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GEO demands more info on City calls out new international student fee U-M for lack Graduate students union publishes petition seeking answers on additional expense of help with housing issue As ‘U’ looks to improve facilities, Council questions A2 affordability JULIA FANZERES Daily Staff Reporter
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ALEX HARRING Daily Staff Reporter
The Graduate Employee Organization published a petition last month requesting more information about a recently approved University of Michigan fee for most international students. The additional expense was created to bolster support services for international students at the University. The petition, which was published on Change.org three weeks ago, has amassed more
than 380 signatures as of press time. GEO decided to create the petition to stand up for all University students who will face additional obstacles in their path to degree completion because of the fee, said Rackham student Allan Martell, co-chair of GEO’s International Students’ Caucus. The fee doesn’t actually apply to all graduate students — for example, Ph.D. students currently have the fee waived. But GEO decided to create the petition to stand up for all University
students who will face additional obstacles in their path to degree completion because of the fee, said Rackham student Allan Martell, co-chair of GEO’s International Students’ Caucus. “I know many other international students who are masters and (undergraduates),” Martell said. “They, for the most part, are not covered under GEO — there is only a handful of students who are. Even if most members of our association wouldn’t be affected, we are acting out of solidarity and recognition that
this is going to affect people other than ourselves and people who are making a lot of sacrifices so that they can find their studies here at Michigan.” In the petition, GEO argued the fee contradicts the goals of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion plan on campus. GEO wrote the fee not only creates additional financial burden but adds to the issues international students already face with national immigration policies and political discourse. See GEO, Page 2A
University representatives faced criticism from city councilmembers Monday night for what elected officials called its lack of involvement in combating Ann Arbor’s affordable housing shortage. The City Council meeting began with a presentation of infrastructure improvement plans by University Campus Planner Susan Gott and Director of Community Relations Michael Rein. The University’s newest plans are centered on enhancing campus life with an emphasis on sustainability. A large portion of the presentation focused on renovating University housing, including Mary Markley Hall and the Northwood IV & V apartments. At the conclusion of the presentation, Jeff Hayner, D-Ward 1, asked if the University would consider aiding the crisis by building affordable housing in
GOVERNMENT
A2 teacher First CSG meeting discusses new pens play projects, STI testing policy, SOFC criticizing Officers to send out survey regarding UHS insurance policy update Sec. DeVos Satirical musical advocates for public education, mocks Education Secretary LEAH GRAHAM Daily News Editor
Standing in Theatre Nova on Saturday night, Ann Arbor Community High School teacher Quinn Strassel welcomed dozens of audience members to a staged reading of the musical he spent the summer crafting. His subject: U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, whom he dubs “the most controversial woman in the world” in the opening number. Strassel wrote and directed “Betsy DeVos! The Musical!” over the summer. DeVos — a prominent Republican donor and an advocate of charter schools — is heavily caricatured in the play and portrayed as a die-hard antagonist of public schools. Strassel said he uses humor to tackle complicated topics, adding that he hopes the show demonstrates the importance of public education as well as critically talking about proposals DeVos has put forward. “I hope it starts a new conversation about public schools,” Strassel said. “I think sometimes humor can help tackle complex and difficult issues in public schools. I think public school policy is complicated, and people of every political persuasion, have difficulty making sense of it — and DeVos advocated for guns in schools.” See DEVOS, Page 3A
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The Central Student Government discussed several upcoming executive projects including game day hydration stations as well as plans to address the change in University policy regarding coverage for sexually transmitted diseases during its first assembly of the school year Tuesday night. At the beginning of the meeting, Isabelle Blanchard, CSG
vice president and LSA senior, discussed the success of the first game day this previous Saturday with the creation of several hydration stations. Hydration stations located across campus provided water and food to ensure student safety. MDining, Center for Campus Involvement and Fraternity and Sorority Life donated hot dogs and water for the stations. Blanchard said CSG hopes to make these stations more sustainable this year by including compostable cups at
water refill stations rather than distributing disposable plastic water bottles. “This year we are trying to make them a little more sustainable,” Blanchard said. “we tried doing compostable cups instead of plastic water bottles, and that is a model we are trying to figure out how to do at other stations.” Both Ben Gerstein, CSG president and Public Policy junior, and Blanchard addressed the recent changes to the University
Health Service insurance, specifically with regard to the elimination of coverage for sexually transmitted infection screening. They expressed concern regarding the issue and the student response. “The change did happen in July, but there is a lot more traction on it now, and so we have been preparing for this already, starting by making a survey to gain feedback on this,” Blanchard said. See CSG, Page 3A
CLAIRE MEINGAST/Daily The University of Michigan Central Student Government holds their first meeting of the school year at the Michigan League Tuesday evening.
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Ann Arbor. “Is there any appetite for the University considering building additional housing for staff, students and faculty to take pressure off the housing market in the city?” Hayner said. “Because we know we have an affordability crisis, and a lot of that is demand — just basic demand for housing — and the open market isn’t able to supply it in a quality way that the University can.” Rein said while the University creates initiatives to bring the Ann Arbor community and University together, the school does not want to compete against the marketplace and, except for student housing, building living spaces are “just not the mission of the University.” This comment sparked pushback from several members urging that affordable housing should also be a University issue.
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ADMINISTRATION
Parking changes result in conflict Recent shifts in ‘U’ hospital’s new parking policy anger unions, medical employees ATTICUS RAASCH Daily Staff Reporter
Approximately 280 faculty parking spaces were converted to patient-only parking near the University of Michigan hospital in mid-August. The changes force many hospital staff members to park in off-site locations or find other methods of transportation. The parking designation transfer is necessary for an improved patient experience, according to a statement from Beata Mostafavi, Michigan Medicine senior communications representative. “As Michigan Medicine continues to grow, parking around the main medical campus has become an increasing challenge for both patients and employees,” Mostafavi said. “The recent parking changes provided 280 more spaces for our patients to make it easier to obtain care at the hospital.” But according to Robin Carter, executive director of the House Officers Association at Michigan Medicine, the actions go against the HOA’s agreement with the University of Michigan Health System, which requires the hospital to provide designated parking spots to on-call employees. See PARKING, Page 3A
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Hurricane Katrina’s effects felt at ‘U,’ school takes in displaced students from the storm-stricken coast September 6, 2005 In response to the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina, the University has begun admitting displaced college students from disaster-stricken universities while continuing to locate missing University students from areas hit by the hurricane. Sue Eklund, the University dean of students, said yesterday that of the 86 current University students who are from the disaster-affected areas - Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana - her office has yet to hear back from 32 students.
“We have not heard of our students being seriously injured or worse, though it’s important to note that some do have missing relatives, more have missing friends,” she said. Eklund added that her office is using e-mail to contact the missing students and offering to pay for plane tickets for student who could not access their bank accounts. She said the Office of Financial Aid has also been assisting students financially affected by the disaster on an individual basis.
While the University does not know the whereabouts of 32 students, Eklund said many of those students may have ignored her office’s e-mails or will only begin checking their University e-mail accounts once school has started. With some colleges effectively shut down from the flooding, University officials said their offices have been inundated with inquires from displaced students hoping to attend the University. Ted Spencer, director of undergraduate admissions, said on Friday
that his office has received about 50 inquiries, 31 of which were from Tulane University students. Tulane, a college of about 8,000 undergraduate students located in New Orleans, canceled its fall semester on Friday. The Office of Undergraduate Admissions has so far admitted 12 as nondegree students, Spencer said, adding that the office does not plan to limit the number of displaced students who wish to attend the University. “We are taking this one on a case-by-case basis,” Spencer said.
“There is no number associated with this. Our primary concern is to help the students in the area attending a university by helping them continue their education.” He also noted that the admissions office has in some cases abided by an “honor system” for displaced students that have never, applied to the University and as a result undergraduate admissions does not have their transcript information on hand. But Spencer said his office does
not anticipate any future problems because the students who have been admitted either applied to or were accepted by the University but chose to attend a different college. Spencer said he expects the inquiries to cease by Sept. 9, when fall semester is underway. The University’s law school also announced on Friday it would begin accepting displaced students, with priority given to third-year law students and to students with connections to the state or the University.
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FINNTAN STORER
Campus reacts to summer controversy over student’s insensitive social media posts
College Republicans vice chair lost beauty queen title after controversial tweets where Zhu used to attend school. presented my own opinion of very reflective of the systemic racism that is existent not only Zhu’s tweet equated the use of a things.” Zhu did not respond to requests in Michigan and on Michigan’s hijab to the oppression of women LSA senior Kathy Zhu, the under Islam. Zhu transferred to for comment from The Michigan campus but across the nation.” Zhu’s actions will diminish vic LSA senior Kathy Zhu, the the University of Michigan the Daily. mental well-being of Less than a week after the the vice chair of the University of following semester of Fall 2018 Michigan College Republicans, after receiving backlash for the incident, Zhu was named to the the student population, and made national headlines after tweet from thousands of Twitter Women for Trump Coalition specifically students of color on Miss World America stripped her users and UCF students, some of Advisory Board. More recently, campus, Manusco said. She said founders of a new beauty pageant student activists like the College of her Miss Michigan title in July. which called for her expulsion. The other tweet brought into titled Miss MAGA said Zhu’s Democrats will continue to fight The action was in response to two tweets from her public Twitter question by MWA was posted in story inspired them to create the for equity and inclusion within the University and surrounding account. According to an email October 2017, and blamed Black competition. LSA senior Maria Muzaurieta community. the organization sent to Zhu, the Americans for violence within “Racism is not welcome on our tweets were deemed “offensive, their own communities. Both said College Republicans “fully insensitive and inappropriate tweets have since been deleted stands behind” Zhu in an email to campus, and we will do the work as an organization to combat this from Zhu’s account, although she The Daily back in July. content.” “Although (MWA is) within continued harmful rhetoric,” As a new school year begins, told Fox News in July she does not their rights to do this as a private Mancuso wrote to The Daily. students have mixed ideas on rescind any of her statements. LSA junior Fareah Fysudeen, “I stand by all of the tweets that organization, we believe that how her comments will affect the campus climate at U-M. I tweeted out from my Twitter this decision shows incredible vice president external of the One of the tweets, posted account, but I don’t think that bias against unextraordinary Muslim Student Association, infuriated, deeply in February 2018, responded any of them were remotely racist right wing opinion, which we received and disappointed to a “try on a hijab” booth in or insensitive,” Zhu said in her expect will come back to hurt the saddened Sudoku Syndication http://www.sudokusyndication.com/sudoku/generator/print/ organization,” Muzaurieta wrote. reaction messages in an MSA celebration of World Hijab Day at interview with Fox News. “I just Since her initial comment in group chat when Zhu’s comments the University of Central Florida, think I presented the facts and July, Muzaurieta has not first became public, she told The responded to additional Daily in an email interview. “As an active community requests for comment from member in the Muslim The Daily. Public Policy junior community on campus, I believe Camille Mancuso, every Islamaphobic remark, no HARD communications director matter how little, chips away at for the University’s chapter our general feeling of safety and of College Democrats, wrote belonging,” Fysudeen wrote. However, LSA junior Thomas in an email to The Daily in July that the College Vance, an Afroamerican and Democrats condemn Zhu’s African studies and political statements and regard them science double major, said he believes the campus political as “racist.” Now, with the start of a climate is constantly shifting and new school year, Mancuso a significant change will not occur said Zhu’s comments are solely as a result of Zhu’s actions. “I don’t think it’s in the still very important to forefront of anyone’s mind,” Vance discuss. “Unfortunately, the said. “Because it was over the incident regarding Kathy summer, people have internships, Zhu and her comments take classes, but I don’t think is not unique,” Mancuso anyone’s been thinking about it. wrote in a recent email. The conversations I’ve had within “Whether it’s in the form of my friend group or the circle that racist graffiti in residence I’m in, they haven’t really brought halls, Ben Shapiro speaking it up. It was something that on campus, Stephen Ross happened, and we thought about it fundraising for Trump or for a few days.” the words of Kathy Zhu, the © sudokusolver.com. For personal use only. RISKY BISCUIT puzzle by sudokusyndication.com racism on this campus is Read more at unfortunately very present MichiganDaily.com and very persistent and BARBARA COLLINS Daily Staff Reporter
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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 September-April are $250 and year long subscriptions are $275. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscriptions must be prepaid.
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City Council votes down Ackerman’s nomination
Councilmember loses spot on Planning Commission JULIA FANZERES Daily Staff Writer
Ann Arbor City Council decided by a one-vote margin against re-nominating Councilmember Zachary Ackerman, D-Ward 3, to the Planning Commission and voted unanimously to release a redacted report on the city’s investigation into a former employee’s controversial texts at their meeting Tuesday night. When confirming nominations for the Planning Commission, Mayor Christopher Taylor re-nominated Ackerman, who has served on the Planning Commission since December 2016. Councilmembers Julie Grand, D-Ward 3, gave a speech detailing the time and effort that Ackerman offered in his time on the commission. Grand said she appreciated the intellect Ackerman brought to his responsibilities and noted that the authority to appoint members belonged to the mayor, not other members of council such as Councilmember Jack Eaton, D-Ward 4, who voted to block Ackerman’s nomination. Eaton previously challenged Taylor for the mayor’s office, but lost in the primary in 2018. “I won’t be soft and squishy about it — I’ll call it like I see it,” Grand said. “In the past we have all supported one another’s
DEVOS From Page 1A The show focuses on a fictional, for-profit charter school and some of Strassel’s former students are part of the ensemble. Strassel cast Diane Hill, his former Ypsilanti High School drama teacher, as DeVos. Strassal plays DeVos’ husband Dick, the millionaire son of Amway co-founder Richard DeVos, as well as her brother Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, a private military contractor known in part for its role in a 2007 shooting of unarmed civilians in Iraq. Some of the songs include “Jesus Wants Me to be Rich” and “The Best Kind of Teacher is a Teacher with a Gun.” Strassel concedes the play is a bit extreme, writing on his GoFundMe page the show is “completely ridiculous.” “She says things that sound a little ridiculous … so I played off of that for sure,” Strassel said. “But on the other hand, there are some sympathetic moments. You know, in a way, some of my friends didn’t like the fact that I mentioned anything positive about her, but I think the story is better when you find the nuance in the character. So yeah, it’s
CSG From Page 1A “I think, at this point, the administration is aware of this, but I think they need to hear from more students that this really is an issue for us.” Blanchard said CSG will be sending out a survey in order to gauge student feedback on the UHS policy change. She said she hopes the survey will ensure the administration more fully understands students’ reactions to the change. Within this survey, the policy changes will be described and broken down so the complex insurance issue can be more transparent and easily understood. The survey will also provide information about local alternatives for STI testing. “In our survey, we do a really great job explaining what the changes are,” Blanchard said. “I think it can get really confusing, and health care, in general, can be a really complicated issue; we explain it, and we are also providing alternative STI resources in the area.” During the meeting Gerstein reviewed the work the executive branch had completed over the summer, including plans to subsidize Group X passes, which would allow students to go through the University financial aid department to receive passes to participate in
nominations to serve on boards and commissions. That has been our past practice, try to spread it around in a way that’s equitable, but ultimately the appointments to boards and commissions in almost every case, and certainly in this one, rests with the mayor. If Councilmember Eaton wanted to appoint himself to the Planning Commission, he should have won the mayoral race. But he did not, and now it’s Mayor Taylor’s job to appoint someone to the Planning Commission.” Councilmember Elizabeth Nelson, D-Ward 4, pushed back, saying that it was not about politics and civility, but about the need to have someone more experienced on the commission. “I think it is time we had someone on planning who has a stronger legal background,” Nelson said. “We can move forward with a decision, and it’s not about anybody being mean to anyone. It’s not about a lack of respect. It’s about making a different choice, and those are the reasons why I support someone else on planning, specifically Councilmember Eaton.” Ackerman said his position on the Planning Commission was not easy. “The body meets frequently and deals with subjects that are the most controversial by their very nature,” Ackerman said. “I’ve had a philosophy as a planning
commissioner: My obligation to council is to get the best proposal through planning proposal to this body. It may not be one worthy of voting ‘yes’ when it comes to council, but that job is to deliver to you the best possible version leaving planning commission so that you can make a decision.” The council voted 6-5 against re-nominating Ackerman to the planning commission. City Council also addressed an investigation conducted by outside attorney Sheldon Stark into controversial texts sent by the city’s human resources and labor relations director, Robyn Wilkerson. Wilkerson resigned in May after public records requests filed by the Ann Arbor News/ MLive revealed a cache of text messages she sent to another city employee criticizing elected officials and “crazy liberals.” The messages also mentioned wanting to blow up City Hall, wanting to bring a gun to work and racist comments targeted at other coworkers and the community. The city attorney’s office hired Stark to investigate the city’s handling of the original investigation. Sheldon concluded his inquiry in late August but the findings were not released publicly.
very silly, and it’s a parody, but I’m going to try to work in some complexity.” Strassel said he tried to see things from DeVos’s point of view when he was writing the musical. “I think that there are examples of Betsy trying to help individual students, and I tell that in the story,” Strassel said. “There’s one student in the story who she pays for tuition to a private school, and that’s something that she has done in public schools — she pulled them out and sent them to private school. But I also point out the f law in that. Though she may have good intentions for that kid, she is pulling money out of the public school system and showing her lack of faith and in public schools.” DeVos has been criticized by public school advocates for considering arming teachers and for requesting to cut billions of dollars from the Department of Education’s budget. DeVos said she planned instead to bolster scholarships to private school scholarships. In a statement issued in March, DeVos defended the Trump administration’s budget request for the 2020 fiscal year, which would have cut approximately $7 billion in
funding compared with 2019. “This budget at its core is about education freedom,” DeVos said. “Freedom for America’s students to pursue their life-long learning journeys in the ways and places that work best for them, freedom for teachers to develop their talents and pursue their passions, and freedom from the top-down ‘Washington knows best’ approach that has proven ineffective and even harmful to students.” Like DeVos, Strassel has his own budget priorities. He said he hopes to take “Betsy DeVos! The Musical!” even further than the staged reading, and aims to raise $12,500 to bring the play to different cities next summer before the 2020 election. “In the short run, I’d like to get some of the songs onto the internet, and sort of shared digitally,” Strassel said. “But my big, long-term goal is a fully realized professional production next summer. How that happens, I think it could be a local thing, but I’m also open to the idea that could be a small tour, or maybe even that the show could be adopted by a professional theatre elsewhere, and I’m really open to that. I’m kind of interested to see where it takes me.”
group fitness classes provided by University Recreational Sports. Additionally, CSG will begin preparing for the effects of the 2020 presidential elections on campus life by collaborating with Intergroup Relations, Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs and the Trotter Multicultural Center to ensure campus climate remains safe and inclusive. “We are looking to figure out how we make sure student leaders are most respective when it comes to conversations (regarding the election) within their organizations and throughout campus throughout the next year,” Gerstein said. Gerstein also hopes to create a new executive position to oversee government relations. This position will focus on ensuring the voices of University students are heard on a state and federal governmental level. “The reason we are having that (position) is to try and create and find new ways to make sure our student body is heard at the state level and at the federal level,” Gerstein said. “It’s important we make sure our voices are heard, especially regarding federal issues that impact the students.” Other summer projects included creating a tri-fold CSG flyer to help students better understand the functions of CSG and thus know how to utilize the Assembly more effectively. Their goal is to reach out to students and
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build a stronger connection with the constituency. CSG also created reusable grocery bags for Beyond the Diag, increased student tutoring resources and expanded North Campus resources. With construction beginning on North Campus, Blanchard said CSG hopes to make decisions on ways to improve North Campus health and wellness services. Taylor Lansey, CSG treasurer and LSA junior, discussed this year’s plan for the Student Organization Funding Committee on behalf of the chair, Business senior Crede Strauser. Lansey said funding will be distributed via nine application waves throughout the school year, the first of which will open Wednesday, Sept. 4 night at 5 p.m. and close at the same time next Wednesday, Sept. 11. SOFC projections for this fall include an aggregated request for $600,000, a 22.6 percent increase from last fall, as well as a projected request of $1.1 million for winter 2020. This year SOFC will be rolling out “SOFC 101,” a workshop in which organizations can learn about the complex 14-page application required to request funding for specific events or funds such as hosting cultural and volunteer events, guest speakers and transportation and supplies for events.
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PARKING From Page 1A “We have a collective bargaining agreement,” Carter said. “We have specific language where the employer is supposed to provide parking for residents that are designated for being on-call. There is obviously no designated parking.” As a result of these changes, the Michigan Nurses Association and University of Michigan Professional Nurse Council filed unfair labor practice charges with the state of Michigan in August, according to Carter. Carter said the changes force hospital staff to pay significantly more money for their parking spots. “People who have been parking for, for example, $100 a year for maybe decades are now being charged maybe $700 or $800 a year for the same parking spot,” Carter said. “We agree that there needs to be parking for patients. We’re not arguing that, but we believe administrators who do not have any involvement with patient care do not need to be parking close to the building. It’s been an ongoing problem for a very long time, and now we’re in a crisis situation.”
GEO From Page 1A Additionally, the petition said University administrators have attributed the fee to sustaining and enhancing services to support the success of international students and compliance and reporting requirements, though they question the University’s ability to do this without a detailed plan for the use of the money. The $500 per semester fee was approved by the Board of Regents on June 20 and took effect in the fall semester. The fee applies to students on F-1 and J-1 visas, which are for international students studying in the United States, and was created to fund support services for students attending the University on these specific visas. A 2018 report from the University’s International Center listed 6,628 students on the F-1 visa and 115 students or the J-1 visa. International students accounted for 14.9 percent of the student body in 2018. The fee, which is similar to others that support programs like the University Health Service and Student Legal Services, aligns the University with other institutions like Michigan State University that have a fee or tuition differential for international students, University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald wrote in an email to The Daily. According to Fitzgerald, because the fee will support services related to creating a welcoming campus environment and supporting academic success, it does not contradict the goals of DEI initiatives on campus. “(T)he University places a high priority on providing supportive services and infrastructure that promote a sense of welcome and integration into the campus community and that promote academic success,” Fitzgerald wrote. “This fee will help the University to maintain and enhance its commitment to international student services, programming and compliance, and we see no conflict with the University’s commitment to DEI.” Additionally, the University has hosted, and will continue to host, immigration advising, cultural exchange activities and workshops and panels about topics such as navigating the U.S. job market, Fitzgerald wrote. He noted these experiences often come out of conversations between University staff members and the international students themselves. He explained deciding on specific details of the implementation of the revenue created by the fee, though the University has and continues to welcome community input. Fitzgerald encouraged those with questions or input to consult the Frequently Asked Questions page or contact the University by emailing internationalstudentfees@umich.edu. “It will take some time to determine the ways in which the funding generated by the fee will be utilized,” Fitzgerald wrote. “Many in our community have communicated directly with the Provost’s Office and through the International Center the need for additional services and programming, and we want to be thoughtful and listen to these groups as we make allocation decisions.” According to the Department
Wednesday, September 4, 2019 — 3A According to UMPNC chair Katie Oppenheim, parking at the hospital has been an ongoing challenge. “Parking has been an issue at the hospital for decades,” Oppenheim said. “While the health system has grown — multiplied many times over in the previous years — the parking has not increased. For example, when they built the children’s hospital, they did not put parking underneath the building.” Oppenheim said parking difficulties add an increased amount of stress to hospital staff, particularly nurses, before the start of their shifts, and can ultimately decrease quality of care. “You want people who aren’t stressed and are relaxed when they come into work for their shift,” Oppenheim said. “Our first goal, and everyone’s first goal, should be the patients, and providing what we believe is something mandatory, mainly, access to the workplace. ” Jayne Hubscher, Nursing senior and president of the Student Nurses’ Association, said she and other nursing students often walk or find other modes of transportation to the hospital as a result of the parking challenges. Hubscher said a lack of reliable parking is a major concern when
clinical trials occur early in the morning or late at night. “Our clinicals, a lot of times, will start at 6 or 6:30 a.m. so if you live far from the hospital you have to wake up even earlier, like 4:30 or 5 (a.m.) to have time to get ready and walk to the hospital,” Hubscher said. “Sometimes we have late clinicals, too, that end around 11 p.m. I had one last semester and then walking home was always an issue as well.” Mostafavi said many other forms of transportation are available and will continue to be implemented with the creation of a new parking deck next year and 960 new employee parking spots. Carter said she hopes to have clear dialogue in the future with Michigan Medicine to help remedy the issues. “I would say that the Michigan Medicine leadership needs to understand that since I’ve been here, we’ve gone from having 900 residents and fellows to nearly 1,300, and we have not built any adjacent parking structures to the hospital,” Carter said. “That being said, how do you realign the parking structures we have for those clinicians that need to be at the bedside? We would love to have a dialogue and do some real problem solving.”
of Homeland Security, students on F-1 visas come to the United States to enroll in a full-time program of study a certified school. Students on this visa have a designated official at their school who is responsible for helping them through the “international student lifecycle,” a pathway for international students to study in the U.S. and maintain their visa. While F-1 visa holders can be a student at any point in their academic career, J-1 visa holders must enroll in a full-time postsecondary program at an academic institution. The J-1 College and University Student Program allows participants to have career-related training as an intern in their home country. Additionally, students on the J-1 visa have a cultural component of their program to engage them with the U.S. culture and share their home culture with their host families. With Chinese students accounting for approximately half of the University’s international student population, Jiaheng He, LSA junior and co-president of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association, said his organization felt a need to speak out against the fee. The Chinese Students and Scholars Association has joined GEO in requesting more information about the fee and what the money will go toward. “What we really hope for the school to do is to give us more information and tell us what they’re going to use the money for,” He said. He said he hopes the money will be put directly into improving the lives of international students on campus, such as through offering more scholarships or additional opportunities. He is concerned this will create a dangerous precedent, as the fee could increase or another group could be singled out similarly in the future. Martell said GEO is requesting a town hall with University Provost Martin Philbert to gain more insight in relation to the fee, though the organization’s previous communications with the Provost’s office have gone unheard. GEO members attended a meeting with LSA leadership, though they left that meeting with more questions than answers, he said. “We really have no information that makes a compelling case for the necessity of the fee,” Martell said. “We see no reason for it. We just think that it will be better to get rid of it all together, but we also acknowledge that we may not have all the facts.” Approximately 280 faculty parking spaces were converted to patient-only parking near the University of Michigan hospital in mid-August. The changes force many hospital staff members to park in off-site locations or find other methods of transportation. The parking designation transfer is necessary for an improved patient experience, according to a statement from Beata Mostafavi, Michigan Medicine senior communications representative. “As Michigan Medicine continues to grow, parking around the main medical campus has become an increasing challenge for both patients and employees,” Mostafavi said. “The recent parking changes provided 280 more spaces for our patients to
make it easier to obtain care at the hospital.” But according to Robin Carter, executive director of the House Officers Association at Michigan Medicine, the actions go against the HOA’s agreement with the University of Michigan Health System, which requires the hospital to provide designated parking spots to on-call employees. “We have a collective bargaining agreement,” Carter said. “We have specific language where the employer is supposed to provide parking for residents that are designated for being on-call. There is obviously no designated parking.” As a result of these changes, the Michigan Nurses Association and University of Michigan Professional Nurse Council filed unfair labor practice charges with the state of Michigan in August, according to Carter. Carter said the changes force hospital staff to pay significantly more money for their parking spots. “People who have been parking for, for example, $100 a year for maybe decades are now being charged maybe $700 or $800 a year for the same parking spot,” Carter said. “We agree that there needs to be parking for patients. We’re not arguing that, but we believe administrators who do not have any involvement with patient care do not need to be parking close to the building. It’s been an ongoing problem for a very long time, and now we’re in a crisis situation.” According to UMPNC chair Katie Oppenheim, parking at the hospital has been an ongoing challenge. “Parking has been an issue at the hospital for decades,” Oppenheim said. “While the health system has grown — multiplied many times over in the previous years — the parking has not increased. For example, when they built the children’s hospital, they did not put parking underneath the building.” Oppenheim said parking difficulties add an increased amount of stress to hospital staff, particularly nurses, before the start of their shifts, and can ultimately decrease quality of care. “You want people who aren’t stressed and are relaxed when they come into work for their shift,” Oppenheim said. “Our first goal, and everyone’s first goal, should be the patients, and providing what we believe is something mandatory, mainly, access to the workplace. ” Jayne Hubscher, Nursing senior and president of the Student Nurses’ Association, said she and other nursing students often walk or find other modes of transportation to the hospital as a result of the parking challenges. Hubscher said a lack of reliable parking is a major concern when clinical trials occur early in the morning or late at night. “Our clinicals, a lot of times, will start at 6 or 6:30 a.m. so if you live far from the hospital you have to wake up even earlier, like 4:30 or 5 (a.m.) to have time to get ready and walk to the hospital,” Hubscher said. “Sometimes we have late clinicals, too, that end around 11 p.m. I had one last semester and then walking home was always an issue as well.”
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Opinion
4A — Wednesday, September 4, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
CHAND RAJENDRA-NICOLUCCI | COLUMN
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KIANNA MARQUEZ | COLUMN
The ability to measure environmental justice is the key to our future
I
n the recent 1619 Project, by The New York Times, Jamelle Bouie comments on one of the main reasons why the political climate in the United States today has become extremely combative: “America holds onto an undemocratic assumption from its founding: that some people deserve more power than others.” For decades, the features of our capitalist system have translated into an attitude that we all exhibit: the necessity to compete in order to succeed more than the next person, with success generally measured by monetary gain. As a result, Bouie mentions, our current system favors those who are cutthroat enough to step on others and dismiss them for being inferior or for lacking some qualification. In the same way that there is an unfair distribution of social and economic benefits throughout our country, underprivileged and marginalized communities continue to suffer from environmental injustice. We have been able to conceptualize this idea on a macroscale, such as with the idea that regions in North America with more wealth to recover from natural disasters experience a better quality of life than some regions of South America or Asia. To our misfortune, our bureaucratic system hasn’t been able to realize that this phenomenon also exists on a microscale within our own cities and neighborhoods. That is, until now. Over this summer, graduate students attending the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability developed a tool to identify the areas of environmental injustice in the state of Michigan. Combining techniques used in the tools developed to measure environmental injustice in the states of California and Minnesota, these students used 11 environmental indicators and six demographic indicators to determine a community’s risk of exposure to environmental hazards and vulnerability due to social factors. Ultimately, these indicators were used to calculate an overall environmental justice score for each census tract in Michigan. After applying this tool, Paul Mohai, a founder of the Environmental Justice Program
at the University and past member of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, was able to make a conclusion about environmental injustice in Michigan: “A key finding of this report is that environmental injustice exists across Michigan, with residents of low-income and minority communities disproportionately burdened by environmental contamination and health risks — just as we saw in Flint.”
A beneficial tool means nothing if our legislature doesn’t understand why it should be used
In addition, this study involved interviews with 30 Michigan environmental justice leaders regarding how they themselves experience environmental injustice and how they use data and assessment tools in general. The study concluded that “people” and “community” were the most utilized words by these environmental justice leaders who also responded that decisions were influenced more often by monetary value than by the interest of the people. These leaders went on to commend affected communities for being “resilient despite adversity” and noted that difficulties in achieving environmental justice in Michigan existed due to “lack of political will and the erosion of democratic processes.” In expressing desire to utilize this tool for measuring holistic impacts in Michigan, these leaders acknowledged that it needs to be administered statewide to become effective. As a result of this study, the state of Michigan now has the capability to identify the areas that need to be prioritized in terms of socioeconomic and environmental restoration. While the statewide implementation of this tool is completely feasible, last year local and state government officials were restricted by the lame-duck session, the period between an election and the end of a lawmaker’s term. Regulations
were to proceed only with legislative approval for those new operations that exceed federal standards. In other words, a vital assessment tool that measures the extent that environmental injustice occurring in our state is being limited to a legislative body that may or may not understand the importance of its immediate implementation. I believe that this tool is groundbreaking and should be considered a top priority in existing efforts to improve our quality of life in Michigan. As this tool seeks to identify areas of environmental weakness and public health shortcomings, I believe that a sustainable future will be possible with similar tools that can be used for restoring socioeconomic equality along with a flourishing environment. As a student who has invested much of my attention and efforts into this University that serves the student body, I am extremely proud of the work that our graduate students have done for our community and urge that this University waste no opportunity to promote the beneficial work our students do for our state legislature. It’s essential that our state legislature understands the necessity for environmental justice because, as we can expect, a beneficial tool means nothing if our legislature doesn’t understand why it should be used. The greatest misunderstanding comes from neglecting marginalized communities, and this neglect comes from having a predisposed discrimination against a type of person or group for what they are. Furthermore, it’s important that we urge our government not to neglect those who are underprivileged and disadvantaged because we are indirectly hindering the quality of our environment as a result. There is a plaque commemorating the loss of Iceland’s first glacier to global warming that reads: “This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.” For the sake of our future, we must do what needs to be done, especially since we now know how. Kianna Marquez can be reached at kmarquez@umich.edu.
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A
Big data is coming to college campuses
university is many things to its students– an employer, a healthcare provider, a landlord, a gym, a restaurant, a library, an educator, an ISP, a creditor and more. Each of these roles has data associated with it which, when unified, can provide an extremely detailed picture of students’ lives. In today’s world of big data there is increasing pressure to utilize this information to improve students’ college lives. Will this lead to surveillance, inappropriate interventions and the repackaging of biases? Or could it set the example for how to responsibly and ethically utilize data in the future? Just as Amazon, Google and Facebook are creating models to predict our preferences and behavior, universities are increasingly looking to predictive models for help with student performance, wellbeing and retainment. This is an area called “learning analytics,” and it’s filled with promises to improve student outcomes by analyzing mounds of data. But just as big tech faces a number of issues related to predictive modeling, universities do as well, with perhaps even higher stakes. For example, one could imagine a tool that recommends majors reproducing historical norms, steering women and minorities away from STEM fields. Particularly when thinking about recommendations and interventions, schools will need to avoid simply automating historical stereotypes and biases. Additionally, as schools inevitably turn to third-party vendors for help, they will need to be rigorous about access to student data. Companies’ security and authorization practices should be thoroughly vetted and monitored to avoid letting student data fall into the wrong hands. Already, hackers are increasingly targeting educational institutions for their valuable information. Universities will also have to consider what they collect. To date, higher education has largely avoided the surveillance craze found in K-12 education, but that could easily change. A system could be constructed using
data such as visits to the gym, class attendance and browsing history to surface potential “threats” in the student body. Surveillance in a more benign form is already found in many of the “learning management systems” used by schools. These systems often track minutiae such as keystrokes, time spent on assignments, and distance scrolled in the name of improving student performance. Additionally, schools are embedding trackers in recruitment emails that monitor things like whether prospective students clicked any links and how long they read to help gauge “demonstrated
Schools will need to avoid simply automating historical stereotypes and biases
interest” in hopes of increasing enrollment rates. These forms of surveillance are the tools of a system that Shoshana Zuboff, an author and retired Harvard Business School professor, has termed “surveillance capitalism.” In something like a “learning management system,” users are monitored for data to fuel the creation of predictive models that are used with subtle cues and rewards to “tune, herd, and condition” behavior. Zuboff argues that this undermines autonomy by encouraging conformity and pushing users toward the system designer’s most desirable outcomes. If universities implement a form of “surveillance capitalism” on their campuses, they could threaten students’ personal and intellectual development by stunting the exploration and growth that is crucial to higher education. For big data to be sustainable, Mark Zuckerberg’s mantra of “move fast and break things” will need to be discarded in favor of discussion, user-centered design and input from a diverse array of voices. Universities are well positioned to take this approach because
of the knowledge, inquiry and discussion that is at the core of higher education. By tapping into the multidisciplinary expertise found on their campuses and including experts from non-technical fields such as history, sociology and anthropology, universities can ensure an array of perspectives are considered when designing technical systems. Additionally, universities are more likely to take a user-centric approach because the student, ideally, is whom they aim to serve. Though there may be external pressure from parents, donors and politicians, profit is (typically) not at the center of a university, making user (student) voices more likely to be heard. Universities are in a unique position. With their wealth of interdisciplinary expertise, tradition of discussion and responsibility to students, not shareholders, they are as well-positioned as any organization to get big data right. If schools commit to transparency, discussion and student input, they can create an environment where students are educated about, and involved in, the utilization of their data. A healthy cycle of proposal, discussion and continuous consideration could emerge. Students, exposed to a transparent development process that respects autonomy and privacy while also considering sociocultural realities, could be empowered to demand the same type of treatment in the rest of their digital lives. Organizations such as non-profits, governments and even businesses would have a model for how to harness big data responsibly and ethically. By empowering students and creating a proven alternative to the big data practices of the tech giants, universities could challenge the inevitability of our every digital interaction being tracked, packaged and sold. Higher education bills itself as an intellectual leader that enables scholars and students to change the world — here’s an opportunity to live up to it. Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci can be reached at chandrn@umich.edu.
JOEL WEINER | COLUMN
L
How cash bail is deeply flawed
ast week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., announced her plan for criminal justice reform. The plan contains a host of changes to the current system, but one in particular stands out: ending the cash bail system. She joins eight other presidential candidates who also support eliminating cash bail. To be clear, this does not mean eliminating all forms of money bail, which the state of California did last year. Cash bail is one of the primary forms of money bail in the United States. Another more common form is through a bail agent. A court will determine a certain amount of money to be paid, and, rather than pay the full amount, the defendant will pay a bail agent a small percentage of it, which the defendant does not get back. If the defendant does not show up for court, the bail agent must pay the full amount, but they can go after the person’s assets to be repaid. Cash bail, however, is when the defendant pays the full bail amount to the court and gets most of it back (there usually is a fee) after showing up for all of their proceedings. The problem with this system is that many people cannot afford to pay the full amount for bail. This puts them in the position of having to decide whether to go to jail or go to a bail bondsman, which will be more expensive in the long run. In addition, courts know that bail agents initially require their clients to only pay a percentage of their bail, so they will set a higher amount if they suspect that a defendant will go to a bail agent. Faced with this choice, many defendants choose to go to jail. This may be why almost half a million people in jail
have not been convicted. The justice system is slow, meaning those awaiting trial can spend many months or even years behind bars. The impacts of that incarceration can be tragic, such is the case of Djibril Niyomugabo. In Grand Rapids in January 2016, Niyomugabo was charged with stealing a bottle of wine from a car, to which he pled not guilty. Because he could not post bail, he was held in jail. A few days later, he was found unconscious with a bedsheet wrapped around his neck. He was taken to a hospital in Grand Rapids and died two days later. Furthermore, the flaws in the cash bail system disproportionately affect minorities, specifically African Americans and Latinx individuals. Courts were less likely to release a Black defendant on their own recognizance than they were white defendants. In addition, Black defendants between 18 and 29 were given higher bail amounts than defendants of any other race or age.
The problems do not end once people are let out The problems do not end once people are let out. Those who are incarcerated for anytime longer than a few days can lose their jobs, making it harder to get their lives back together if released. If the defendant
has a family, losing income can make it difficult to make ends meet. To avoid putting that strain on themselves or their families, defendants will sometimes simply plead guilty. That decision can subject them to harsh fines and years of probation. In addition, having a criminal record makes it much harder to get a job, get into school and access certain public benefits. This also increases that likelihood of a false conviction, which means the real perpetrator would go unpunished. It does not have to be like this. There are alternatives to a cash bail system, such as one Washington, D.C. began implementing as far back as the 1990s. Rather than forcing people to pay money to maintain their freedom, they determine which defendants are most likely to show up for trial as well as which ones are threats to public safety and make a judgment on whether to jail them. In this system, 89 percent of defendants appear for their proceedings. The injustices in the cash bail system undermine the integrity of the criminal justice system as a whole. It is a system that jails people based not on their guilt or the threat they pose to the public, but on their ability to pay. Resolving this issue is critical to fighting the United States’s problem with mass incarceration. Former Vice President Joe Biden, despite having worked on the 1994 crime bill that many progressives have pointed to as being deeply flawed, has changed his position on cash bail. It is well past time for the country to follow suit. Joel Weiner can be reached at jgweiner@umich.edu.
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, September 4, 2019 — 5A
TV NOTEBOOK
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to Julia Louis- ‘My Sister’ debuts with grace Dreyfus, just because JOHN DECKER
Daily Book Review Editor
SAMANTHA DELLA FERA Senior Arts Editor
My summer started with tragedy. It was May 12 to be exact, mere days after the f lurry of finals and packing and goodbyes came to an end. I had one more goodbye to give, one I had been dreading for years yet simultaneously counting down the days to. May 12 — the day that “Veep” ended. Since 2012, I have been enamored with “Veep.” It was a show I started watching with my mother — before I realized it might be too raunchy for a tween — and one that I caught up with in my freshman year of college. It might just be one of the greatest shows of all time. In all of its humor, its topics and its beautifully developed and truly awful characters, “Veep” is the near-perfect TV show. I could fill pages with what the best quips are, the best missed jokes or most underappreciated character, but there is one aspect of the show that solidifies its title as best comedy, that carries the weight of “Veep” on their skirt suit-clad back. I mean, of course, the venomous Selina Meyer — commonly known as Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Summer 2019 was the summer of JLD. Following the conclusion of “Veep,” I went anywhere to get my fix. I watched and read all interviews or profiles of Louis-Dreyfus and the “Veep” cast, the best being an in-depth look at the shooting of the finale episode by Jen Chaney at Vulture. When I couldn’t find more interviews, I watched Louis-Dreyfus accept her many, well-deserved awards. In one speech, she brings up Tony Hale, who played Selina Meyer’s obsessive right-hand man Gary on “Veep.” Hale and Dreyfus say in character as she accepts the award, Hale whispering in her ear the people to thank much like Gary whispered in Selina Meyer’s ear the names and facts of ambassadors she was forced to meet with. Even with these interviews and speeches, without “Veep” I had nothing to I looked forward to watching. There was a brief, glorious detour to Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s incredible “Fleabag,” but after those two magnificent sixepisode seasons, I was back in my “Veep” gloom. And so, I did what any other desperate, lost person would do: I rewatched “Seinfeld.” It’s a standard line to say that women can’t be funny. It’s pretty
much the central conf lict of Amazon’s incredible period series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” Women can be pretty, helpful, maybe even smart if you don’t listen too closely. But one thing they can never be? Funny. Julia Louis-Dreyfus has been shattering this sexist misconception since 1989, when she was cast in “Seinfeld” because NBC executives demanded that Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David add a woman to the central cast. Thank you, NBC executives, for being just a smidge more progressive than Seinfeld and David, because this contractual condition introduced the world to Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Elaine Benes, and she’s been unstoppable ever since. “Seinfeld” was always a constant in my life — it’s my dad’s favorite show and the syndicated program I would watch every day when I was home sick from school. Some people really hate the show. Some people really love it. I’ve felt both ways towards the show, but my love for Elaine Benes is unstoppable. She’s neurotic, edg y, troublesome and has an enviable head of hair. Her often failed trysts with New York City’s men are addictive to watch unravel, and her tendency to shove her friends as a reaction to intense emotion is near-poetic. In “Seinfeld,” Dreyfus was a master of physical comedy. Her shoves and “the Elaine dance” because so iconic and well-known that “Broad City” stars Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer composed a contemporary dance to honor them at Dreyfus’s Mark Twain Award ceremony. Watching “Seinfeld” as a successor to “Veep” leads to the realization that Elaine Benes and Selina Meyer aren’t really all that different. That doesn’t mean Dreyfus lacks depth and mobility with the characters she plays — quite the contrary. Elaine is an oddball New Yorker in a show about nothing. Selina is the president of the United States in a show about everything. But through Dreyfus the two epochal characters are one — in their stiff, awkward moments of physical comedy, in their inability to ever escape the incompetence of the men around them, in their misadventures and missteps. Elaine and Selina aren’t just funny women, they are women who are funny in the exact way women shouldn’t be: Improper, immoral, foulmouthed and graceless.
Take any page from Oyinkan Braithwaite’s novel “My Sister, the Serial Killer,” and it’s clear that Korede, Braithwaite’s main character, has troubles with men. Her difficulties bleed through all two-hundred pages of the debut, in f lashback and in her present storytelling. But thanks to — you guessed it — her serial killer of a sister, these men are frequently long-dead by the time Korede deals with them. And that’s only the start of her problems. After a murder mystery made it onto last year’s Booker Longlist, it’s not surprising that an outwardly genrebending novel such as Braithwaite’s has made it onto 2019’s literary list. The story opens unabashedly as a thriller with Korede scrubbing blood from the caulking of a bathroom f loor. The chapter is called “bleach.” It’s the third time that her sister, Ayoola, has murdered a man, and it’s the third time Korede’s helped her discard the body. Clinging to sibling loyalty, from the getgo Korede appears unwilling to intervene in this pattern of crime. It’s intriguing, and it’s believable. The two continue forward — the Lagos police never terribly far behind — until Ayoola begins dating Tade, the embarrassingly oblivious doctor from Korede’s workplace whom she is also in love with. Quickly, “My Sister” evolves into a drama of sibling rivalry, disproportionate power
and self-sacrifice with a seasoning of murder. Most apparent — and disappointing — in “My Sister” is that Braithwaite’s writing never manages to escape a brisk, cataloguing thriller style. And the story unravels, passages are slowly reduced in length until readers are left with half-page chapters that serve as f lashbacks — a pageturner tactic that, perhaps lazily, functions to give half-glances into truth that keeps you reading. These blips, often ending in almost-
‘My Sister, the Serial Killer’ Oyinkan Braithwaite Anchor Books November 20, 2018
cliff hanger dialogue passages, push “My Sister” back into line with other thriller-esque novels. There’s nothing literarily fantastic about this type of prose. A pattern of Agatha Christie inf luence practically moves the pages for readers, and makes obvious that Braithwaite knows her characters and story. But it also makes “My Sister” an odd, too-comfortable choice for a Booker longlist. What the debut does prove, however, is that Braithwaite will not be limited in her future storytelling. Kicking out calculated law sequences or gore-overcharacter tactics the genre often beckons, the space is filled with
well-developed relationships and intricate questions that Braithwaite leaves often unanswered. Korede and Ayoola’s bond is the most believable, with the two character’s motives particularly complex as Ayoola’s habits threaten to force the two into becoming opponents. Korede’s reliability becomes weaker through the novel, making the relationship but more convincing as this disconnect from reality chips away at the sisters’s bond. What one would guess has attracted literature fanatics to the “My Sister, the Serial Killer” is almost surely Braithwaite’s ability to handle these relationships and mature themes within the thriller environment. Abuse as a theme slowly rises to the surface of the debut. Braithwaite holds her cards carefully here, thankfully reluctant to force symbolism or dramatization for the sake of moving her novel into a higher literary caliber. Rather, such themes exist peacefully alongside the serialkilling fireworks of the novel. Korede’s situation becomes less about the thrill of the kill and more about the morality of each of the characters in their day-to-day lives. By the climax of the novel, readers are invested in much more than just the desire to know who Ayoola will kill next. Do great novels have to be groundbreaking? Probably not. “My Sister” can be a sufficient piece of fiction without offering anything revolutionary. Still, with a stack of potential literary prizes, the debut feels like it has only brushed against its potential.
Braithwaite holds her cards carefully here, thankfully reluctant to force symbolism or dramatization for the sake of moving her novel into a higher literary caliber
COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK
Uncomfortable starts ALIX CURNOW Daily Arts Writer
This piece is part of a September series about coming back to Ann Arbor for the fall. Writers share their experiences with culture over the summer, what they missed about Ann Arbor and what has changed in the city upon their return. Each year I expect everything to have changed completely when I return to Ann Arbor for the fall. Yet each year, as I merge off of highway I-94 with suitcases and school supplies in tow, my expectations are never met. The city has the same street signs, flashing red lights and corner stores as it did in months prior. Every fall I return to things just as I left them. My house is the same as it was when I left. I come home to a porch full of people talking with one another, laughing at a joke I’ve been absent for during my summer travels. I feel a bit distant from the closeness of the housemates who have stayed together during the warmer days of the year. Yet, they still greet me with their familiar smiles. Soon enough, it feels as though I’ve never left. When I walk into work to pick up this week’s schedule, my manager shakes my hand hello just as she shook it goodbye in May. We’re still serving the same special drinks. Even the moody old woman who always files complaints is there asking for a refund on what she ordered. Perhaps the only thing that’s different is the new coat of paint on the walls. But even that is pretty much the same shade of red, just a bit darker. My friends are also the same as they were before. We laugh at the same inside jokes that we always have. We still like to hang out at the same spots and eat in the same restaurants as we usually do. My friends look just as they did when we left school, only maybe a bit more tan. When I greet them they are alive with stories about the past four months, eagerly waiting to tell me everything
I’ve missed while we’ve been apart. I want to tell them every single detail of my summer, too. When I try to relay my stories to them, I find myself growing frustrated. My words don’t seem to do my experiences justice. So much happened over the short period of time that we’ve been apart. The summer feels like a wonderful blur that’s left me a different person than I was before. As Welcome Week wears on, I can sense my mind drifting away from the dreamy allure of May, June, July and August. Soon enough, it’s caught in the swing of university life. I feel myself shifting to the person I was before I left for the summer. I begin to doubt that I’ve even changed at all. To my friends, I worry, I probably seem exactly the same. I want to feel comforted by the routine familiarity of my surroundings upon returning to school. Yet, my stomach is unsettled. Perhaps it’s because I somehow expected Ann Arbor to have changed just as much as I did over the past four months. Maybe these feelings are simply a result of the natural progression of getting older. I’m an upperclassman now. This is what it feels like to be confident in the city I’ve lived in for the past two years. This is how it feels to no longer want to impress those older and with more college experience than me. I should be happy with how smooth everything is going. Yet, what should feel comfortable just feels downright unsettling. When I was a freshman, I had wanted so badly to feel comfortable in Ann Arbor. But now, I can’t help but strive for some sort of obstacle to overcome. I turn off my cell phone and walk a route I never have before just to see if I can get lost. I know the campus like the back of my hand, though, and I get to my destination in no time at all. Maybe I should be grateful for the confidence that comes with familiarity. But it is only human nature to desire what we can’t have. And right now, all I want is to be uncomfortable.
FILM NOTEBOOK
To begin: Openings, part two ELISE GODFRYD Daily Arts Writer
IAN HARRIS
Daily Arts Writer
In the spirit of Welcome Week, Festifall and all things post-LaborDay, The Michigan Daily Film section has written a collection of blurbs celebrating our favorite “Openings” to movies. Here’s to another year of learning, changing, trying, failing, crying, smiling, passing, moviewatching and (most importantly) a-best-picture-awarded-to-a-filmthat-surpasses-the-low-bar-of-notbeing-problematic-at-best-andseverly-discouraging-as-to-thecurrent-state-of-the-conversation-onracial-equality-in-America-at-worst. “The Sound of Music” “The Sound of Music” might be my favorite musical of all time. The film, released in 1965, was wildly successful, claiming the title of the world’s highest-grossing film for half a decade, and it’s not hard to see why. There’s just something about it — the music, the characters, or maybe even the story itself — that feels timeless and completely irresistible, and I think whatever magic it was that made “The Sound of Music” so popular is encapsulated in its very
first minutes. The opening scene of the movie is rather simple, capturing Julie Andrews (“Mary Poppins”) as Maria roaming the fields of Austria in song. It’s all we as viewers need to want to attach ourselves to the character for as long as we possibly can. In just these few moments, we discover that it’s impossible not to love her. She’s charming, fun, determined and completely true to herself — everything one could possibly ask for in a heroine. The song she sings, sweet yet sentimental, is elevated to a thing of brilliance thanks to Andrews’s voice. It’s hard to imagine that anyone else on Earth could make a line as trite as “my heart wants to sing every song it hears” sound as powerful and earnest as Julie Andrews does. Though the landscape that surrounds Andrews is beautiful — so beautiful it’s almost hard to believe it’s a real place — it’s rendered trivial with Andrews’s presence. Her command of the camera is as natural, as obvious as our need to breathe. The scene, carried by one of cinema’s all-time greatest actresses, truly is a thing to behold. — Elise Godfryd, Daily Arts Writer “Back to the Future” As a whole, I’ve long believed “Back to the Future” to be one of the most well written films of all time. Every
line of dialogue sets up another, every off-handed joke becomes a central piece of the plot. The first scene of the film is among one of its finest in this regard. The first shot, a slow pan across a series of synchronized clocks instantly reels the audience in, simultaneously posing the question of why all of these clocks are synchronized while also clearly showing that time is what the movie is going to be about. A television brings us up to speed on stolen plutonium that we see in the laboratory moments after. By the time Marty McFly blows out the gigantic amplifiers a minute or two later and realizes he’s late for school, we already know exactly who this too-cool-for-school slacker is. The most ingenious part of this opening is when Doc calls Marty on the phone. In only about four lines of dialogue, we inherently understand the friendship between Doc and Marty, a friendship that eventually becomes the central and emotional core of the entire trilogy. We never ask how a teenaged wannabe rock star became friends with a crazy inventor. It doesn’t matter. In less than four minutes, without even realizing it the audience has accepted a seemingly preposterous premise, “The Power of Love” begins to play and a perfect opening sequence is complete. — Ian Harris, Daily Arts Writer
Every line of dialogue sets up another, every off-handed joke becomes a central piece of the plot
Arts
6A — Wednesday, September 4, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
MIDWESTERN COLUMN
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
Midwestern hero Remembering Easy Mac with the Cheesy Raps, nearly one year later MAXWELL SCHWARZ
Daily Midwestern Columnist
My tire was blasting out air from its bent valve stem, visibly deflating. It was flat in 15 minutes. I had a bum tire in a small northern town, over 200 miles from home, on a holiday weekend. For those of you not from the Midwest, this is a calamity of the highest magnitude. Every auto shop was closed, every mechanic at home with their families. I was given a phone number. “Here,” the voice on the phone said. “This guy might be able to help you.” I drove to County Line Road, pulling in front of a white barn behind a stout brick house. The barn was surrounded by trees, cars sagging in the dirt and stray cats. I crept to the door of the barn, calling out a wary “Hello?” I was met by clanging and crashing as a large man emerged from the back of the barn, accompanied by a white dog with white eyes. He shook my hand and took my tire, driving northwest to Cheboygan. He came back somewhere around three hours later, the tire’s valve stem completely repaired. In the brief moments I spent with this man while he changed my tire, I think I came to know him well enough. He was a veteran who served two tours in the Middle East as a medic. Having been injured, they sent him home on disability. He has seizures in his frontal lobe that make him forget things. He spends his spare time tinkering with cars and other machines in the barn he’d built himself, complete with a loft, where he lives. His dog, Ghost, was a rescue from an abusive family. Ten cats freely roam his modest property of ten acres. I learned that he’d lived just about everywhere,
from Detroit, to El Paso, to cities in the Middle East as a civilian mechanic for the Air Force. He had family who fought on both sides of the Civil War. He fixed cars not for income, but for something to do, and he did it well. “Lots of people come up here for holidays and weekends, and they get stuck,” he said. “Any of the mechanics around here would probably take advantage of you.” But he assured me he wouldn’t. In fact, he didn’t even care about turning a profit. He charged me $25 total and gave me some free car advice. He told me about the stray tools he’d come to acquire over the years, like a full woodworking set he got as a gift for helping a man move. We talked about all his dreams, too, most of which involve improving his home, with oak siding and homemade sheds to house his tools. His clowder of cats slinked and rolled around in the dirt in front of the barn. Meeting this man reminded me that I ought to be thankful. Here was someone who spent a large portion of his young life serving his country, had suffered for it and come home. He spends his days tinkering and helping people not for money, but because that’s what he wants to do. The Midwest is home to incredible people with even more incredible stories. We are a collection of people from every corner of possibility. I drove away down M-32 humbled, the red-tipped trees hugging the road, awash in the golden glow of oncoming fall. The very best of us are hidden in the corners of the Midwest, tucked into homemade barns on the side of the road or in sleepy, pine-covered small towns. If you get stuck in Onaway, go see Wade. He’ll take care of you. He tinkers, and he is the very best of us.
Here was someone who spent a large portion of his young life serving his country, had suffered for it and come home
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis DOWN 1 Moment of forgetfulness 2 Online shopping mecca 3 Cook’s protection 4 Refuses 5 “That stinks!” 6 Fright 7 Suitcase tie-on 8 Kind of “Star Trek” torpedo 9 King, in France 10 Give some pep to 11 *Ground out on which the fielder needn’t tag the runner 12 Canal across New York 13 Rules, briefly 18 Woven fabric 22 Harry and William of England 25 Enzo’s eight 27 Slobbery comics pooch 29 Frequents, as a store 31 Get under control 32 Interstate rds. 33 Vittles on the trail 34 Prefix with correct 35 *Great Britain’s flag
37 Symphonic rock gp. 40 Ache 41 Infield quartet 44 Italian wine favored by 66-Across 46 Substantially 48 Cuts off, as diplomatic ties 50 Inform on 52 Big fight 54 Continue until
55 Jewel-studded topper 56 “I did good!” 57 Massage deeply 58 Rectangle measure 60 Mission Control org. 63 Olympic country code alphabetically just before GHA 65 Music majors’ degs.
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
By Matt McKinley ©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
Daily Arts Writer
I lea r ned t hat Mac M i l ler d ied wh i le I wa s wa l k i ng back f rom a footba l l g a me one yea r a g o. I don’t remember who played , what day it wa s or who I went w it h . But I remember t hat moment . “ R I P M AC M I L L E R” wa s spray-pa i nted i n l ig ht blue on a sla b of wood a g a i n st a f rat hou se. I remember t h i n k i ng it wa s proba bly a loss t hat Mac M i l ler d ied , t hat he proba bly had a lot of potent ia l mov i ng for wa rd — but not much beyond t hat . Not to pu l l a P itch fork , but it wa s ha rd to env i sion M i l ler a s a ny t h i ng beyond a f rat-boy icon . I l i stened to ha lf of h is leg enda r y debut a lbu m Blue Slide Park yea r s a g o i n m idd le school a f ter l i sten i ng to h i s feat u re w it h A r ia na Gra nde on “ The Way,” but I d i sl i ked it a nd never rev isited h i m u nt i l t he n ig ht of h is pa ssi ng when I g ot back to my dor m room . Don’t g et me w rong — I st i l l despi se Blue Slide Park . The t h i ng w it h Mac, t he t h i ng I had n’t rea l i zed u nt i l yea r s later, wa s t hat he wa s a n everevolv i ng a r t ist , one who rei nvented h i m self w it h ever y a lbu m . Def i ned by a n a r t ist r y t hat never qu ite f it i nto a g en re, to a com mon cl ique of people, M i l ler cont i nuou sly shed t he pa r t yrap per sona u nt i l h is d iscog raphy wa s spat tered w it h ja zz y beat s a nd despondent ly r ici sm . Th i s wa s h i s ma g nu m opu s, Swimmin g. Fol low i ng h i s brea k up w it h Gra nde, a n i n f a mou s DU I a nd ter r if y i ng d ive i nto subst a nce a bu se, Swimmin g wa s placed at t he center of h i s l ife a s a prom ise to st ay a f loat a mong t he chaos. The song s sh if t ef for t lessly f rom one to t he ot her i n t he sa me f u zz y, contemplat ive packa g i ng. Never preci sely sad or depressi ng, t he a lbu m i s i mbued w it h a n exa sperated hope, one t hat sea rches when t he st r ug g le seem s lost . Did t h is ha zi ness ma ke d i st i nc t ion s bet ween t he beg i n n i ng a nd end of song s ha rder to ident if y? Yes, ju st a s much a s it made some song s not wor t h l i sten i ng to i nd iv idua l ly. Swimmin g is ad m it ted ly def i ned by it s da ncea ble h ig h l ig ht s l i ke “ Ladder s ” a nd “ What ’s t he Use? ” But a s a concept a lbu m , it st a nd s a mong t he most cohesive I’ve ever l i stened to. It s messa g e to ma i nt a i n a sembla nce of hope a nd self-i mprovement despite t he ja r r i ng rea l it y of add ic t ion , depression a nd hea r tbrea k is at t he foref ront , rad iat i ng ly r ica l ly a s wel l a s son ica l ly. It m ig ht g et a bit st a le at t i mes, but I cou ld n’t help but i m mer se myself i nto t he ex per ience t he f i r st t i me I l i stened . Li ke it or not M i l ler is a ma ster at convey i ng how he feels t h roug h mu sic. Not a
si ng le day ha s g one by si nce my f i r st l i sten t hat I haven’t l i stened to a t rack f rom Sw i m m i ng. Th i s i s why it wa s such a t ravest y t hat he pa ssed away. He had a lot more to l ive for at 26 yea r s old . Th is i s not on ly appa rent son ica l ly i n t he evolut ion of h i s mu sica l st yl i ng s, but a l so w it h i n his t hemat ic mu si ng s a s wel l. “ I had a pla n to cha ng e, you ca n’t st a nd t he ra i n / Lit t le delay, but I ca me a nd you’re cool w it h it / I don’t t r ip, f l ip or lose my g r ip / A nd I don’t k now it a l l but I do k now t h i s / Before you k now me bet ter k now you r self / I’ve been i n t h i s sh it so long t hat it don’t smel l ,” he raps i n “ Ladder s.” Even h i s socia l med ia embod ies much t he sa me t hemes, t a k i ng a more somber a nd i n spi rat iona l t u r n t hose la st few mont h s of h i s l ife. I n t he place of h i s g enera l , of f beat hu mor, one of h i s la st t weet s read s “ I ju st wa n na g o on tou r.” H i s deat h now st a nd s a s a cr uel t w ist of i rony to f a n s who adored h i m — he had a pla n to g et bet ter, to ma ke more mu sic, but it ’s i mpossible now. A lot of t h i s i s t ra n slated i n t he memor y of h i m . H i s “Self Ca re ” mu sic v ideo depic t i ng h i m escapi ng a cof f i n despite bei ng bu r ied a l ive, a n homa g e to “ K i l l Bi l l Vol. 2 ,” i s ja r r i ng foreshadow i ng for a song w it h t he ly r ics “Swea r t he heig ht be too t a l l ( Yea h) / So l i ke September I f a l l.” Li ke ma ny a r t i st s who have pa ssed you ng before h i m , Mac M i l ler ha s been i m mor t a l i zed i n t he g est u res of f a n s a nd ot her a r t i st s a l i ke. A s t he a n n iver sa r y of h i s deat h approaches, we ’ve w it nessed mu lt iple t r ibutes i n h i s honor, some upcom i ng ones i n cit ies f rom New Orlea n s on t he sevent h to t he icon ic Blue Sl ide Pa rk it self i n P it t sbu rg h . A r t i st s l i ke Ch i ld i sh Ga mbi no, A nder son Pa a k , T y Dol la r $ig n , Thu ndercat a nd ma ny more have honored him in per for ma nces, ack nowledg i ng not on ly def t mu sica l st yl i ng s but h i s hu ma n it y. “ He wa s t he s weetest g uy, he wa s so n ice,” Ga mbi no sa id a s he c ut h i s per for ma nce of “ R iot ” shor t du r i ng a Ch ica g o per for ma nce la st yea r. However, no ot her a r t i st ha s honored M i l ler ’s memor y t he way ex-g i rlf r iend A r ia na Gra nde ha s, s y mbol ica l ly don n i ng a pa le blue Zac Posen Ci nderel la g ow n
His death now stands as a cruel twist of irony to fans who adored him — he had a plan to get better, to make more music, but it’s impossible now
at t h i s yea r ’s Gra m my Awa rd s a nd subsequent ly post i ng a ra nt on T w it ter la ment i ng M i l ler ’s loss for Best A lbu m . Her “ Tha n k U, Nex t ” a lbu m i s def i ned by her g r iev i ng for M i l ler, f rom sly ly r ics t hat d i rec t back to her late ex ’s mu sic to her descr ipt ion of it a s a hea l i ng projec t at a poi nt i n her l ife i n wh ich she descr ibes a s “so d r u n k a nd so sad .” Homa g es to M i l ler a re even scat tered t h roug hout her most recent tou r. A stop at P it t sbu rg h wa s i nt roduced w it h M i l ler ’s mu sic play i ng before Gra nde ’s appea ra nce, a seat i n h i s honor nea r t he f ront a nd Gra nde st r ug g l i ng to keep it tog et her a s she sa ng song s w r it ten a bout h i m . A s t he a n n iver sa r y of h i s deat h approaches, M i l ler ’s na me is resu r f aci ng across news a nd t he I nter net . From t he su rg e of t weet s mou r n i ng h i m , u n relea sed t rack s put out i n h i s honor a nd t r ibutes i n cit ies across t he US , h i s memor y ha sn’t evaded f a n s a nd f r iend s a l i ke. It ’l l be one yea r si nce Mac M i l ler ha s pa ssed away, yet h i s leg ac y ma kes it feel l i ke he never lef t .
As the anniversary of his death approaches, Miller’s name is resurfacing across news and the Internet
ALBUM REVIEW
Release Date: Monday, September 2, 2019
ACROSS 1 Grazing area 4 Islamic mystic 8 Would rather have 14 Rock concert gear 15 Mellowed in a cask 16 Novelist __ de Balzac 17 *New Year’s Eve headwear 19 Offshore driller 20 Loses speed 21 Absorbed 23 Treats with a cold pack 24 Weather-affecting current 26 Vinyl record feature 28 Building sites 30 Comprehensive 33 France, under Caesar 36 “And __ what happened?” 38 Relative via marriage 39 Sprint 40 *Billiards stick 42 “SNL” alum Poehler 43 City near Syracuse 45 “Trees,” for one 46 Parting words 47 Compound cry of dissatisfaction 49 Agile 51 Common workday starting hr. 53 OSHA’s “S” 57 Indian royal 59 Powerful engine 61 Patty Hearst’s SLA alias 62 Florida fruit 64 September 2, 2019 ... and what the first words of the answers to starred clues commemorate 66 “Hannibal” villain 67 Jacob’s twin 68 Outfielder’s asset 69 Muslim ascetics 70 Sunrise direction 71 ___ Bo: fitness system
DIANA YASSIN
09/02/19
09/02/19
‘Lover’ is a sweetly Swift rebrand KAITLYN FOX Daily Arts Writer
The focus of Taylor Swift’s Lover is right in the title. From her love for her boyfriend and mom, to her love for being in love, Swift has clearly dedicated this album to the people and things she loves the most. Lover is hopeful, challenging and suggests there’s a certain kind of freedom in heartbreak. Unlike the dark edginess of her 2017 album Reputation, Lover feels more like a sequel to her pop album 1989, glitter and all. Swift traded her snakes and hard edges for butterflies and hues of pastel, a symbol for the way she’s choosing to brand herself as a lover rather than a fighter. And the “lover” brand suits her quite well Lover has more emotional depth than Reputation and shows a new level of maturity for Swift. While her previous albums are full of black-andwhite juxtapositions to describe love and relationships, Swift admits these things are not as clear as night and day when she sings “I once believed love would be black and white/but it’s golden.” The kind of love we see in Lover goes beyond Swift’s romantic escapades. One of the most intimate songs on the album is
an ode to Swift’s mother, who is battling cancer, titled “Soon You’ll Get Better.” Unlike some of her recent songs, Swift doesn’t retreat from detailed lyrics and gives a taste of the old Taylor with the storytelling capacity she is so well known for. In fact, Swift teased fans for the return of Old Taylor with the pre-release of the album’s title track, “Lover.” The song has
Lover Taylor Swift Republic Records
all the elements of any early Taylor Swift song: Christmas lights, romance and of course, a catchy tune. While Lover is largely a celebration of love, some of the album’s tracks still hold the aggression from her Reputation era. In the album’s most controversial tune “You Need To Calm Down,” Swift directly calls out anti-gay protestors, declaring “shade never made anybody less gay,” and portrays them as angry country bumpkins in the music video. “The Man” is also very pointed at sexism, yet showcases Swift’s humor. “Every conquest I had would make me more of a boss to you,” she sings impassively, highlighting a slew of
double standards she’s faced in the music business. Lover has certainly been a place for Swift to grow in her lyrics, but musically, she still tends to lean into pop style with ethereal synthesizer pulses and strategic key changes. “Cruel Summer” is the epitome of Swift’s signature style with dreamy high notes and light hearted chants in the bridge: “I don’t want to keep secrets just to keep you!” What’s most surprising in Lover is its country undertones, taking us back to Swift’s roots as a country music artist. Swift recruited the Dixie Chicks for delicate background vocals in “Soon You’ll Get Better,” while the title track similarly contains traces of the country swing Swift made her name with. After the surprising release of Reputation, no one was quite sure where Taylor Swift would take her career next. Lover feels like a step back into common territory and suggests Reputation is the farthest Swift will tread from her traditional style. While she may be finding refuge in the music she built her career on, Lover points to a way forward as Swift seems to have shifted her focus to her own experiences rather than defending herself. Lover is intriguing, thoughtful and relatable; Taylor Swift has once again given us a collection of songs to sing, cry and dance to.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Wednesday, September 4, 2019 — 7A
Pressure cooker
Behind defensive press, goals off corners seventh-ranked Wolverines top Demon Deacons, 3-0, for first win of season JACOB KOPNICK Daily Sports Writer
The intensity didn’t stop at just drawing corners. The lone goal in the second half came courtesy of Peterson, who scored off a heater that rocketed off the goalkeeper’s gloves and over her head to cross the goal line. The beatdown marked a statement win for the Wolverines. After losing 4-2 against the Tar Heels in the first game of the season, Michigan wanted to right the ship and start the year off with a bang. The Wolverines needed to show that they could not only play with, but also beat, elite competition. “(The win was) huge,” said Michigan coach Marcia Pankratz. “I mean to be 1-1 instead of 0-2, but they’re both top-five teams, and most importantly this is a process, right? We’re trying to grow and get better and challenge ourselves
every time and see where we are, and I feel really great about it.” From here, the name of the game for the Wolverines is to maintain that intensity through a long season. They’ve proven they can do it through a game and come out the other side victorious, cutting off passing lanes and intercepting balls deep into the fourth quarter. Carrying on their identity for the rest of the season will now be the team’s focus. For now, the most it can do is hammer the message of playing while tired and hope the rest takes care of itself. “Marcia says that every single day,” Dowthwaite said. “The best players are playing while tired, you’re not going to be not tired when you’re playing. You got to be able to capitalize and score and play well when you’re tired, so we say that everyday.”
ROHAN KUMAR Daily Sports Writer
into the contest. “Well for this game, we knew they were really strong at transferring out of the back,” said sophomore midfielder Kathryn Peterson. “And so what we would try to do was cut them to one side and try to take away those long passing lanes, and pressure as high as possible.” With the press, Michigan often won back possession quickly. As a result, the Wolverines spent the majority of the game on the attacking side of the field. This yielded the scoring chances, including four corners and five total shots on goal. “That’s an emphasis,” said Michigan coach Marcia Pankratz. “That’s kind of our team personality. Our team character is to play great
A quick glance at the stat Play while tired. sheet would suffice to show For the Michigan women’s field penalty corners played a big part hockey team, this mantra shapes in the No. 7 Michigan women’s everything. Early in the season, field hockey team’s 3-0 victory the Wolverines are trying to Sunday afternoon. create their identity — an identity While the Wolverines (1-1) that puts playing through fatigue scored two goals off corners and adversity at the forefront. against No. 10 Wake Forest (0-2) From quick, explosive starts to on Sunday, it was Michigan’s high-effort plays late in matches, defensive press that sparked intensity is the name of the game. offensive production and led to No. 7 Michigan (1-1) showcased those corners. this mindset Sunday during a 3-0 When the Wolverines lost victory over No. 10 Wake Forest possession while attacking, their (0-2). players charged relentlessly at From the first minute, the the Demon Deacons and forced Wolverines’ high-effort mentality them to make mistakes. From made its mark. Michigan worked there, Michigan looked to cut hard to suffocate the Demon off the passing lanes. This was Deacons’ elusive style of play from the team’s key strategy going the outset. These efforts paid off early and often, as the Wolverines scored on two corner shots in the first half. For Michigan, the recipe was simple. Draw a corner. Have sophomore midfielder Kathryn Peterson smack the ball to the top of the circle. Line up a shot for senior forward Meg Dowthwaite. Find the back of the cage. Repeat. This strategy worked twice in the first half for the Wolverines who jumped out to a commanding 2-0 lead at the half. Scoring successfully off corner shots seems to be a staple of the offense early in the season, as Michigan scored twice off them against No. 1 North Carolina on Friday, as well. But this hasn’t always been the case for the Wolverines who struggled mightily to capitalize on corner shots last season. This year, the corners are coming with a new mindset and with them, muchneeded offensive production. “Last year, our corners were not great to say the least,” Peterson said. “This year, it’s a new mentality. This year we all know we have so much improvement to KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily do there, that this year coming into Sophomore midfielder Kathryn Peterson scored the lone goal of the second half in Michigan’s 3-0 victory over Wake Forest on Sunday afternoon. these games, they’re just clicking.”
team defense and step up and intercept. And I thought we did it beautifully today, and I was really proud of them.” It is still early in the season, but the press is already a staple of the team’s practice regimen. Specifically, Michigan focuses on ensuring that the intensity is a team effort. “We train really hard, someone loses the ball and you’ve gotta fight to get it back,” said senior forward Meg Dowthwaite. “I think we’re practicing at the minute how we train which is really intense and really good, and everyone works together as a team, it’s not individual. “If your teammate loses the ball, everyone gets behind it. It’s not just that person that lost the ball, which I think is really important.” In the Wolverines’ first contest of the season, against No. 1 North Carolina, the press wasn’t consistent throughout the game. Michigan brought the intensity early and notched a one-goal lead after the first quarter. The Wolverines couldn’t sustain it, though, and suffered a 4-2 loss. By Sunday, Michigan made enough adjustments to get back on track. “We started really strong against UNC, and then we backed off a bit,” Dowthwaite said. “So I think it was important for us to keep that intensity the whole game, even intercepting balls which we were able to do up until the last whistle, so I was really happy with that, and that’s what we really took away.” Dowthwaite views the press as a central part of the program. As a senior, one of her goals is to teach the younger players the intricacies so that they can get more involved. Taking Sunday’s success as an example, this tactic could pay dividends down the road.
Michigan falls to FGCU, bounces back with Monday win against SIUE BRENDAN ROOSE Daily Sports Writer
In just the sixth minute of the match, Florida Gulf Coast forward Ryan Medilah found himself wide open in the box and buried a flawless cross from fellow forward Shak Adams, silencing the opening night crowd at the U-M Soccer Stadium on Friday night. The header was the first of three goals from Medilah, as the Michigan men’s soccer team (0-1) fell 4-3 to the Eagles (1-0). For the Wolverines, the match was defined by poor defense and an inability to convert on second half opportunities offensively. Medilah followed his first goal with a free kick eight minutes later from the right corner of the box. His low line drive cross snuck past Michigan’s defense and froze senior goalkeeper Andrew Verdi as it trickled across the goal line, giving FGCU an early 2-0 lead. Despite lackluster play on defense, the Wolverines managed to even the score at two before halftime. A well-placed ground ball from freshman forward Christian Pulselli gave junior forward Mohammed Zakyi an easy goal in the 30th minute, which graduate transfer forward Nebojsa Popovic followed with a cheeky tap-in on a free kick from senior forward Jack Hallahan. At the start of the second half, Michigan seemed poised to take the lead with Hallahan and Popovic leading a strong offensive push. In just the third minute of the half, Popovic earned an opportunity in front of the goal, but Eagles’ keeper Gustavo Vasconcelos gobbled it up with ease. The Wolverines tallied 11 shots in the second half, including a
FILE PHOTO/Daily
Senior forward Jack Hallahan made crisp passes from Michigan’s midfield in its 3-1 win over Southern Illinois University Edwardsville on Monday afternoon.
point-blank opportunity from Popovic that forced a diving save from Vasconcelos. But they converted on only one of these opportunities, when a late-game corner from junior midfielder Marc Ybarra found junior defender Joel Harrison with enough space to notch Michigan’s third and final goal. The Wolverines would come to regret these missed opportunities, as Medilah’s hattrick goal and a dazzling strike from FGCU midfielder Ivan Rosales put the match out of reach. “I think we created enough chances to win the game,” said Michigan coach Chaka Daley. “(But) they were more opportunistic in the sense of taking their chances on
I think we created enough chances to win the game.
our minor mistakes in the midfield.” Popovic put up impressive numbers on his first regular season game since transferring from Oakland University as a graduate student. He tallied three shots — all on target — on top of his first half goal. His decisiveness and quick shooting complements the elite ball control and passing ability of preseason All-American Hallahan, and the pair seems poised to make a big splash for the Wolverines. “Popovic is a good player,” Daley said. “We’re excited about having him in our group, and the hard part is figuring out all the pieces around these guys.” “We need to find ways to get (Hallahan) the ball, because he’s a special player as well,” he added. “Regardless, our team defending has to get better. ... It let us down a little tonight, but we’ll work on it, we’ll get better, and we’ll grow from the experience.”
CONNOR BRENNAN Daily Sports Writer
It happened in a flash and to the amazement of almost all those in attendance. With just under four minutes remaining and the Wolverines probing for a go-ahead goal, the ball was played back to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville goalkeeper Noah Heim. What was supposed to be a routine clearance turned into anything but as Michigan sophomore forward Derick Broche came flying in to block his kick. The ball ricocheted off Broche and into the path of fellow Wolverine Nebojsa Popovic. With Heim chasing back towards goal and the Cougar defenders out of position, Popovic coolly finished off the unexpected opportunity to restore Michigan’s one-goal advantage. SIUE (0-1-1) could never recover as the Wolverines (1-1-0) added another late goal to complete their less than
straightforward 3-1 victory. The intensity was there for Michigan from the opening whistle. Having lost their home opener to Florida Gulf Coast University, the Wolverines came out energetic and eager to start Monday’s game off on the right foot. A goal 3:50 into the game from Broche accomplished exactly that. Junior winger Umar Farouk Osman sent a deep cross into the box, which Broche met with a leaning header. After missing the entirety of his freshman season recovering from a broken leg he suffered at the end of high school, Broche’s header marked his first career goal and came in his career start. “For me it means everything,” Broche, who had a metal rod inserted in his leg, said. “I’ve
been coming to this field since I was a kid. And last year going through that, it just means all the more. I’m just happy that I was able to help the team in anyway I can.” The Wolverines looked well in control the rest of the half. Though Michigan was still working out some early-season kinks for much of the first half, its energy alone held the Cougars in check — allowing only one shot on goal. Much of the second half was punctuated by missed chances from the Wolverines. On a number of occasions, senior forward Jack Hallahan glided through the SIUE midfield and played pinpoint passes to Michigan’s forwards, who failed to capitalize. “We didn’t take our chances,” Daley said. “I think we created enough chances to make the game not as unnervy as it was at the end. I think the big thing for us is, we want to give our team a chance to win the game, and if we don’t take some of our chances, we gotta make sure we hold them on defense.” Those missed opportunities came back to bite the Wolverines when the visitors nabbed the tying goal out of seemingly nothing. Cougar forward Jorge Gonzalez got on the end of a cross from the right wing and nodded it past Wolverine goalkeeper Andrew Verdi in the 74th minute. The goal took the air out of the stadium and ten tense minutes followed until Popovic scored off the Broche deflection. Broche secured the win by firing his second goal of the day into the roof of the net after some nifty footwork to get into the six-yard box moving the score to 3-1. “Ultimately, we found a way to win though,” Daley said. “I think that’s a big piece of the puzzle early on in the season.”
Last year going through that, it just means all the more.
Sports
8A — Wednesday, September 4, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Danna making the most of dream, now a reality Notebook: Onwenu, kickers, injury updates MAX MARCOVITCH Managing Sports Editor
It was a gamble, and Mike Danna knew it. All things considered, Danna had it good. In three seasons at Central Michigan, he tallied 27.5 tackles for loss and 15 sacks. Nearly half of each came in his junior season in 2018, a year which ballooned his national profile. Pro Football Focus graded him as the nation’s 22nd-best player in its preseason top 50 rankings — noting his 24.3 percent success rate on pass rushes in 2018 as the secondhighest in the country. All of this is to say Mike Danna did not need the Michigan brand to get noticed. He could have stayed at Central Michigan and flourished in a senior season. He could have entered the NFL Draft, and he considered that possibility. Picking up your life and dropping elsewhere is not easy for anyone at any time. But when Michigan came calling, he knew in his heart what he wanted. “Michigan’s always been a dream of mine,” Danna said Tuesday evening. “It was always a dream of mine. My whole childhood, me and my father always watched Michigan games. Getting that offer was kind of just like — as soon as I got that offer, I was like ‘I’m coming to Michigan.’ ” That decision was made easier by his familiarity with the program. Danna, a native of Warren, grew up knowing several of Michigan’s current and former players, including senior cornerback Lavert Hill, junior wide receiver Donovan Peoples-Jones and redshirt junior running back Tru Wilson. Though Sherrone Moore never coached him directly, the two share ties from their overlapping time at Central Michigan.
ALEXANDRIA POMPEI/Daily
Michael Onwenu changed his habits in the offseason to become healthier.
ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Editor ALEC COHEN/Daily
Graduate transfer Mike Danna has impressed Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh since coming from Central Michigan.
Still, this was far from a slam-dunk. “I knew it was for sure a gamble,” he said. “I know the work that I put in. I know that you get what you put in, so if you put in a lot of work, something good is going to come out of it. There’s always good things that happen to good people. I put in a lot of work throughout the summer. I knew what I was getting myself into, and I gambled on myself because I knew at the end of the day, like, I can do it.” Danna’s career path has followed a familiar narrative. He was a three-star recruit, the 46th-ranked player in the state, according to 247Sports composite ranking. The big schools, namely Michigan and Michigan State, didn’t come calling initially. He went to play for the Chippewas and steadily developed into an elite pass rusher. Thus far, the transition to Michigan has been relatively seamless. He knew he was entering a defensive line room perennially stocked with talent,
but the coaching staff instantly heaped praise. “We knew Mike was good, but he’s doing better than advertised so far,” said Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh last month on his Attack Each Day podcast. “His work ethic has been outstanding, and he’s on a mission to make both himself and Michigan great.” He’s done nothing yet to deter the notion that he can. Though sophomore Aidan Hutchinson and junior Kwity Paye technically started at defensive end last Saturday against Middle Tennessee State, Danna featured heavily in the rotation. He notched a couple pressures and showed glimpses of his athletic ability, particularly in the increasingly-prevalent NASCAR pass rush looks that feature four defensive ends.
He’s no longer the man atop the depth chart, nor opposing teams’ scouting reports. He’s going to have opportunities, and he knows he’ll have to take full advantage of them. There’s an inherent discomfort with a new, more challenging environment. From big fish in a small pond to minnow in a great lake. But it’s all worth it when he sees his parents in the Big House stands on Saturdays, when he gets to touch the banner, live out his childhood memories and realize, finally, his dream is now a reality. “Every day I live with the mindset that, ‘You play for the University of Michigan, this is your dream.’ But at the same time, I don’t take no days off,” Danna said. “I look myself in the mirror and tell myself, ‘If you’re going to be this big guy on the field, you’ve got to live up to it.”
He’s on a mission to make himself and Michigan great.
Wolverines top Oakland, Northern Arizona DANIEL DASH
Daily Sports Writer
For the Michigan volleyball team, Friday’s matches couldn’t have come sooner. The 15th-ranked Wolverines (2-0) have opened their season this deep into the calendar only once since 2004. But despite the long preseason, they didn’t show any signs of being behind the curve in a 25-18, 25-23, 25-8 sweep of Oakland (1-1) in the first match of the annual Michigan Invitational before fending off an upset bid against Northern Arizona (1-1) in a 25-18, 19-25, 14-25, 25-17, 15-10 nightcap victory. Michigan used an efficient offense to grab an early lead, recording nine kills before committing an attack error against Oakland. Senior setter MacKenzi Welsh dished out assists to four different Wolverines in that span, keeping the Golden Grizzlies’ defense on their heels as Michigan widened the gap to as many as nine before closing the set. The Wolverines picked up right where they left off in the second frame, racing out to a 5-0 advantage following a trio of Oakland errors. The Golden Grizzlies promptly shaved the deficit to three, but an 8-2 run gave Michigan the breathing room it needed to stave off a late push. Oakland took 12 of the next 15 points, tying the set at 23 points apiece. With the score knotted, freshman opposite May Pertofsky buried two consecutive kills to give the Wolverines a twoset advantage. Pertofsky and fellow freshman sensation Jess Robinson — the nation’s No. 8 recruit, according to Prep Volleyball — put on a show in their Michigan debuts. The duo paced the offense with a combined 17 kills on just 22 attempts while hitting out of the middle and at the right side pin. Beyond the freshmen, Welsh maintained a balanced attack throughout the match. Following the graduation of offensive focal point Carly Skjodt, who took over 60 swings in some matches
FILE PHOTO/Daily
Michigan coach Mark Rosen said he wants the Wolverines to be a good first-contact team as opposed to just ball control.
last year, a quintet of Wolverines recorded at least five kills, with Pertofsky leading the pack at a match-high nine. Michigan posted a .394 team attack percentage — a major spike from last year’s collective .227 clip — even without sophomore middle blocker Kayla Bair, who sustained an ankle sprain at Thursday’s practice. The Golden Grizzlies rode the momentum of their rally attempt to their first lead of the match in the early stages of the third set, but it didn’t take long for Michigan to drop the hammer soon after. With the Wolverines up 10-8, Welsh went back to serve and took her team across the finish line, serving 15 straight points to close the match on a memorable run. If there’s one area where Michigan needed to prove something on Friday, it was ball control. Jenna Lerg — whose 1,966 digs are the second-most in program history — graduated last spring, leaving the door open for junior libero Natalie Smith to step in and take the reins of the team’s defense. Though there was
a handful of miscues on display, Smith showed promise with a team-high six digs. “We’re going to be a good first contact team,” said Michigan coach Mark Rosen. “What I don’t want people to think and what I don’t want our players to think is that we’re not good at it. I actually think we’re a good first-contact team — we’re just not a super experienced first contact team.” In the nightcap, ball control became more of a worry for Michigan. After cruising to a first set victory, the passing unraveled a bit in the second and third sets, forcing Welsh to set the ball to the Lumberjacks’ stationary double block on the outside. When the dust settled, the Wolverines dropped a pair of sets in their second match of the season, while it took 11 matches for them to drop a single frame a season ago. Northern Arizona, which upset then-No. 8 Florida in a five-set thriller last September, pushed Michigan to the brink after a lackluster first frame. The Lumberjacks kept the match
I actually think we’re a good first contact team.
close by playing fundamental volleyball — they committed 13 fewer attack errors, ran a simpler offense and out-blocked the hosts by three. Part of the Wolverines’ struggle was selfinflicted, namely the negative hitting percentage that left them on the wrong side of a third-set drubbing. Rosen tinkered with his lineup at that point, subbing in senior opposite Katarina Glavinic for senior middle blocker Cori Crocker and rotating Pertofsky to the middle. The move gave Michigan the injection it desperately needed, with Glavinic tallying five kills on eight errorless swings. “Our offense was really stale,” Rosen said. “We weren’t scoring as we needed to. We felt like we needed to score more on that pin. (Glavinic) is more of a straightup right side, and so we went away from the three-middle system and went to that. I think it changed the match in terms of the way (Glavinic) executed.” But when push came to shove, it was Welsh’s four-point service run that ignited the final spurt. The Wolverines’ court captain transformed a two-point deficit into a two-point lead, giving Michigan the advantage it needed to stave off the opening night upset bid.
Last season, Michigan’s offense huddled before every play, taking its good sweet time to get in formation. But under new offensive coordinator Josh Gattis, that’s changed. And with a new no-huddle system designed to push the tempo, senior guard Michael Onwenu knew he needed to get into better shape. So he changed his daily habits in the offseason to become healthier while still maintaining the bulk that gives him push on the offensive line. Now, as he put it, he’s able to “hold up and stay alive” at the game’s new speed. “Just eating and sleeping,” Onwenu said. “Sleeping is the most, as a college student it’s like, take sleep for granted and you just want to stay up and play the game instead of take that more serious.” Because of practice schedules and media obligations, Onwenu is required to schedule most of his classes in the morning, sometimes as early as 8 a.m. Last year, he might have gone to bed around midnight. Now, he tries to be asleep by 10 p.m., getting 9-10 hours many nights where before he may have only gotten six or seven. “You have to be mature about it,” Onwenu said. “You know you have stuff to do tomorrow.” Hayes on converting from tight end While Onwenu was slimming down, redshirt freshman tackle Ryan Hayes was bulking up. A tight end in high school, Hayes came in around 245 pounds. But he knew he’d have a tall task in front of him. He was recruited as a tackle/tight end, essentially told that it was likely he would convert when he joined the Wolverines — though he had never played the position until he got on campus. He expected a challenge, but bulking up wasn’t as hard as he’d thought at first. Though Hayes still gets ribbed by some of the other linemen as “the skinniest lineman,” Hayes is now up to 295, around 20 pounds below his target weight. And clearly, the conversion from tight end has been somewhat smooth, given that Hayes was nails all game in his first ever start at left tackle Saturday, even earning offensive player of the week honors from Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh. Harbaugh went so far as to mention that Hayes could be in the mix to start at right tackle in the future. “The tough part was physically because I was still weighing about — once we got to the season I was about 260,” Hayes said. “So playing tackle here against some of the best D-linemen was hard. … And just getting the new footwork down because playing tight end has nothing to do with pass-setting and just nothing to do with that, so I had to get bigger, stronger, get the footwork down.” Offensive line coach Ed Warinner has pushed Hayes, letting him know that the fact he hadn’t played the position before isn’t an excuse to mess up. It was a lesson Hayes said he needed to learn, and now it’s
paying off. The kicker question has an answer — or not Harbaugh and the other coaches stayed mum about the results of the kicker competition between redshirt junior Quinn Nordin and sophomore Jake Moody all throughout spring and fall camps, but there was a sense that whoever trotted out for the Wolverines’ first kick of the game Saturday would announce himself as the winner. Not so fast. When Michigan kicked a field goal early in the first quarter, it was Moody that came out. But when it scored a touchdown not long after and needed an extra point, Nordin came on. In the end, Moody went 2-for-2 on field goals — one from 27 and one from 34 — and handled seven of the team’s eight kickoffs. Nordin was 4-for-4 on extra points. Instead of clarity about the battle, there was more confusion. But on Monday, Harbaugh explained himself. The two kickers, he explained, had been “one kick apart” throughout camp. Moody was one kick ahead, so he was assigned the first field goal. From then on, one would be assigned the next field goal and the other the next point attempt. But three extra points in a row equaled a field goal, giving the other kicker a go. That’s exactly what happened when Nordin hit three extra points before the Wolverines attempted another field goal, which Moody took. Harbaugh believes the plan will remain the same going forward as long as nothing goes awry in practice. “I know that sounds kind of confusing but it actually cleared it up,” Harbaugh said. “So we actually, we knew exactly what kicker would be kicking on each drive so we wouldn’t have two kickers running out there and two kickers warming up on the net.” Injury updates On Saturday, junior wide receiver Donovan Peoples-Jones did not dress and wore a walking boot. Junior defensive lineman Donovan Jeter also wasn’t dressed. Fifth-year senior tackle Jon Runyan dressed, but did not play, and senior defensive lineman Michael Dwumfour wore a club on his hand and left the game after two drives with an injury. The injuries — none of which were disclosed beforehand — caused Michigan to have to scramble for players ahead of the Middle Tennessee game. By the sound of things, this week will be a lot of wait and see. In his press conference Monday, Harbaugh said Peoples-Jones, Runyan and Jeter all had a chance to play, and “we’ll see” on Dwumfour. It was Runyan’s injury that gave Hayes his chance to step into the spotlight against the Blue Raiders, so naturally, when Hayes addressed the media Tuesday, he was asked if he was preparing to start again against Army. The implication: Will Runyan be back? “Time will tell,” Hayes said. “I’m not going to prepare as a starter. We’ll see what happens.”
I had to get bigger, stronger, get the footwork down.
We knew exactly what kicker would be kicking.
statement T H E M I CH I GA N DAI LY | S E P T E M B E R 4 , 2019
Summer love stories
PHOTO BY DANYEL THARAKAN
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Wednesday, September 4, 2019 // The Statement
statement T H E M I CH I GA N DAI LY | S E P T E M B E R 4 , 2019
The scores
Managing Statement Editor Andrea Pérez Balderrama Deputy Editors Matthew Harmon Shannon Ors Associate Editor Eli Rallo
Designers Liz Bigham Kate Glad
Editor in Chief Maya Goldman Managing Editor Finntan Storer
Copy Editor Silas Lee Photo Editor Danyel Tharakan
BY EMILY PINKERTON, STATEMENT CONTRIBUTOR
DAY ONE The ever-present Arctic wind bearing down on your crumbling, medieval town drives people mad. Your hair, once gently tousled, turns whip-like, dangerous, once the gale from the North Sea hits the St. Andrews cliffs, traveling upward, wrapping itself around buildings, pursuing you. No coat can thwart the wind’s efforts to flush out your warmth. Its familiar white noise ranges from a whisper outside a windowpane to a bloodcurdling shriek, closing in from all sides. When people fall from the cliffs, it’s always the wind’s fault. The wind urges you to get too close — to peer down at the receding tide. It either pushes you or taunts you until you find yourself on the rocks below. You hope that isn’t what happened to Fraser, but it’s too soon to know. Police haven’t found him yet. You’re still cooped up in your dormitory, St. Salvatore’s, in the main dining hall, awaiting news. Refreshing your group chat every five seconds to make sure you don’t miss the announcement. You curl over on the creaking oak bench as if you’re praying to the screen. At the end of your bench, a couple of girls are murmuring, holding fast to steaming mugs of tea. You try not to listen to the girls. Their theories are too grotesque for so early in a missing person’s case. Instead, you turn your attention to the window next to you — an imitation stained-glass portrait of some saint or other, painted hundreds of years ago, stolen from an older cathedral and added unceremoniously to a glorified cafeteria. The paint mostly looks like murky browns — dried blood — instead of the full spectrum of color it probably originally had. You suppress the urge to scrape it off with your short, wide fingernails. The information you’ve been given so far is sparse: Fraser went out last night to the only nightclub in town. The surveillance system spotted him walking towards the Old Course at 11:30 p.m., his phone pressed to his ear. He didn’t return to his residence hall last night. The university pronounced Fraser missing this morning. It’s just local police who’re crawling through the town, the marshes, the beaches. All morning you’d been dialing
Fraser’s number to no avail, gnawing on pose the St. Andrews Union. You shift to your torn cuticles with every unanswered look at the school-issued clock on your ring. It’s nearly evening now, and you’ve bedside table. It’s 11:00 a.m. Callum is already out by the Union stopped calling. when you arrive, clutching a large black coffee and shivering. He reminds you of DAY FOUR Your residence hall’s Facebook page a willow — sinewy, tall, and in constant is promoting a community-based search motion. His eyes dart from person to perin collaboration with the local police son in the crowd, no doubt feeling anxious in their chartreuse vests. One hundred at the thought of being unsociable. You other St. Andrews’s residents have indi- decide not to startle him this time. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Jamie. I thought cated they’re joining. The cell phone looks accusingly at you, in bed, scroll- you weren’t coming,” Callum says when ing through social media. Callum’s and he catches sight of you, his black hair and Euan’s names pop up first on the list of dark eyes severe against the pallor of his searchers. Seeing the faint outlines of skin. “Right, well, this is important,” you your face reflected in the blue light of the screen and feeling like a fraud, you click reply, eyes downturned and voice low. “Are you hungover, mate?” Callum asks the “Going” button at the top of the page. Your stomach turns, and your mind cal- you, a smile tugging at his lips. “Not even close, you wank stain.” culates the space between you and the You try to stand a little straighter, nearest toilet, though you haven’t eaten unfurrowing your brow, worried that you all morning. You twist your body underneath your look disheveled in your Barbour jacket two goose down comforters. The wind and sweatpants. Callum’s height and passes right through St. Salvatore’s, which angular limbs only magnify your slight was built in the 1930s, but shows no indi- baby fat, how you’re only taller than the cation of repair work or renovations in the short girls in your classes. You hear Euan’s booming voice someeight decades since. The window panes at the head of your and your roommate’s where to your left, comforting one of the twin beds rattle with the Arctic gales, a pretty field hockey girls who’s crying softsound you still haven’t grown accustomed ly. Despite the tears, she still looks beauto. When it wakes you up at night, your tiful with her long blonde hair and full first thoughts, drunk with sleep, are that lips. His arm around her, Euan’s pulled masked robbers are banging on the glass, her close, as if he’s protecting her. Several other girls in the crowd eye her greedily. trying to break into the room. “Isn’t that Anna?” Callum asks, gesturYour prick of a roommate isn’t here, though. Euan, the first-year star of the ing towards Euan and the girl. “What?” you pretend to just now see University’s rugby team, rarely is. The students, both boys and girls, but mostly her. “Oh, yeah. It is.” Callum raises his eyebrows at you, but the American girls, oddly enough, can’t get enough of Euan. You routinely dismiss you look away, trying to appear unbothhis inexplicably tanned, broad-shoul- ered. “This isn’t about Anna.” dered confidence as a kind of dickishness, but somewhere you know he isn’t that awful. He’s just smug about getting girls. DAY ELEVEN The search party ended with mud and Unfortunately, and rather comically, you have the opposite luck. The only time a sand and salt from the North Sea caked girl appears interested in you is when all over everybody’s shoes. Your favorite you mention Euan is your roommate. green wellies kept getting lodged in the More often than not, you get addressed marshy wasteland. After falling twice, by strangers around campus as Jamie, you’ve still got a yellowed bruise over your ribcage. Euan’s roommate. Your claim to fame. Night descended quickly, it being midThe search party’s scheduled to meet at noon outside the nightclub/coffee house/ March. Dusk was gathering its fragments student organization facilities that com- of light long before dinnertime, and the
search party was forced to retreat into the dark wooden sanctuaries of pubs. Not even the moon brought any relief from the impenetrable dark. You’re so far up the coast it’s possible for the Northern Lights to touch your ruined citadel of a town, briefly, before disappearing behind the heavy clouds of Scotland for months. You’ve never seen them, but you know some nights they’re up there, dancing above the claustrophobic sky. Scotland Yard quickly stepped in and took over the investigation after the unsuccessful search. The citizens of St. Andrews apparently hindering the efforts of the professionals, they were asked to stop organizing. The day after Fraser’s disappearance, construction crews initiated their scheduled excavation of the centuries-old leaky storm drains. Today Scotland Yard’s ordering the crews to dig up the old drains, freshly-filled with concrete, on the possibility that Fraser might have drunkenly fallen into one of them. You know if that’s true, he would’ve been buried alive. You try not to think about that. You’ve plunked yourself down in the alleged site of Will and Kate’s first date, a coffee shop-turned-reliquary dedicated to the budding romance of the two royals. A sun-bleached poster in the window boasts their smiling faces, a cartoonish red heart drawn between them. It’s now become a sort of campy pilgrimage site for obnoxious royal superfans, but the tea’s still cheap and decent, so you haven’t written the place off entirely. Mindlessly, you scroll through Fraser’s old Instagram posts and neglect your too-hot black tea. “Miss u,” “hope you’re safe,” and “come home” litter the comment sections below each picture. You pause at the picture from the St. Andrews Charity Fashion Show show last month. Fraser and Euan, along with a host of other good-looking students, served as models for the annual event. Both Callum and you bought the overpriced tickets to ogle at and mock the display of extravagance: the designer gowns, the expensive champagne, the exclusive seats by the runway selling for upwards of 300 quid. In reality, though, you suspect you just wanted to see Fraser up close. It didn’t hurt that he was shirtless for the
Wednesday, September 4, 2019 // The Statement
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ILLUSTRATION BY SHERRY CHEN
majority of the evening. Before that night, you’d never considered yourself anything other than straight. Sure, you could recognize when other guys were objectively attractive, but your main preoccupation was girls. Specifically, you dwelled on your inability to hook up with them, but the focus was girls, nonetheless. As you got drunk that night on cheap Scotch from a flask tucked into your tuxedo, your eyes sought Fraser more frequently than any other model in the show. His gaze caught yours once while he was doing the final walk with the entire brigade of designers, models and event coordinators. His dark red hair and blue eyes were both dangerous and inviting, a dare you weren’t sure you could follow through on. That night was the first and last time you kissed him. It was half a joke, and half serious, as his girlfriend Anna was egging him on to lean in and do it after another round of tequila shots at the Union bar’s after-party. You’d managed to strike up an alcohol-fueled conversation with him after Callum decided he’d had enough of the “posh bastards” and headed back to his dorm. Fraser, his eyes half-closed, and his shirt half-unbuttoned and inexplicably damp, slung his arm around you and declared you his new best friend. He grabbed your phone and put his number in it. The first time you called that number was the day of his disappearance. DAY THIRTEEN It’s five in the morning, and you’ve
woken up with a racing heart and a cold sweat, concentrated around your knees and torso. Euan’s hulking silhouette shifts in the bed across from yours, his breath even and mind apparently blissfully unconscious. Your sweat clinging to your skin in small beads, you sit up, wiping the moisture from your body with a dry section of your sheets. You dreamed Fraser was back, only you were the only one to know he’d returned. He led you to the pier by the crumbling cathedral and kissed you again, this time slowly, not at all joking or making a show of it. The reflection of the Northern Lights played on the surface of the ocean, calmer than you’d ever seen it before. Only, when you drew back to look at Fraser, he’d vanished, and you were alone again in the dark. Fighting the raging wind, you leave the walled enclosure of St. Salvatore’s and walk down The Scores, the narrow lane separating the town’s cliffs from the shores of the North Sea. The water’s so icy there’s no classic ocean breeze, no salty brine, only the scent of that damned wind, roaring down on the exposed, chapped skin of your face. The sun won’t come up for another couple hours, but the sky is clear, a halfmoon shedding light on the earth, turning everything a barely-visible midnight blue. You take the road as far as it will go, ending at the Old Course on the outskirts of town. You hoist your legs over the thick metal fence that encloses the world’s first golf course. Spongy and soft, the grass is shorn down to millimeters here. Undu-
lating mounds and dips in the earth make you believe, briefly, that you’re on the surface of another planet. The wind picks up here, uninterrupted by cliffs or by old stone buildings. When you reach West Sands, you gag on the air. It smells like brackish water and death. The beach stretches out for hundreds of meters — your shoes scarcely make an imprint in the flat, kelp-ridden, dense sand. It still feels unearthly here, and you begin to think this is what the surface of the moon must be like. The tide’s out, and, close to the retreating waves you spot a black, boundless mound, backlit by the moonlight. You run to it. “Fraser!” you scream. “Fraser, is that you?” The closer you get, the larger the mound looms. You stop short of the figure before you, still and silent on the sand. Hands trembling, you pull out your phone, switching on the flashlight. You point it at the mystery heap. Your brain doesn’t register what you’re seeing for several seconds. Horizontal whitish ridges elongate the creature. You’re looking at a belly, bloated and half your height. The skin turns dark grey when you move the light up, scanning the outline of whatever this is. When you find the mouth, massive bristles line the top jaw. It’s a dead minke whale, and, from the smell of it, it isn’t a fresh one. A tongue, massive and pink, lies on the sand falling from the whale’s gaping mouth. The tongue’s as large as your leg. Horror floods your throat, and you
retch on the beach, steps from the corpse. DAY THIRTY-EIGHT A local found Fraser this morning. Parallel to the pier, the tide of East Sands washed up his remains on the jagged rocks, where they were sniffed out by a curious dog. Preliminary reports are saying it was an accidental drowning, ruling out foul play and suicide. You head to the pier, that formidable jutting structure, stretching its arms to greet the water, a sheer drop down to slick rocks and hidden currents if the gusts hurl you over. No one else is out here, cautious against a festering spring storm and discouraged by the police who’d already transported the body elsewhere. At the end of the pier, sky and sea merge into one long grey haze, and each bellows out its protests, beating its own chest. You collapse at the pier’s edge, your mind returning to your dream, when Fraser held your face and kissed you in this very location. You knew you’d loved him then, and the loss claws at your chest. A white wave, brimming with greyishbrown foam, kisses your fingertips, still clamped to the slick slabs of stone. You look to the West Sands, the sprawling expanse of cold beach. You recall the whale that washed up there, some weeks ago, bloated and slick with decomposition. Students were warned not to go close to the corpse; it was going to explode. Its eyes had been pecked out by the gulls. Hours ago, it was Fraser who was discovered, pale and swollen, on the rocks. You wonder whether his eyes were gone too.
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Wednesday, September 4, 2019 // The Statement
Wednesday, September 4. 2019 // The Statement
I
’ve always been told I’m an extrovert. Funny how you can be told something but not believe it yourself. Typically, we think extroverts to be energized by social interactions to the point where they crave it constantly. And I do think this of myself. I love the feeling of being surrounded by friends, the room buzzing. Because of this expectation to fulfill the role of the extrovert, to be “on” 24/7, my perception of being isolated has been warped. This summer, I spent many hours baking in the living room of my apartment in Hamtramck without air conditioning. It was just me, my guitar and the oddly specific poker decor leftover from the previous tenant. I started to go crazy, finding any opportunity I could to be around people, often standing in the corner at concerts where I knew no one. I quickly learned that just because I was “going out” didn’t mean I was outgoing. I felt ashamed that I wasn’t living up to my societally-ordained title of Extrovert with a capital E. When I read Olivia Laing’s “The Lonely City,” everything clicked. Her part-memoir, part-art history lesson examining what it means to be lonely surrounded by people opened a part of me I never knew existed. We as humans want to combat loneliness because of how it’s stigmatized: Lonely people aren’t getting out enough; Lonely people are longing for someone to talk to them; Lonely people are just plain sad. I finished this book at a back-alley restaurant in Pristina, Kosovo. No one was sitting near me. In that post-finishinga-book glow, I realized valuing myself by how many people I know doesn’t hold a candle to valuing myself by how well I know me.
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ating disorder recovery: a love story I’ve been asking myself lately if I’m ready to start writing again. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve opened the same notebook and stared at the same blank page, daring myself to just write. Not for a grade, not for an audience, just for myself. I just couldn’t do it this summer. The few pages of writing I have from the last few months are jumbled and incomplete. Cursive turns to scribbles and lines and dark circles of ink where I let the pen bleed. So much has been torn up and thrown away. Most of it was never written. This isn’t a love story about writing, but it is a love story about truth. This summer I learned how to tell the truth. I learned what it means to be honest in ways I hadn’t known were possible. I learned how to vocalize what I’d known for a long time. I was always lying through my teeth: to my parents, to my friends, to my doctors, to myself. I didn’t want to be sick or a burden. I didn’t want to be harming myself, and I certainly didn’t want to be attention-seeking. But I’d been staring at blank pages for so long that I didn’t think I could do it anymore. Honestly, I could have, but it made for a better love story to somehow admit the truth. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, that’s OK. If you do, maybe you’ll know how hard it is to recover. Maybe you know how broken you feel looking in the mirror. How much strength it takes to
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turn down one more drink or to just eat the burger. But even beyond the constraints of an eating disorder, maybe you know how much the truth can burn on its way out. It is so hard not to end every conversation with “I don’t know.” It is hard to love people. It is hard to mend mistakes you’ve made over and over, and it breaks me to admit I’m scared. The truth is, I’m healing. I’m learning how to write again. I’m also stronger than I used to be — less fragile. I’m more whole. I’m getting to know myself again, and I’m trying to find the right words to say that.
BY EMILY STILLMAN, LSA SENIOR
T
BY MATT HARMON, LSA SENIOR
Summer love stories
his summer I learned to love silence. Coming from New Jersey, you could definitely say I have a large and quite talkative personality. My calm summer days used to consist of the crashing waves on the Jersey Shore. However, I spent the summer in Burlington, Vermont, surrounded by beautiful lakes, mountains and a quiet peacefulness. I liked the views and the countless Instagram opportunities, but I truly loved the way that setting changed me. Hiking on mountains alone with the sounds of nature became my safe place to just be me. Lake Champlain looked the same in person as it did on a postcard, reading my book as I watched the sunset over my picturesque new home. The silence was so present that it was loud enough to drown out my own thoughts — the type of mental reset everyone needs from time to time. Over my summer, those peaceful moments were the times I stopped to embrace and appreciate the here and now. I became a kinder person to myself, my peers and the earth. I became a better listener to myself and my friends. It’s like at first, the silence of Vermont helped me to clear my mind. By the end, that same silence was what organized my mind. As my summer in Vermont came to a close, I realized my newfound love for peaceful quiet did not have to leave when I did. Silence was not my Saturday hikes or a gentle lake. Silence was the clear mindset I could push myself to seek out and maintain, even in the hustle and bustle of Ann Arbor.
BY HEATHER TORKEL, LSA SENIOR
PHOTOS BY DANYEL THARAKAN
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Wednesday, September 4, 2019// The Statement
I
fall in love three times a day. Perhaps it’s because I’m a cancer sun and a cancer moon; perhaps it’s because I’m a writer. Perhaps it’s because I exclusively seek out experiences that make my heart race (in a good way). But with everything I’ve fallen blindly head over heels for in 21 years –– boys in glasses, coffee shops that sell newspapers, banana muffins, redheaded best friends, novels dripping in rich prose (set in Paris), I’ve never quite made the list of the places, ideas and people my heart aches for. Perhaps, this is because I am a member of a generation that monitors selfworth based on our social media accounts. Or perhaps it is because I put pressure on myself that steals my ability to triumph in who I am. Ever since I was a child, I’ve wanted to move to New York City. New York’s biggest delight for me lies in its impassioned vigor for live theatre. Working on Broadway in the city of my eight-year-old daydreams this summer didn’t live up to the expectations I always held tight in the back of my mind. Simultaneously, the experience of living in the middle of all I’ve hoped for pushed me to fall in love yet again, not with the city, but myself. I recognized the reality of New York beneath the sparkle. It’s a place not of idealism and magic but nitty, gritty life — real life. Being out of the bubble of my childhood pushed me to look at what New York truly is: a bubbly, wide awake, disgusting paradise. The things that make New York ugly make New York real, and the things that make New York real make it beautiful. After 21 years of self-doubt over insignificant flaws — pinching extra skin on my sides, scrutinizing every word I put on a page, agonizing over relationships — I can exhale a bit. I am young, I am in the middle of it all and the very things that make me real are the things that make me beautiful.
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fter saying goodbye to my family and schlepping my two heavy suitcases onto the New Yorkbound train, the first thing I did was pull up Instagram on my phone. On my story, I posted a picture of the train I had just boarded with the caption “NYC bound for the summer! If you’re in the city and wanna be my friend and go on adventures hmu!”. Two hours passed and only three people responded: my girlfriend, 500 miles away and another friend, 2,700 miles away, both to wish me luck. The first day of my internship a few days later I hoped to make friends with some of the other interns, and I succeeded with one or two out of 40. I reached out to several people who I knew would be in the city and built up a decent network, but there were still many days I didn’t have anyone to hang out with and still had things I wanted to do. So, I decided to do them by myself. My summer love story is to solitude and these photos dive deep into the city that I loved to explore by myself.
BY ELI RALLO, SMTD SENIOR
A statement
from the photographer:
BY DANYEL THARAKAN, ENGINEERING SENIOR
Wednesday,September 4, 2019 // The Statement
On being Mexican and Ameican E
very year in early August, our mother would haul my siblings and me into our car in the stifling heat. The four of us would wait for hours in long lines at the international bridge, waiting to cross the border from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua into El Paso. We lived on the Mexican side of our sprawling binational metropolitan area and crossed often for groceries and shopping, so this was a standard routine for us. When our turn finally came, we would roll down the windows and sit up straight, knowing better than to speak out of turn. “American,” my brother, sister and I would say to the border agent, as our Mexican mother put her green passport next to our blue ones. We would spend all day hopping from store to store, buying No. 2 pencils, tennis shoes, new backpacks and pencil cases. Our last stop was always the Walmart in the Cielo Vista Mall. There, our mom would go through her usual weekly grocery list, sometimes even agreeing to buy us the candy bars we picked at the register. I always knew my blue passport granted me something special, something everyone else wanted, but not all were allowed to possess. My parents encouraged me to be proud, to be grateful, to take advantage of the opportunities I got. And I was. I felt special. My blue passport allowed me to move north when the situation in Juarez deteriorated, and granted me access to public education. It erased the border for me and allowed me to aspire to be more. But now, I am not so sure. The word “American” doesn’t feel so safe anymore. It doesn’t feel mine. My family and I aren’t strangers to racially charged comments and discrimination. Since our move to southwest Michigan in 2011, we have been told to go back to where we came from, asked if we ride donkeys to school, given mustard when we asked for coffee in a drive thru when a worker claimed not to understand my father’s accent, even been laughed at for the way we say “kitchen” or “jaguar.” From the beginning, we understood that our differences were not completely welcome in the place we were to call home, and we strove to be included, to respect our neighbors and to learn how to do things their way. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I started feeling unsure when calling myself an American. I can recall the specific moment on television, when their candidate Donald Trump claimed Mexico was sending
“their worst.” Claiming Mexicans were criminals, rapists and “bringing drugs” was incorrect, but extremely successful. He got what he wanted. Hearing those words come out of Trump’s mouth as if they were facts validated stereotypes about my people. There was no distinction. In Trump’s words, all Mexicans and MexicanAmericans, even me and my family, were Mexico’s worst. This particular Latinx stereotype was alive and thriving in 2015, and it has since grown into full-blown acts of hate and violence. What happened at the Cielo Vista Walmart of my childhood at the beginning of August can only be labeled as such, an act of hate by a person who believes the Latinx community is a threat to European Americans. The word “American” slips further and further from our reach every time someone commits a crime denouncing the Latinx community, casting us as others in a country that would not exist without our presence and dedication. Latinx people, Mexicans in particular, populated areas in the Southwest of our country before European Americans even thought of them as viable places to live. Those lands in New Mexico, California, Colorado, Arizona and, yes, Texas were cultivated and developed by us before they became part of the United States. The decision between calling myself Mexican or American is not one I should have to make. I am both. I have full rights to enjoy all of what this country has to offer. I am not stealing anything away from “Americans” because I am one. At this moment, people like me, Mexicans and Latinx, are being labeled as invaders, and that contradicts everything my parents told me about the special qualities of my blue passport. A version of this column appeared in the Detroit Free Press. You can find it on the Detroit Free Press website.
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BY ANDREA PÉREZ BALDERRAMA, MANAGING STATEMENT EDITOR
ILLUSTRATION BY SHERRY CHEN
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VISUAL STATEMENT NATURE & SOLITUDE
Wednesday, September 4th, 2019 // The Statement
THE JOY OF A GOOD BOOK, SUNLIGHT & YOURSELF AS COMPANY.
PHOTOS BY DANYEL THARAKAN/ THE MICHIGAN DAILY