hip-Hop artist Frank Waln and dancer Samsoche Sampson perform for the Native American Heritage Month keynote performance at the Michigan Union on Monday.
Concert caps off Native American Heritage Month Event includes hip-hop, dialogue about identity, historical context By LYDIA MURRAY Daily Staff Reporter
The Native American Student Association capped off Native American Heritage Month on
Monday night with a concert featured noted performers Frank Waln and Samsoche Sampson. The performance, which drew more than 80 people, featured a blend of Native American dancing and traditional instrument playing overlaid on more modern, hip-hop style music. Waln, a Sicangu Lakota from South Dakota, has been recognized for his work raising awareness for Native American
culture, and has received numerous awards for those efforts — including three Native American Music Awards, the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development 2014 Native American 40 Under 40 award and the 2014 Chicago Mayor’s Award for Civic Engagement. Sampson is an artist who works to fuse modern art with traditional Native American elements, and his work
involves a variety of mediums including dance, music, acting, printmaking and painting. The two are both 2014 graduates of Columbia College Chicago, where Waln received a bachelor’s degree in audio arts and acoustics, and Sampson received a Bachelor of Fine Arts. They have been working together since 2011. A talking circle — a traditional Native American problemSee CONCERT, Page 3
Daily Staff Reporter
At the Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center’s 29th annual Speak Out, more than 150 attendees shared and listened to each other’s personal accounts of sexual assault and harassment. The public forum presented an opportunity for self-identifying survivors of sexual assault to speak in a confidential setting. Common themes, such as others doubting their accounts and the importance of advocacy and solidarity emerged in many of the stories. LSA senior Alex Barkin, a co-coordinator with SAPAC, said Speak Out provides a safe space for survivors. “A lot of people up there speaking have never spoken before, and it’s a way for people to start thinking of ways they can
ARTS PREVIEW
SCIENCE
Rackham show features Timo Andres’ work Takacs Quartet performs composer’s ‘Strong Language’ By DAYTON HARE Daily Arts Writer
The image of the starving artist is one of the most deeply ingrained etchings in the collective consciousness of the Western world, and certainly Takacs with good Quartet reason. For Wednesday, generations, many creative Dec. 2, laborers have 7:30 p.m. struggled to sustain a Rackham Auditorium comfortable income for $26 to $52, students $12 themselves, often wres- to $20 tling with a public that doesn’t place a high monetary value on creative work. In many cases, artists will take a second job with a more sustainable cash f low — in the most favorable instances, a job related to their art. For the creative figure of the composer, this second job will often involve teaching music, both privately or at a college or university. But for those courageous and talented few who
WEATHER TOMORROW
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work to make a living by composing alone, income generally comes in the form of commissions, requests for a new work for a specific ensemble or occasion. In Rackham Auditorium on Wednesday, the Takács String Quartet will be performing one such commissioned piece, Timo Andres’s Strong Language, written for the ensemble and commissioned by Carnegie Hall and Shriver Hall. Timo Andres is a young and talented composer and pianist based out of Brooklyn. Born in 1985, he first came under the public gaze in 2010 with the release of his piano music album Shy and Mighty, which The New Yorker’s Alex Ross wrote “achieves an unhurried grandeur that has rarely been felt in American music since John Adams came on the scene” — but Andres’s musical life began far earlier. “I grew up as a pretty serious classical pianist. I started when I was about seven, and became pretty serious pretty quickly. It was something that I initially just took to very naturally, and then pretty soon just decided that it was going to be my career,” Andres said in a phone interview with The Michigan Daily. “And I started writing things down right around the same time. It was just sort of something that I didn’t even really See ANDRES, Page 6
heal,” Barkin said. The event’s organizers repeatedly emphasized both confidentiality and safety throughout the session. About 20 SAPAC volunteers staffed the event and were present throughout the session in case any of the survivors’ accounts proved triggering for listeners. Professional advocates also manned a separate crisis room to serve as on-call support. “The sharing that takes place is emotional and powerful, and we need to make sure that survivors are in a safe space,” she said. Survivors echoed similar sentiments. “We’ve all been through so much of the same,” one survivor said. “This bond we have, even if it’s the worst bond ever, is still amazing.” LSA senior Kara Kundert, a SAPAC peer facilitator, noted that Speak Out often empowers survivors to begin working toward institutional change. “The advocacy work being done, especially by student survivors, comes out of spaces like this,” she said. “Having Speak Outs helps people cleanse See SPEAK OUT, Page 3
Schlissel talks role of genetics in medicine
ZOEY HOLMSTROM/Daily
Program pioneered at Berkeley drew criticism for asking students to donate DNA samples
Neurology Prof. Lewis Morgenstern, a health disparities researcher, speaks about a program to reduce income inequality at the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs meeting in the Regents Room on Monday
Prof. discusses income inequality with SACUA CSG president also calls for expedited release of course evaluation data By GEN HUMMER Daily Staff Reporter
A potential University program to address income inequality led discussion at Monday’s Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs meeting — where Neurology Prof. Lewis Morgenstern, whose research focuses on health disparities, unveiled a “social experiment” to address the issue. The meeting also featured comments from CSG President Cooper Charlton, an LSA
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senior, who again asked SACUA to move up the timeline for releasing student course evaluatation data. Morgenstern said the income gap in the United States, which hesaid is higher now than it’s ever been with the exception of just before the Great Depression, is one of the main factors driving health care inequality. He added that the responsibility to address the growing disparity must fall to the private sector. Under Morgenstern’s plan, those working at the top end of the University’s pay scale would have the opportunity to donate a percentage of their salary to those working at the low end of the University’s pay scale. The idea is that money that might otherwise be locked into retirement funds could now be
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transferred to those who would spend it immediately. Morgenstern was quick to clarify that the idea is not driven by a particular problem at the University. Instead, he hopes the University can pioneer the program with the eventual goal of its adoption by large, for-profit corporations. “This is not in any way saying that there’s anything wrong with what happens here,” Morgenstern said. “This is just a social experiment that could go on anywhere and might as well start at home. Being an employee at the University of Michigan is a great thing and in no way is this targeting Michigan because there’s a problem.” Rather than donations funding health care costs See SACUA, Page 3
Vol. CXXV No. 38 ©2015 The Michigan Daily michigandaily.com
By MAYA SHANKAR Daily Staff Reporter
Before he was University president, Mark Schlissel was the dean of biological sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. During his tenure there, he helped implement a controversial orientation program in which all freshmen were asked to submit a DNA sample for analysis, which were intended to then inform an orientation week discussion on genetics. Schlissel discussed that project — and the backlash to it — during a panel held Monday as part of the University of Michigan Department of Human Genetics Seminar Series. The orientation program, called “Bring Your Genes to Cal,” initially intended to analyze student saliva samples for three non-disease associated genes related to the ability to metabolize alcohol, lactose and folic acid. In return for submitting their samples, students were told they would have access to their own results and the opportunity to See GENETICS, Page 3
NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 ARTS............................. 5
SPORTS......................7 SUDOKU.....................2 CLASSIFIEDS...............6
News
2 — Tuesday, December 1, 2015
MONDAY: This Week in History
TUESDAY: Campus Voices
WEDNESDAY: In Other Ivory Towers
THURSDAY: Twitter Talk
Serving the ‘U’ campus
Which of the student organizations you’re involved in has the largest impact on campus? They all have a large impact on campus, especially because they are all service related, for such amazing causes. The one that has had the strongest impact on campus for me is the MRelay. That may just be because of
how I feel towards Relay for Life. But my involvement since I’ve started school here has been just an amazing transforming experience for me. What is MRelay and what makes it special? It’s just an environment to be surrounded by people who have the same goal as you — to get rid of cancer. The event is only 24 hours on Palmer Field, but throughout the year teams fundraise for the American Cancer Society. (MRelay) has found the most passionate, dedicated people and made them into a planning committee. Everyone is so different from their backgrounds, to
WHAT: Geraldine Walther, violist of the Takács String Quartet, will host a free guest master class for students interested. WHO: School of Music, Theatre & Dance WHEN: 5:40 p.m. WHERE: Glenn E. Watkins Lecture Hall
Trotter cardio kickboxing WHAT: Body Allure Fitness’ Porshia Thomas will lead a free class for faculty, students and staff. WHO: Trotter Multicultural Center WHEN: 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. WHERE: Trotter Multicultural Center
Giving Blueday WHAT: Students can join Giving Blueday to tell the University where it needs more support. There will be free cookies and hot cocoa. WHO: University and Development Events WHEN: 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. WHERE: Diag
why they Relay, to what they study, to what they do on their Friday nights, it’s crazy how that one cause just brings them all together.
WHAT: The Michigan Outdoor Leadership Semester will be hosting a seminar about risk management and trip planning. WHO: Department of Recreational Sports. WHEN: 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. WHERE: Outdoor Adventures Rental Center
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A lot of the student organizations, regardless of whether they are servicebased or not, have some sort of service component, so I think there are a lot of opportunities for service on campus, and I think for the most part we have the population of people that have the desire to serve.
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CLAIRE ABDO/Daily
Ann Arbor resident John Roos shows how he prints his own designs for coffee product bags at RoosRoast Coffee on Monday.
— EMILY ROBERTS
‘The Cloud’ webinar
Corps info session
WHAT: This webinar is open for students to learn about time managment in “The Cloud” using Gmail and Google Tools. WHO: Learning and Professional Development WHEN: 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. WHERE: Online
WHAT: Michigan College Advising Corps will be holding an information session to learn about how to get involved with the program. WHO: Michigan College Advising Corps WHEN: 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. WHERE: Michigan Union
WHAT: The Graham Undergraduate Sustainability Scholars Program is for students who would like to learn more about sustainability and want to develop sustainability leadership skills. WHO: Graham Sustainability Institute WHEN: 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. WHERE: 1040 Dana
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CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES
Viola master class
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ARIEL JORDAN
Nursing junior Ariel Jordan is the vice president of external affairs for Alpha Phi Omega, the vice president of external relations for Support for Incoming Black Students, a “TIM specialist” or Team Income and Management member for Relay for Life at the University of Michigan.
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Trombone studio recital WHAT: Solos by Bozza, Casterede, Raum, Ewazen and Sulek will be performed by the students of Prof. David Jackson. WHO: School of Music, Theatre & Dance WHEN: 8 p.m. WHERE: Britton Recital Hall l Please report any error in the Daily to corrections@ michigandaily.com.
THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW TODAY
1
The University of Chicago cancelled classes Monday due to an online gun threat. According to NBC Chicago, the school received warning from the FBI of a threat to campus scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday, specifically at the campus quad.
2
Daily Arts Writer Ben Rosenstock reviews the mid-season finale of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” and says the episode left much to be desired. >>SEE ARTS, PAGE 5
3
Negotiators from 195 countries are in Paris this week to discuss climate. BBC News reported that they have two weeks to reach a deal regarding carbon emissions and limiting annual temperature increases.
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BUSINESS STAFF Hussein Hakim Finance and Operations Manager Claire Ulak Production Manager Jordan Yob Marketing Manager Matt Pfenning UAccounts Manager Asja Kepes Local Accounts Manager Colin Cheesman National Accounts Manager Anna He Special Guides and Online Manager Claire Butz Layout Manager The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the University of Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for fall term, starting in September, via U.S. mail are $110. Winter term (January through April) is $115, yearlong (September through April) is $195. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscriptions must be prepaid. The Michigan Daily is a member of The Associated Press and The Associated Collegiate Press.
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Geoff Emberling, assistant research scientist at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, speaks about the destruction of antiquities and the state of ruin caused by ISIS in the Middle East in the South Thayer Building on Monday.
@michigandaily Event explores effects of ISIS on
historical artifacts in Middle East
Violence promoted by terrorist group takes toll on preservation of the past By EMILY DAVIES For the Daily
As nations worldwide grapple with the rise of the terrorist group ISIS, the Near Eastern Studies Department held an event Monday to discuss the physical and historical impacts of the group’s violence on the modern Middle East, and its direct link to the United States and European nations. Three faculty members and about 40 attendees joined Geoff Emberling, assistant research scientist at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, to discuss the destruction of antiquities and the state of ruin in the Middle East. Images of destroyed monuments and historical sites cycled
behind the speakers as they talked about how the city of Apamea in western Syria was looted block by block, and barrel bombs pressed against artwork in the palace of Ashurnasirpal II. Panelists provided attendees with their perspectives on ISIS’ path of destruction and one common theme emerged: helplessness. “This situation is extremely dire, and it’s not going to get better soon … I have a tremendous sense of impotence. There is very little we can do about it, and that is the depressing part,” said Piotr Michalowski, a professor of ancient Near Eastern languages and civilization. Emberling began his lecture by providing a brief history of Iraqi and Syrian destruction. The panel followed a previous lecture he gave in early November to a Museum Studies program on a similar topic. Emberling said he invited to continue the conversation with a second event due to the amount of interest surrounding this topic.
Emberling summarized related historical events, like Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and ISIS’ recently acquired caliphate label, but his focus moved toward understanding how these historical events and the intentional destruction of historical artifacts are linked to the United States and European nations. Strategically, through the destruction of Roman artifacts, ISIS gains attention from the West and from potential recruits. Roman monuments in the Middle East are more closely related to European and U.S. culture than any heritage in the Near East. Because of this, U.S. media reacts strongly when such artifacts are targeted. Panelists said this publicity in Western countries is exactly what ISIS is seeking. This national attention attracts young radicals searching for a voice. Economically, the destruction helps ISIS due to its sale of some antiquities. By bulldozing large arches or monuments, ISIS makes room to dig
up the portable, and therefore marketable, items. By publicly advertising the growing scarcity of Middle Eastern artifacts, ISIS increases the value of these smaller objects. As scholars, Emberling and the other panelists said they often feel defeated by ISIS’ durability. Given the massive humanitarian crisis that ISIS has caused, critics may question the attention to artifact destruction. As Emberling articulated, understanding the strategy behind ISIS’ destruction of national history calls attention to the broader story explaining the rise of ISIS. “What are the larger conditions that make it possible for a larger movement like this to take root?” Emberling asked. “It has a large part to do with American policy … (The destruction of antiquities) can call attention to this Middle Eastern issue beyond the political debates we’ve been hearing that demonize refugees who are just trying to survive.”
News
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Tuesday, December 1, 2015 — 3
NEWS BRIEFS
CONCERT From Page 1
Syrian refugees expected to arrive in Ann Arbor Even though Gov. Rick Snyder (R) has put a temporary restraint on incoming refugees from Syria, more are expected to relocate to Ann Arbor. Currently there are about 16 refugees living in Ann Arbor. The sole refugee resettlement agency in Washtenaw County, Jewish Family Services, says Syrian families are currently waiting to be cleared before they can come to Ann Arbor. The application process in full takes at least 18 months. Since 2012, around 240 refugees have resettled in Washtenaw County.
Report: Detroit to bounce back after bankruptcy In its biannual report to Gov. Rick Snyder (R) on Nov. 30, the Detroit Financial Review Commission said the city is effectively moving forward in its restructuring and reinvestment plan put in place after it exited bankruptcy last year. The commission of nine was created last year to monitor the city’s progress and ensure Detroit continues to meet its “Grand Bargain” requirements. Members are appointed by the governor, mayor and city council members. For its review, the commission approved 237 contracts of city employees and the agreement between the transit union and Detroit’s transportation department. According to the report, Detroit anticipates a $35 million budget surplus this year.
New study indicates ADHD medication leads to bullying A study by the University suggests children who take medications which treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have double the chance of experiencing physical and/or emotional bullying than children who do not. Middle school and high school students who sell or share their ADHD medications were 4.5 times more likely to be bullied. The four-year study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and took data from about 5,000 middle and high school students. It is the first study of its kind to research the link between ADHD medications and bullying. Other studies have shown a link between children having ADHD and an increase in bullying. ADHD has been increasing in recent years. There has been a 42 percent increase in diagnoses for ADHD between 2003 and 2011, in the United States.
Daily antibiotics can prevent spread of tuberculosis Daily doses of antibiotics can better prevent the creation of drug resistant strains than the current recommendation of one to two doses a week, according to a University study. The study was conducted using a computer model of the virus because animal experiments are expensive and take a long time to complete, and often come with ethical concerns. Computer models can be more accurate than animal tests because they can detect issues with antibiotic regiments sooner. Turberculosis is difficult to treat and about 10 million people contract it each year. Antibioticresistant strains of tuberculosis are on the rise as well. Because doctors are unable to tell whether someone has been completely rid of the virus or if it has become dormant in the patient’s body, strains of the virus can face exposure to antibiotics for years.
—EMMA KINERY
ROBERT DUNNE/Daily
University President Mark Schlissel gives a lecture on issues surrounding genetic testing at the Human Genetics Seminar at the Biomedical Science as Research Building on Monday.
GENETICS From Page 1 engage in broader discussion about genetics. “We became enamored with this idea because it seemed like an early example of engaged learning,” Schlissel said on Monday. “Students could send in their own DNA sample and then be able to interact with the results of that sample directly.” However, the California Department of Public Health said because the actual genetic testing would be conducted in a university, not a clinical lab, the tests would need to
SACUA From Page 1 directly, recipients would be free to spend the money as they choose. “To a large extent I think some of the problems with charities are that they’re very paternalistic,” Morgenstern said. “The problem with the income gap is that people don’t tell me how to spend my money and I would rather not tell the recipient how to spend this money. I would like them to be able to use the money for what they feel is most important.” Morgenstern acknowledged potential kinks in the plan: It does not promise a constant year-to-year flow of additional income for all recipients, it has the potential to reflect poorly on the University and faculty and staff might be reluctant to participate in the program. In addition, decisions regarding what the pay scale cutoff would be for donors and recipients would still need to be made. Ultimately, Morgenstern said the plan is not a form of charity, but a way to acknowledge the disparities that persist in society today. “In my particular specialty in medicine, I am in the low end of the pay scale but still above the cut point. I don’t believe that I have the right to make that amount of money so much more than the person that cleans the toilet in my area for 50 years. I have a great job. I get to sit here with all of you and
be ordered by physicians. Critics also pointed to privacy concerns and argued students were not equipped with the proper knowledge to interpret the information they’d receive about their DNA. Schlissel said “Bring Your Genes to Cal” was designed as an alternative to reading an assigned book prior to orientation, with the intention of allowing students to more actively engage in learning about personalized medicine. By testing nondisease associated genes that commonly vary among the population, the program was not designed to provide medical
information, but to involve students in the life sciences and demonstrate how genetic testing in the modern age could enhance medical treatment. In the end, the University organized campus discussions and educational sessions about genetic testing instead. “Things got pretty heated,” Schlissel said. “Some criticisms involved groups expressing their opinions in a pretty incendiary way.” After the lecture, a panel consisting of Schilssel, Internal Medicine Prof. David Ginsburg and Scott Roberts, an associate professor of health behavior and health education,
facilitated a discussion with audience members. “There is something to the idea that students would be more engaged,” Roberts said. “It is an interesting and personal teaching topic.” Human Genetics Prof. Sally Camper said the purpose of the seminar was to bring awareness to genetic testing and the debate surrounding it. “Genetic testing is being marketed directly to consumers and being used ‘recreationally’ through searches for ancestral connections etc.” Camper said in an e-mail interview. “This is relatively new and not without controversy.”
talk about this very interesting, intellectual thing. Yeah, I work very hard, I went to school. But I don’t get 50 years of rewards for that. To me the selling point has to be what are we really trying to do? This is different from charitable giving, you’re paying to play. You’re paying to have the job that you have.” SACUA members also met with representatives from Central Student Government, Rackham Student Government and the Graduate Employees’ Organization at Monday’s meeting. Charlton, the CSG president, expressed frustration with the course evaluation release timeline and said he hoped the meeting would be an opportunity for student government and faculty government to move forward with existing plans to make those evaluations available to students. “I would love to find a way that we can collaborate, but I think it’s time for us to really get this conversation on the table so we can all move forward and have a positive working relationship,” Charlton said. As it stands, two committees are being formed to address the issue of course evaluation data release. One committee will evaluate the current course evaluation instrument and the other committee will evaluate best practices for releasing the data. SACUA has agreed to release course evaluation data to academic advisers. A pilot
will be released to advisers in early December, and full access to advisers should be available by early January of next year. There was also debate about which student-governing bodies have the authority to appoint representatives to University committees. Though the authority has generally fallen to CSG, an e-mail sent out earlier this fall has caused confusion around the issue. The e-mail mistakenly invited RSG to appoint committee representatives as well. Charlton maintained that CSG should be the only group invited to appoint committee representatives, given it is the only group that represents the entirety of the student population. “Central Student Government reserves the right to hold every appointment that goes in any of these committees, unfortunately a compromise that Chuky (the RSG president) did not want to take early on is making me arrive at a more stern and unfortunately professional tonality. I want to make sure that we move forward together, but think that we need to silence this conversation about which students are talking on behalf of which students, because CSG, in order to reserve the solidarity of all students, needs to be the only person at this table.” In response, RSG President Chuky Mbagwu,
an aerospace engineering doctoral candidate, said CSG appointments do not include enough graduate and professional students. “We as RSG contend and maintain that for years CSG has not actually been a representative for the graduate student and professional student voice, only in name,” Mbagwu said. “There are so many other professional student governments that are saying the same thing. The appointments that they made before RSG started doing it did not have any representation from Rackham, and maybe just a few from professional schools.” SACUA Chair Silke-Maria Weineck, a professor of comparative literature, said the University should stick with its current procedure for now, allowing CSG to appoint students to University committees. However, she added that the issue is something that has to be worked out among student government groups, not by SACUA. “I want to respect the autonomy of student organizations and I do not think it should be SACUA’s job to arbitrate disputes you have within student government; I think that’s not our role,” Weineck said. “Right now our charter says Central Student Government, we’re not going to change the charter in the middle of the semester, it’s bad policy.”
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SPEAK OUT From Page 1 themselves.” SAPAC and the University have worked together in recent years to bring additional awareness to sexual assault on campus, creating programs like Relationship Remix, a mandatory seminar for first-year students. However, attitudes toward the administration’s treatment of students’ experiences on campus varied. Some speakers found that coming to college provided new insight regarding the definition of assault. “It took this campus to teach me the appropriate terms and to understand what happened to me,” a survivor said. Kundert pushed for more services for student survivors, especially in light of the ongoing federal
solving tool based on respectful conversation — preceded the performance. In the circle, Waln talked about his experiences with education and the issues the Native American community faces. During the circle session, he reflected on his experience transitioning from high school on a poor reservation to college. He said he often felt secluded in an education system built to primarily boost white males. “These systems of higher education are not built for us,” Waln said. “They are built for white men to succeed. It is hard being a person of color in these types of systems. I learned that going to school in these systems, and I often felt very isolated and alone.” Waln added that the most important thing for people to learn about Native Americans is that the population was continuously subject to institutionalized subjugation. “Genocide happened in this country, and we survived it,” he said. “We are talking about the Jewish Holocaust in our high schools, but they don’t tell you that holocaust and genocide happened here, on the land that class is being held on.” The concert featured a set of songs and dances in Waln’s style, which incorporates native elements with hip hop. Waln performed lyrically while Sampson accompanied with traditional instruments and dance. During the performance, Sampson, who had not participated in the talking circle, shared his story. Sampson grew up in Southern California and said he stayed connected to culture through his mother’s influence and the Palo community present there. “She did what she could to provide for us and keep us connected to our culture,” Sampson said. “We got connected to the Palo culture, and that is how we maintained our connection.” Between songs, Waln spoke about the story behind each song he performed. At one point, he talked about his forthcoming album. “I consider what I do to be storytelling,” Waln said. “This album is telling my story of how I’m trying to actively heal from all of these wounds that I have because of colonization.” Alexis Syrette, a Central Michigan University freshman, said Waln will continue to have success and inspire people if he continues performing. “I think Frank is a really inspirational person, and he is going to continue to inspire young indigenous people all across the country,” she said. “As long as he keeps doing what he is doing, he is going to succeed.” Public Policy senior Isa Gaillard, a co-chair of NASA, said this event is a start to increasing the visibility of Native Americans on campus. “This is a start so we can have more opportunities for events like this and to raise awareness about the native community,” he said. “Michigan has one of the highest indigenous populations in this country, so as a University that really prides itself on being on the forefront of social justice issues and making sure that it promotes diversity, I think this is a really great chance to highlight one of the areas where this is really lacking.”
investigation into the University’s handling of sexual misconduct. “This is important especially on a college campus where it’s so prevalent,” Kundert said. “And SAPAC has five staff members … for 40,000 people.” Barkin also stressed the importance of Speak Out and survivor care on a large campus. In 2015, the University participated in two surveys designed to gauge the campus climate related to sexual assault. A survey conducted by the Association of American Universities found that 14.6 percent of University students experienced nonconsensual sexual contact since coming to college. “22.8 percent of (female) students identify as survivors of sexual assault … so you could have a 100-person class and 22 people with you are survivors … It affects everyone, regardless of identity.”
Opinion
4 — Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com JENNIFER CALFAS EDITOR IN CHIEF
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Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
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Valuing family time
hen I was in high school, the most common Facebook cover pictures I saw were poses with friends or random aesthetic succulents. Now, it seems, pictures with parents and siblings have dominated my news feed. From my experience, my peers and I have been opting more for #MimosasWithMom, rather than the infamous #foodporn or #nature. LIAM Life at college, it seems, is WIESENinstilling in students value BERGER and pride for their families rather than despoiling it. My freshman year, I think I thought pretty much the opposite. Everybody on campus seemed to be studying and working all the time, barely having enough time to think of their families at home at all, let alone call or visit them. When students weren’t studying, they were partying, which seemed like the last thing someone who highly values their parents would spend their expensive university time doing. My second semester freshman year, I spent exactly one night in Bloomfield Hills. One night! Granted, I spent my Spring Break in Atlanta participating in Alternative Spring Break, but the fact that I didn’t think about or miss my family at home much at all supported my idea that college was a time for students to grow apart from their families. However, this year, after noticing the opposite trend, I caught on to reason why I didn’t notice it my first two semesters at Michigan: I didn’t have to go home to Bloomfield Hills for a family recharge because I had so much family already here with me. My sister, two years older, was already a University student when I came here — I didn’t have to go home or call my parents to necessarily get that family-values feeling. Every time I felt stressed or needed to talk to family, I would call or text her to meet up for a bit at Bert’s in the UGLi. For example, when I really needed someone to be there for me in times of personal distress, I didn’t have to go all the way home to see someone who was unconditionally there for me. Instead, I just had to walk five minutes to meet up with my sister at a coffee shop. While I imagined I was floating away from my family life, I was, in fact, just developing it in different, more adaptable ways. I didn’t have to be living at home with my parents to know that I had the support network I needed. This Thanksgiving break, some high
school friends put together a reunion event of sorts. The Facebook event was actually titled “Re-onion 2: the onioning.” On the day of the event, our friend who goes to Princeton posted: “OK, I’m the worst, but I can’t make it. I’m leaving tomorrow morning and I only have a day left with my parents and (sibling name). frown emoticon. I really suck because I had the day changed for this event. Please leave all hate messages below:” At any point before this year, I almost certainly would have actually left at least some sort of passive remark in the comments about how we changed the event date just for her, and how I haven’t seen her in months yada yada yada (I used to be — still am? — a high-maintenance friend). But this year, after almost three semesters in college, I can totally understand where she’s coming from. While at face value it may seem that university students are drifting away from their parents and siblings, they are simply developing a more complex relationship. I’m no longer just living at home, in need of my parents’ and siblings’ constant support. Instead, I know I have that support even when I’m far away, and my family knows the same from me. Therefore, when I do actually go home and physically spend time with them, that time is more precious than ever, and I think many college students also appreciate that added value. So what does this mean for our home life? Succinctly, home life has become a precious, almost nostalgic time to take selfies with Mom and genuinely enjoy being in the presence of one’s family. I honestly feel like I’ve become so much less of a brat than I was in high school (but I really couldn’t have been more of one, so that’s not saying much), because being away at school forces me to appreciate every minute. School life away from home is now a time when I’m physically separated from my family, but feel the support (and expectations!) more than ever. And if I’m ever unsure about that, I can give them a call anytime and know they’re willing to take an hour out of their day just to talk. I love going on Snapchat while on break. During holiday time, rather than expecting to feel FOMO when opening friends’ stories, I can always look forward to cute sibling pictures and posts of gratitude for parents. Though at times University life is separating us from these family moments, in actuality, it only makes us value them even more. — Liam Wiesenberger can be reached at wiesliam@umich.edu.
ANDREA CUAMATZI | VIEWPOINT
Our Lady of Guadalupe I was 16 when I left home to study abroad for the first time. Right before I left for the airport, my grandma said goodbye to me in a way only she could do: Que la Virgencita te cuide y te acompañe — May Our Lady of Guadalupe be with you at all times. As a farewell gift, she put a gold charm on my neck with Our Lady of Guadalupe on one side and my name on the other. Until that moment, I had always taken for granted the significance of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I was born and raised as a Catholic in Mexico, and Our Lady of Guadalupe has not only been a symbol present in my family, my church and my Catholic high school, but also a historical figure used in war emblems, constitutional seals and famous literature. In the Mexican community, Dec. 12 represents a day of gathering and hope, a moment of union and faith. Classes are cancelled, Mom and Dad are off work, and churches are opened. There will be family gatherings full of tamales and hot chocolate. The significance of Our Lady of Guadalupe goes beyond religious celebrations; she is a symbol of culture and tradition. Why are Mexicans so devoted to this figure? Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared as an application to Juan Diego, a native Aztec, in 1531 — a period of annihilation of the Aztec Empire and of imposition of the Spanish culture and religion. The Aztecs were known as a devoted polytheistic community. It was not until Our Lady of Guadalupe made her apparitions that indigenous people started accepting the Catholic faith as their own. She appeared in a way Aztec people could identify
with. The color of her skin was neither white nor indigenous; it was a blend of both. She used Nahuatl, not Spanish, to communicate with Juan Diego. She is replete with symbolism. Her pink robe, her blue stellated mantle, her name “Guadalupe,” her facial expressions — everything is full of meaning for the Aztec community. Instead of imposing a new, unfamiliar set of values and beliefs, she acknowledges the richness of a culture, blending the Catholic faith with Aztec beliefs. The message of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a message of love and protection. She acknowledges those in the margins who don’t seem to have a voice. The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe among the Mexican community in the United States carries the same meaning it carried 500 years ago in the Spanish-Aztec context. It reminds us of the value every human being has beyond nationality, social class or racial privileges, portraying that the reconciliation of a heterogeneous and complex society is possible. This message is just as important today with our struggles with immigration as it was in the time of Juan Diego. In that spirit of inclusion, the Mexican community welcomes everyone to join us in the celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe this Dec. 12 at 7 p.m. at St. Mary Student Parish. The mass will be in Spanish, and English guides will be available. Directly following mass, all are invited to celebrate with traditional Mexican food and Mariachis. Andrea Cuamatzi is an LSA senior.
CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION Readers are encouraged to submit viewpoints. Viewpoints should be 550-850 words. Send the article, writer’s full name and University affiliation to opinioneditors@michigandaily.com.
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What is normal?
here were only four sentences on the sheet of paper in front of us. My classmates and I sat there stumped for a moment, struggling to answer a few questions. Floating among all the white space we weren’t entirely sure how to fill was the question “What is normal?” Tossing aside my initial (and MELISSA mildly sarcastic) SCHOLKE reaction to ask if the prompt was a trick question, we were able to jot down a few phrases and a few words to complete the exercise. This particular question, though, resurfaced when I traveled back home for Thanksgiving break. Home had always had its own definition of “normal” — a respective series of expectations about how to act, what to do and the “proper” order to perform these actions. I — for 22 years — had disagreed with the vast majority of them. I didn’t tend to fit home’s definition, and more often than not, I wasn’t necessarily sure I wanted to. Yet as I returned to a place where I continually felt I was deviating from the norm, my mind suddenly became preoccupied with the notion of normal. Given the ambiguity of what the next year — or even the next few months — will hold, a prescribed route with some sort of direction to follow was an attractive option. Normal promised a degree of certainty and stability. Normal would provide a measure of where exactly I “should be.” However, as I began to worry whether I was falling behind or making a mistake, I began to really consider what has actually constituted normal up to this point in my life. Throughout the years, it was normal for me to be highly aware of my status as a woman, and if I ever began to forget about this label — and all of the limitations society entwines into it — I was promptly reminded. “Because you’re the girl” was the customary response whenever I asked for any explanation as to why my parents hesitated to let me do certain things my brothers were able to do without question. With this phrase came the acknowledgement that I needed to follow special precautions in order to obtain a certain degree of independence my brothers and male
friends seemed to acquire easily. Going to a party, walking back from the library late at night, jogging in a secluded area, spending a day in a bigger city, going for a run in the evening, going to a concert or driving across the state were endeavors that filled those around me with visible discomfort if I mentioned I was going alone. These endeavors typically required a great deal of negotiation and reassurance beforehand, and an even greater degree of self-awareness and vigilance during the time. Both then and now, my friends and family display some anxiety at the idea of me venturing out alone in these scenarios. But it’s still a fairly common phenomenon for concerns about these excursions to instantly evaporate whenever I mention I’ll be in the company of my male best friend. Each time I open my laptop or turn on a television, I’m bombarded by what the media portrays as normal. Normal is constantly questioning and critiquing numerous forms of media because I’m tired of hearing my body compared to some variety of amorphous fruit, especially when the bushel depicted in society still looks pretty homogenous. Searching through Photoshopped images on various platforms for one with familiar proportions is an all-too-common activity — one that regrettably produces few results. And as I do this, my friends struggle to find valid representations of their race, sexuality or disability in the media they watch, listen to and read. I’ve read innumerable articles about “leaning in,” “having it all” and alleviating the wage gap. In my column, I’ve argued for initiatives to diminish gender inequality. Despite all of this, I know any hurdles I encounter as I try to navigate the professional world as an individual from a lower socioeconomic background will only be magnified by my identity as a woman. Accepting the norm involves the realization that until things change, I’ll most likely find myself smashed up against a glass ceiling holding onto about 77 cents where a dollar should be. Normal is knowing that dressing in more androgynous clothing over the years is not merely a style choice, but a poten-
tial strategy to avoid being classified and stereotyped by my gender in the workplace. One particular norm permeating each of my days is the continuous internal debate between saying too little and saying too much. At points, it’s simply holding my tongue during a conversation when it takes a turn toward the reasoning “that’s just the way things are,” and when a dissenting opinion will most likely be dismissed as a “feminist rant.” It’s swallowing my anger and frustration when a passing car volleys catcalls as I walk across an intersection on my way to class. Conversely, a sort of insecurity sets in the moments when I feel like I haven’t contributed enough to a conversation. It leaves me wondering whether my silence was perceived as shyness, a lack of knowledge on the topic or just a cold, judgmental persona. Then, in rare moments with certain people, I begin to worry I’ve monopolized the conversation, and an unnecessary apology follows. In fact, the word “sorry” has assumed a prominent place in my vocabulary, acting as a preface to far too many questions and as an entrance to far too many conversations. While these instances and experiences define the norms in my life, normal is a subjective concept, where some definitions are undoubtedly far more privileged than others. Normal, in my experience, has been presented as society’s agreed-upon codes of what’s acceptable. Looking back at the question from class, the idealist in me wants to say normal doesn’t exist. As much as I want to point out that the concept is socially constructed, I can’t deny that women are held up to various definitions of what’s normal — very often ones we’re never given a say in at all. In class, we focused on two approaches one can take in regard to normality. Either you can embrace the notion of normal, or you can combat it. If these norms and expectations are just a few examples of what women can expect if they embrace and accept it, society seriously needs to defy its own definition of “normal” and start redefining.
Society needs to defy its own definition of “normal” and start redefining it.
— Melissa Scholke can be reached at melikaye@umich.edu.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Jeremy Kaplan, Ben Keller, Payton Luokkala, Aarica Marsh, Anna Polumbo-Levy, Jason Rowland, Lauren Schandevel, Melissa Scholke, Rebecca Tarnopol, Ashley Tjhung, Stephanie Trierweiler, Mary Kate Winn, Derek Wolfe JEREMY KAPLAN | VIEWPOINT
Dear professors, think gameful As a likely pre-health student in a science heavy major, I don’t get a lot of choices when it comes to academics. It’ll be helpful to take these, says my adviser. You’ll need to take these, say graduate schools. Within courses is even worse. Introductory science and math courses essentially operate on the pedagogical model of read this, attend this lecture, do this problem set, take this exam, rinse, repeat. The only real choice is how many hours of the day I want to spend with my head buried rereading a chapter or doing another problem set. Hundreds of years of higher education have told us this is how it must be. College learning is supposed to be all about guided learning in how to teach ourselves. We all learn in our own unique ways, so it is up to us to figure out how to absorb the material. Exams exist to make sure we have learned the material we are supposed to have learned. Common sense about how we actually learn dictates otherwise. As the old adage goes, you haven’t learned until you have failed. But the standard grading model of just totaling up points received and dividing it by points possible flies in the face of this. If you actually fail an assessment, there is no way to demonstrate in your grade that you have learned from your mistakes; that mark of failure will always have an enormous impact on that final calculation. Sure, practice exams and smaller assignments are designed to simulate that learning
through failure, but they never come with the same type of directed feedback that accompanies an exam or essay grade. There’s a different way to think about learning called gameful learning, and a project funded by the University’s Third Century Initiative, the Digital Education Initiative, the School of Education and the School of Information seeks to harness it. It seeks to expand the reach of gameful learning, a pedagogical model built on the principles that grades should be built from zero and not a ratio, and that learning should feature multiple paths to success, not just a single list of homework and exams. Gameful learning at the University is built on top of the learning management system Gradecraft, which features a grade predictor that lets students experiment with different options for success, and constantly gives them opportunities to reevaluate their chosen method. This semester, I am taking a course that uses this model, Honors 240: The Games We Play. It does happen to have the added benefit of being a class about games graded as a game, but the gameful model certainly shows its stripes. Its gameful model empowers me to make choices about how I want to learn the material and lets me take risks that I might not otherwise take. For example, as part of the course’s goal to apply the basic social science concepts we’re learning to real-world scenarios, I had the
option to do any combination of developing my own empirical study of an issue on campus, analyzing one aspect of the Department of Education’s College Scorecard data or writing an essay trying to tie all of the individual concepts together. I decided to take a risk and spend a majority of my time analyzing data, and found some really interesting results that I would have never had seen if it was something I was forced to do along with other objectives. I also knew that even though I was taking a risk by focusing so much of my time on one project that could potentially lead to uninteresting results, or have it not be what my professor wanted, I could always try something new without risking a serious grade deduction. I would still have to work harder than if I didn’t fail the other assignment, but at least my grade might not suffer. This type of choice in my learning was incredibly empowering. I felt so much more ownership over my work in the end because I felt like I chose to go down this path, and it wasn’t something someone was forcing me to do just to jump through some next proverbial hoop. While this model certainly can’t work in every educational circumstance, it is worth it for professors to think about adjusting the very model of their classrooms if they want their students to think the way the real world thinks. Jeremy Kaplan is an editorial board member.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, December 1, 2015 — 5
TV REVIEW
GENDER AND MEDIA COLUMN
‘Dead’ disappoints Hamilton, Ruth & I Mid-season finale of AMC series is its worst yet By BEN ROSENSTOCK Daily Arts Writer
The concept of a “mid-season finale” has traditionally been helpful for “The Walking Dead,” a show primarily made up of C+ eight-episode arcs. Each The mid-season finale since the Walking third season Dead has featured a game-changing Season 6 Midmoment; while season Finale the third sea- AMC son left us won- Sundays at 9 p.m. dering whether Darryl (Norman Reedus, “Sky”) or Merle (Michael Rooker, “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer”) would survive their battle to the death, the fourth and fifth mid-season finales killed off main characters and scattered the show’s characters to the wind, with no destination in sight. As this season began to unfold, it quickly became clear that the entire half-season would take place over a compressed time rate, only a few days. That was an appealing idea, especially because it would allow the show to tell a self-contained arc with a greater sense of immediacy. Unfortunately, there’s hardly any urgency to be found in “Start to Finish,” the show’s weakest mid-season finale yet. There’s no real cliffhanger in the end; the story simply stops in the middle of what it’s doing, letting us wonder for a couple months what the outcome of the current big zombie battle will be. As a structural experiment, the time compression of the sixth season has failed, resulting in a four-episode stretch of boring episodes without even a finale to coax the season back to life. The episode either delays or entirely eschews all the big outcomes viewers were waiting for:
a fatal confrontation between Carl (Chandler Riggs, “Mercy”) and Ron (Austin Abrams, “Paper Towns”), the emotional reunion of Glenn (Steven Yeun, “I Origins”) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan, “The Vampire Diaries”), the reveal of the identity of the person pleading for help over the radio and the arrival of Darryl, Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green, “Once Upon A Time”) and Abraham (Michael Cudlitz, “Southland”). Most notably, though, the massive zombie attack, instead of delivering a surge of action and high stakes, is presented as a minor background nuisance throughout the episode. The episode, at least, isn’t as bad as the season’s worst installment, “Now.” There are interesting threads here. Deanna’s (Tovah Feldshuh, “Holocaust”) death is appropriately heroic as she finally musters up the courage to fight back against the walkers, and her final conversation with Michonne (Danai Gurira, “Mother of George”) hopefully promises a bigger role for the latter after a halfseason that has largely ignored her. Carol (Melissa McBride, “The Reconstruction of William Zero”) and Morgan (Lennie James, “Low Winter Sun”), the most compelling characters of the show, have a fun fight based on their disagreement over whether to keep their murderous prisoner alive.
The show is backsliding into stagnancy. Still, even these two theoretically compelling subplots are marred by old issues and new frustrating developments. Deanna’s death doesn’t have nearly as much impact as it would last season, since she has spent most of this season in a dull PTSD-induced stupor, staring blankly at the walkers threatening to kill her and repeatedly being saved by Rick (Andrew
Lincoln, “Love Actually”). And while Carol and Morgan’s fight would typically be fascinating, it feels petty amid a massive zombie attack. Their fight also ends in a painfully predictable manner, with the prisoner escaping. This development in particular is frustrating because it proves Carol right in her merciless attitude toward prisoners. “The Walking Dead” is a show too often bogged down by pessimism and ruthlessness, which is why Morgan’s optimistic nokilling policy is so refreshing this season. A character being justifiably merciful for a change would give the show a necessary shock to the system, but the prisoner proving Morgan wrong only serves as another unnecessary reminder that the only way to survive is by being merciless. The rest of the episode features boring scenes of little consequence. Tara (Alanna Masterson, “Men at Work”), Eugene (Josh McDermitt, “Retired at 35”) and Rosita (Christian Serratos, “Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide”) hide from the zombies for a while, then break out and fail to save Denise (Merritt Wever, “Nurse Jackie”) from being abducted by the escaped prisoner. There’s also a fight between Carl and Ron, foreshadowed by last episode’s falsely intense cliffhanger. If there was ever a real risk of Ron killing Carl, this fight could be thrilling, but the pacing of the scene is listless and obligatory, as if everyone involved knows both annoying kids are going to make it out alive. Besides, in the wake of the kerfuffle with Glenn surviving, the odds are against the main character’s son dying anytime soon. Though the sixth season of “The Walking Dead” started strong and featured some standout episodes, the past four have seen it backsliding into stagnancy, recalling the weak early seasons. Hopefully the upcoming second half of the season will use the comics’ deep well of story for some more consistently fun episodes. But if the mid-season finale is any indicator, there’s a long way to go to rebuild.
TV NOTEBOOK
I
’ve been thinking a lot recently about history. How stories are told and repeated. How people become figures and figures become idols. How others are forgotten, their lives only lived once in their own bodies rather NATALIE than in the GADBOIS memories of generations. This newfound, morbid preoccupation with legacy? All due to one man: our least-appreciated founding father, Alexander Hamilton. Good ol’ Alex is the subject of a new Broadway musical that is breaking revenue records and taking over Spotify accounts. “Hamilton” is a hip-hop opera composed by, written and starring buoyant auteur Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of Tony-award-winning “In the Heights.” It tells Hamilton’s incredible unsung story, from a young orphan living in the Caribbean, as George Washington’s aide de camp in the revolution, the creator of the Federalist Papers, the first Secretary of the Treasury (and creator of big bad Wall Street as we know it), to millions of other accomplishments, so much that Miranda has to rap in order to get them all out. It’s really, really good. The final song of the musical, taking place after Hamilton’s death, is a soft, wandering ballad sung by his ever-patient wife Eliza. “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story,” is Eliza’s promise to continue working in her husband’s honor, so that he is never forgotten; it’s also Lin-Manuel’s attempt to remember the female voices in Hamilton’s life, those that Hamilton himself seemed to often forget. “Hamilton” is unapologetically the story of a man — a man who is brilliant, rash, tireless, selfish and ultimately vulnerable. And he is a man in a world ruled by men, surrounded by male compatriots
and adversaries. The women in his life are love interests; one a confidant, one a supporter, one a temptress. Lin-Manuel does what he can with the little history recorded of the women in Hamilton’s life, but ultimately what we know of them is only in reference to Hamilton. History doesn’t tell their story. *** As I obsessively listened to “Hamilton,” I was also reading Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik’s recent biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Fueled by Tumblr public policy nerds, 82-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ginsberg has become something of a celebrity over the past few years, most significantly after a few blistering dissents in conservative decisions made by the court. Notorious RBG, as the Internet calls her, is Millennial-famous now, but this octogenarian was badass long before we all were born. This — this — was a story that needed to be told. A woman who passed groundbreaking cases in equal rights for women and men when it came to family leave and employment discrimination, who intelligently (and presciently) argued against Roe v. Wade, believing that a woman’s right to choose was only secure when there wasn’t an opportunity for loopholes in the law. A woman who was only one of two other women in her class at Columbia Law, yet who graduated first in her class. A woman of whom her daughter once fondly spoke: “Mommy does the thinking, and daddy does the cooking.” A modern marvel, a winged herald. It was thrilling to read about a woman who had shaped the country during my own lifetime. In the constant rebirth of a nation, she is in some ways a founding mother, helping develop a new system to foster our diverse, complex country. It was refreshing to read of her husband Marty’s constant support and deference to her intelligence and industriousness. It was refreshing too, to
see Marty, a wildly successful tax attorney in his own right, be discussed only in reference to Ruth. Because this was her story. *** I sat in the movie theater, tears pooling into my woolen scarf, Mom holding my hand tight. “Brooklyn,” about a young Irish girl immigrating to the United States in the 1950s and starring the luminous Saorise Ronan, wasn’t an especially tragic movie. I wasn’t crying because of a great death or misfortune that had fallen upon Eilis, who was smart and scrappy and thriving. I was crying because I was able to see myself in her story. While there have been many films created about those immigrating to the United States, this one is different. Eilis’ freckled face fills every frame of the film, as she says goodbye to her family, becomes seasick on the boat over and homesick once there, as she speaks in her meek brogue at the department store where she works. As she falls in love, and as she makes achingly difficult decisions. This is not a family saga, nor even a two-sided romance. This is purely Eilis’s story. Based on Colm Tóibín’s novel of the same name, “Brooklyn” is complete fiction. Eilis isn’t a Ruth, nor is she a Hamilton, real figures with real impacts on American history. In a world where the stories of the powerful are told most often, and men’s a large percentage of those, Eilis’s story is small. But as another young Irish girl (admittedly a few generations removed), who is soon moving thousands of miles away from her family, Eilis’s story beat more powerfully in my chest than Hamilton or Ginsburg’s triumphs ever could. And I’m goddamn grateful someone told it, because stories like Eilis’s are usually the ones we never get to hear. Gadbois is waiting for a Notorious R.B.G. musicial. To pitch her, e-mail gadbnat@umich.edu.
TV REVIEW
Memories of Macy’s ‘10 Bullets’ shows empathy for subjects By HAILEY MIDDLEBROOK Daily Arts Writer
For 89 years, Thanksgiving morning has meant one thing: Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Rain or shine, it’s a tradition as holy as turkey, cranberry sauce, football and your drunk uncle’s political rants. Because whether you’re a 10-year-old kid or a senior home from college, watching the balloons in person on New York City’s Sixth Avenue or streaming it from NBC on a favorite sofa at home, you’re guaranteed to get a bit emotional when Santa Claus floats by for the grand finale. And when Mariah Carey sings “All I Want for Christmas Is You” from atop a stack of Christmas presents, wearing a cherry-red ball gown and a fur shawl, you might just burst out in tears. Needless to say, the parade is a Thanksgiving tradition that millions of Americans have adopted as their own. Though the famed march to Macy’s flagship store in New York City has shortened, condensed to just two and a half miles from the five-mile route of previous years, the parade continues to blow up bigger every year — no pun intended — and 2015 was no exception. Hosted by Matt Lauer, Savannah Guthrie and Al Roker of NBC’s “Today” show, this year’s march brought the usual favorites: the long-legged New York City Rockettes, Snoopy and Woodstock, 600 plus-person dance crews, marching bands and that group of old geezers with bagpipes, all snaking through a crowd of three million spectators. Different from previous years,
however, was the not-so-subtle hint of heavy surveillance, a precaution taken in response to the recent bombings in Paris. The New York Times reported that close to 2,500 police officers lined the streets, both in uniform and undercover, watching for any suspicious activity amongst the crowd. Thankfully, like the unseasonably warm weather, the parade proceeded as perfectly as everyone hoped. The only glitch, according to the Times, was a 41-year-old man who violated city code by flying a drone near Central Park. Drone aside, the air was filled with whimsy. Along with Snoopy, the oldest recurring balloon on display (appearing 38 times since being introduced in 1968), familiar friendly giants included Hello Kitty (introduced in 1976), Ronald McDonald (1987), Pokemon’s Pikachu (2001), Spongebob Squarepants (2004), “Adventure Time” ’s Finn and Jake (2013) and the Red Power Ranger (2014). New to the crew this year was Scrat, the lovable and frantic squirrel from “Ice Age,” who floated through the air clutching — what else? — his precious acorn. Red from the “Angry Birds” video game also flew for the first time, in anticipation of “The Angry Birds Movie” coming to theaters in May. Hovering below the balloons was the real action: the musical performances and dance acts. For as much as I love a giant inflatable Spongebob, watching Panic! At the Disco (“I Write Sins Not Tragedies”) on a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles float is a bit more exciting. In the past, Macy’s has attracted artists from across the country and across generations — from Hilary Duff (2003) and
the Kidz Bop Kids (2012), to the Beach Boys (2005) and KISS (2014). Though almost everyone lip syncs, wearing microphones for show — parade acoustics are pretty terrible — the singing’s not the focal point. Really, we’re all watching to see what float the stars arrive on and what holiday-chic outfit they’re sporting. This year, Mariah Carey, the queen of Christmas herself, won best-dressed and best performance hands down. (I’m biased, I know, but it’s officially the holiday season after all!) Other strong showings were Jordin Sparks, who sang “Right Here Right Now” dressed in an on-point cranberry pea coat; Shawn Mendes, who performed “Stitches” while adorably steering a ship of kiddy pirates; and the “610 Stompers,” posing in short shorts and sweat bands like an army of “Juno”-era Michael Ceras, who killed a hilariously impressive step routine. Along with Panic! at the Disco, the Plain White T’s also appeared, giving us all some nostalgia for the 2000s. But most deserving of praise was the troupe of spirited high school cheerleaders, dancers and marching band members who never stopped smiling, though they’d probably been locked in tight formation since 6 a.m. Props for doing your thing while the rest of us were in collegeinduced comas. For me, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade isn’t so much entertainment as it is therapy, a nostalgic relief from the stress of the semester and a tradition that the whole family — drunk uncle included — can agree on. And that’s something to be thankful for.
By SOPHIA KAUFMAN Daily Arts Writer
After Michael Dunn, a white man, shot and killed Jordan Davis, a Black 17-year-old boy, in a gas station parking lot in Florida, Jordan’s father ARon received 3 1/2 a text from Trayvon Mar- Minutes, tin’s father, 10 Bullets welcoming him to a “club” HBO that none of them wanted to be in. The documentary “3 ½ Minutes, 10 Bullets,” directed by Marc Silver, (“Who is Dayani Cristal?”) chronicles the trial of Michael Dunn in 2012. Unlike the several other recent cases involving young Black people killed by whites, there was no dispute over whether Dunn was guilty of killing Davis — which he did after asking Davis to turn that “thug music” down. Dunn’s defense relies on his insistence that under Florida’s stand-your-ground laws: He was in the right, as he thought Davis had a shotgun. But when Dunn’s then-fiancé Rhonda Rouer is cross-examined, she says, in a wavery voice, that Dunn had never told her anything about Davis having a gun. No weapons of any kind were found in Davis’s car. At one point, we hear Dunn complaining to Rouer that he feels he’s being victim-blamed in the same way a scantily-clad woman might be. Names like Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown are whispered or shouted throughout
this documentary as it rightly puts the trial in context of the exploding outrage over racial biases (whether conscious or subconscious) that play a part in the killings of Black people in America. For example, the documentary adds context by focusing on both the news coverage of this trial as well as the trial itself. In light of recent events, this documentary feels more subtle and controlled in its representation of Dunn, when it could have very harshly thrown him into sharp relief. The documentary, though focusing heavily on how racial prejudice played into this tragic event and the subsequent trials, also dedicates a substantial amount of time to the second-amendment rhetoric and discourse on gun laws that surrounded this case. The documentary pulls on our emotions without cheapening its story; we see Jordan’s parents crying at their table, trying to figure out how this could have happened five minutes from their home, when he was with a group of “good” boys. Aside from the interviews with Jordan’s parents, the most riveting moments of the documentary are the interviews with Jordan’s friends, all young Black teenagers. They’re fully aware of the camera and the context in which they’re being interviewed. They’re sad, but they’re not confused. They know why Dunn pulled out his gun, and why the first jury didn’t agree on a first-degree murder charge. They talk about the racial overtones of the shooting and the
trial more than anyone else in the documentary does. One of Jordan’s friends says, shaking his head, “ ‘Thug’ is the new n-word.”
Pulling emotions without cheapening the story. The documentary is uneven in its coverage of the first and second trials, focusing more on the first, but the courtroom scenes are captivating. It ends with the fact that Dunn was given a life sentence without parole for murdering Jordan Davis and an additional 90 years for attempted murder of Leland Brunson, Tevin Thompson and Tommie Stornes, Jordan’s friends who were also in the car. “3 ½ Minutes, 10 Bullets” isn’t exceptional in terms of aesthetic cinematography or directorial choices. The music sometimes feels out of place, and often the interview audio bites or recordings of phone calls are played over extraneous shots of cars driving on highways. But you get the feeling that the people involved in making it really couldn’t care less about that. They know that what is important is the story and the context in which this story unfortunately unfolded.
Arts
6 — Tuesday, December 1, 2015
ANDRES From Page 1 thing that I didn’t even really have to think about, I just felt like I wanted to do it, so I did it,” Andres said. Andres — who was in St. Paul, supervising the premiere of his new piano concerto The Blind Banister — studied piano with Eleanor Hancock in New York for many years, from his childhood through high school, before becoming more serious about composition in their later time together. Andres began his serious composition studies during high school, taking lessons through the Juilliard precollege program. “I guess the composition sort of gradually became more and more important to me as I studied it more seriously, until the writing and the playing were sort of on equal footing, and feeding into each other,” Andres said. “After high school I decided to go to Yale, rather than go to a conservatory,” Andres said of his post high school education, explaining how he earned both his undergraduate degree and master’s degree from the university. “It was just sort of a gut feeling I had at the time that I would have found a conservatory kind of stifling,” he said of his decision to attend a university rather than a conservatory. “I don’t do well with bureaucracy or authority … and conservatories tend to be very rigid atmospheres … (additionally) I always knew I wanted to be a professional musician, but I also wanted to study more than just music.”
The piece being performed this Wednesday was composed by Andres for the Takács Quartet, which was formed in 1975 and is the quartet-in-residence at the University of Colorado Boulder. Discussing the piece, Strong Language, Andres spoke about its inspiration. “In many ways it was inspired directly by the quartet’s playing. I went to hear the Takács Quartet a little less than a year ago in New York, and I knew I was about to start writing a piece for them, so I was kind of looking for things … that made their playing especially their own,” Andres said. “And what impressed me about their playing was their sense of gesture — being conveyed by four different people — that was so unified and so clear, so that it almost seemed like the music was taking on these physical forms,” the composer explained. “I got the idea that the piece would have these very simple gestures that would be elaborated upon and varied over the course of the three movements.” Andres composed the central movement of the piece before the first and last, beginning with music that was “very still and quiet, and then gradually expanded outward in both directions, little by little, so that by the time it ended … it was this very grand and expressive, (with a) leaping melody,” the composer said. According to Andres, the first movement of Strong Language works in a similar way. The movement is built on initially unaccompanied arch-shaped melodies which repeat and grow more elaborate throughout the movement.
“Each time that melody is repeated these kind of substrata, these layers of decayed material kind of pile up underneath it, so each time the melody gets more embellished and more harmonized, and more just kind of noisy,” Andres said. “That movement is called ‘Middens,’ which is a type of archeological site which is basically an ancient trash pile — this kind of process of layers piling up over the ages,” the composer said. Andres draws on classical tradition for the structure of Strong Language’s last movement. The final movement is “a chaconne, or a passacaglia, based on a sequence of chords in the bass that are repeated in a cycle,” Andres said. The chaconne is a variation form that was very popular during the Baroque period in the 17th and 18th centuries, but fell out of favor until composers such as Britten and Shostakovich revived it in the mid 1900s. “It starts with hearing those chords and these very quiet, diffuse noises in the upper strings,” Andres said. “And eventually those noises fill in to become this perpetual motion cycling rhythm. The lower strings take on a melodic role underneath that, and that ends up leading to these reminiscences of the other two movements in the end.” Composed in the spring of this year, Strong Language was premiered less than a month ago by the Takács Quartet, who will be performing it again on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in Rackham Auditorium. Also on the program will be favorites from the 18th and 19th centuries, by Haydn and Dvorák, respectively.
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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
LITERATURE COLUMN
A
Literary hipness
s soon as the calendar flips to Dec. 1, I begin to ponder my upcoming New Year’s resolutions. For most of my life, my resolutions were oriented on self-improvement. My past resolutions include “stop losing shit,” “stop being late to literally REBECCA everything” LERNER and “stop eating so much Nutella.” These resolutions had an unsurprising expiration date of about a month. But in 2015, I made a new kind of resolution. I decided that instead of trying to change myself, I would plunge into something that I actually love to do. My 2015 resolution was to read a book a week for the whole year, 52 books in total. Of course, when the person with whom you’re negotiating resolutions with is yourself, it’s easy to become indulgent. I quickly realized during the finals of winter semester that there would be some weeks when I just couldn’t swing it. So I made up for the school year lapses in excess over the summer, furiously reading when I should have been selling ice cream in an non-airconditioned shack in August. And December has arrived again. When I realized this column was coming out on Dec. 1, I wanted to highlight and share all the thoughtful and insightful books that had been written and published in 2015. I flipped through the planner where I write the book of the week on the top of the page. I frowned and searched again. Out of the 48 books I had read so far this year, almost none of them came out in 2015. Looking back on the year, this made sense. My freshman year of college exposed me to new authors and styles. There seemed to be an endless number of classics that should have been fundamental to high school reading that somehow I had skipped. I wanted to read Jeffrey Eugenides, Junot
Díaz and Joan Didion. I was so busy reading the defining books of generations before mine that it didn’t even occur to me to keep up with contemporary fiction. When I recently realized this mistake and all that I had been missing, I ran to the library and checked out some of what had been previously vetted by The Washington Post and The National Foundation as “The Best Books of 2015.” Thankfully, since I only had a few days to read them, the books I chose are spectacular works. I started with “Girl Waits With Gun” by Amy Stewart. Based on real events from 1914, the novel tells the story of the three Kopp sisters who live by themselves on a farm. Their lives, previously private and quiet, change forever when a scurrilous factory owner crashes his car into their buggy. When the protagonist and leader of the sisters, Constance Kopp, demands restitution from the factory owner, he and his foul friends attempt to dissuade her with intimidation and threats of physical harm. The swaggering pursuits of male dominance portrayed in this book unfortunately have not changed and are still evident in our society today. The difference in “Girl Waits With Gun” is the entirely badass response of the Kopp sisters, especially for their time period. I started “The Turner House,” by Angela Flournoy, within minutes of finishing “Girl Waits With Gun.” While it was necessary for me to meet my deadline and travel home for Thanksgiving, I wouldn’t recommend the rapidity of this turnaround. “The Turner House” requires and deserves a clear head to receive its gifts of wonderfully complex characters woven into inter-generational story lines. The portrayal of the Detroit-based African-American Turner family begins in their house on Yarrow Street when Cha-Cha, the oldest of the 13 Turner children, encounters a ghost. or “haint,” in his room. We fast-forward through the years with them — the Turners are all grown up with their own demons haunting them in every room.
Their history hinges upon the history of Detroit, with each anecdote, based on the events of the city, illustrating the importance Flournoy gives to the phrase “the personal is political.” Families like the Turners are an underrepresented, but entirely accurate and necessary portrayal of the postnuclear family in contemporary literature. One of the books I read that was published in 2015 was Harper Lee’s “Go Set A Watchman,” the controversial prequel to “To Kill A Mockingbird.” I have already extensively discussed the novel in this column (long story short: read it, it’s worth it), but the book allowed me to see my prejudice against contemporary fiction. While “Watchman” was published in 2015, it had been declared a classic long before publication. I now see myself for what I truly am — I confess to being woefully unhip to recent fiction. I’m only halfway through two books that I wanted to read for this column, Adam Johnson’s “Fortune Smiles” and Sandra Newman’s “The Country of Ice Cream Star.” Other books that a less honest literature columnist would have claimed to have read would be “Purity” by Jonathan Franzen, “H is for Hawk” by Helen McDonald and “Serving Pleasure” by Alisha Rai, a selfpublished erotic novel that has garnered a shocking amount of literary attention. In 2015, I focused on the classics of the past when I should have spent an equal amount of time looking ahead to the future. But literary hipness is a transitory state. And fortunately, the beauty of resolutions is that there’s always next year. So for 2016, my resolution is, again, to read a book a week. The catch is that the book has to have been published within the last five years. My prediction is that this resolution will have everything — tears and joy and challenges and rewards, but mostly just a lot of reading. Check back in 12 months. Lerner is finishing a jar of Nutella. To scold her, e-mail rebler@umich.edu.
TV NOTEBOOK
Classifieds RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Call: #734-418-4115 Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
By DANIELLE YACOBSON Daily Arts Writer
SERVICES
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 1 With 69-Across, filmmaker born 12/1/1935 who directed and wrote five films in this puzzle 6 Apparel 10 Sacramento’s state, briefly 13 “Most certainly!” 15 Language that gave us “khaki” 16 Spanish she-bear 17 Look that way 18 With 59-Across, 1980 film by 1-/69-Across 20 Suffers from 21 Sneaky tactic 23 Kosher 24 Diagnostic machine 26 Make __ for: argue in favor of 27 2011 film by 1-/69-Across 31 Being kept cold 32 Sardinian six 33 1971 film by 1-/69-Across 36 1973 film by 1-/69-Across 42 Junio, por ejemplo 44 Low voice 45 1995 film by 1-/69-Across 52 Like a softly blowing fan 53 Nincompoops 54 Windy City airport 55 One of the deadly sins 56 Camp bed 59 See 18-Across 61 Camden Yards ballplayer 64 Spanish gold 65 Sit for an artist 66 Have a place to call home 67 “__ the ramparts ... ” 68 Figure (out) 69 See 1-Across
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41 Fish eggs 43 Husbands and wives 45 Cow sound in “Old MacDonald” 46 Response from another room 47 Supermodel’s allure: Var. 48 Prefix with scope 49 Annoying types 50 Info on a store door: Abbr.
51 Helicopter component 56 Slinky shape 57 Merrie __ England 58 High schooler, typically 60 Letters that promise payback 62 Stephen of “The Crying Game” 63 Alcatraz, e.g: Abbr.
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Even though my family immigrated from Russia to the United States over 20 years ago, American traditions haven’t really stuck. I’ve missed out on most all-American viewing experiences, like “Charlie Brown,” football and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Instead, my family spends the day nursing our food babies on the couch while marathoning all 10 “Friends” Thanksgiving episodes. Each year, we watch Joey’s head get stuck in a turkey, swoon over 2001 Brad Pitt and wonder how Monica was able to lose 100 pounds in just one year. We laugh at the jokes we already know the punchlines to and get teary-eyed every time we hear, “It’s always been you, Rach.” “Friends” has filled any void that the allAmerican traditions I’ve missed out on creating and have made “I’ll Be There For You” the theme song to my Turkey Day each year. I don’t know anything about football. Sue me. However, the Thanksgiving episode in season eight taught me that randomly yelling at the screen is an excellent strategy to get out of helping with holiday meal preparations. I’ve also discovered that football breeds competition, and nobody does it better than the Gellers. Though my family is void of any sibling rivalry, Ross and Monica’s compares to that of Michigan and Ohio State. Season three’s “The One with the Football” is infinitely better than any real football game I could suffer through, filled with pantsing and flashing — going so long you could buy a pretzel. One thing my family excels at (along with the rest of America) is overeating. However, my Thanksgivings are always European-ified. My grandma bakes cabbage pie instead of pumpkin and stuffing simply doesn’t exist in the Russian
vocabulary. Yet again, “Friends” comes to the rescue with every Thanksgiving food delicacy I could dream of. Monica cooks up three different kinds of mashed potatoes in “The One with the Late Thanksgivings” (season 10) and Joey demolishes an entire turkey while killing the fashion game in maternity pants. Even watching Rachel screw up her trifle (which, according to Ross, “tastes like feet”) has become a Thanksgiving day tradition. The best holiday “Friends” episode, “The One with All the Thanksgivings” (season five), captures the universal spirit of the holiday: reminiscing with the people that have seen you at your best and worst. In Rachel’s words, “It’s Thanksgiving, and we should not want to be together, together.” “Friends” provides the heavy dose of nostalgia necessary for family gathering by reminding everyone of their most embarrassing moments. The appearance of fat Monica and pre-nose job Rachel will inevitably give you cringe-worthy flashbacks to high school and maybe even evoke some long-forgotten secrets to come out of hiding. Just as the characters on screen change from season to season, so do the wonderful people that I surround myself with on the holiday dedicated to complex carbohydrates and pumpkin spice everything. Just last year, my younger cousin was covering his eyes at the kissing scenes. Now, he’s taking pointers from Joey and asking girls out on dates of his own. Without fail, the love that the “Friends” gang radiates out of the screen fills my own living room, making our yearly marathoning one of my most coveted traditions. We laugh, we cry, we try to keep the food coma from taking over our consciousness. And through it all, we’re reminded that “Friends”-giving is truly something to be thankful for.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Tuesday, December 1, 2015 — 7
Berenson finally gets standout defensive showing By KEVIN SANTO Daily Sports Writer
So far this season, the Michigan hockey team has consistently left coach Red Berenson with something to be desired: a stout defensive performance. But this past weekend, the Wolverines finally gave their coach what he wanted. In six periods and an overtime frame against Dartmouth, Michigan allowed only one goal — compared to the average of 3.1 goals per game it was allowing prior to the homestand against the Big Green. Even more impressive is that Dartmouth’s only goal came just as junior defenseman Zach Werenski left the penalty box, so Michigan conceded while playing a man down. Granted, the Big Green aren’t even in the top 20 for scoring offense, but the performance is still promising for a team that was beginning to look eerily similar to the 2014 Wolverines, who fell short of the NCAA Tournament because of their own defensive woes. “(Dartmouth is) not up there statistically like a lot of other schools are,” Berenson said. “So we have to take that with a grain of salt. But any time you give up one goal-against on the weekend, that’s pretty good.” Added Werenski: “Our goaltending played extremely well. For (Nagelvoort) to come in after (Racine) got hurt on Saturday and do the job he did — it was definitely a confidencebooster for probably him and our whole team.” Now that Michigan is back in the swing of things — and given that the freshmen defensemen have adjusted well to the college level — Berenson is trying different defensive pairs in practice.
AMANDA ALLEN/Daily
Sam Piazza joined Michigan’s defensive rotation Saturday night and impressed his teammates and Michigan coach Red Berenson.
Depending on how the experiments go this week, the Wolverines may give Wisconsin a different look in the defensive zone Friday. BRING ON THE BIG TEN: The Michigan hockey team has had 11 games to prepare for its Big Ten season opener, and the enthusiasm for the conference schedule has grown with each of those contests. “The Big Ten is fun,” Werenski said. “It’s nice to start conference play knowing that every game means something. I know they all mean something for Pairwise and your ranking and stuff like that, but going into your conference and playing Wisconsin for the
first weekend, it’s huge to get off to a good start.” The state of the Big Ten is unimpressive as conference play begins, as just Michigan and Penn State boast winning records, but Berenson is confident that the Wolverines’ opponents’ records are far from representative of their ability. “Minnesota is better than their record,” Berenson said. “Wisconsin is better than their record. Michigan State is a pretty doggone good team. They’re much better than they were last year, that’s the word anyway. And Ohio State usually starts slow. That’s why you have the games. Now everyone’s getting pumped
MEN’S BASKETBALL
Following airport woes, ‘M’ travels to N.C. State By LEV FACHER Managing Editor
Anybody who has ever been on an airplane knows how much of a drag flying commercial can be. That’s why the Michigan Michigan at men’s basketball NC State team typically Matchup: charters Michigan 4-2; flights to and N.C. State 4-2 from faraway When: destinations — Tuesday 7 P.M. for example, Where: PNC the Bahamas. But the Arena TV/Radio: Wolverines’ ESPN2 supposedly cushy travel arrangements backfired in a big way on Saturday as they flew back from the Battle 4 Atlantis. Mechanical issues with Michigan’s charter flight left the team stranded at Nassau’s Lynden Pindling International Airport for almost 11 hours. Such delays are never fun, but they’re worse when they come on the heels of a three-game, three-day tournament and a 5:30 a.m. wakeup. To rub salt in the wound, the Wolverines (4-2) had less than 48 hours to recover before their next long-distance trip — a Monday-evening flight to Raleigh, N.C., for Tuesday’s Big Ten/ACC Challenge contest at North Carolina State (4-2). “We try to keep it in perspective,” said Michigan coach John Beilein. “To tell you who we are, we never heard a complaint one time.” The Wolverines were lucky, Beilein said, that the airport had bench seating, which allowed
players to catch a few hours of sleep. That, in turn, resulted in senior guard Spike Albrecht victimizing his dozing traveling companions via Instagram — he posted a compilation of selfies with sleeping teammates on Instagram, set to Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” during the delay. Once Michigan landed, however, it was time to get serious. Saturday was supposed to be a day off, but given the day’s adventures, the Wolverines’ practice on Sunday ended up being a lighter workout than planned. That’s far from ideal in the leadup to one of Michigan’s final opportunities to notch a quality non-conference win. “We talk about that all the time,” Beilein said. “You’re going to have to have an incredible Big Ten season if you don’t have some success against other high-level teams that you’re going to play. You have to win some of those, or you have to go be 14-4 in your league, which is really going to be hard to do.” The Wolverines, as senior guard Caris LeVert noted Monday, already have one of those résumébuilding victories — Friday’s 78-72 win over Texas in the Battle 4 Atlantis fifth-place game. To pick up another, they’ll have to get past a team facing a problem opposite Michigan’s. While Beilein has struggled to whittle the Wolverines’ rotation to single digits in the season’s first six games, the Wolfpack have struggled with depth. Seven North Carolina State players are averaging more
“I see a sevenman rotation that is really tight right now.”
than 20 minutes per game, but nobody else on the roster is averaging more than seven. “I see a seven-man rotation that is really tight right now,” Beilein said. “Do they have depth? No. But do they have chemistry and symmetry? Absolutely.” Lack of depth was likely a secondary reason behind the Wolfpack’s 17-point home loss to William & Mary on opening night. But North Carolina State rebounded for an overtime win against No. 22 Louisiana State a week later, and still has plenty of weapons to be weary of. In particular, the Wolverines will have to keep a close eye on junior guard Anthony “Cat” Barber, who is averaging 21 points and 6.7 assists per game this season. He’s not the only one. Beilein has spoken repeatedly of the way Xavier exploited its size advantage around the perimeter in its 86-70 win Nov. 20. North Carolina State poses a similar threat outside the low post, with 6-foot-7 Caleb Martin, 6-foot-8 Abdul-Malik Abu and 6-foot-7 Maverick Rowan all averaging doubledigit scoring totals, collectively accounting for 42.2 points per game. Rowan and Martin are the only two players on the Wolfpack roster to have made a 3-pointer this season, meaning the game will likely be won or lost down low. The post is where Michigan was beaten and bruised the most in its losses to Xavier (now ranked No. 12 in the AP Top 25) and to then-No. 18 Connecticut. Then again, Michigan shot a combined 26-for-48 from 3-point range in its subsequent wins over Charlotte and Texas. If that trend continues, the Wolverines can likely get away with allowing a few points in the paint.
up for the Big Ten, and this will start sorting everybody out.” PRAISING PIAZZA: Sophomore defenseman Cutler Martin was scratched from the lineup Saturday night, but not for health-related reasons. Instead, sophomore defenseman Sam Piazza has been impressing the coaching staff in practice as of late. With the Big Ten season on the horizon, Berenson felt the need to give the sophomore blueliner more experience so that he felt comfortable integrating him into the seven-man rotation. “Sam is one of our healthy defensemen right now — we’ve got seven healthy defensemen,”
Berenson said. “He probably hasn’t had a chance to play as much as some other guys, but he’s right there. I thought he held his own on Saturday, and whether we play him or not this weekend, we know he’s ready to play and help our team.” Piazza was efficient when given his opportunity Saturday, effectively moving the puck out of the defensive zone — something that earned the praise of fellow defenseman Zach Werenski.
“The first thing I noticed on Saturday night was (that) his passes to the forwards were on the tape,” Werenski said. “That’s what you want out of a defenseman, is just to get the puck up to the forwards and get it in their hands. It’s always a bonus when you can make the little seam plays like (Piazza) makes.” INJURY UPDATE: Fourteen minutes into the first period Saturday, senior goaltender Steve Racine suffered a lower-body injury after saving Darmouth forward Tim O’Brien’s shot. The veteran netminder fell to the ice before being helped to the locker room. Racine didn’t return against the Big Green and didn’t participate in practice Monday. Berenson labeled the recovery process as a week-to-week evaluation and said he had no expectation that Racine would take the ice at all this week. The Wolverines are facing other injuries on the defensive end as well. Though Berenson originally expected junior defenseman Kevin Lohan to be available for the matchup with Boston University, the blueliner couldn’t suit up against the Terriers due to a lower-body injury. “When (Lohan) started skating and practicing, there was a setback,” Berenson said. “So now we’ve taken him off the ice, and we’re going to let it hopefully heal and get better.” Lohan is expected to start light skating on Thursday or Friday of this week, but it’s unlikely that he will make a full return before Christmas.
“I thought he held his own on Saturday.”
Ristovski, Williams hope to be coaches By CHRIS CROWDER Daily Sports Writer
Michigan women’s basketball coach Kim Barnes Arico is no stranger to seeing former players continue their basketball careers after leaving her tutelage. Some have moved on to play professionally, or, like her former player Linda Cimino, become coaches themselves. A few weeks ago, Barnes Arico coached against Cimino, who is now at the helm of Binghamton. Barnes Arico knew Cimino would become a coach years ago, saying that she was an outstanding leader and teammate in college. When asked if she could see any players on her current roster leading a team someday, two names stuck out to Barnes Arico: senior guard Madison Ristovski and junior guard Danielle Williams. “Sometimes you have underdogs on your team that maybe aren’t the most skilled players, but have a great understanding and make people around them better,” Barnes Arico said. “Sometimes those are the best coaches, because they really understand what each person’s role is, and it’s not really just the superstar on your team.” Ristovski and Williams aren’t leading scorers, but are important for the Wolverines’ success with their leadership at the guard positions. Both have invaluable experience that helps their teammates in practice, in games and in off-court situations. Thompson, a team captain, racked up 20 starts last season, while Ristovski has appeared in every game in her four years in Ann Arbor. Both Ristovski and Williams hope the lessons they’ve learned at Michigan can bolster them toward a career in coaching basketball someday. Basketball has always been important to the Ristovski family.
Both of her sisters play basketball at the University of Detroit. She said basketball is in her blood and hopes to fulfill one of her dreams of becoming a college coach in the future. Her uncle, Dean Ristovski, was an assistant coach for the Titans. “I hope after my career is over playing, I can continue and keep coaching,” Ristovski said. “I told (Barnes Arico) that I want to get my teaching certificate after this year, be a (graduate assistant) somewhere to really understand the coaching lifestyle as well as get my degree, and hopefully go from there.” Williams, meanwhile, would also like to take the path of becoming a graduate assistant after her playing days as a Wolverine are through. She expressed interest in working with Barnes Arico and her staff at Michigan, admiring their passion and knowledge of the game. Coaching isn’t a set-in-stone option for Williams, but it is something she has thought about doing before. Either way, she is certain basketball will be in her life forever. If Williams does decide to become a coach, she might start with players younger than those
at the collegiate level. Two of her coaches before she came to Michigan started off with younger kids and grew with them. Williams could see herself doing the same. The most exciting part of coaching for Williams is seeing everyone on her team and staff grow together. “Just seeing teammates and coaches work and get better is so exciting,” Williams said. “Especially after people have put the time and the work in. You see them struggle and then you see them come out on the other side. It’s exciting for me as a player, and it’s exciting to see my teammates do that as well.” As for her coaching philosophy, Williams would like her prospective team to emphasize defense and the fundamentals of shooting and passing the ball. She wants to keep it simple, nothing too flashy. Those goals don’t sound too different from the building blocks of Williams’ current coach. Cimino is proof that Barnes Arico has spotted players who had the potential to become coaches and did later on. It wouldn’t be a surprise if she was right again about Ristovski and Williams. Maybe they’ll be coaching against Barnes Arico someday.
DELANEY RYAN/Daily
Danielle Williams wants to coach after her playing career ends.
Sports
8 — Tuesday, December 1, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Peppers, Lewis make All-Big Ten team Other Wolverines also earned secondand third-team honors By JAKE LOURIM Managing Sports Editor
The Michigan football team’s defense succeeded for most of the year with strong play from all three units. But on Monday, when the Big Ten announced its
all-conference defensive teams, the secondary led the way. Junior cornerback Jourdan Lewis and redshirt freshman safety Jabrill Peppers were the Wolverines’ representatives on the All-Big Ten team. Peppers also earned the ThompsonRandle El Freshman of the Year award. The Big Ten will announce its all-conference offensive teams Tuesday night. Along with senior safety Jarrod Wilson, redshirt junior cornerback Jeremy Clark and the help of other players off
the bench, Lewis and Peppers led one of the best defensive backfields in the country. The Wolverines ranked third in the nation with 158.8 passing yards allowed per game, trailing only Georgia and San Jose State. Four times, they gave up fewer than 100 in a game. Lewis broke a Michigan single-season record with 19 pass breakups. He added two interceptions, one of which he returned for a touchdown against Northwestern. The Detroit native also finished
fourth on the team with 46 tackles. Peppers, meanwhile, made an impact all over the field. He spent most of his time on defense, where he broke up 10 passes and added 45 tackles (5.5 for loss). He also averaged 11.4 yards on 17 punt returns and 27.9 yards on eight kick returns, breaking several big plays and narrowly missing touchdowns several times. Finally, on Oct. 17 against Michigan State, the Wolverines tried to mix Peppers in on offense, mostly with success. He finished with 18 carries for 72 yards and two touchdowns, as well as eight receptions for 79 yards. His presence in all three phases of the game allowed him to finish fifth on the team in all-purpose yardage, despite playing mostly defense. Peppers is in good company
among Michigan’s other Freshmen of the Year: Charles Woodson in 1995, Anthony Thomas in 1997, Steve Breaston in 2003 and Mike Hart in 2004. The Wolverines also placed members on the second and third teams. Redshirt junior defensive lineman Chris Wormley (third team, coaches), Peppers (secondteam return specialist, coaches) and senior kicker Kenny Allen (third team, media) were all recognized. Fifth-year senior quarterback Jake Rudock was Michigan’s sportsmanship honoree. All in all, the Wolverines had a much stronger presence on the end-of-season awards list than in recent years. No other team had two players selected to both the media and the coaches’ first teams. Ohio State featured four players on at least one team: linebacker Raekwon McMillan
(media), Joshua Perry (coaches), safety Vonn Bell (media) and defensive end Joey Bosa, a member of both. Bosa was the conference’s Defensive Lineman of the Year, joining Michigan State’s Shilique Calhoun, Penn State’s Carl Nassib — the Big Ten’s Defensive Player of the Year, despite not winning the defensive lineman award — and Maryland’s Yannick Ngakoue on the first team. The linebackers were Wisconsin’s Joe Schobert (the Linebacker of the Year), Northwestern’s Anthony Walker and a split between McMillan and Perry. Iowa’s Desmond King won the Defensive Back of the Year award. Bell and Maryland’s Will Likely, the coaches’ selection, shared the last spot on the first team.
ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
Junior cornerback Jourdan Lewis had 19 pass breakups this season on his way to being named to the All-Big Ten team.