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Wednesday, February 22, 2023
Ann Arbor, Michigan
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CAMPUS LIFE
‘Spartan Strong’: UMich and MSU mourn together at candlelight vigil Thousands gathered on the Diag following MSU shooting
Students speak out at the vigil for the MSU shooting on the Diag Wednesday night
RACHEL MINTZ & MADISON HAMMOND Daily News Editor & Daily News Reporter
There were 3,000 people standing side-by-side across the Diag on the University of Michigan’s campus Wednesday night. U-M students and community members gathered together in silence to mourn the mass shooting that took place on the Michigan State University’s campus Monday night which led to the death of three MSU students: Brian Fraser, Alexandria Verner and Arielle Anderson. The U-M Central Student Government organized the vigil as a way for Wolverines to stand in solidarity with Spartans and mourn the tragedy. A similar vigil took place on MSU’s campus at 6 p.m. on Wednesday and was attended by thousands of students, according to The State News, MSU’s student-run newspaper. Both vigils honored the lives of those who were killed in the shooting and were intended to help students at both campuses heal together. Attendees in Ann Arbor held candles in a circle around the block ‘M,’ before moving toward the Hatcher Graduate Library
to listen to remarks by members of CSG. LSA senior Noah Zimmerman, CSG president, spoke first, emphasizing that the U-M community is mourning alongside MSU. “When one of (Michigan’s universities) is hurt, we all feel the pain,” Zimmerman said. “We feel for them.” With a half-mast American flag behind them, CSG members only spoke for around ten minutes, but invited attendees to stay as long as they wanted to and asked students to sign or write messages on a banner sitting below the steps of the Graduate Library. According to LSA senior Jacklyn Hillman, CSG vice president, the banner was given to MSU’s student government following the vigil. In an interview with The Michigan Daily at the vigil, LSA sophomore Kayla Wehner, a transfer student from MSU, said she has several loved ones at MSU. She said she couldn’t process the shooting while it was happening, and the impact of what had happened didn’t sink in until she saw it all over social media and in the news. “My boyfriend, who’s a student at MSU, called me and told me about the shooting,” Wehner said. “All of my friends and my siblings go to MSU, and
KATE HUA/Daily
so I was really shaken and I couldn’t even process what was going on.” MSU junior Andy Nguyen said he lives off campus, so he was shocked to hear about the shooting Monday night and he immediately started sending texts to loved ones. Ngyuen said he left East Lansing the morning after the shooting and came to Ann Arbor to stay with his girlfriend who attends the University of Michigan. He decided to attend the vigil on the Diag to show support for his school. “I just thought it was best to leave Lansing,” Nguyen said. “I feel like leaving may have helped a little bit, but I kind of wish I stayed just because … we’re all in this together. I was very surprised that Michigan had a vigil, so, very luckily I decided to come here.” When asked if Nguyen wanted to share anything else with The Daily, he responded with two words. “Spartan Strong,” Nguyen said. LSA sophomore Gabriela Muniz said she was at home studying for an exam when she heard the news about an active shooter on MSU’s campus. Muniz said she was immediately shaken. “It’s unbelievable that this is the reality of this country,” Muniz said. “(The victims) were just students,
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living life, just going on about their life, and now they are gone. Nobody’s gonna reverse this senseless tragedy for this family. It’s just terrible.” Sueann Caulfield, professor at the U-M Residential College, told The Daily at the vigil that she was inspired by the number of students who came out to the Diag to stand in silence in support of the MSU community. “I was really struck by the silence when I arrived,” Caulfield said. “I arrived a few minutes early and already the crowd (had) gathered, and more were coming in. Everyone was just here to be here with each other.” MSU is a mere 62-mile drive from Ann Arbor, and Caulfield said this proximity means that almost every U-M student knows at least one person at MSU. “(MSU is) not just close to home, it is home,” Caulfield said. “It’s happened to so many other people, and now it’s happening to us.” Nursing freshman Nicole Godfrey said she attended the vigil to show support for the MSU community, including for her friend who knew of one of the victims. Godfrey, who is from Rochester, Mich. said she is also very close with many people who survived the shooting at Oxford High School in November 2021.
“Justin Shilling was actually a friend of mine, and I lost him at Oxford,” Godfrey said. “I just wanted to give all my support, especially to the Oxford students who had to endure that and then went to Michigan State as well … no one deserves to go through this, especially (not) multiple times.” Engineering sophomore Hunter Schrupp said he grew up in Ann Arbor and has been participating in the MSU and U-M rivalry for years, but right now he thinks it’s incredibly important that the U-M community shows their unwavering support for everyone in East Lansing. “I’ve been to events like this after tragedies, but this one is definitely different,” Schrupp said. “I’m seeing people I knew from high school who have come back for the week from MSU. I see the look on their faces, and they’re sad and they’re scared and I get it.” Several hundred students remained on the Diag late into the night, their faces solemn as the wind whipped back and forth. While some students hugged each other and offered support, others stood quietly around the block ‘M’ until their candles burned to the wick and eventually went out.
In an interview with The Daily at the event Peter Railton, a U-M philosophy professor, spoke about the prevalence of guns and gun violence in the U.S., which became the leading cause of death for children in 2022. “With guns as widely present as they are in our society, every day, people are being shot in their homes quietly,” Railton said. “Not by necessarily criminals, but through domestic violence and suicide. (Gun violence is) an illness that (the U.S. doesn’t) seem to be willing to cure ourselves of.” U-M leadership, including University President Santa Ono, have encouraged students to take care of their wellbeing over the next several days, highlighting the campus mental health resources available to students such as Counseling and Psychological Services, the Faculty and Staff Counseling and Consultation Office, Michigan Medicine Office of Counseling and Workplace Resilience and Wolverine Wellness. The Michigan Daily would like to express our deepest condolences to our peers at Michigan State University and our colleagues at The State News. Our hearts go out to the families and friends of the victims as well as the entire East Lansing community.
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CAPS staff write open letter about employee turnover crisis The letter was sent to the VP of Student Life and requests response in March
RILEY HODDER & MILES ANDERSON Daily News Editor & Daily Staff Reporter
ALI CHAMI/Daily
Regents approve extended winter break for next year
UMich students will have an extra week off in January 2024 MATTHEW SHANBOM & MILES ANDERSON Daily Staff Reporters
The University of Michigan Board of Regents unanimously approved an updated calendar for the 2023-2024 academic year during their Feb. 16 meeting. This updated academic calendar will change the start of the winter 2024 term from Jan. 3 to Jan. 10 — meaning that the University’s
Winter Break will be prolonged by a week. The final day of examinations has also been set back a week, from Apr. 25 to May 2. The fall 2023 semester will be unaffected. In a University Record article published Monday, University Provost Laurie McCauley said the change to the calendar was made after listening to feedback from the campus community, with several students expressing their desire for a longer Winter
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Break. “The University of Michigan prides itself as offering a rigorous academic environment, but that also means that our students and faculty work hard throughout the term,” McCauley said. “The feedback we’ve heard from our campus community around well-being gave us pause and led us to wonder if there was more we could do with the academic calendar to address these concerns.”
The University of Michigan’s Counseling and Psychological Services faculty delivered a letter to the desk of Martino Harmon, vice president of student life, on Tuesday morning. In the letter, obtained by The Michigan Daily, CAPS staff described a perceived employee turnover crisis within the office, which the signed clinicians believe to be because of a lack of competitive salary. The letter requested that Harmon responds by March 7. Shortly after placing the letter on Harmon’s desk, Dr. Reena Sheth, an embedded psychologist at the Law School, spoke in an interview with The Michigan Daily about how the letter is an attempt to initiate conversations with the administration about instating a competitive salary. Sheth said she believes the lack of a competitive salary can negatively affect students because passionate mental health staff often leave for more lucrative opportunities. “One of the ways they can
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support us is by coming forward in dialogue,” Sheth said. “So the letter is an invitation to Dr. Martino Harmon and the administration to begin this dialogue with us about a competitive salary. Because if you don’t have passionate mental health staff that are really dedicated to the wellbeing of students, then it is a little bit of a struggle.” According to the open letter, CAPS has lost 16 full-time licensed clinicians out of a staff of 37 in the past 18 months. The letter also stated that a report from the International Accreditation of Counseling Services’ visit last year mirrored their concerns about the turnover crisis. IACS stated that the salary of CAPS employees was inconsistent with that of similar positions at different institutions. The letters emphasized the importance of CAPS’ purpose on campus and the need for CAPS to be able to continue functioning as an office to provide adequate mental health care to U-M students. “(CAPS employees) are extremely passionate about the mental health of our Michigan students,” the letter read. “We are at the forefront
Vol. CXXXII, No. 104 ©2023 The Michigan Daily
of creating and maintaining a thriving student community in alignment to University of Michigan’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion values. We request your immediate attention on this matter to ensure that Michigan students continue to have rapid access to mental health care services on campus.” University spokesperson Kim Broehuizen wrote to The Daily in an email that the University continues to value the mental health of the campus community. “The University of Michigan is committed to the health and well-being of our entire campus community — students, staff and faculty,” Broekhuizen wrote. “This includes providing a robust continuum of care that adapts to and supports the well-being and mental health of our entire community.” Dr. Ashley Jacob, an embedded psychologist for LSA students, told The Daily she wants to retain the staff at CAPS and enable them to support themselves financially. “With mental health demands continuing to rise, we really want to retain our staff,” Jacob said. “And we really want to also be able to take care of our own livable wage needs.”
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