parking space satire
see a4
Human library returns to wcc
wcc hosts welding competition
see a6
see b1
A NATIONAL PACEMAKER AWARD NEWSPAPER
VOL. 33, No. 6 The student publication of Washtenaw Community College
www.washtenawvoice.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Photos a gift to cancer patients and families
WCC photography department volunteers take portraits of U-M patients by Grace Crandall
Staff Writer
Weekends are usually quiet on WCC’s campus. But on Saturday, March 18, the campus was a center of activity as volunteers gathered in WCC’s photography studio to prepare for the Life Images event, a portrait session offered to patients and families from the Rogel Cancer Center of University of Michigan (U-M). In a partnership with WCC Digital Media Arts department, the Rogel Cancer Center offers photoshoots at no cost to cancer patients, sending them home with both printed photos and a flash drive with a photo collection. Life Images is a biannual event, with one session hosted in spring, and one in fall. As volunteers arrived and introduced themselves, Madison McTevia, a child life specialist at the Rogel Cancer Center, reminded everyone that the event was not about “people with cancer”, but rather about giving patients an opportunity to just be themselves with their families. “They’re not walking into here as a Rogel Cancer Center patient, but as, ‘I am a mother,’ ‘I am a spouse,’ or, ‘This is my family,’ and they’re being captured in their organic selves,” said McTevia. “I think that’s so powerful for them to have that remembrance of this time, wherever they are in their cancer treatment or experience, just to document and memorialize that.” Volunteers prepared for the sessions by adjusting studio lights, taping down wires, and testing the cameras. Three lightboxes were arranged, each with a different background to add variety to the shoot. Rogel Cancer Center staff stood at the door to wel-
Tuesday, April 4, 2023
PAULA FARMER | WASHTENAW VOICE
WCC’s Collegiate Recovery Program holds a business meeting.
WCC group offers aid in opioid crisis by Robin Wyllie-Scholz
Deputy Editor
RUBY GO | WASHTENAW VOICE
Chief administrative officer of the Rogel Cancer Center, Julie Brabbs, and her husband pose for a photo.
come the families and to offer any needed assistance, as well as provide a familiar face. Patients and their families arrived at staggered times, allowing photographers and assistants to focus on each family as long as needed. After the shoot, the photos were uploaded to a computer, where student volunteers worked on post-production. Life Images is a volunteer based, donor funded event, made up of U-M staff and WCC staff, as well as WCC students. WCC students in the Digital Media Arts program assist in taking photos as well as post production and printing. Volunteers who once were students at WCC often come back to help, or have even become crucial in making Life Images happen.
Stephanie Prechter is one such volunteer. Prechter began as an intern through WCC’s Digital Media Arts program. Prechter would spend her time at the Rogel Cancer Center, recording cancer patients’ journeys through photography. Prechter’s time spent with cancer patients solidified her passion for making the arts, like photography, a bigger part of healthcare. For Prechter, events such as Life Images are significant ways to improve one’s mental healing process. “People then view the arts as something more than ‘art in a gallery.’ It elevates it in a way that promotes healing,” said Prechter. Only three students after Prechter were able to experience the photography intern-
ship, due to COVID-19 putting the internship to a halt. Prechter hopes that WCC will one day resume the internship. “To be able to get that opportunity is a game changer,” said Prechter. Prechter now coordinates the Life Images event, but she made sure to mention that coordinating is not a one-man job. Staff and volunteers from both WCC and U-M make this event possible. Don Werthmann, WCC photography instructor, and Donna Murphy, director of Family Patient Support Services at the Rogel Cancer Center,
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Walking into the International Student Center, the sight of flags from around the globe is to be expected. One flag is larger than the rest, however, and belongs not to a faraway country but something much closer to home– the Collegiate Recovery Program (CRP). CRP’s flag, a bright yellowish-green, rests in the corner of the room that hosts not only international students, but CRP meetings as well. The group, founded in 2019, provides support for students who want to change their relationship with substances, like alcohol or opioids. The opioid crisis has been a major public health concern since the ‘90s, according to the Harvard School of Public Health, and is only getting worse. Opioid-related deaths in Washtenaw County rose from 61 to 75 – a 23% increase – from 2020 to 2022, according to the Washtenaw County Health Department. Continued lack of social interaction caused by the pandemic was a major factor in this spike, according to Mario Nanos, co-founder of Washtenaw Families Against Narcotics. “One of the primary predictors of relapse is isolation,” Nanos said. The loneliness of quarantine was hard for many people. Global rates of depression and anxiety jumped up by 25% in the first year of the pandemic, according to a report by the World Health Organization. Issues with mental health and substance use can often
go hand-in-hand. “People use for physical pain and for mental pain too,” said Matt Strang, CRP officer and peer educator. Strang experienced this in his own struggle with Substance Use Disorder (SUD). For him,
“the depression was always leading to the substance use.” Recovery looks differently for everyone. Strang found a surprising source of relief– psilocybin, the chemical compound that gives magic mushrooms their hallucinogenic properties. Strang tried microdosing psilocybin, and “two days later [he] wasn’t depressed anymore”. Though it may sound like a miracle cure, the effects of psilocybin are still in question. While some studies have found positive results for people microdosing psilocybin, like one published in Scientific Reports that found psilocybin microdosing led to improved mood, other studies have found mixed or negative results. A study for Translational Psychiatry found some positive “subjective effects”, but no objective evidence that psilocybin microdosing caused “enhanced well-being, creativity and cognitive function”. Recovery is not one-size fits all. CRP stresses meeting people where they’re at and supporting individual choice. If someone is uncomfortable with a certain path of care, it probably won’t help them.
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Engineering club hosts 1st event Leaders and members improvise through obstacles By Willow Symonds Staff Writer
Before the Engineering Club began their Electronics Evening on March 23, the leaders had to solve a problem: Why wasn’t their preprogrammed code working? The code had worked for each servo just earlier that Thursday, but now it would power only two servos instead of the intended three. Club Secretary John Martelli, club member Jeremiah Freece, and guest speaker Nick Ristow soon discovered another cause for problems: the joystick they were using
was damaged before they’d used it. The leaders replaced the joystick and chose to stick with the two working servos. Pre-engineering students and roommates Mark Nitkiewicz and Ben Cousino founded the Engineering Club this January. Each meeting was a baby step toward their first event of the semester, the Electronics Evening. “Past meetings have been about the concepts. … We might spend the whole time working on how to write some code,” Nitkiewicz explained. “This time, we’re now applying it to the project.” However, since not all attendees had been to previous meetings, all four leaders
wore black t-shirts with ‘ENGINEERING’ boldly printed across the front. They wanted new members to feel encouraged to ask questions and join in, not excluded by others who may have had more knowledge. Nitkiewicz, Cousino, and Ristow explained helpful skill sets and the foundations of the day’s activity: building a crane. Once moving onto the meeting’s project, Nitkiewicz explained the process of building a crane, which included planning, writing code, wiring the circuit, and building a frame to hold all components together. Everyone in attendance split into three
groups, and Nitkiewicz told them to “build an epic crane that’s better than the other groups’ crane.” The club’s leaders had planned every detail beforehand, but they still had to improvise throughout the evening. Each group was supposed to screw the metal frames into the circuit’s sides to create a complete robotic device. Due to Nitkiewicz forgetting the screwdrivers at home (a mistake he hopes not to repeat), the groups abandoned the screws and bolts and fastened the frames with zip ties instead. Later, several members realized another problem mirrored what Martelli and Freece had gone through ear-
RUBY GO | WASHTENAW VOICE
Club secretary John Martelli and club member Jeremiah Freece look through code to correct any mistakes.
lier: the joysticks were faulty, and the groups had to use new ones. The three groups got the circuits working at least halfway, but the end results were “absolutely prototypes,” in Nitkiewicz and other attendees’ words. Most meetings run from 4:30-6:30 p.m., but this event
lasted an hour longer. To the leaders’ surprise, some members continued to socialize and build well after 7:30 p.m. Due to time limits and technical errors, they expanded their project into next Thursday, a decision the leaders hadn’t anticipated.
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