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Wednesday, November 20, 2024
ADMINISTRATION
Enrollment reaches record high in 2024
The University welcomed 52,855 students for the first time in its history EDITH PENDELL Daily Staff Reporter
The University’s fall 2024 enrollment of 52,855 students is the largest in the University’s history. This includes 34,454 undergraduates, representing a 1.5% increase since 2023, while the 8,858 freshmen and transfer students within the undergraduate student body represent a slight decrease from the year prior. The first-year and transfer class in fall 2024 is composed of 6.1% African American or Black students, 13.3% Hispanic or Latine students, 0.2% Native American students, 0.1% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students and 17.2% Asian American students. Comparably, the 2023 incoming first-year and transfer class was approximately 5.3% Black or African American students, 13.5% Hispanic, 0.2% Native American, 0.1% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and 19.0% Asian American. LSA senior Ashley Nguyen said she appreciates the diversity of the University of Michigan’s campus relative to her hometown. Coming from a mostly white community, she said she enjoyed meeting people with different backgrounds, though she believes there is still room for improvement at the University. “Growing up in Northern Michigan — where my high school was predominantly white — I saw the University as way more diverse than anywhere I’ve been
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before,” Nguyen said. “But in reality, it is still very white. So, there is certainly further to go.” Nguyen has a little sister in the class of 2028. Nguyen said she hopes her sister’s time at the University will see a more diverse campus, ultimately benefiting her college experience. “I hope that every year she is here, the campus is more diverse than the last,” Nguyen said. “She can benefit from this campus welcoming all sorts of people and becoming a more accepting space.”
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Engineering junior Zachary Trepins said diversity on campus enriches his experience. “There have definitely been times where I’ve met people that have views that are opposing to mine that I’ve never really interacted with before,” Trepins said. “I think it’s helpful to talk with those people. Everyone has their own story. Everything that they believe doesn’t just exist in a vacuum. It’s coming from all the things that they’ve experienced.”
The student body, which has consistently grown since 1985, has driven the need for expanded housing and dining facilities. The University started to address this demand in 2010 with the construction of its first new undergraduate residence hall in 40 years: North Quadrangle Residence Hall. The dormitory and classroom building houses about 450 students and features a dining hall. The University prioritizes freshmen who apply before the deadline when assigning
on-campus housing. Kambiz Khalili, associate vice president of student life, said in an interview with The Daily that the University is unable to accommodate roughly 1,000 returning and transfer students who apply for on-campus housing each year. “Our returning students are finding that it is more difficult for them to find affordable housing in the city,” Khalili said. “So we’re seeing a slight increase every year in terms of returning students wanting to come back and live with us a second year. … In that
area, we are finding that we probably could use more beds.” Trepins told The Daily that he feels the pressure a growing student body has placed on the University’s housing supply. “One of my friends transferred here from community college, and the University basically told him that he would need to find housing outside of the dorms,” Trepins said. “Right now, he is living in our living room, which is not ideal.” To meet a growing demand for affordable on-campus housing, the University Board of Regents approved a new Central Campus residential development in February 2023, which will be located on the past Elbel Field site. The development will provide 2,300 beds and a dining hall and is set to be completed in the summer of 2026. The University is the most populous one in the state, a title held since 2021. The number of freshman applicants in 2024 totaled 98,310, a 12% rise from 87,632 in 2023. Khalili said he felt honored to work to accommodate a growing student body. “The growth in the campus population shows the interest of students in this university and the reputation that this university has as one of the best in the country,” Khalili said. “So that’s exciting for us. When they come on campus, we will not disappoint them. Our goal is to provide them with the best: best possible housing and dining services that they can have at affordable prices.”
CSG votes to impeach president, vice president
NEWS BRIEFS
President Alifa Chowdhury and Vice President Elias Atkinson were both charged with incitement of violence, dereliction of duty; Chowdhury was also charged with cybertheft of CSG property MICHELLE LIAO Daily Staff Reporter
The University of Michigan Central Student Government approved a motion in their meeting Tuesday afternoon to impeach President Alifa Chowdhury and Vice President Elias Atkinson. The motion was proposed by LSA Rep. Margaret Peterman and passed through a secret ballot with 30 votes in favor, seven votes against and one vote to abstain.
The motion included three articles of impeachment against Chowdhury and two against Atkinson. Chowdhury was charged with incitement of violence, cybertheft of CSG property and dereliction of duty. The first article of the motion read that Chowdhury’s Instagram post on the SHUT IT DOWN account, which called for supporters to “pack CSG” shortly before the meeting began, incited violence and lawless activity at the Oct. 8 meeting.
“In all this, President Chowdhury gravely endangered the security of students and the functioning of the Central Student Government,” the motion read. “They threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful consideration of legislation, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. They thereby betrayed their trust as President, to the manifest injury of the students of the University of Michigan.” The motion also argued
that Chowdhury engaged in impeachable conduct by committing cybertheft of CSG property, specifically “stealing the Central Student Government Instagram account.” According to the motion, on Oct. 9, Chowdhury changed the password to the CSG account and made a post expressing her frustration about the results of the Oct. 8 CSG budget vote, which the motion said constitutes a misuse of CSG resources. The motion also included a list of seven alleged
counts of how Chowdhury failed to fulfill the duties of her office, including failure to submit a required report prior to the end of the 2023-24 academic year or to nominate individuals to fill empty positions. Atkinson was charged with the same counts of incitement of violence and dereliction of duty. The fourth article of the motion implicated Atkinson in the SHUT IT DOWN Instagram post for which Chowdhury was impeached. Article five of the motion included a list of five
alleged counts of impeachable conduct, including failure to hold any University Council meeting since taking office or to complete the required training for Executive Committee members. The resolution will now move to the Central Student Judiciary, which will hear the case within five days of the resolution’s passage and determine whether the impeachment will be upheld. If the impeachment is confirmed by CSJ, Speaker of the Assembly Mario Thaqi will become CSG president.
GOVERNMENT
Institute for Social Research hosts panel on 2024 election results Panelists talked voting trends, campaign tactics and international perspectives
LYRA WILDER
Daily Staff Reporter
The Institute for Social Research hosted a panel Thursday evening to discuss the patterns and takeaways from the 2024 election. Almost 100 University of Michigan community members gathered in an ISR classroom to hear from ISR researchers and other panelists. Panelist Vincent Hutchings, professor of political science, opened the panel by addressing trends among Black voters. According to Hutchings, Black voters, who typically vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates, followed established patterns in 2024. According to exit polling, 86% of Black voters supported Kamala Harris this election cycle, a 1% decrease from Black support for Biden in 2020. “The outcome of the election was surprising in a number of dimensions,” Hutchings said. “It was surprising in terms of the lack of it being close. It was surprising in terms of Trump winning all of the swing states. It was surprising in a number of other dimensions. But what was not surprising is the Black vote and the white vote, including Black men and women,
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because they look pretty much like they always look.” Hutchings emphasized that although it may seem former President Donald Trump drew an abnormally large number of Black voters, this is only because Republicans garnered a belowaverage percentage of Black voters in the past two elections. “Trump in 2024 did about as well as you would expect any generic Republican to do,” Hutchings said. “Now, he definitely did better than he did before, but that’s mostly because he underperformed previously. … No, Blacks are not drifting towards the Republican Party. … They are voting the way they have voted for the last almost 60 years.” Hutchings was followed by fellow panelist Mara Ostfeld, research associate professor of public policy, who also researches the relationship between race and politics. She said Trump pulled 46% of the Hispanic vote, a significant increase from 2020. “What’s also really noteworthy, is not just that he got a huge amount, but he got 13 percentage points more than he did in 2020,” Ostfeld said. “Also, he did so while campaigning about deporting a lot of immigrants, for a community that is composed of
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many immigrants. So one question I want to engage with is, why did Latino support for the Republican candidate in this election, Trump — who spewed a lot of not only anti-immigrant rhetoric, but a lot of anti-Latino rhetoric — why did it increase so much?” Ostfeld began her analysis by explaining the difference in the party makeup of Latine voters in 2024 as compared to 2020. “Latino voters who supported Biden in 2020 were less likely to vote or participate in this election,” Ostfeld said. “So we’re not totally comparing the same Latino voters in 2020 to the same Latino voters in 2024— we have different electorates. What was also really interesting is there (were) a bunch of new voters — like there are every year — most of these are young voters, and these new Latino voters in 2024 broke heavily for Trump.” Ostfeld also explained that shifting support for Trump among Latine voters affected their turnout, with young Latine voters, particularly men, leaning Republican. Her research found a 7% increase in support for Trump among young adult Latine voters, and a 19% increase among Latino men since 2020. Ostfeld explained that, though a variety of factors
could explain the increase in support for Trump among young male Latino voters, including racism, sexism, Christian conservatism and internalized stigma, economic frustration stands out. “We see economic frustrations really standing out,” Ostfeld said. “Latino voters were the least likely of the three main ethno-racial groups looked at to say that their financial situation had improved in the last four years. And along with whites, they were fairly likely, about nearly half, (to report) that their financial situation had gotten worse over the last four years.” Panelist Nicholas Valentino, professor of political science, focused his analysis on the Trump campaign’s use of emotional tactics. He said his research found that anger is a more powerful motivator for political action than fear. “Anger is much more likely to lead people to take risks, to use resources that they might not otherwise want to risk,” Valentino said. “Anxiety is usually an emotional state that leads people to withdraw and evaluate information more carefully — not the kind of thing you would hope would be happening in an election
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when you want to mobilize voters.” LSA senior Phoebe Yi, an event attendee and ISR research assistant, said in an interview with The Michigan Daily that she found Valentino’s research to be the most interesting and surprising takeaway from the panel. “I never really considered how there’s a difference between fear and anger that can change mobilization,” Yi said. “I always thought that fear was the biggest driving factor, especially with 2016 and Trump’s turnout. I feel like 2020, very similarly, I thought that fear was a really big driving factor for people to vote for Biden.” Panelist Josh Pasek, professor of
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communication and media, added an international perspective to the 2024 election, noting that global dissatisfaction harmed incumbent parties’ reelection prospects. “In the grand scheme of how campaigns did this year … every single developed country that was experiencing an election this year had a significant loss for the incumbent party,” Pasek said. “And I think in an environment of high inflation and global turmoil, incumbent parties just didn’t get the amount that they had had previously, and that’s my guess, at least, for the story behind why Harris’ voters just didn’t turn out the way Trump’s did this time around.”
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