2023-02-15

3 students dead following shooting at Michigan State University

The Michigan State University

Department of Police and Public Safety confirmed that three individuals were dead following the shooting at Michigan State University Monday night. At 8:31 p.m., MSU Police issued a safety alert in response to reports of gunshots heard at Berkey Residence Hall, urging anyone on campus to shelter-in-place or to “run, hide or fight.” The shelter-in-place advisory remained in effect until 12:30 a.m. when MSU Police reported the suspect was found dead and there was no threat to campus.

MSU police released the names of three victims Tuesday, all of whom were students: MSU sophomore Brian Fraser, MSU junior Alexandria Verner and MSU junior Arielle Anderson. Five additional victims were hospitalized with life threatening injuries Monday night and remain in critical condition Tuesday, according to MSU police.

Following the attack, MSU announced all campus activities would be canceled through Thursday and classes would be canceled until Monday. MSU buildings remain open for students who live on campus. counseling services are also available across campus. A vigil to honor the victims will be held at 7 p.m Wednesday.

Statues and other community gathering points on MSU’s campus have been decorated with flowers and signs mourning the victims and encouraging the campus community to remain “Spartan Strong,” according to pictures from The State News, MSU’s student-run newspaper. The State News reported that several students were leaving campus Tuesday to return home for the rest of the week, telling State News they didn’t feel safe on campus.

faculty and students, MSU Interim

President Teresa K. Woodruff and Marlon C. Lynch, vice president for public safety and chief of police, thanked the first responders and MSU community members for their support throughout Monday night.

campus community is our first priority,” Woodruff and Lynch wrote.“We want to thank all our campus residents for taking this threat seriously, securing in place and acting to protect themselves and others. We also want to thank the hundreds of people from MSU, local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and first responders who worked in a coordinated effort to respond to the shooting.”

Police expressed their support and dedication to the campus community during the ongoing investigation of the shooting.

immeasurable amount of pain that our

campus community is feeling,” the release said. “We want to ensure our community that our department as well as our law enforcement partners will conduct a comprehensive and thorough investigation regarding this tragic incident.”

The MSU Police commended the campus community for reporting updates on the shooting and looking after their personal safety, citing a caller’s tip that led the police to the suspect at 11:35 p.m. The suspect was found dead due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In a tweet Tuesday morning, MSU police reported that a threatening note was found with the suspect, leading several public school districts in the East Lansing area to close Tuesday. While the investigation remains ongoing, MSU Police confirmed that the 46-year-old suspect had no affiliation with MSU. The MSU Board of Trustees released a statement Tuesday afternoon, saying they have been in communication with the victims’ families and are encouraging community members to support each other.

“This morning, the Board talked with families who lost their children due to senseless violence our community is suffering,” the statement read. “We are devastated with them and for them. Please hold space with the entire Spartan community as we navigate the weeks ahead. We will get through this difficult time by healing together.”

The Associated Students of Michigan State University, MSU’s undergraduate student government, also released a statement Tuesday afternoon expressing the shared feeling of grief and loss across the campus and condemning gun violence.

“To all the victims and their families, we are absolutely devastated,” the statement read. “This is a loss felt

Ono wrote. “I encourage us all to take a moment to show our appreciation and support for one another. Support resources are available on campus for students, faculty and staff.”

Ono also ordered all flags on the U-M campus to be lowered to half mast until further notice to honor the victims.

The University of Michigan will host a candlelight vigil, organized by the U-M Central Student Government, in honor of the victims of the shooting at 7 p.m. on the Diag Wednesday night.

The University of Michigan community said they are working to ensure that all three of its campuses remain safe. All campuses remained open Tuesday with increased security presence from the Division of Public Safety and Security.

The U-M CSG also tweeted a statement in support of the MSU community.

“Central Student Government is horrified at the events of an active shooting last night at Michigan State,” the statement read. “We stand with our fellow students … as they mourn this tragedy, and send our support to all Spartans.”

CSG shared a list of resources available to U-M students across campus on social media accounts

many, and it is now the site of another senseless act of gun violence,” Whitmer wrote. “Parents across Michigan were on pins and needles calling their kids to check in on them and tell them they love them. It doesn’t have to be this way. Certain places are supposed to be about community, learning, or joy — elementary schools and college campuses, movie theaters and dance halls, grocery stores and workplaces. They should not be the sites of bloodshed. This is a uniquely American problem. Too many of us scan rooms for exits when we enter them. We plan who that last text or call would go to. We should not, we cannot, accept living like this.” Michigan House and Senate lawmakers canceled session Tuesday in response to the shooting. At a press conference, Whitmer called on lawmakers to immediately draft and send her proposals to enact

MSU alum. In a statement issued on Tuesday, Tate wrote that the shooting should be a wake-up call for Michigan lawmakers who have been hesitant to enact gun reform policy.

“I graduated from Michigan State University 20 years ago, and I am once and forever a Spartan,” Tate wrote.

“The dread I felt last night as I heard the news of a gunman on campus was quickly replaced by anger … We have a choice. We can continue to debate the reasons for gun violence in America, or we can act. We cannot continue to do the same thing over and over again and hope for a different outcome.

Multiple people were shot and killed at Michigan State University. I have no understanding left for those in a position to effect change who are unwilling to act.”

United States President Joe Biden spoke with Whitmer Monday night and deployed FBI officers to help with the response, according to The Detroit News. Biden expressed his support for the families of the victims of the shooting in a statement Tuesday afternoon, mentioning the importance of gun reform at a federal level as well.

“As I said in my State of the Union address last week, Congress must do something and enact common sense gun law reforms,” Biden wrote. “Action is what we owe to those grieving today in Michigan and across America.”

and Anthropology student from Clawson, MI. Those who knew Verner knew her as a leader and athlete who embodied kindness, according to a Facebook post by Clawson Public Schools. She was a basketball, volleyball and all-state softball player all four years of high school.

Billy Shellenbarger, Clawson Public Schools superintendent and former Clawson High School principal, released a statement to the district Tuesday, describing Verner as a student who was loved by everyone around.

“Alex was and is incredibly loved by everyone,” Shellenbarger wrote. “She was a tremendous student, athlete and leader and exemplified kindness every day of her life. … If you knew her, you loved her and we will forever remember the lasting impact she has had on all of us.”

Verner’s father, Ted Verner, described her as a beautiful soul in an interview with The Washington Post.

“It’s going to be my mission in life to make sure that families don’t go (through) what we went through,” Verner said.

Anderson was an aspiring pediatrician from Harper Woods who loved cooking, movie nights and documenting pieces of her life on Youtube. She was working towards graduating from MSU a year early to achieve her goal of becoming a surgeon.

universal background checks for anyone purchasing weapons as well as proposals that would tighten storage requirements to keep guns away from those deemed a danger to themselves or others.

Some Democrat lawmakers in the state expressed support for this type of legislature to prevent future

The State News shared information about the lives and legacies of the three student victims Tuesday, all of whom have had a positive impact on the campus community.

Fraser was a business and economics student from Grosse Pointe, Mich. He was also the MSU Chapter President of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, which posted on Instagram about his legacy at the fraternity.

“Brian was our leader, and we loved him,” the post read. “He cared deeply

Anderson’s uncle Tim Davis described her as an exemplary Spartan in an interview with The Detroit News.

“She was just sweet and innocent,” Tim Davis said. “In my opinion, she was just perfect the way she conducted herself. She had great manners and was respectful. She was very smart, a straight-A student. I’m pretty sure you will hear that from everybody.”

Anderson’s mother Dawana Davis issued a statement on behalf of the entire family Tuesday evening.

“We lost our precious daughter, granddaughter, sister, niece, cousin, and friend, Arielle Anderson,” Dawana Davis wrote. “She means the world to us. As much as we loved her, she loved us and others even more. She was passionate about helping her friends and family, assisting children and

As the story continues to develop, we encourage readers to follow The Michigan Daily’s coverage and Co-Editor in Chief Shannon Stocking can be reached at sstockin@umich.edu. Daily Staff Reporter Sneha Dhandapani can be reached at sdhanda@umich.edu.

DESIGN BY ABBY SCHRECK

“Action is what we owe to those grieving today in Michigan and across America.”

President Joe Biden

The Black Menaces talk institutional change at UMich

ask students from BYU and other schools to share their thoughts on “uncomfortable” issues such as LGBTQ+ rights, racial equality and abortion access.

What does it mean to be a menace? According to the Black Menaces, a social media activist group of students from universities across the country, being a “menace” entails pushing students to grow by asking uncomfortable questions and growing from the answers. The University of Michigan Digital Studies Institute hosted the original five Black Menaces Wednesday afternoon at Weiser Hall for a panel conversation with Apryl Williams, assistant professor of communications and media and the U-M Digital Studies Institute. The group spoke about their history and experiences as a coalition in front of about 50 attendees.

The original team consists of three current Brigham Young University seniors, Sebastian Stewart-Johnson, Kylee Shepherd and Kennethia Dorsey, as well as two BYU alumni, Nate Byrd and Rachel Weaver. Through social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Twitter, the Black Menaces have worked to unveil social and institutional issues at predominantly white institutions — colleges and universities with a greater than 50% white student population — such as BYU.

The Black Menaces’ TikTok page, which currently has over 721,000 followers, primarily consists of “street interview”style videos, where the “Menaces”

What started as a source of entertainment for a group of friends on BYU’s campus has now become a national coalition, with 12 chapters at different universities across the country, such as Duke University and the University of North Carolina, and a growing number of collaborations with social media influencers to empower marginalized individuals.

According to Dorsey, co-founder and marketing director for the Black Menaces, the group began making TikTok videos in February 2022 and has had a number of videos go viral with tens of millions of views, expanding its scope to address a broad range of issues on multiple PWI campuses.

“We use our platform on TikTok, Instagram and Twitter to call out issues that happened (at) PWIs,” Dorsey said. “At first, it was just for the Black community, but then we started going more broad.”

During the hour-and-a-half long panel, the group discussed the formation of the coalition, their own personal experiences at BYU and the purpose behind their movement. Weaver, co-founder and co-communications director of the Black Menaces, said the groups wanted to confront students and faculty about Black history, emphasizing that the Black Menaces’ main goal is to educate the public and inspire productive

The Black Menaces discuss their platform and share their work Wednesday afternoon.

discourse.

“The point of our videos is not to expose people to the point that they feel ashamed of the way they think,” Weaver said. “It’s to encourage conversation.”

The Black Menaces are now aiming to spread awareness to universities outside of their national coalition. StewartJohnson, another co-founder and the executive director of the Black Menaces, said he hopes the panel will inspire students to seek positive change on the University of Michigan’s campus. During the panel, he called upon higher education institutions to do more than simply acknowledge social issues on campus.

“For any administration, as you listen to (student experiences), find valuable ways to actually do something more than what’s performative, more than the bare minimum,” Stewart-Johnson said.

LUCAS CHEN/Daily

“Do something that actually will impact the daily lives of these students.”

Engineering sophomore Rachana Bhandiwad attended the panel and told The Michigan Daily she decided to attend the event after seeing the Black Menances on TikTok. She said she wanted to hear from the students behind the account and learn more about the group’s initiatives. “As another member of a minority group (at) a PWI, I really liked their message of going out and making people uncomfortable to the point of them doing their own research,” Bhandiwad said. “I think what they’re doing is really noble and takes a lot of courage. Coming to this event, I wanted to see how they did what they did and how I can implement (their ideas) on this campus.”

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Provost Laurie McCauley to receive full term

President

University President Santa Ono

recommended Provost Laurie McCauley for a full term as the University of Michigan’s provost on Tuesday, almost a year after the start of McCauley’s term. The recommendation will be considered by the Board of Regents at their Feb. 16 meeting.

McCauley’s original appointment is set to expire in June 2023. If approved by the board, her term will extend until June 2027. The provost works in tandem to lead The University with the president as the chief academic and budgetary officer.

Ono expressed his support for McCauley as provost and his hope for the future of their partnership in a tweet Tuesday afternoon.

“(McCauley) serves with distinction and honor, and I cannot imagine a better partner in leadership

at U-M,” the tweet said. Before her 1-year appointment as provost in 2022, MccCauley served as dean of the Dentistry School for 10 years. McCauley has also served as assistant professor of dentistry, professor of pathology and periodontics, chair of Periodontics and Oral Medicine in the School of Dentistry.

Provost

In a University Record article, McCauley said she is excited to continue her work as provost.

“I am honored to continue to lead the academic and budgetary mission on our campus,” McCauley said. “I am committed to promoting academic excellence and providing an environment where students, staff and faculty can optimize their

potential. Working together, we will ensure that our campus remains a place of innovation, inclusivity, creativity and growth for years to come.”

McCauley initially replaced Susan Collins as provost, who stepped down from the position after being named CEO and president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Many previous provosts have left the University after receiving offers to become president at other institutions.

In the same article, Ono highlighted the main reasons for his recommendation and commended McCauley’s work so far as provost.

“Provost McCauley has brought steadfast and inspired leadership to the role of the institution’s chief academic and budgetary officer,” Ono said. “Provost McCauley has become an integral part of the executive leadership team of the University providing critical support and insight during the recent presidential transition and helping to shape new initiatives and priorities.”

UMich researcher resigns following falsified data accusations

Dr. Chung Owyang, former University of Michigan chief of gastroenterology, resigned from his position on Jan. 2 due to allegations of falsified data involving millions of federal research dollars. The University deemed Owyang’s experiments as fraudulent and requested the retraction of five academic articles on Jan. 24.

One of the retracted papers appeared in the Journal of Neurophysiology in 2003, while the four other retracted articles were originally published in the American Journal of Physiology in 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2012.

University spokesperson Kim Broekhuizen wrote in an email to The Michigan Daily that the Office of the Vice President for Research monitors and enhances U-M policies and training requirements to address issues related to research misconduct.

“(The University) is committed to fostering and upholding the highest ethical standards in the conduct of research and scholarship,” Broekhuizen said.

Owyang’s research involved

studying the brain and hormonal reactions to various stimulants through testing rats. Stop Animal Exploitation Now!, a national watchdog group aiming to eradicate animal experimentation, filed two complaints with the federal Office of Research Integrity regarding Owyang’s research, the first on Dec. 12, 2022 and the second on Jan. 20, 2023. The group expressed concerns that the animals were being unethically used in an experimental setting, as the usage of rats was contributing to falsified data.

SAEN

co-founder Michael Budkie said he has worked with various news sources in the state, such as The Detroit Metro Times, and wrote a letter to University President Santa Ono to spread awareness about the allegations of research fraud. Budkie told The Daily he thinks the University needs to take further action against animal experimentation in its laboratories, particularly by giving back the millions of dollars the federal government granted the laboratory for its research.

“The University of Michigan should refund the grant money connected to this case of research fraud back to the National Institutes

of Health because the federal government did not get what it paid for,” Budkie said. Researchers use information and results of previous studies in order to inform hypotheses and generate questions for further analysis. Budkie said one of the main consequences of data fabrication in research is that it might lead to more incidents of fraud in the future.

“One of the other things that’s bad about falsified experiments like this, especially when they’re not discovered for a number of years, is (that) they spawn other experiments which are then based on … falsified data,” Budkie said. “This has a cascading effect and generates a spreading wave of fraud.”

In an interview with The Daily, LSA sophomore Paul Lais described Owyang’s situation as unfortunate and counterproductive. Lais works as a lab assistant for research on osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease that wears cartilage. As an undergraduate researcher, Lais said he believes having integrity in research is important because it protects data from misleading future researchers.

“I feel like the main point of research is to explore the topic that you’re researching, regardless of

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if you’re right or wrong,” Lais said. “Falsifying that or fabricating data … kind of takes away from the whole point of research of finding the truth.”

Lais highlighted the importance of valuing the lives of animals used for experimentation.

“It’s kind of inhumane … to waste (the animals),” Lais said. “It’s a misuse of their sacrifice to science. I feel like that’s just not okay.”

Budkie expressed similar grievances and said Owyang’s misconduct should be about more than just research fraud.

“There is somehow something worse about research misconduct when it also comes at the cost of animal lives,” Budkie said.

According to Broekhuizen, the University is working to prevent fraudulent research from happening again, outlining Ono’s future plans to cultivate and promote integrity in university research.

“President Santa J. Ono also recently announced that (the University) will create an independent central ethics, integrity and compliance office responsible for examining trends, processes, areas of concern and overall ethics, integrity and compliance issues,” Broekhuizen wrote.

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Viral TikTok activist group discuss group’s history and unveiling social issues at predominantly white institutions Former U-M chief of gastroenterology resigned on Jan. 2 following allegations of falsified data involving millions of federal research dollars

University

Santa Ono recommended

Laurie McCauley to receive a full term through June 2027

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Daily News Editor & Daily Staff Reporter

EMILY ALBERTS/Daily Dr. Laurie McCauley answers questions from Michigan Daily interviewers Nov. 8.

AVA BURZYCKI Senior Arts Editor

Art has an ability to crack the surface and shove itself deep into every crevice of humanity. Once inside of us, art warps our foundations to add new meanings to the lives we live, whether it be through pumping our hearts, pressing on our bruises or melt-

The Intimacies B-Side

ing all of the soft, pink parts that make us human. Art can be an indulgence that outshines reality, but it is more powerful as a mirror — reflecting the most vulnerable, packed-away portions of our insides. This means that a connection to art requires a connection to self, and neither can be severed from its counterpart. So, while a work of art is an open wound, our connection to it is what keeps dig -

ging deeper and deeper into the skin until something strikes blood. For this reason, the consumption of art is the most intimate act of all. The Intimacies B-side is all about how art has shaped us and cut through us, and the tenderness we feel toward art. And while art may be the common diamond among our words, each work of art is surrounded by its own unique mix of vulnerability that only the

With love, from ‘Love, Rosie’

“Although a classic ‘indie’ film, and what many may call just another romcom, ‘Love, Rosie’ enamors me, just as much as Alex and Rosie are enamored with each other.”

The statement above is a direct quote from my application to The Michigan Daily Arts section, in which I specified that “Love, Rosie” had been the last piece of media to make me cry.

I cry, a lot. I think crying is one of the most organic reactions the human body can engender. When we’re sad, we cry. When we’re angry, we cry. Even when we’re happy, we cry. Crying serves as the ultimate response catalyzed by any emotion we may experience that feels like it’s too much to handle. These emotions render us speechless, so we have no other option but to cry in an attempt to fully express them. Crying doesn’t make us sensitive, and it most certainly does not make us weak. It makes us real and, above all, it makes us intimate.

I possess many intimacies — with one of them being that I cry when I watch romcoms. I really can’t tell you what it is about them. They just make me very emotional. But among all the romcoms I’ve

ever watched (and trust me, I’ve watched a lot), “Love, Rosie” never fails to make me cry the hardest. From the looks they exchange to the laughs they share, Alex (Sam Claflin, “Me Before You”) and Rosie (Lily Collins, “Emily in Paris”) never run out of intimacies to bless each other with, and that’s what makes their love so beautiful and so special.

“Love, Rosie” is the movie adaptation of Cecelia Ahern’s novel “Where Rainbows End,” and it follows childhood best friends Alex and Rosie as they go on the epic rollercoaster that is the transition from adolescence to adulthood, falling in love with each other in the process. With countless “right person, wrong time” moments throughout the course of the movie, Rosie and Alex’s relationship is slow-burn excellence, even if the buildup drives me insane.

Alex and Rosie are intimate with each other in insurmountable ways. For them, a smile, a look, even a fleeting moment means so much more than any physical contact they could share, more than anything they leave unsaid. There is an intimacy in two pairs of lips almost touching, but not quite, in two people bound by their past, even in their vastly different presents, that no written word will ever

be able to explain. It sometimes felt like they were able to communicate telepathically. Sure, they couldn’t verbalize their feelings. I mean, the reason why it takes so long for them to finally get together is that Alex assumed that Rosie was choosing to forget the kiss they shared on her 18th birthday when she had, truthfully, forgotten. But apart from that, they understood each other in ways nobody else did. Their connection always leads me to question how they could be so intimate with each other while hiding the most vulnerable intimacy of all.

The feelings that others may find impossible to understand were naturally and simultaneously comprehended by Alex and Rosie. For

observer can add to the masterpiece. Spanning from exploring how books bridge the gaps that love letters can’t to how art can become a makeshift home, this B-side has cocooned a cohort of writers who have split themselves open and let their own soft, pink parts fall right onto the page. This is a bit of a diary, this is a bit of an art critique and this is wholly what makes art worthwhile.

instance, when Rosie’s father died, she was virtually inconsolable. Her hopelessness is understandable, but one could only expect that her husband would be able to appease her sorrow, even if to a small degree. Funnily enough, it wasn’t Greg (Christian Cooke, “Point Blank”) who was able to make her smile at her dad’s funeral. It was Alex. Alex knew exactly the gift to bring and just what to say. While Greg was off making jokes about Rosie’s cousin being a “bore,” Alex spoke wonders of Rosie’s dad and was able to bring their inner children back, even if for a short moment, in an attempt to comfort Rosie.

On books as love letters and letting yourself be known

EMILIA FERRANTE Daily Arts Writer

The intimacy of book-giving has two sides. There’s the side of the giver — of presuming to know the other person, of the vulnerability of exposing what you think is good or enjoyable. There’s the side of the receiver — of trusting the giver with untold hours of your life, with the deepest emotional part of yourself that a book can sneakily unlock. As someone who gives and receives many books as gifts, the art of book-giving is something near and dear to my heart.

Famous anthropologist Marcel Mauss has a theory of gift exchange, which says that gifts are ways of furthering and creating relationships. Unlike giving a gift, when you exchange money with the cashier at the grocery store, the goods (groceries and money) and actors (yourself and the cashier) are interchangeable. That very interaction could take place anywhere, between any two people. When you leave the store, the interaction is over.

But a gift exchange is different — the actors are integral parts of the exchange itself because they inform everything about the interaction, and the interaction would be irrevocably changed should one or both of the actors be replaced. Because of this relationship between the giver and the receiver, the gift itself becomes inalienable — that is, unable to be exchanged.

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

If my friend gets me a pair of earrings, and I lose those earrings and get the exact same pair from the same store, the fundamental nature of the object has still changed (and not just because I had to pay for them this time). That’s because part of the specialness of a gift is the fact that it is a gift. That pair of earrings becomes inextricably linked with my friend; I think of her when I see them and wear them. Our society takes issue with overt materialism, but it is natural to imbue certain objects with meaning, especially when they are given as gifts.

I don’t have to explain why books contain innumerable shades of meaning. But giving a book as a gift is like saying, “Here’s the inside of my brain. Here’s what my heart looks like.” Or, similarly, “This is who I think you are. This is how I think of you.” Often, it’s a combination of these things. Sometimes, recommending a book is like saying, “Here, take a look at the deepest parts of myself that a stranger articulated so perfectly.” Giving a book requires trust, vulnerability and, above all, intimacy. You must trust the other person as they trust you. The book between you represents that trust. In a way, giving someone a book feels like offering them a love letter in which you pour out the inside of your brain and heart in an attempt to let them know you. And is there anything more terrifying than being known?

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Literally me: The cringe characters that knew me before I knew myself

“A character, sir, may always ask a man who he is.” — Luigi Pirandello Cringe. That awful feeling that gravitates your shoulders together, tightens every muscle in your face and sticks a needle in your soul. Cringe is a divider, the benchmark on which we measure what’s acceptable to enjoy on the internet and what is mocked endlessly. It is pure embarrassment, both second and firsthand, though somewhat arbitrarily assigned. I’ve been cringe in publication before — admitting myself as a Five Nights at Freddy’s and Sonic fan, as well as a “Morbius” analyzer — but none so far as these. When it comes to the characters I’ve intimately known, these are the three — across Shakespeare, musicals and anime — that always come to my mind.

I was in eighth grade when it first happened. As we were seated in my English class, I fixated on my class copy of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” trying my best to decipher a path through its Shakespearean labyrinth of language. One character handed me a glowing thread and we began to understand each other. I don’t even remember the scene, but I remember when it clicked. I remember starting to skip over lines, just looking for the four capitalized letters and colon, the lines that spoke to my soul. I remember starting to giggle as I began to understand this gremlin and began to feel understood by the bard, despite being centuries apart. I glanced around at my friends, who were confused by my barely-contained laughter, and explained:

“Dude, Puck is literally me.”

Now, what the hell was I on about? Well, for those unfamiliar with that totally niche classic, Puck’s basically the prototypical “silly little guy.” His defining character traits and contributions to the plot of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” are causing problems on purpose and through incompetence, but choosing to laugh at both. This is what stood out to me, more than any other fictional character I’ve read: a perhaps self-deprecating admission of my childhood cycle of self-sabotage. I was never the best-behaved kid, so I think having a character that exhibited his mistakes as entertainment for himself rather than further degradation contained within a text almost half a millennium ago — something about that was supremely significant to me.

The second time was as a high school freshman, fixating on something that you possibly might’ve heard of: the hip-hop historical musical “Hamilton.”

What I’m going to confess is definitively cringey — the character I found myself again intensely relating to, more than any other character, was that eponymous protagonist Alexander Hamilton. Not the historical figure, of course, but this musical reimagining of the character. Looking back, my reasons were not as complex as relating to Puck. Alexander was simply a character who shared my love for the art of the argument, stemming from an annoying assumption that he was always in the right. I also related to his driving impetus being as existential as one should get in high school — to leave behind a legacy. What I reflect on now is how embarrassing admitting that makes me feel, or at least how it used to feel.

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GRACIELA BATLLE CESTERO Daily Arts Writer

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SAARTHAK JOHRI Digital Culture Beat Editor

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ANNABEL CURRAN Senior Arts Editor

A true knowledge and understanding of oneself is a fleeting enigma that human beings have been chasing after for as long as anyone can remember. If “knowing thyself” truly is the beginning of wisdom, then there is not a single person on this Earth who can call themselves truly wise. The essence of humanity is uncapturable, but artists have been trying to pin it down and bottle it up for years, chasing down a tangible explanation for what it is to be human: who we are, why we do what we do, what drives us and what defines us. Art has the power to capture and illuminate these convoluted and confusing facets of humanity — the good and the bad — serving to make us feel seen, appreciated and sometimes uncomfortable. As a young woman in an everchanging society with constantly shifting standards, I often feel as though I might never truly know myself. My self-perception changes with every tacky trend; I seem to wake up every morning a new version of myself. In a period of my life where nothing seems stable, it is often art that grounds me. Art can make you uncomfortable, yes, but it can also make you feel seen, leading you step-by-step to that elusive achievement of true self-awareness with its uncanny ability to know you better than you could ever know yourself. Here are five pieces of art that truly see me for who I am, or who I hope to be.

“A Room Called Earth” by Madeleine Ryan

“I worry that intimacy and tenderness are becoming

impossible ideals, rather than lived experiences. Surviving on this planet right now seems to be more about figuring out how to withstand being violated and exploited than it is about cultivating fulfilling relationships with ourselves, and with others.”

This book cracked me open like an egg, scrambled up my very essence in a skillet over high heat and mercilessly ate me for breakfast.

Hyperbolic personifications aside, that apt metaphor describes exactly what it felt like to read this book for the first time: as if the book had somehow peered into the depths of my soul, reflecting back what it saw inside with the words on the page.

“A Room Called Earth” follows a young autistic woman as she embarks on the task of preparing to attend a house party and navigating the peculiarities of other people.

The story is told through only one narrator’s perspective, and her constant inner monologue guides you through the events of her evening, sometimes side barring with uncanny criticisms of human nature. As I made my way through her monologues I found that I identified with the story she was telling, but not in a way I liked — I didn’t feel a kinship with her, but with the self-conscious and eagerto-please party attendees who she disparaged and their desperate desire to fit in with the crowd. The narrator is disturbingly observant, confident, spiritual and sharp, and as I progressed through the novel I found myself enamored with her. But just as she so justly criticized the attention-seeking nature and hive-mind behavior of those around her, I know that she would see right through my false bravado and insecurities, viewing me through that same critical lens.

Art can see you for who you are, and this book certainly did — but that doesn’t mean you’re going to like it. Needless to say, I will never attend a house party the same way again.

When the Pawn… by Fiona Apple

“When the pawn hits the conflict he thinks like a king / What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight / And he’ll win the whole thing ‘fore he enters the ring / There’s no body to batter when your mind is your might / So when you go solo, you hold your own hand / And remember that depth is the greatest of heights / And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land / And if you fall it won’t matter, cuz you’ll know that you’re right.”

Sometimes when you’re feeling unsure of yourself and anger is bubbling up inside of you, there’s a desperate and pressing need to let loose a scream into the void. When

the Pawn… is the sound of the void screaming back. A show-stopping second studio album, When the Pawn… is a lyrical masterpiece that encapsulates the rage, heartbreak and intensity of being a young woman — especially one in the public eye. With her debut album Tidal, Apple entered into a battle with public opinion using her written words as her weapon, fighting against misogynistic and misguided attempts to place her in the box of a “precocious showgirl” or a “Lolita-ish suburban party girl” whose success is only kept afloat by the men around her. With When the Pawn…, Apple hits back, winning not only the battle but the war. No criticism can undermine the beauty of Apple’s writing, or her innate ability to make you feel. On “A Mistake,” Apple sings

over anxiety-inducing and urgent synthetic beats about the urge to do something dangerous. With “Get Gone,” she growls out a vicious dismissal of her current lover, realizing that she is worth more. And with the devastating “Paper Bag,” Apple laments the lack of affection from the person she loves and the cruel knowledge that she will always be “too much” for him. Apple’s album is feminine, furious and all-consuming, allowing me to tap into powerful emotions I had never previously felt. It encapsulates not the human condition, but my condition; I love nothing more than to let her carefully crafted words and melodies wash over and devour me completely.

“Miracle Creek” by Angie Kim

“But that was the way life worked. Every human being was

the result of a million different factors mixing together…every friendship and romance formed, every accident, every illness — resulted from the conspiracy of hundreds of little things, in and of themselves inconsequential.”

“Miracle Creek” is a novel that never fails to induce wracking sobs and floods of tears. Set in a small town in Virginia, “Miracle Creek” follows the aftermath of a freak disaster that claimed two lives, leading the authorities to question whether or not it was truly an accident. As you examine the event through the eyes of a diverse cast of characters, each more intriguing than the last, you begin to unravel a story that doesn’t seem to make sense — until the sky comes crashing down and everything falls into place.

“Miracle Creek” is more than just a mystery; it’s a perturbing and enlightening examination of what we would do, or not do, for the people we love. This book is by no means an easy read — it traverses across topics like male infertility, toxic masculinity, dysfunctional families and, most importantly, the impact of raising children with disabilities. The actions, or reported actions, of the characters will disturb and sicken you, but your visceral response to the words on the page is what makes you human. No matter who you are, this book feels personal. It took my deepest fears and nightmares and splayed them out on the page in front of me, rendering me helpless and enraptured by the story I held in my hands. Each time I revisit “Miracle Creek,” I learn something new about myself, and I am a better person because of it.

What Richard Linklater’s ‘Before’ trilogy taught me about emotional intimacy

I’d like to believe that everyone has works of art that strike them in their soul. Hit them right in the feels, if you will. If you’re shaking your head in disagreement, clearly you haven’t listened to “She Used to be Mine” from the “Waitress” soundtrack.

Engaging with art is an intimate experience in and of itself. If you read a book, watch a film or binge a TV show, you spend hours upon hours with the characters, dissecting their lives. You know them. You unconsciously (or consciously) compare your lives, trying to find a speck of relatability. Or maybe you engage with them to escape your own life, if only for a short period of time.

Richard Linklater’s (“Boyhood”) “Before” trilogy is the type of art that strikes me right in the heart. The films have permanently altered my understanding of love and intimacy — I can’t remember the first time I watched them, yet somehow they’ve stuck with me years later. Three films were made about two people who walk and talk in European cities — and the trilogy sold.

The first film of the trilogy, “Before Sunrise,” follows Jesse (Ethan Hawke, “Dead Poets

Society”) and Céline (Julie Delpy, “Two Days in Paris”), two strangers who spend one magical night together in Vienna after Jesse, an American traveling around Europe, convinces Céline, a Parisian student, to get off the train with him there. They form an inexplicably strong connection over the course of one night. But real life awaits them as Jesse’s flight for the U.S. leaves in the morning and Céline has to get back to Paris, so they vow to reunite in six months.

Their story is relatively simple: boy meets girl, they form a connection, fall in love and then part ways. It’s all wrapped up in a nice 105-minute run time. Except their story doesn’t end there.

“Before Sunset” takes place nine years later, when Céline and Jesse reunite at Jesse’s book signing in Paris. With only an hour until Jesse must leave for the airport, the two play catch-up, delving into their complicated (and dissatisfied) lives.

Hawke once said, “The first film is about what could be. The second is about what should have been. ‘Before Midnight’ is about what it is.”

The first film is my favorite, the second is the best one and the third is the most painful to watch.

“Before Midnight” picks up

nine years after the events of “Before Sunset,” and 18 years after “Before Sunrise.” In this final installation, Céline and Jesse have finally gotten together. Throughout the film, they’re on vacation in Greece with their twin girls, and the two spend the majority of the film arguing — perhaps it’s the most realistic aspect of the trilogy. The arguments span across all of the real and gritty aspects of their lives together — parenthood, careers — and starkly contrast the dreamy romance the previous two films built. There is no more romanticization of what could have been; instead, they see the tribulations of finally committing to each other.

The “Before” trilogy is about conversation, being present and, of course, intimacy. Although it isn’t explicitly stated, it’s the only word I would use to describe Céline and Jesse’s time together: intimate. But the films are more than the physical attraction Céline and Jesse share for each other. What lies at the heart of the films is seemingly simple: human connection. In “Before Sunrise,” Céline says, “You know, I believe if there’s any kind of God it wouldn’t be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there’s any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing

something. I know, it’s almost impossible to succeed, but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt.”

During one scene in “Before Sunrise,” a palm reader approaches Céline and Jesse, and tells her, “You need to resign yourself to the awkwardness of life. Only if you find peace within yourself will you find true connection with others.” Every time I hear it, it resonates with me deeply. I’m a really emotional person. I blame my astrological sign — Crybaby Cancer over here — more than anything. But I hate being touched. Please don’t try to hug me, I promise it’ll just be awkward. I find it so difficult to get close to people and to form connections. The “attempt” is excruciating. I rarely say the words “I love you” to those closest to me. I imagine myself to be cold, distant and, worst of all, a bitch. I love my independence, and most of the time, I enjoy being alone. Maybe I’m just another melodramatic child of divorce, but the mere idea of intimacy scares the shit out of me.

The “Before” trilogy helps me to conceptualize love and intimacy, but at the same time, I fear that I will never have anything close to what Céline and Jesse have. In “Before Sunset,” Céline says to Jesse, “I guess when you’re young, you just believe there’ll be many

A love letter to a zombie

SARAH RAHMAN Managing Arts Editor

Dearest Zombie, I hope you will excuse the unprompted message. You see, I just can’t hold my emotions back anymore.

Your latest performance in “The Last of Us” made me consider all the times I have seen your work throughout the years, and how despite your fluctuations in popularity, your off years and the countless times people have tried to dismiss you entirely as lowbrow, formulaic drivel — you return, back from the dead, to prove them wrong. I can’t tear my eyes away from you. I think it’s time I explain why.

People say once they have seen one of your movies, they’ve seen them all. Filmmaker George

Romero posited that “The Walking Dead and Brad Pitt just sort of killed it all” — “it” being your role in movies, of course. They forget that you are a paint we put over any other story; you make them shine. You’ve got range: You have been in romances like “Warm Bodies,” comedies like “Zombieland” and “Shaun of the Dead,” heartwrenching, bloodcurdling dramas like “28 Days Later” and “The Walking Dead,” and action films like “I Am Legend.” You can tell any story, and you can tell those stories well. While some may see your inclusion in these stories as a limitation, I see you for who you are.

People today assume when you’re in a film, the film is simply a gorefest, a game of cat and mouse with a predictable end. While it’s true you make my heart race, that’s only the

beginning. Any horror film can introduce a monster that makes us want to run. Few horror films make me dig beneath the surface of my fight or flight reflexes and make me consider other primordial emotions: love and melancholy. I don’t simply root for your co-stars because

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of their peril, but because of the nature of the stories you are featured in. Your films often highlight family (found families or otherwise) and when you’re not around, there are moments of compassion and whimsy that make your terror all the more moving. In

people with whom you’ll connect with. Later in life, you realize it only happens a few times.”

In the digital age, connection has never been easier — or harder. Everything about the “Before” trilogy should be a little off-putting. The idea of a stranger asking me to get off the train with them in a foreign country sounds terrifying … But here I am rooting for Céline and Jesse to get together and stay together all throughout the films. Maybe I’m nostalgic for a simpler time (1995) when Tinder didn’t exist and hookup culture didn’t ravage college campuses.

When it comes to physical intimacy, I’ve seen (and read) it all. Despite my own lack of a love life, I’m a self-proclaimed romance expert due to my extensive romcom and romance novel knowledge. I mean, I started reading Wattpad and Nicholas Sparks books at the ripe age of 12, and my love for the romance genre has only grown since then. What can I say, Emily Henry is my queen. Romance novels take up a lot of space on my bookshelf and in my head.

Like the films in the “Before” trilogy, they’re comforting and a source of escapism.

There’s something about two people, walking around and making conversation that is so fascinating to me. The picturesque filming locations only enhance my fascination.

“28 Days Later,” amid the chaos of high-speed car chases and a race through an apartment building, is a lighthearted picnic where characters laugh and chat. In “The Last of Us,” I’ve seen Ellie (Bella Ramsey, “Game of Thrones”) and Joel (Pedro Pascal, “Game of Thrones”) trade stupid puns and trauma alike. You make your co-stars and the audience clutch their loved ones close, not for fear but for love. And therein lies my own love. When I watch characters run away from you, I don’t want them to survive for survival’s sake. I want them to live. You make us question what is natural to the world and what we’ve only shoddily constructed over the course of humanity. After all, you are a harbinger of the apocalypse but not necessarily a harbinger of the end. As society crumbles with

These films have very little plot to them but a lot of dialogue — it’s what makes the films memorable and enjoyable. But mostly, it’s the little things that make up these films. It’s the fact that Céline and Jesse talk about everything and nothing. It’s when Jesse goes to wipe the hair out of Céline’s face in the first film, or when Céline attempts to do the same in the second film. It’s the way they continue to gravitate toward each other, years later.

Céline and Jesse’s relationship is certainly idealistic, at least in the first two films.

In “Before Sunrise,” Jesse even admits to feeling like he’s in a “dream world” — the “real” world doesn’t exist in the time the two spend together. The characters are so self-aware, it’s almost ironic. Even in the trilogy’s design, “Before Midnight” is the first film to have relevant side characters with names and their own stories — the trilogy is unmistakably Céline and Jesse’s story through and through. The “Before” trilogy isn’t the “Most Realistic Story About Love” and it’s not the “Greatest Trilogy of All Time,” but it may have one of the dreamiest, shimmering love stories of all time. And I, for one, am grateful for it.

your arrival, you give us the opportunity to imagine society anew — to question what we’d like to keep and what we’d like to leave behind. You remind us of the labor that often goes unappreciated, the kind that is the backbone of our society’s survival. You make us question what work is essential and what is not, and why some people are forgotten while others are not.

You make cold-blooded, lone wolf–types care for others, often against their will at first. You make us see that sometimes the real danger is ourselves, not you.

In the end, it’s the simple fact that you remind me what it is to be alive, you undead creature you. So when people call for the end of your stories, keep telling them. Keep us humble, keep us human and rise again.

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How ‘Before Sunrise’ uses space to build intimacy

MITCHEL GREEN Daily Arts Writer

One of cinema’s greatest romances is seen in Richard Linklater’s decades-spanning “The Before Trilogy.” The series tracks the relationship between Jesse (Ethan Hawke, “The Black Phone”) and Céline (Julie Delpy, “Three Colors: White”) from meet-cute to the crumbling of their relationship. The swelling romance felt in “Before Sunrise” flows naturally into the thorny regret felt in “Before Sunset,” which ultimately leads to the frustrating pain and conflict felt in “Before Midnight.” But, in order to work as a series, we have to buy their relationship from the very beginning. We must understand how this deep connection could be formed between the two after spending just one day together and not seeing each other for another nine years. “Before Sunrise” perfectly lays the groundwork for the entire series by building intimacy between Jesse and Céline using space in ways only the medium of film can.

The ways people typically build intimacy are all present in “Before Sunrise,” like opening up

to one another and touching each other. But those alone don’t convince the viewer of the relationship between Jesse and Céline. As much as Hawke and Delpy’s palpable chemistry adds to the audience’s understanding of their deep connection, what makes the exploration of this relationship more powerful as a film — as opposed to seeing it on stage or reading it in a book — is the way Linklater constricts the space around the characters to force them closer together.

When Jesse and Céline first meet on the train to Vienna, their conversations are shot to create distance between them — space that will evaporate by the end of the film, but will come back when they leave each other. When each one is speaking, they either appear alone in the frame — with the excess space around them creating a sort of bubble that the other is trying to break down — or they appear together but spaced on opposite ends of the image, the table creating an artificial boundary between them. They each try to get close to the other, leaning over the table to shrink the distance between them, but a final barrier needs to be broken. Jesse needs to ask her to get off the train

with him.

Later, once in Vienna, the two ride the tram around town, killing time with no destination in particular. They head to the back, away from the rest of the tram’s patrons. Linklater gets Jesse and Céline shoulder to shoulder in the frame, but not all over each other yet. Jesse tries to brush a loose hair out of Céline’s face but stops himself. Céline seems like she might be trying to lean into Jesse’s arms but never does. They’re getting closer to that physical intimacy, but they aren’t there just yet. And yet that doesn’t stop them from building intimacy in other, non-physical ways. Here, the two begin to have more frank, personal discussions about sexuality and love.

As the intimacy between the two builds, so too does the tension, and the crux of this tension comes when the two find themselves cramped in a listening booth playing Kath Bloom’s “Come Here.” The unbroken close-up shot of them brings them as close as we’ve ever seen them, and the two, trying not to let the other see them smiling and staring at them, make a kiss — the only act of intimacy we have yet to see — seem inevitable. But the

Joe Pera talks with me

HUNTER BISHOP Senior Arts Editor

film makes us wait. Linklater knows he has hooked us, that we have completely bought into their relationship at this point. Despite our own yearnings for them to finally touch, we are willing to wait for the more physical acts of intimacy because the emotional bond between the two is finally palpable.

Despite the vast city of Vienna acting as the film’s backdrop, “Before Sunrise” shrinks the scope to wherever Jesse and Céline happen to be at any given time. The viewer is given no real sense of the geography of the city: Perhaps they’ve walked the entirety of Vienna in one night, or maybe they’ve stayed within a couple of districts. But that doesn’t matter. Jesse and Céline haven’t been paying attention to the city, only to each other, and the film wants us to do the same. At the end of the film, when the two take a moment to take a mental picture of each other, they don’t do it by a major Vienna landmark, they do it on some backstreet. The film has done such a successful job of building an intimate connection between Jesse and Céline that the characters believe nothing else matters except the two of them — and we believe that too.

I first found Joe Pera through a video titled “Joe Pera Talks You to Sleep,” an animated special from Adult Swim that would become his show “Joe Pera Talks with You.” In the Adult Swim episode, Joe tries to help you relax before going to bed, talking in a soft, monotone voice about things such as pretzel factories and Pennsylvania Dutch barns. I instantly felt comforted and at home.

For me, home is in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, specifically a small northern area called “The Keweenaw.” It’s where I was born, where I was raised and where I want my ashes scattered one day. Writing this makes me feel as though I’ve already resigned to staying in one place for the rest of my life, that I’m closing doors and opportunities based on the comfort of my hometown. But don’t get me wrong — I do want to leave that place, for a decade or two, at least. However, the impact that growing up in that area had on me and the appreciation I have for it has made me realize that I will never be able to leave it behind. During this period of my life, where I find myself starting to redefine where my home is, being able to talk about and connect with people over my birthplace feels comforting.

So when I found out that “Joe Pera Talks with You” takes place in Marquette, Mich., just two hours away from where I was born, I knew that I had to keep watching. To those unfamiliar with the area, Marquette might seem like a stand-in Midwestern town. But having grown up nearby and spending a lot of time there, the landmarks and natural beauty are important to me. Pera recognizes and highlights these details throughout the show, but especially in the first episode “Joe Pera Shows You Iron.” Here he walks across the black rock beaches beside Lake Superior and visits the Higgins Bingo Supplies store, all while talking about his love for their region’s rock and mineral formations. Being able to recognize these things adds a new layer to the comfort of Pera’s show, like when you pull up an extra blanket from the foot of the bed in the middle of the night.

The culture and people of the area are captured in a magical way that makes them feel familiar to me. Pera’s character in particular is simple, modest and quiet. He drives

Making change a friend through ‘Hours Were the Birds’

CLAIRE SUDOL Music Beat Editor

Adrianne Lenker has a way of worming herself into every corner of existence, weaving webs and pulling tight. The art that pours from her is squishy, pink and human — so human that I suspect it might bleed if a sharp knife were drawn over the surface. It’s as if she possesses a deeper level of knowing, one that my minuscule brain could only hope to scratch the surface of.

The knowledge expressed in her writing is so intimately felt by Lenker and then known so intimately by the listener.

I am a person deeply afraid of change, of moving on and of passing time — my favorite pair of jeans have unintentional rips and repair stitches, and I wear my same third-grade backpack with an embroidered wolf over my name in silver letters. I’m a creature of comfort (who knows the power of good denim). Even incremental change is deeply troubling to me — when the balance so carefully crafted in my life is threatened I feel like a beetle flipped on its back, exposed, belly and all. But following every whisper of change, without fail, Lenker is there, flicking me back over, right-side-up, with a pop of skin against chitin.

Lenker’s album Hours Were the Birds is so intimately intertwined with every season of life and time, birthed in one moment and dead in another. From new life in spring to the cold, deadened winter, Hours Were the Birds offers us an outstretched hand, a foothold or even a line cast into deep water. “Hours Were the Birds” and “Lighthouse” speak of the excitement

that change deserves: “Zoom, zoom, zoom / Here we go, Annie / No more planning / Isn’t this dandy?” Warm acoustic guitar, like sticky blood, pulses against the outskirts of the track, rushing underneath bone and sinew, reddening a balmy face. “Lighthouse” bursts forth from Lenker’s guitar, inviting us to spin alongside and feel the worldbuilding power and buzzing energy of newness. Hours Were the Birds hopes we find comfort in being able to revisit the places and memories of seasons past even after we have sprouted new growth. And it tells us if “time is just an ocean,” maybe it’s best to surrender, letting the sea push and pull, rather than try and force a path through it. Maybe then, when we give up control and balance, those proverbial winds of change are actually a god to be revered and welcomed in with open arms.

On the flip side, Hours Were

the Birds offers us a dead and numb winter. “Disappear” and “Butterfly” are for when growth feels hard — when you find yourself in the in-betweens of life and you aren’t able to feel at home in any place you’ve found. It’s cold and frozen and stagnant. “Disappear” details the experience of losing yourself to time, trying desperately to keep it all in order and maintain a tight fist of control. I often find myself on this side of change when I have “A million different things / That I can’t keep together / That can’t seem to see / As they tumble around me,” when everything falls apart at once in a catastrophic, extinction-level event. I am left with the ruins of comfort and made to rebuild it all from scratch. It’s almost as if Lenker recognizes my fear of the in-betweens and forces me to face them head-on.

While change is about letting the current take you and celebrating the newness it can bring,

it’s also about missing the comfort you left behind and grasping for purchase in new places. “Steamboat” resolves this duality for me; even if I can see the value of growth and change, it’s okay to be afraid. The key is being willing to say that you’re scared, bare-faced and exposed — but hoping, desperately and humanly hoping, that one day you won’t be. Here, Lenker delves deeply into philosophies of change and acceptance, and Hours Were the Birds teaches me everything that I need to know — teaches me to be honest about my fears and apprehensions so that maybe one day change may be a dear friend. And trite as it may be, if we still aren’t able to find comfort or learnedness, at the very least may we find solace in the fact that change is a universality extending past humanity — passing seasons, falling fruit, melting snow. Existence is change, so may we revel in it.

a 2001 Buick and eats strawberry ice cream when he celebrates. The most animated that we see him is when he discovers the song “Baba O’Riley” by The Who and stays up all night listening to it over and over again. It’s these quaint little mannerisms that remind me of people from my hometown, and that made me fall in love with Pera in the first place.

But it’s not just him that reminds me of people back home. In the episode “Joe Pera Takes You to Breakfast,” Pera brings us with him to a diner for a Saturday morning breakfast. The biggest conflict of the episode is his deciding what to order, and while he tries to make up his mind he talks with the people he knows at the diner. These people are familiar to any Midwesterner: the group of retirees having their weekly bullshittin’ session, or the kid waiting for his mom to get off of her shift as a waitress. They don’t feel like caricatures; they’re the very same type of people that I would find sitting in a similar diner in my hometown. It’s real, it’s human and it’s my home.

Seeing someone else express their love for the area makes me love it all the more. It’s the same way that you excitedly talk with someone you meet at a party who is from the same suburb of Chicago as you. It’s connecting over something that shaped me into who I am today, and is a way for me to be reminded of a place that I’m away from for most of the year now. It feels like Pera knows me, even if it is just a part of me.

I’d like to end this piece by sharing a bit about my favorite episode with you. In the third episode of season one, titled “Joe Pera Takes You on a Fall Drive,” Pera takes us along with him on his annual fall loop drive, which he does every year on the Saturday following Halloween. His goal is to give his jack-o’-lantern a send-off down a waterfall, and, by doing so, he will be able to heal the part of his soul that he lost when he gave his pumpkin life. He chooses to do this at Tahquamenon Falls, which are the largest waterfalls not only in the Upper Peninsula, but in the entire state.

The episode comes to a close with Pera returning home to cap off the night with a warm apple roasted over a bonfire, accompanied by a tune he wrote called “Warm Apple Night.” Pera takes a bite of the apple, and then delivers the episode’s final line: “And just like that, I can feel my soul grow back.” Me too, Joe. Me too.

The intimacy of comfort characters

CONSTANCE MEADE Style Beat Editor

We all have a TV show, a movie or a book that we love to get out when things in our lives get particularly stressful. We all have characters that have seen us at our worst moments — when the only thing left to do is to turn on a sitcom and watch, laugh and cry with some of our favorite people. Art is intimate. It cradles us in our darkest moments and provides the opportunity for some of our most meaningful connections. For me, part of what is so comforting about art is that it tells real stories about real people. So real that, sometimes, we relate to their experiences so intimately that we begin to recognize certain characters as ourselves. I mean, just how many Buzzfeed “Which character from ___ are you?” quizzes have we all taken?

For instance, I am the quirky and lovable Jess Day from “New Girl,” played by Zooey Deschanel (“500 Days of Summer”). She knows me perhaps better than I know myself. She, along with her charming roommates, is someone that I could watch forever and she’d still warm my heart. In fact, she is a character that could likely describe me better and more intimately than I could describe myself.

The characters whose stories and little quirks are just like our own are characters that I call my ‘comfort characters.’ They’re the ones we love so much that we bond with people over them, the

ones that we cast our friends as, the ones we watch just to have in the background while making dinner. This concept can easily get confused with a “comfort show” or a “comfort film,” but I’d argue that they’re actually quite different. Instead of just providing us with that warm and fuzzy feeling that art so often does, they tell us that we are not alone in our experiences.

Jess from “New Girl” shows me that there is something lovable — even admirable — about my funny quirks and crazy energy. Comfort characters show us that we are not as alone as we think we are — that we are seen and loved.

This is what makes art so intimate. It authentically represents the human experience and makes the world feel a little less vast. This is why we turn to our comfort characters; the silly Phoebe Buffays (Lisa Kudrow, “The Comeback”), the witty Lorelai Gilmores (Lauren Graham, “Parenthood”), or the hilarious Midge Maisels (Rachel Brosnahan, “I’m Your Woman”) of the TV world. They showcase, in perhaps the truest form, what it’s like to be human. It’s comforting for us to see ourselves in them and to realize that our intimate quirks and qualities are what make us special and beautiful.

So, the next time you’re having a hard day or need something to turn on while you clean your room, maybe turn to a comfort character of your own: someone who sees or represents you in a surprisingly intimate way.

Design by Grace Filbin

Design by Grace Filbin

Galaxies swirl. Atoms spin. All things in the cosmos operate in spiritual motion — a spiral movement, that is. A curl, if you will. Eyebrows raise at the sight of these natural affairs. The terrifying force of a tornado. The otherworldly twirl of a whirlpool. The coarse and kinky, nappiest strands of negrohood. What was once seen as the good, the great, godly textures of ancient eras long gone, has now been rendered second-rate, second-hand, undesirably bland … that is the undulating nature of Black hair. As Black authors Ayana D. Byrd and Lori L. Tharps harrowingly declare in their

collective “Hair Story,” “When you believe you’re inferior you’re much easier to control.”

The mechanisms of mass programming, white supremacist propaganda and the ideological imperatives of industrial capitalism have historically worked overtime to put forth these fabrications. It is no mystery that Black hair, for hundreds of years, has been as brutalized as Black people. Hardly trimming away at our own treacherous mis-education, we stay stuck, entangled in despair, in deception, so entrenched by the detriments of a spiritually/spirally deficient society, divorced from the realization that our hair in its most fine, most natural

state is divine. As Black author SuZar puts it, “hair is the receiver and transmitter of divine emanation it makes you receptive to spiritual forces.” Our hair — the highest part of the body — is holy, speaking wholly to our soul, the universe and dimensions beyond. The stories of old, of Samson, of Medusa, those told by the Rastafarians and the Afrikans of the Nile, could not deny the numinous nature of the nappy. As Numbers 6:5 utters, “he shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow.” We know, now, the evolutionary basis for tight curls, as author Bill Bryson describes in “The Body,” “being the most efficient kind because it increases the

VICTORIA DETROIT, MICHIGAN

thickness of the space between the surface of the hair and scalp allowing the air to blow.” Though the earliest of peoples were right to think that these kinks and curls unfurl into something greater than mere a biological buffer. Our hair is an antenna. Its spiral energies, swirling at great speeds, indeed, acts as a magnetic mechanism for spiritual ascension. And the cultivation of these coarse spirals surely grants one growth in their spiritual facilities.

How else would a people enslaved, abused and brutalized, tortured and tormented, mistreated and beaten find the means to see and be beyond material circumstances? The collec -

NOVA MIAMI, FLORIDA

tive spirit of Blackness is one that defies such impossible odds. This is a spirit that moves towards harmony, remains rich in rhythm and valiant in verve, unmoved by the matrices of mass control, the white power structure and Western hegemony. And nowhere better is this extraordinary persistence exemplified than in the hallowed hairs of Black people. Fade in on The Black Hair Series. Hello! It’s time to dutifully de-condition. Moisturize our soul. Reclaim the harmed parts of ourselves that, once healed, make us whole.

Read the rest of the interviews at mic.michigandaily.com/black-hair-series.

NILES FORT LAUDERDALE, FL

What is the relationship between your hair and spirituality? Or do you have any thoughts on the connection between Black hair and Spirit in general?

“There’s this idea that the curl pattern of Black hair is on a higher frequency in the energy because of the spiral shape and it acts as an antenna in a way,” Clark said. “I think that it really helps us connect with our spirituality in that sense.

What is healthy (Black) hair care?

Why should we, or should we care about our hair?

“Whatever routine works for you and makes you feel and look good. We should care about (our hair) more and emphasize that not everybody’s path is the same. I think it’s important to create an understanding of Black hair in that it can be way more individualized.”

What is the relationship between your hair and spirituality? Do you have any thoughts on the connection between Black hair and Spirit in general?

She likened Black hair to halos, positing that “Black hair naturally defies gravity, it elevates us as people when we wear it naturally. We are literally being lifted up from the crowns of our heads to the Heavens to God. It’s an expulsion of love and beauty.”

What are some hair vices you are aware of or find yourself apprehended by?

“I’ll be jealous of my friend with box braids or dreads,” Boothe said. “I just know myself, and that I’ll never get to that amount. I wish it was just like GTA where I could just switch on the hair.”

KARIS

KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN

ByAkashDewan,UdokaNwansiandKarisClark

TYAE CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

FAVOUR MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN

GABRIJELA BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

How do your skin tone and hair texture inform your sense of self?

“I went through a lot of colorism growing up, and I’m still harboring feelings from that,” Grant said. “So many times of being told the same thing over and over again, you start to believe it.” Now, she said she knows better, and she prefers to be in spaces where [her beauty] is appreciated.

TRENTON JACKSON, MICHIGAN

What does it mean to be virtuous with your hair?

“Being virtuous when it comes to your hair also means to be virtuous with yourself,” Kerobo said. “Giving yourself the grace, appreciation, time and space to be yourself are all important… It’s being able to love yourself in every situation and never letting that leave you.”

EVE CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

What is the relationship between your hair and spirituality?

“Black hair has been degraded for the sake of trying to hide what is almost incomprehensibly incredible … the wonders of Black hair are something so amazing it must be spiritual.” Skoko stated that, while Black hair has been restricted, it has also been a tool for defying oppressive systems.

DANIEL

How do your skin tone and hair texture inform your sense of self?

“I love my natural hair and it reminds me of my roots,” she said. “I really appreciate it, especially taking care of it more and seeing my curl pattern. It’s been hard to wear it proudly but I do when I have time (to maintain).”

NORTHVILLE, MICHIGAN

How do the politics of identity and desire inform how you perceive your hair, and how might we transcend their imposing detriments?

Going into computer science, Michael expressed their desire to subvert the ideal that you have to be white or whitened to be professional. “I’d wear my locs at a concert. I’d wear my locs if I was the CEO of Apple,” they said.

OMAR

EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN

What is the relationship between your hair and spirituality?

Taylor said she feels Black women in particular relate to their hair on a deeper level since they tend to be more involved with it. “I do think there’s a connection between Black natural hair and spirit because it’s like a reclaiming of ourselves almost,”

ANNE-MARIE

FLINT, MICHIGAN

How do the politics of identity and desire inform how you perceive your hair, and how might we transcend their imposing detriments?

I mean [straight hair is] fine, and beautiful in its own way, but there’s something so intrinsically amazing about curls and the maintenance and process and rituals surrounding it. I don’t know how you could not look at that and be amazed and in love.”

MYLES

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI

What does it mean to be virtuous with your hair?

Something Bates loves about embracing her natural hair is that she feels like she’s embracing “Baby Brooklynne,” her inner child. “Everything I’m doing now is to help heal Baby Brooklynne and help support her,” Bates said.

KENDALL SOUTHFIELD, MICHIGAN

Why might we compare our hair to others, and how can we collectively move away from this compulsion to contrast?

“Back when technology wasn’t such a big thing, there was more of a natural look and more of a sense of pride with people’s natural hair compared to now,” he said. Elrashid said he feels people should stay true to their roots and take pride in them.

How do your skin tone and hair texture inform your sense of self?

“I’ve always been appreciative of the type of hair I have which is 4C, cause at the end of day it really is very versatile,” Atanga said. “I’m always appreciative of the variety of things I can do with my hair. And I don’t know what’d I do if I didn’t have that flexibility.”

What is the relationship between your hair and spirituality? Or do you have any thoughts on the connection between Black hair and Spirit in general?

“Hair has a lot of energy. It can express a lot of power in a person. I feel very connected to my hair and its energy… that I interact with. It’s not just something dead that’s on my head. It has a life of its own, and has the ability to communicate how I’m feeling.”

BROOKLYNNE

SOUTHFIELD, MICHIGAN

Breaking away from college rankings

DARRIN ZHOU Statement Columnist

I remember Tuesday, April 6, 2021, well. It was Ivy Day, an occasion when many Ivy League colleges and other selective universities release their admissions decisions, and certainly a day circled on the calendar for many bright high school students. It was also a day when, after opening three straight rejection letters from Harvard, Columbia and Princeton, I realized my dreams needed… a little restructuring.

“What if I’m worthless?” I jotted down in my journal. “What were the last four years for?” All those late nights spent in turmoil, every obsessive detail, crossed t’s and dotted i’s and now-meaningless accolades, striving for that perfect résumé. My fiery desire to be a Harvard man scorched through my extracurriculars, friends and my sense of worth, dealing damage that I’m only now starting to understand as I begin the process to replant who I am. So when that meticulously constructed house of cards fell, well, there didn’t seem to be anything except for darkness beneath.

For others, Ivy Day is a joyful culmination of everything they’ve worked for, but for every ecstatic, tearful reaction video posted, there are at least 19 unrecorded moments - jagged, tearful breaths; a quiet, unceremonious exhale for an opportunity lost. Regardless, no matter the outcome, our lives after the fact are never the same.

Starting in middle school, many of us felt the seismic pressure of getting into a prestigious university placed on our backs, culminating into a roaring earthquake by our

senior years when the purpose of our entire lives up until that point seemed to revolve around getting into a top 10 college. And, every year, the chokehold those forces have on students only gets tighter; the theatrics, clamor and genuine — maybe unfounded — heartbreak only seem to increase. How did we get here?

***

Created in 1983 by Robert Morse, the U.S News and World Report college rankings quickly became the center of college admissions nebula over the four decades it’s been annually published. Everything regarding an institution’s prestige revolves around this list, affecting how students fundamentally think about college admissions. Even a slight one-rank improvement for a university leads to a 0.9 percent increase in applicants, a Harvard Business Review paper found. The word-of-mouth, grapevine prestige of a university now follows what the U.S. News rankings say instead of previously defining the rankings themselves, becoming so tantamount to how our colleges are perceived to the point that numerous colleges have made explicit efforts to increase their rankings number, from Baylor University offering incentives to their incoming freshman class to retake the SAT to increase the University’s average SAT scores to Northeastern’s focus on gaming the rankings in their core strategic plan, pushing them from a rank of 162 to 49 in 17 years. Additionally, there are numerous cases of misreporting school information for a rankings advantage, most infamously with Columbia University, whose dizzying descent from a rank of 2 to 18 was a

Redefining cult

result of being caught red-handed with distortion of class sizes, faculty statistics and spending on instruction.

The status of the U.S News rankings as the gravitational center of college admissions isn’t exactly justified, either; the goal of a comprehensive ranking of academic institutions in and of itself is a semantically meaningless endeavor.

U.S. News uses indicators such as small class sizes, high student-tofaculty ratios, graduation metrics, school and student selectivity, and institutional spending on student and faculty to measure a university’s worth. This fails to capture the rich, kaleidoscopic nature of higher education in America — mostly because such a task is impossible under the current rankings system.

As a result of how metrics are weighted, smaller, well-endowed institutions that focus on selecting students with academic aptitude will be rewarded with a higher spot in the rankings. Essentially, the defining qualities of an Ivy League school are treated as being synonymous with academic excellence itself, according to the U.S. News college rankings. While, schools with a differing set of core ideals are discarded. For example, schools like Penn State University that focus on varied admissions classes with socioeconomic diversity are naturally put at a disadvantage, since indicators like graduation rates are intrinsically tied to factors like family wealth instead of institutional quality. Penn State is punished because it admits underprivileged students and tries to give them a quality education instead of admitting high-achieving, wealthy students.

Content warning: mentions of suicide and religious abuse.

On March 26, 1997, as the comet Hale-Bopp reached its nearest point in orbit, 39 members of a new age religious movement known as Heaven’s Gate downed a mixture of phenobarbital, apple sauce and vodka, and lay down to die in the hopes of ascending to their conception of paradise: “The Evolutionary Level Above Human (TELAH).” A day later, all 39 bodies, covered in shrouds and clothed in black shirts, sweatpants and Nike Decades were discovered in a 7,000 square-foot Rancho Santa Fe mansion. And a day after that, the press went into a frenzy.

Much of it was sensationalized. Time’s magazine’s March 1997 issue featured a grainy, harrowing photo of a wide-eyed Marshall Applewhite — the group’s leader — on its cover with the ominous headline “Inside The Web of Death.” People magazine detailed, also on its cover, “Personal Stories From Heaven’s Gate: BEFORE THE CULT.” Elsewhere, coverage was much more measured and pragmatic. The front page of the Washington Post, published a day after the incident in Rancho Santa Fe, read “AT LEAST 39 FOUND IN APPARENT MASS SUICIDE” and the following day, the New York Times deployed the subheading “Death in a cult.”

Amid the attempts to make sense of the calamity, there was one thing that everyone could agree on: Whatever Heaven’s Gate was, whatever belief had pushed those individuals to suicide, whatever “mind control” Applewhite had implemented, it was a cult. Nobody disputed it and no paper challenged it because only a cult would ever drive its believers to suicide.

But what that word — cult — means is highly subjective and often not very clear. In fact, there are at least two people who would still disagree that Heaven’s Gate was a cult — and they still consider themselves members, even continuing to run the group’s website in order to keep their message alive. So a few weeks ago, I decided to email them. They responded quickly and in a matter-of-fact tone reminiscent of something sent from a PR company — and they answered any questions I had. I asked them the basics. What drew them to their faith? What was life like in the group? Had their faith been at all shaken in the years since 1997? And did they ever feel sadness at being removed from the other members of their group? They answered with a numbered list — four terse bullet points reading exactly:

“1: We went to a meeting that Ti and Do held at Waldport Oregon in 1975. We listened to them and joined immediately.

2: We went on the road with them and lived in campground situations while learning of the Next Level.

3: Since 1997 our understanding has remained the same. There are no doubts.

4: We do not feel separated from them.”

At first, the shock factor of a response floored me, but as I continued a dialogue with them, I realized that we were speaking with

different understandings of what Heaven’s Gate was. When I asked them questions about Heaven’s Gate, I was asking questions about what it was like to live in a cult. But when they responded, they were talking about a way of life — their way of life — as fact. Take, for example, how they later described

TELAH:

“There is no spirituality of any kind. Think of it as NASA, not silly nobodies angels.”

When they speak about the doctrines of Heaven’s Gate, it isn’t a matter of faith or belief. It’s a matter of what is. In their minds, they aren’t in a cult, because they aren’t spiritual. They don’t believe, they know.

If you want, you can dismiss the last two remaining members of Heaven’s Gate as crazy cultists who have been brainwashed and traumatized. But, they can — and do — say the same about other religions. Hell, they even acknowledged as much on their website, where they predicted having their beliefs derided as heretical.

“It is clear to all of us, that to the Anti-Christ — those propagators of sustained faithfulness to mammalian humanism — we are, and will be seen as, their AntiChrist.”

To the outside world, Heaven’s Gate is a cult. To those within it, all else is a cult. So, if we reach this point, where the word “cult” loses its value and becomes defined as a matter of perception, then does the word “cult” bear any meaning at all? This predicament raises an interesting question: How on earth do we define the word “cult” so that it actually describes something more than just the abnormality of belief?

Currently, the use of the word “cult” references a framework grounded in subjective belief. The first definition given by MerriamWebster is: “a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious.” Oxford’s second definition is “A relatively small group of people having beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister, or as exercising excessive control over members.”

In the public psyche, “cult” is often defined by what a group believes — especially if it is strange.

But, how can you be objective enough about religion to deride one set of beliefs as cult and another as true religion? This has been debated for millennia, ever since the fourth century when early Christian apologist Lactantius described Christianity and other “pure” monotheisms as “vera religio” (true religion), and all else as “Falsae Religiones” (false religions). But Lactantius used this distinction to justify a disdain for all other beliefs that, in his eyes, weren’t religion, but merely superstition.

That sentiment still exists today.

In more modern secular times, most people accept religious diversity and differing schools of divine thought. However, when it comes to faiths like the Latter Day Saint movement, Jehovah’s Witnesses or even Scientology, many balk at their respective doctrines. To many, it’s easier to define new religious movements not as “religion” — something we often feel should be kept holy — but rather as “cult.”

But deriding a new religion as a cult based on what they believe is not a sustainable practice because it is nearly impossible to be an

objective arbiter of what “true religion” is. I will profess a Catholic faith but, for a moment, I want to critically compare Catholicism and Scientology.

Imagine a person born with the ability to reason, but with no knowledge of the outside world. If they were introduced to the Bible (Christianity’s holy book) and Dianetics (Scientology’s founding text), would they be able to point to the Bible and say “religion” and Dianetics and say “cult?”

I think the answer is an obvious no, even as a Catholic. This is understood by many scholars of religion, such as James Livingston, William & Mary professor of religion, who noted that cults are defined as “new movements that appear to represent considerable estrangement from, or indifference to, the older religious tradition” in his 1989 book “Anatomy of the Sacred.” And Megan Goodwin, Northeastern professor of religion, described the term even more simply: In her view, cult is a “shorthand for religion I don’t like.”

Both definitions are incredibly ineffective ways to define a word that has serious social and even legal ramifications.

In Argentina, Scientology has been legally deemed a cult; in France, it was given the distinction of “sect,” and in Germany it has been declared unconstitutional. Additionally, dozens of countries have banned the religious practices of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and it wasn’t until the early 2000s when France’s Court of Cassation deemed it a religion. But neither faith agrees with the court-offered definitions. Scientology proclaims on its website that it is a “religion in the fullest sense of the word” and the Jehovah’s Witnesses similarly disdains the use of the word “cult” in describing their faith. Funnily enough, Jehovah’s Witnesses acknowledge that “dangerous cults” do exist.

The word “cult” has lost all meaning. The debate over “true” and “false” religion that began with Lactantius still rages, and it hasn’t gotten any smarter. However, if we want the word to have an actual, useful definition, we need to remove all value judgments from it, and instead rely only on a comprehensive analysis of religious structure.

Cult, when looked at as an object, often does have a specific structure. Cults tend to be centered around one living individual who is seen as a prophet, or a messiah. Cults tend to emphasize physical or emotional separation from the outside world. And, cults occasionally characterize destructive practices like suicide or sexual abuse as a tenet of their faith. But what if we used this structure that cults tend to have as their sole definition?

I’ll propose a definition of cult based on structure, not because I believe it is perfect or would be lauded by religious scholars, but because it demonstrates the use of an objective, structurally based definition. I’ll say that a “cult” is “a religious group that is generally centered around one living person, revered as a prophet or a messiah, and who leads a group to physical or spiritual isolation, often involving the sacrifice of wealth and outside contact.”

CHARLIE PAPPALARDO Statement Columnist

Design by Abby Schreck

Say yes to injectable drugs (the kind you need)

MOSES NELAPUDI Opinion Columnist

Chief

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

How higher education reinforces the gender gap

statistics also reflecting a female majority. The gender ratio in the workforce displays a more even split, currently exhibiting a nearly equal 50-50 distribution.

leadership on editorial boards for academic journals at top-ranked universities found that only 17.5% of the 4,112 board members were women.

Last year, I was in conversation with a male peer of mine about our professional careers after college. About halfway through the conversation, he stopped me abruptly and said, “You know, you really are lucky.” I shot him a confused look and he continued, “You have the safety net of marriage after college. If things don’t work out with my degree, I really don’t have any other options.”

I stared at him, frozen with astonishment, before deciding that this was a conversation that I’d rather avoid. So, I bit my tongue, brushed over the comment with a forced laugh and changed the subject. For the past year, I’ve contemplated my decision at that moment — my decision to avoid that difficult, but necessary conversation about female perception and representation in higher education. Consider this article to be my recompense: It’s time to open up the dialogue.

The year 1970 represented a shift in the American education system. It was during this year that, for the first time in history, the number of women outnumbered the number of men on American college campuses. Since that moment, this trend has only continued to increase, with the gender ratio on campuses nationwide approaching 60 women for every 40 men.

The University of Michigan is not immune to this phenomenon, with undergraduate enrollment

The problem? Despite the fact that women constitute the majority of the college-educated population and just under half of the workforce, they only hold 25% of senior executive positions.

When considering the leadership positions in S&P 500 companies, this number decreases even further, dropping down to 5%.

Women are more educated and more professionally inclined than ever before, but, paradoxically, the male dominance of the workplace has remained unchanged.

Numerous studies have shown that gender gaps in the workforce are fueled by a variety of factors.

Socioeconomic barriers, sexual harassment and deeply ingrained gender roles are just a few of the forces that contribute to this phenomenon. However, these inequalities are not isolated to the workforce — they are deeply entrenched within the American education system as well.

As stated above, the female demographic in higher education has now become the majority.

Yet, cases of gender inequality and discrimination still remain rampant. A study by the Public Library of Science academic journal found that the composition of leadership in higher education often mirrors, and potentially contributes to, these workplace inequities. Although the male population has now become a minority in higher education, most of the leadership positions are still held by men. An analysis of

Because the climate of higher education acts as a social and professional primer for students entering the labor force, any inequalities that exist in the education system are, in turn, often replicated within the workplace. As a result, these barriers to female leadership in academic clubs, editorial boards and pre-professional societies aren’t only obstructing women from gaining valuable experience to prepare them for their careers — they are also serving to amplify the deeply rooted gender inequalities that women are subconsciously socialized into adopting.

A lack of female leadership opportunities in the education system reinforces the presence of social role theory, which identifies widely shared gender stereotypes as stemming from the gendered division of labor within a society. In this way, a scarcity of female representation in the workforce and in academic leadership is counterproductive to equality. Often lacking role models in the presence of male-dominant leadership, female advancement is hindered as young girls are continually socialized into these secondary, background roles. Across the education system, these latent systems of gendered socialization all preach the same harmful message: men are natural leaders and women are natural followers.

The ’90s were filled with bizarre weight loss trends. From Fletcherism to eating a grapefruit at every meal, people pursued a variety of strategies to shed some extra pounds. With only a few known medical advancements in obesity management — many of which quickly fell out of favor with the Food and Drug Administration — the diverse array of weight loss tactics was inevitable. Going to work with ankle weights, a cup of coffee and a frozen WeightWatchers meal for lunch (with Kelly Ripa and her “Dancin’ on Air” workouts) took effort that isn’t present in today’s weightmanagement trends. But why has progress been so slow?

The figurative pendulum of science swung toward shortcuts — things like pills, surgeries and even engineered food. Truly taking off in the early 2000s, physicians and scientists have collaborated on groundbreaking technologies to combat the growing obesity epidemic in a cost-effective and accessible way. For example, a sleeve gastrectomy, a popular bariatric surgery for people with a body mass index over 35, is covered by the vast majority of health insurance providers.

However, nearly half of Americans are now classified as obese, and that figure is only on the rise. It was only a matter of time until the conditions of a larger-than-normal population invited a new weight loss trend that is markedly different and dangerous from the rest: semaglutide injections.

Semaglutide, commonly known by the brand name Ozempic, is a type 2 diabetes medication that works by increasing insulin secretion, which in turn decreases blood sugar levels. Originally created and manufactured by the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk in 2012, Ozempic demonstrated incredible results for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. The significant side effect of weight loss, however, did not go unnoticed. Participants in Ozempic clinical trials showed a 15% decrease in their overall weight coupled with an improvement in physical functioning.

Unsurprisingly, the FDA recently approved semaglutide, under the brand name Wegovy,

for weight loss management in obese people. Since its stamp of approval during the summer of 2021, semaglutide has skyrocketed in popularity. A chunk of that popularity, however, comes from the wrong crowd.

Without health insurance coverage, one monthly dose of semaglutide (sold as a pen injector) can cost almost $1,000 out of pocket. This price tag is not out of reach for the Hollywood A-listers using semaglutide to take off the last few stubborn pounds. While few celebrities publicly reveal their recreational use of semaglutide, Elon Musk took to Twitter to display a markedly slimmer body due (in part) to Wegovy. The injections have even made their way onto the largely Gen-Z platform TikTok as a weight loss trend.

Recreational semaglutide use is not inherently selfish. But when there’s a massive shortage of Ozempic and Wegovy, that strikes a bad chord with me. Diabetic and obese people who were relying on semaglutide prior to its claim to fame are now left in the midst of a shortage they did not cause.

Insurance also has a role to play in this crisis. Insurance companies are transitioning to a stingy scheme that only covers small doses, forcing non-recreational users to ration doses. Furthermore, unprecedented indicators of advanced diabetes are required to sustain coverage. To make matters worse, people are turning to telehealth companies for non-FDA approved Ozempic substitutes.

The Ozempic and Wegovy crisis is quite the slap in the face for everyday people who need semaglutide for their health.

University of Michigan college students with semaglutideindicated health concerns are no exception either.

Both the State Street Walgreens and CVS, two popular pharmacies for U-M students, have experienced periodic inability to fill semaglutide prescriptions.

In an interview with The Michigan Daily, pharmacist technician Derek Plew shared the impacts of the popularity of the drug on those who are reliant on prescriptions.

“There isn’t much we can do at this point,” Plew said. “We have to honor semaglutide prescriptions as they are sent by physicians, regardless of whether the person number 42

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a natural next step for Purdue.”

on the list ‘needs it’ more than person number 3.”

The Ozempic shortage eerily resembles the Adderall shortage of 2019, when college students who needed the medication could not receive it. It is clear that University Health Service should step in to ensure that students, especially out-of-state students who are obese and diabetic, are able to source semaglutide in Ann Arbor during the shortage. Without it, uncontrolled diabetes has been shown to cause glaucoma, heart disease and painful neuropathy; it is simply inequitable for the University to provide pharmacy services on paper and not safeguard medications necessary to help parts of our student body lead healthy, successful lives.

At the national level, the confidence that Americans can have in timely resources for marginalized health conditions is undoubtedly declining. In an age where false misconceptions surround the “self-inflictedness” of obesity and diabetes, it is critical that these medications are available for their original, protected use. The time is now for the government to step in with regulations that have previously ensured the supply of other medications. Prior policy resolutions such as regional drug distribution by the Department of Health and Human Services and termination of preauthorization requirements for minors provide a promising start to preserving the circulation of weight loss medications for those it is intended for. It is a travesty that the urgency and commitment to protect obese and diabetic people is lacking from those who have the authority to help.

Human psychology is not going to change. We cannot rely on people’s moral compasses to self-assess their true need for semaglutide. Actionable steps at the government and U-M level must be taken to prevent a future shortage of the next in-demand drug. Ozempic led to public health crises colliding in a time of limiting resources: uncooperative insurance companies, prescription shopping from the wealthy and the lack of government intervention. A healthier America is at a standstill so long as the responsible distribution of all drugs is on the periphery of the government and Big Pharma’s agenda.

AMMAR AHMAD Opinion Columnist

The Ross School of Business is among the most prestigious business schools in the United States. Only those who have proven themselves to be smart and well-rounded individuals get the opportunity to pursue business at the University of Michigan. Some of the most brilliant students at my high school ended up at the Business School, which is undoubtedly a substantial achievement. But why?

Well, it’s obvious! These students have essentially secured a financial safety net. Parents can send them off to business school knowing that after these four years, their kids will always be one job application from a high-paying job. It’s kind of nice to know that your kid won’t starve!

But what does that tell us about universities? It tells us that they aren’t just a haven for academia. However, they are also no longer a means of “survival” in America, per se. You still find those who pursue topics out of genuine interest and passion at this university, but there’s a “concern” for students that want to obtain a Ph.D. This is a valid concern to have, given that there are examples of highly educated students who become

underemployed; however, for a significant majority, higher education is viewed as little more than a stepping stone on the way to a job — a disturbingly myopic perspective on life and ambition.

This is readily apparent at business schools in particular, which can serve as a direct pipeline to some of the vilest institutions in the world. Sure, some business students are interested in starting their own businesses. Others view business school as an avenue for social mobility in a competitive, vicious economy. But then there’s a vulnerable group of business students that are pulled into big firms. Why? Because big companies capitalize on the general angst that students have about their careers at recruiting events. It makes it so that working at a big company can lead to a comfortable life — a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. This cultivates a Darwinian mindset that thrives off greediness and the exploitation of others. In that light, consulting, investment banking, venture capital and most other corporate or finance jobs all sound the same to me: making a buck in the most bureaucratic cesspools of society imaginable.

So, I’ve just laid out some combative accusations against the business majors. I obviously don’t mean all of them! Just the majority.

Google says: “the business of giving expert advice to other professionals, typically in financial and business matters.”

That’s nice. But what does that entail? Who are these professionals? And what are the financial and business matters?

Take McKinsey and Company, one of the biggest consulting firms in the world. Business students hoping to consult for a living dream of working at McKinsey. And, look at Purdue Pharma, the pharmaceutical company that manufactured oxycodone (branded as OxyContin), a semisynthetic opioid used to treat severe pain that’s highly addictive. Sometime in 2007, Purdue Pharma worked closely with McKinsey to address the declining sales of oxycodone, their most profitable drug. McKinsey advised Purdue to deceptively advertise the pharmaceutical as nonaddictive and encourage doctors to promote the drug. Following McKinsey’s advice, Purdue Pharma’s sales did increase, by like, a lot! So, the consulting firm was quite successful at what it did.

How did McKinsey do this?

Well, mainly by exploiting language to obfuscate clearly unethical premises. In the presentation they pitched, they suggested the following: “Abuse and Addiction is an attractive market that could be

Sounds like something the U-M Business School would tell students, right? Well, it’s the business language, a depraved but effective and mutually agreed-upon way to get your point across. But if you have a sliver of humanity, you’d realize this is morally bankrupt because it perpetuated the opioid epidemic and resulted in millions of deaths.

Another unfortunate and blatant example is Bachstein Consulting. This “firearm technologies” consulting company has worked with the likes of the U.S. Army and NATO to manufacture the deadliest weapons known to humanity. Although this is a minor player in the technology consulting world, I think it’s interesting because of how ridiculous of an example it is. So, what is consulting in this context?

Bachstein claims that “the majority of our experience is based on designing and testing products for professional use that exceed the highest performance standards.” I can think of a more cohesive mission statement that employs concrete language: “We focus on designing weapons and we profit when war happens.” Jobs in the weapons consulting industry are especially evil because when you design “innovative” and “reliable” firearm systems, who are you serving? Certainly not

humanity. Observe the jargon they use. Calculated subtleties in corporate language can mask the atrocious realities of capitalism. It’s a form of symbolic communication that presupposes that people are naïve consumer units (“markets”) and we can obtain something from them (“profit”) by providing them a commodity (“product”). With such a rigid and dehumanizing framework that’s misconstrued to be “professional,” firms can pitch some of the most outlandish ideas in a seemingly ordinary way. We accept it because we’ve repressed in our minds the underlying notion of what capitalism really entails: profit over everything. The very grounds of American society are rooted in this exploitative reality, one in which morality cannot be legislated. The onus is on us to make the right choices.

I started this column by talking about the Business School because a lot of my Business School peers are pursuing careers at these companies, and an ideological rupture is undermining my friendship with them. It’s upsetting to see bright minds sell their souls for such a cheap price. Some of my friends are critically aware of the moral dilemma at play, and they’ll say things like: “Well, it’s just for the money. I don’t morally agree with the company.” But is this

moral neutrality productive? I can’t help but think, “well, just how much individualism can our society handle?”

LSA sophomore Sara Lin weighed in on this: “Financial freedom is a critical factor to consider when choosing a career. But students should examine what they’re working for and avoid clear moral paradoxes. Awareness of a company’s unprincipled business (conduct) while choosing to work there is a feeble and self-centered copout.”

It’s especially ironic that after pursuing a liberal arts education and learning to think with an open mind, students will go into these big businesses. What’s the point of an education? Although there’s a comfort in having a job, students should strongly consider whether that job aligns with their values. A mild examination reveals that a lot of these companies are not just meaningless, but often utterly evil.

It’s upsetting to think that we, the young generation, are feeding into this vicious capitalist loop. I’ve seen some of my most liberal friends betray their ideology when a little bit of money was on the table. A close high school friend who has voted for Bernie Sanders in the past is now working at McKinsey. Look, you can maintain a progressive façade, but in the end, your actions speak louder than your words.

RUSHABH SHAH Opinion Columnist

Take a moment and picture this: LeBron James never leaves the Cleveland Cavaliers, his boyhood team, never joins the Los Angeles Lakers, and, as a result, never comes home and wins the 2016 NBA Finals with the Cavs. That would make 2023 James’s 20th year in the NBA without a ring to his name. Sounds weird, right? I imagine the narrative surrounding his potential Greatest Of All Time status would be vastly different than what it is today.

That’s where Harry Kane, soccer’s golden boy and captain of England’s national soccer team, finds himself. One of the best in the world, he is stuck

Does winning matter?

between staying loyal to his boyhood club and joining a team that can actually compete for big trophies. If recent reports are to be believed, it seems like he has chosen the former, sparking widespread debate among fans across the world, including some in Ann Arbor.

“I think you’ll appreciate this, professor,” I began, knowing full well that the gentleman who teaches my Writing 200 class is a Spurs fan, the team Kane plays for. “This image reminded me of Harry Kane and his lack of trophies.” I heard a couple of sighs, maybe even a scoff. But mainly, I heard laughter. The consensus was unanimous: It was pretty embarrassing that Kane had nothing to show for his career.

As many experts in the field have suggested, it shows a lack of ambition and hunger. It shows

cowardice.

Competition is the cornerstone upon which sport has been built, and is one of the primary reasons sport appeals to so many people. However, it does seem like with every passing generation, the emphasis on fun has increased, regardless of who wins or loses.

‘Winning and losing doesn’t matter, what matters is that you give it your best and have fun.’

That’s the kind of talk you’re likely to hear at a middle school sporting event, and it definitely splits opinions. For every person that thinks competition and loss build character and make children stronger, there is someone who believes that playing shouldn’t be about fighting and divisions, but instead about bringing people together.

Regardless of which side of this specific debate you fall on, we all know one thing: Winning

Jack v. Jack: Should ‘Big Government’ solve climate change?

released a study in 2016 revealing that federal job training programs lead neither to higher wages nor the intended occupation for participants.

excites people! This phenomenon is something that the mass media have latched on to for decades. An early example of this occurred in the mid-1900s when the USA and USSR contested the infamous “Space Race” — the quest to put a person on the moon. Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon, the definitive end of the Space Race, were seen by millions across the world, a result of people asking one simple question: Who is going to win?

In the years that have followed, turning everything from elections to court trials into a spectacle has served the media well. In doing so, a very simple, yet powerful, message is being delivered and ingrained into viewers’ mindsets: The result is all that matters.

This obsession with results often gets the better of us. History and legacy are the kinds

of things that can make our heads turn, because with them comes a sense of immortality. Without even realizing it, our driving force turns from trying to push our limits and give it our best shot to wanting to be remembered forever.

As I see it, there’s nothing wrong with going into something with the intention to win, and that’s what we should tell our kids when they’re playing in the playground or participating in a competition. However, it is equally important to teach them that no result is permanent — that this too shall pass. Though that phrase is almost exclusively used during bad times, it is a sound concept that applies even when things are looking good. Having the awareness to recognize that is crucial.

Maybe then, the younger generation will grow up with the

understanding that the same idea stands true, not only in sports but in all aspects of life. Neither victory nor defeat is everlasting. After every failure, there’s an opportunity to make amends. After every success, there’s an opportunity to improve. There is one potential exception to this idea, one competing priority when competing for the dopamine of victory: How are we making our competitors — many of whom worked just as hard as us — feel? No achievement can have the same lasting impact as kindness and generosity. The people who will be remembered have a lot more to them than their victories. Their character, even without the wins, stands alone — a representation of who they truly are. For those people, the wins aren’t the destination, they are just a step in the right direction.

Despite an action-packed snowball fight on the Diag, winter this year has been unseasonably mild in the state of Michigan. As rampant carbon emissions cause higher temperatures, climate change is becoming increasingly concerning for scientists, activists and politicians alike. Two-thirds of Americans believe the government needs to be doing more to address climate change, but how those actions should take place is still up for debate.

In a new series from The Michigan Daily Opinion section we’re calling Jack v. Jack, we — Jack Brady and Jack Kapcar — will be presenting opposing arguments on the government’s role in solving the climate crisis. Both of us have written about climate before, and often take opposing stances on political issues. In this edition, Jack Brady will be arguing for limited government involvement in solving the climate crisis. Jack Kapcar will be arguing the opposite; government is a necessary third party that can steer businesses in a greener direction.

Jack Brady:

‘At best, government is incompetent. At worst, it is dangerously incompetent. Let’s find a better way’

A 2022 report by the United Nations warns that the window to address climate change is closing. Rising temperatures and increasingly severe weather events should shock lawmakers into action, but the response on Capitol Hill has been mixed. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, retweeted a thread calling climate change a hoax last year. Meanwhile, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., predicted that we only have 12 years left before the end of the world (three of which we’ve already burned). With outright climate denial on the Right and doomsaying on the Left, realistic government action looks unlikely.

But realistic is what we need. Extremism doesn’t solve problems.

Liberals have successfully convinced the majority of American voters to support the Green New Deal, but to adopt such a proposal would be a mistake. Demanding a cleaner infrastructure, job market and power grid, its aims are wellintentioned. But good-hearted ambition requires specifics, and the Green New Deal offers very few. Calling to meet “100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources” while simultaneously creating “millions of good, high-wage jobs,” the 14-page document makes big promises without ever articulating a clear plan.

We must walk thoughtfully, never moving an inch without careful consideration. Clumsy, arbitrary steps ruin lives. 1.7 million Americans work directly for the fossil fuel industry, and millions more depend on it. Drastic shifts in policy will displace them.

Although the Green New Deal promises “training … for workers affected by the transition,” the evidence suggests that it won’t work. The Department of Labor

More feasible options, like carbon capture technology and nuclear energy, are far less risky to the public than large-scale government intervention. We still live in a world powered predominantly by fossil fuels, and any serious solution must reckon with this fact. Carbon capture is an effective way to combat climate change without moving away from non-renewable resources faster than we can handle. Factories and power plants can use this technology to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by over 90%, allowing the U.S. to ease into a sustainable future rather than plunge into it.

Nuclear power, as a clean and efficient alternative to carbon, must also play a larger role in the future. Solar panels and wind turbines rely upon the time of day and weather conditions to properly function, but nuclear power does not suffer from such limitations.

Nuclear power does come with drawbacks — namely, radioactive waste — but they are far more manageable than maintaining a power grid entirely dependent on clear skies and a steady breeze.

Already, most nuclear plants in the U.S. are controlled by private companies, making the industry highly subject to market forces.

At best, government is incompetent. At worst, it is dangerously incompetent. Regardless of who sits in the Oval Office, rule by decree is never as successful as letting the American people and free market find their own solution. The climate crisis will not be solved by an executive order or a congressional wish list like the Green New Deal.

Government’s positive role to play is funding the right projects.

Last August, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, dedicating $369 billion to fighting climate change, much of which will go toward further development of nuclear power. In 2020, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, introduced and saw passed two bills to subsidize more research into enhancing carbon capture. With an informed, practical and economic response, America can and must be a global leader in the fight against climate change.

Jack Kapcar:

‘Government is a necessary third party’

The core problem with relying on the private sector to solve climate change is a simple lesson that anyone who has taken Econ 101 can identify. Because carbon-emitting firms don’t need to account for the effects that their emissions have on the environment, those firms will naturally produce more than what is in society’s best interest. This is called a negative externality.

To efficiently account for this externality, a third party like the government must create barriers that force firms to lower emissions. Taxes and regulations can increase the cost of production and lower the amount of carbon produced, but even more effective is a cap-and-trade system.

Under cap-and-trade, a government distributes a “capped” number of permits that every emitter of greenhouse gasses can

purchase. Those emitters can then “trade” those permits with other emitters at the price dictated by the market. Cap-and-trade was successfully deployed in the U.S. in the 1990s to limit emissions that cause acid rain, resulting in an 81% improvement in stream and river health today. Similar programs targeting carbon emissions have also been introduced in Europe with positive results.

Cap-and-trade represents a market-based solution to climate change. Often, when we speak about sweeping government solutions to major problems, those solutions are automatically associated with inefficiency and bureaucracy. There are, of course, popular examples to validate this feeling, but this doesn’t mean that the government is inherently bad at doing things. Government-led infrastructure spending produced some of the most groundbreaking projects of the past century and is one of the most effective means of stimulating economic growth.

To keep green energy investments efficient, the government needs to better recognize when and where its involvement is needed. In projects that require facilitation between business and community leaders or where the job is too large for the market to take on, government leadership is appropriate. In smaller industries, subsidizing existing projects and relying on market forces is more effective. Done correctly, government involvement brings a vital advantage in the fight against climate change.

Improving technology can also improve efficiency. By funding scientific studies and research at academic institutions, the government can help develop and implement new technologies that reduce emissions and mitigate the impacts of climate change. The U.S. does, by a large margin, the most research in the world, in part because of our prolific, government-supported academicindustrial complex. Continuing this innovative tradition requires government involvement, and can be used to combat climate change.

Regulations are another powerful tool that can address the climate crisis. It’s true that regulations can create incentives for finding loopholes, but they also incentivize the exploration of new technological alternatives. As more countries around the globe commit to lowering emissions, large firms are beginning to see the value in diversifying their revenue streams to become more climatefriendly. Oil-producing giant BP, for instance, caused shockwaves after it decided to restructure itself as a renewable energy provider. Further regulation of carbon will continue to push companies like BP toward exploring new sustainable technologies.

For too long, climate change has been framed as a solution for consumers to solve. Slogans like “Together, we can solve the climate crisis” that dot activist websites are inspiring, but using a burlap grocery bag can only go so far. Increasingly, we need large, sweeping government action to solve the climate-associated problems businesses and consumers are either unwilling or unable to address.

From short kings to tall queens: It’s time to reevaluate the way we view height

When we perceive a person, we subconsciously take in a collection of visual details. We notice hair color, eye color, weight, skin color and height. All of these factors of physical appearance impact the way people are perceived to varying degrees. However, I’d like to specifically focus on the ways height contributes to someone’s societal perception.

When you examine our societal structures closely, height is at the center of many heteronormative relationships, leadership dynamics, athletic opportunities and more. Does height contribute to our social status? Certain studies show that yes, height has a positive correlation with social status, meaning that taller individuals have increased social standing.

In fact, this study shows that humans subconsciously prioritize taller individuals by yielding to them in the street and avoiding physical contact with them more intentionally, suggesting that height can influence our perceptions of a person’s authority and dominance. This subconscious hierarchy may be harmless, but this concept spreads deeper.

Being tall can correlate across all genders with making more money, or even being better educated. This seemingly insignificant trait is actually deeply rooted in how societal success is constructed. Given that height is an attribute that cannot be changed, this is problematic. Furthermore, this hierarchy can perpetuate racism, as Asian and African countries, such as Vietnam and Nigeria, tend to have shorter average heights, while predominantly white countries, such as the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark, tend to have taller average heights.

Additionally, society has manufactured a sort of “acceptable height range.” Although research has shown many advantages to being tall, one can also be “too tall.” You become a villain at concerts, in auditoriums and have troubles on planes and buying well-fitted clothing. In general, when it comes to physical characteristics, society isolates the “outliers.” Given society’s narrow and unrealistic standards, being too heavy, too tall, too short, too thin or not able-bodied enough makes existing that much harder.

More trivially, height serves as the distinguishing factor in what sports you can play from a young age. While being short serves as an advantage in sports such as gymnastics and diving, being tall serves as an advantage in basketball and volleyball. In the modeling world, both male and female models are expected to be tall.

The clearest way in which height norms are prevalent is in dating, specifically in heterosexual couples. There’s no doubt that to many people, height is a firm determinant of who they can date. Specifically, women who are interested in men generally prefer men who are taller than them; this norm is diligently followed: 92.5% of couples satisfy the taller-manshorter-women standard. This can stem from evolutionary impulses, feeling protected in a dangerous world for women or simply feeling pressured to keep up with the social norm.

Recently, there’s been a rise in the use of the term “short kings,” in an attempt to celebrate short men who are often disadvantaged in society romantically, athletically and in regard to power. Television Shows such as “The Sex Lives of College Girls” have dedicated whole storylines celebrating short kings. Despite this trend, 55% of women (from a sample of U.S. inhabitants), still say they will only date taller men.

Tall women can also fall victim to dating expectations around height, and to expectations surrounding femininity. Specifically, many men prefer a woman who weighs less than them, meaning that the taller women are expected to be slimmer in order to be deemed “attractive.”

“Body positivity” is a term that was coined on social media in 2012, and has gained increasing popularity in the succeeding years. The term is meant to celebrate and love our bodies as they are, instead of surrendering to the societal pressures to hate them. Although the term was originally designed to celebrate bodies of all weights, there have been conversations about expanding what the term encompasses. Specifically, given what I’ve discussed thus far, including height in this movement is an essential move forward. While less talked about than weight, height is a distinguishing factor in how society views individuals, and therefore should be included in the body positivity movement. As seen in the previously cited studies, height drastically influences the way we are perceived by those around us. We should be teaching ourselves and others to love our bodies, including our height, and try to reject norms that prohibit this.

Why is height so important to us? Why do we prioritize it so openly both consciously and subconsciously? We know that height can affect how people see themselves and how they are perceived by others. Everyone’s body is unique, and differences in height, like any other physical characteristic, should not be a source of insecurity. While many people are unaware of the ways height frames our perceptions of others, actively trying to curb the associations we make with someone being short or tall is essential in promoting inclusivity.

JACK BRADY & JACK KAPCAR Opinion Columnists

CLAUDIA FLYNN Opinion Columnist

SportsMonday: Indiana shows Michigan what it could have been

JARED GREENSPAN Daily Sports Writer

The night began with a deafening crowd whipping Crisler Center into a frenzy. It ended with a rising “Let’s Go Hoosiers” chant filling an empty stadium while despondent Michigan fans made their way for the exits.

Another big game, another missed opportunity. This one will sting, even worse than others: The Wolverines coughed up an 11-point lead and were held scoreless across the game’s final five minutes. They had a prime opportunity to secure a marquee victory that would bolster their meager NCAA Tournament resume. Instead, as junior center Hunter Dickinson said following the game, the team’s momentum “evaporated.”

It stings even more considering the opponent. That’s because Indiana posed as a living, breathing blueprint for how Michigan could have revived its season.

On Jan. 11, the struggling Hoosiers sunk to their nadir in Happy Valley, suffering an 85-66 loss against Penn State. Indiana —

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

pegged as favorites to win the Big Ten in the preseason media poll — was suddenly nosediving toward the bottom, just a half game up on last-place Minnesota. The Hoosiers teetered at 10-6 overall and 1-4 in league play.

Things in Bloomington were, to put it mildly, unraveling.

“Our guys are a little down right now, and they should be,” Indiana coach Mike Woodson told reporters after the loss.

“They got smacked in the face tonight.”

But something inspiring happened: After getting smacked, Indiana peeled itself off the mat and fought back.

Since that harrowing moment, the Hoosiers are 8-1. They have surged to sole possession of second place in the Big Ten and have beaten three other top teams in the conference: Purdue, Illinois and Rutgers. Led by forward Trayce Jackson-Davis and guard Jalen Hood-Schifino, Indiana is the team that everyone expected it to be. Sometimes, it just takes time.

That’s the refrain that Michigan coach Juwan Howard has stressed over the last two months,

as the Wolverines have struggled to find their own footing. In that same preseason poll, Michigan came in at third. Things, of course, haven’t played out that way.

Michigan’s nadir is eerily simi-

Michigan fends off second-half surge, defeats Nebraska 80-75

JACK CONLIN Daily Sports Writer

As the final buzzer sounded at Crisler Center on Sunday, the No. 12 Michigan women’s basketball team appeared to let out a collective sigh of relief.

After fending off a secondhalf surge from the Cornhuskers, Michigan (20-5 overall, 10-4 Big Ten) defeated Nebraska (14-11, 6-8), 80-75, to earn its fourth-straight win. Strong showings from a cast of Wolverines allowed them to eke out a close victory despite a valiant comeback effort from the Huskers.

“Nebraska is a really good team,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico said postgame. “We knew they were going to be a challenge … but I was really proud of the way we got down and battled back.”

The Wolverines looked up to that challenge from the onset.

After trading blows in the first quarter, Nebraska drew a charge call that fifth-year wing Leigha Brown clearly disagreed with. On the subsequent defensive possession, Brown stripped the ball from Huskers guard Maddie Krull, then found sophomore guard Jordan Hobbs with a no-look pass in transition.

Hobbs made her shot and was fouled, leading to an and-1 opportu-

nity that gave the Wolverines an 8-5 lead and ignited the home crowd.

The basket sparked another productive showing from Hobbs, who finished with 10 points and five rebounds. Her finish on the pass from Brown was one of many early highlights that gave Michigan the breathing room it needed to survive Nebraska’s third-quarter rally.

In a departure from recent outings, Michigan appeared determined to play offense through their post players early on, looking past Brown to the paint on numerous possessions at the front end. Graduate forward Emily Kiser and junior forward Cameron Williams each received a majority of early offensive touches, and freshman forward Chyra Evans had another strong showing off the bench.

Evans, in particular, proved to be an important piece overall. Late in the third quarter, with the Wolverines down 48-46, she made a layup in the paint to tie the game up. On the ensuing Nebraska possession, she stole an errant pass and assisted on a 3-pointer by freshman forward Alyssa Crockett to force a Huskers timeout.

While Michigan’s game plan clearly focused on interior scoring, though, Nebraska’s was the opposite — attack from deep. Much of that success came in the second quarter. During that stretch, the Huskers knocked down four 3-pointers that drowned out any of the Wolverines’ own offensive success, leaving Nebraska down just 36-31 at the half.

In a duel of two top-three defensive units in the Big Ten, the pressure

on both sides took center-stage throughout the second half. Michigan challenged Nebraska on the back end in the first half, forcing 11 turnovers and holding the Huskers to just 31 points.

But the Wolverines’ strong pressure, particularly on the interior, faded in the third quarter. Michigan let up a series of easy baskets inside to start the period, struggling to account for the Huskers’ off-ball movement. Meanwhile, Nebraska found a groove on defense, forcing a number of Michigan turnovers to put itself right back in contention.

“I think it’s just our ability to lock in for, you know, five minutes here and five minutes there,” Evans said. “Instead of one (or) two minutes … I feel like that’s where we allowed them to get the most runs, when we weren’t really locked in.”

Late in the third quarter, with the game up for grabs, a series of high-energy sequences turned the tide for the Wolverines. After the quarter’s media timeout, Brown, Evans and Kiser exhibited strong individual efforts to quash the Nebraska comeback effort — notching steals, rebounds and tough scoring finishes to prevent the upset.

“I think it’s experience,” Barnes Arico said. “Leigha Brown and Emily Kiser really. They never seem to get frazzled or riled up. I think one is experience and two is the schedule that we’ve played. I think that’s prepared us for these moments because we’ve been in so many of these situations during the course of the season.”

That late effort proved to be the difference for Michigan. When the dust settled, the Wolverines’ composure overshadowed the Huskers’ second-half surge, powering Michigan to its fourthstraight win.

lar to Indiana’s. On Jan. 29, the Wolverines took the floor inside the Bryce Jordan Center and couldn’t stop a nosebleed. Penn State waltzed to an 89-69 romp. By that point, Michigan had teetered for weeks; by the end of the

game, it looked as if the Wolverines were about to fall completely off the cliff.

And yet, just like Indiana did, Michigan punched back — for a moment.

In the ensuing game, the Wolverines notched their best win of the year, winning in Evanston against a Northwestern team that is destined for the NCAA Tournament. Then, they took care of business at home against Ohio State and Nebraska, compiling their first three-game winning streak since the season’s inception.

But against Indiana — after 35 minutes of inspired basketball — Michigan reverted to its old ways.

“This team has definitely gotten better,” Howard insisted. “…

At the end of the day, I trust we’ll continue to stay tight as a group and still have the trust. We have six (conference) losses, eight (conference) wins and we’ll keep plugging away because there’s a lot of season left.”

Indiana managed to get back on track earlier in the season than Michigan, mounting a turn around in January. The Wolver- GRACE BEAL/Daily

ines didn’t have the same fate.

Still, it wasn’t impossible. Saturday, the sold-out crowd jammed inside Crisler Center latched onto the fever, roaring along as Michigan stormed out to a double-digit first-half lead. The players and coaches certainly believed, speaking ad nauseam about the heightened sense of urgency.

The path back toward contention had materialized. Hold onto the lead against the Hoosiers and Michigan heads to Madison on Tuesday riding a four-game winning streak to face a struggling Badgers team. Then the Wolverines come back home for another rivalry clash with Michigan State, a series that the two teams have split of late — with the advantage going to the home team.

Suddenly, you have a win streak — and a turnaround — that looks a lot like Indiana’s. If Michigan needed a blueprint, all it had to do was look across the way towards the Hoosiers’ bench. But now?

Dickinson said it best:

“We’re kind of back to the drawing board.”

Michigan’s offense makes early exit in loss to Indiana

PAUL NASR Managing Sports Editor

With the game on the line in the Michigan men’s basketball team’s 62-61 loss to No. 18 Indiana, the Wolverines’ offense disappeared, not scoring in the final 5:12 minutes of play and missing its last seven shots.

And after the game, junior center Hunter Dickinson still didn’t know where it went.

“I don’t know man, I really don’t know, I don’t know,” Hunter dejectedly repeated when asked to explain the offensive struggles down the stretch. “That last five minutes was kind of a blur, I don’t really know what happened.”

No matter how blurry things looked to Dickinson, Michigan’s offense clearly wasn’t the same as the game entered its critical final stretch. The tempo, the aggression, the efficiency it displayed throughout most of the game — all of it vaporized. The Wolverines’ scoring was last seen in a Dickinson hook shot using his non-dominant right hand with just over five minutes left.

Running down the court, Dickinson stared at his right hand in celebration. But that hand, and all of Michigan’s, became bonechillingly cold. So cold that Dickinson was left repeating himself in despair, over and over again afterward.

“That was hard, that was hard to play through, that was hard to play through,” Dickinson said of the final five minutes.

The Wolverines had an especially hard time executing. Relying on fast-paced play early, Michigan faltered when the game settled down and it was time to run sets consistently. The culprit wasn’t just minimal cohesion, but also the group’s connection with the game plan.

“Organization was a big reason why (in) some of the sets we weren’t able to get to what we were asking from the offensive end,” Michigan coach Juwan Howard said. “Because there are times when guys want to go ahead and do it how they want to do it, or they see how the defender’s playing and they feel that this is the best way how to run the set. … That’s a learning process that the players have to get better with.”

When the Wolverines did create space in that stretch, it further highlighted how alien their offense became from their scoring throughout much of the game. Sophomore guard Kobe Bufkin missed an open layup in the paint en route to zero second half points, while freshman guard Dug McDaniel had a late drive attempt vehemently rejected off the backboard by Indiana forward Trayce Jackson-Davis.

And those looks — as unsuccessful as they became — were an anomaly. For most of the game’s final five minutes, Michigan didn’t create any real chances.

With just over a minute left and after multiple Hoosier turnovers, the Wolverines’ absent offense got another chance to reestablish itself. Instead, it was stagnant yet again.

Freshman wing Jett Howard and junior forward Terrance Williams II exchanged multiple passes on the same side of the court as the rest of the offense stood and watched. Williams then forced a pass to a doubleteamed Dickinson and the ball couldn’t get to him.

No post touch to Dickinson. No off-ball movement. No shot opportunities. And no semblance of an offense.

“Whatever we were doing wasn’t working,” Dickinson said. “Whether it’s executing or just running the plays right, it wasn’t a good all-around effort by us out there. We need to execute better down the stretch if we’re gonna win a tough game like that.”

Despite the offenses’ early exit, Indiana kept giving Michigan’s offense chance after chance to re-assert itself into the game. Jackson-Davis’ missed free throw while leading by one with 12 seconds left served as the final invitation. A quick timeout bought the Wolverines time to draw up that grand entrance. A team hungry for a ranked win looked ready to cash-in.

None of that mattered. By then, Michigan’s offense was long gone, and it was unable to find it again. Not in the final five minutes. Not through its rehearsed sets. Not in that final timeout.

The final play resulted in a heavily-contested, off-balanced shot by Jett. It ended up nowhere near the rim as the clock expired, seemingly joining the Wolverines’ offense. Gone in a flash.

‘Call your friends, tell them I’m back’: Frank Nazar III makes debut statement at ‘Duel in the D’

DETROIT — Sitting in his postgame press conference, freshman forward Frank Nazar III wasted little time to share his feelings on his return to hockey. The Mt. Clemens product quoted Eminem:

“‘It’s why they call me Slim Shady — I’m back.’ ”

After making his debut Friday night in East Lansing against No. 15 Michigan State, Nazar netted his first goal and point of the season at a much needed time in Saturday’s ‘Duel in the D.’ After a goal by Dylan Duke midway through the second period leveled the game at 2-2, Nazar coasted on that newfound energy to score, putting the No. 5 Michigan hockey team into the lead.

Though the Wolverines ceded a goal late in the third to send the game into overtime, Nazar’s goal was not simply a statement of his game, but of the journey it took for

him to even find his way into the contest. Shaking the rust off quickly, Nazar confidently rejoined a unit missing key pieces, refusing to miss a beat in a 4-3 overtime win.

“He’s a kid with a lot of confidence, but he’s a thinker,” Michigan coach Brandon Naurato said. “He’s a student of the game and (I) just wanted to let him know that you don’t have to light the world on fire in game one, so he just waited until game two.”

Despite the momentous occasion, Nazar received not only the clearance to play, but a full-blown green light. Nazar competed on the second line and second power play unit for Michigan, demonstrating his talent and impact. On a night when the Wolverines were down first-line freshman forward Adam Fantilli, Nazar received a rapid top-six promotion.

Training wheels weren’t required.

Nazar jumped at the opportunity to play. Though many players, no matter how seasoned, can often

require a transitional period to get up to speed, Nazar didn’t hold back.

Not that he had the choice, though. After a raucously violent first game of the series, Saturday’s ‘Duel’ played out as advertised: a gritty, physical matchup that could make any player sweat. Yet, Nazar

stood tall amid it all.

“To me, that’s what I’m here to do,” Nazar said. “I want to play and play in these big games. … I’m glad I got put in and I’m glad (Naurato) believed in me and (I) went out there and helped the team win.”

The most important part of Nazar’s game might not even

be what’s physically on the ice though. After an extended break from competition, the temptation to sit back and watch — to defer — could have been alluring. After all, it’s a challenge to physically and mentally attune to a rivalry game even for players who’ve participated all season.

Instead, Nazar displayed what made his game so seamless — the mental transition.

Collecting a Spartan turnover in the neutral zone, Nazar captained a 3-on-1 opportunity in the offensive zone. With freshman forward Gavin Brindley and senior forward Philippe Lapointe calling for the puck on their righthanded strong sides, the chance to pass presented itself.

And Nazar almost bit.

“I was kind of looking for the shot, but I was also thinking pass,” Nazar said. “At the end, I kind of fumbled it. (I was) thinking too much pass, so I kind of faked it and then I was just able to get a hold of it and sneak it in top shelf.”

Skating the fine line between a fake pass and a fumbled puck, Nazar opted to shoot, rifling the puck top-shelf past goaltender Dylan St. Cyr. In a play that could’ve materialized any number of ways, Nazar trusted himself — and goal or not, that speaks more volumes about his play than anything else.

Back again, indeed.

Nazar’s impact, while evident tonight, will be needed for Michigan ahead. His blend of playmaking, scoring and skating ability has the chance to ignite a Michigan lineup that has continuously searched for secondary scoring.

Saturday night, the Wolverines got a taste of what Nazar can bring to the table and what it took for him to return to it. Nazar knows his journey, because it’s just begun. And as Nazar recapped his night inside Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena, he left it to Eminem to tell the story: “So it’s like ‘call your friends, tell them I’m back.’ ”

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Spartan Strong

Times like these are bigger than sports. The Michigan Daily and its sports section stands in solidarity with our peers at Michigan State University. Acts of gun violence like those that unfolded in East Lansing Monday night should never happen. The Daily believes students should be able to attend learning institutions without fear that gun violence might take their lives. We condemn the lack of solutions to these all too common tragedies. Enough is enough.