CELEBRATING OUR ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIFTH YEAR OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM Tuesday, September 22, 2015
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‘U’ sexual assault results Ex-SAM placed in national context COURTS
AAU data shows survivors of sexual assault unlikely to report crime By ALLANA AKHTAR Daily Staff Reporter
About 30 percent of undergraduate women at the University reported experiencing nonconsensual penetration or sexual touching by force or incapacitation during their time at the University, a new report released Monday found. Nationwide, the figure was 23.1 percent. Of University students who experienced nonconsensual penetration involving physical force, 76.8 percent of them did not
report the crime. These findings come from a set of data released by the Association of American Universities, which surveyed 28 top research universities, including the University. Of all students who said they did not report their experience of sexual misconduct, 37.4 percent said it was because they didn’t think anything would be done about it. Of all students surveyed, 40.2 percent indicated it was extremely or very likely that campus officials would conduct a fair investigation of a reported instance of sexual misconduct. Nationwide, 11.7 percent of surveyed college students experienced nonconsensual sexual contact as a result of force or incapacitation, according to the survey. The figure was 14.6 percent at the University. Nationally, 50 percent of
students who experienced sexual misconduct said they did not report the incident because they didn’t consider it serious enough. Of University students surveyed, 30.3 percent of undergraduate women at the University reported experiencing nonconsensual penetration or sexual touching by force or incapacitation during their time at the University. Nationwide, the figure was 23.1 percent. Holly Rider-Milkovich, director the University’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center, said the survey data will help inform the University’s approach to sexual misconduct. “With regard to some areas of nonconsensual sexual behavior, our numbers are higher than the aggregate data, while in other areas we are consistent with it,” she said. “But in all cases, the
numbers are too high and we are committed to continuing to address the issue of sexual misconduct. The data from these surveys are critical to our work. The more we know about our community, the better we are able to tailor our programs to be most effective.” The AAU survey results come several months after the University released its own sexual assault report in June. The University’s data showed 22.5 percent of female students were sexually assaulted during their time at the school. The AAU survey did point to consistencies with the University’s own survey results — namely that most instances of sexual assault occurred after verbal pressure, under the influence of drugs or when too drunk to stop what was See SURVEY, Page 3
member to face fines, probation Alum sentenced on vandalism charge after ski trip By ALLANA AKHTAR and ISOBEL FUTTER Daily Staff Reporters
Matthew Vlasic, one of four former fraternity members charged in connec-
ACADEMICS
By GENEVIEVE HUMMER Daily Staff Reporter
Senate Assembly members voiced overwhelming support for a proposal floated last week to increase the number of classes scheduled on Fridays. The straw poll — which isn’t binding — was conducted at Monday’s meeting of the Senate Assembly. Classical Studies Prof. David Potter, chair of the body’s Student Relations Advisory Committee, said the committee has discussed the possibility of increasing the number of Friday morning classes in response to excessive alcohol consumption among students. “The number of lecture classes for first- and second-year classes that occur with a Friday section
WEATHER TOMORROW
HI: 77 LO: 48
have declined significantly in the course of the last couple of years which has really led to a much more intensive culture of student drinking on what is now known as ‘thirsty Thursday,’ ” Potter said. The issue was first raised at a Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs meeting last week, and was brought to the full Senate Assembly on Monday. In an interview last week with The Michigan Daily, University Provost Martha Pollack said she supported the idea of having more classes on Fridays, and noted that schools and colleges are already encouraged to hold 15 percent of their classes on that day. Specifically, the committee suggested the central administration mandate 100and 200-level courses with 10 sections or more have a required lecture on Friday. Potter said while the decision to hold more Friday classes will not alleviate dangerous campus drinking entirely, it is a step in See ASSEMBLY, Page 3
See SENTENCE, Page 3
GOVERNMENT
Faculty discuss Friday classes, student data Senate Assembly straw poll shows support for more Friday lectures
tion with damages inflicted on a Northern Michigan ski resort, was sentenced Monday to two years of probation, 100 hours of community service and a $5,000 fine, according to Otsego County Prosecutor Michael Rola. Vlasic, former member of the University’s chapter
Rep. Irwin proposes bill to legalize marijuana
DELANEY RYAN/Daily
Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor recognized September as Recovery Month at the Ann Arbor City Council meeting Monday.
City Council allocates funds to maintain MCity facilities Members also consider zoning change, snow removal policy By LEA GIOTTO Daily Staff Reporter
With a unanimous vote, the Ann Arbor City Council approved a resolution to enter
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into an agreement with the University’s Board of Regents that requires the City to contribute to the maintenance of MCity — Ann Arbor’s automated vehicle testing facility that opened in July. This contract will make way for the appropriation of $79,252 in federal funds to Mcity. The city of Ann Arbor will contribute to the project by helping to sustain the test environment by maintaining
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existing equipment, providing network support and enhancing the facility as needed for additional research efforts. The resolution approves Ann Arbor’s participation in a cooperative agreement between the University’s Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) and the Federal Highway Association, part of the goal of seeking “external partners to upgrade and leverage the test See COUNCIL, Page 3
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Wholesale excise tax on industry could generate millions in state revenue By SAMANTHA WINTNER Daily Staff Reporter
State Rep. Jeff Irwin (D–Ann Arbor) introduced legislation Thursday that aims to legalize and tax the private use of marijuana for Michiganders who are 21 and older. The Marijuana Legalization and Regulation Act — House Bill 4877 — would allow Michigan residents to grow a limited amount of marijuana plants in their own homes for their own consumption. Under the legislation, only licensed dispensaries would be able to sell marijuana to the public. Amounts of one ounce or less can be transferred between individuals if no payment is exchanged. In an interview, Irwin said See BILL, Page 2
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News
2 — Tuesday, September 22, 2015
TUESDAY: Professor Profiles Campus Profiles Voices Professor
MONDAY: This Week in History
WEDNESDAY: In Other Ivory Towers
THURSDAY: Twitter Talk
“If you are coming from a different culture, try to meet people. People here are very nice; don’t be afraid to talk to people. Even if you are an introvert, it’s OK. People will come and talk to you, so I think it is very easy for you to open up. If international students are worried about fitting into this culture, just be yourself and people here will accept you.” —Dilparinder Singh, firstyear MBA student in the Ross School of Business
“Do not be scared to put yourself out there even if you have to end up doing things by yourself — you end up meeting so many awesome different people from various paths of life. It’s really cool to see the different types of people who go here that are united by the common goal to be leaders and best.” —Nursing sophomore Alexis Valenciano “Don’t get overwhelmed by the raised standards of being an upperclassman. Take it easy, and don’t do too many things you’d regret.” —Music, Theatre & Dance junior Matt Provenza
“Be nice to the squirrels in the winter because they share our home — I feed and name some, too.” —Nursing sophomore Brittany Gray “Take in everything early. As time goes by and you take harder classes, try not to miss a beat, and go to office hours. I love the energy of the student section at games, and if I could go back I’d get season tickets for football and hockey, especially now that Harbaugh is coach.” —LSA senior Nick Robbins Ann Arbor resident Dylan Skvarek competed in a Magic the Gathering tournament at Get Your Game On on Monday.
Policy talk
WHAT: Weeekly discussion centers around the role of women in the Bible. WHO: Osher Lifelong Learning Institute WHEN: 1 p.m. WHERE: First Presbyterian Church
WHAT: Students can stop by the Diag to learn more about Multicultural Greek sororities and fraternities. WHO: Office of Greek Life WHEN: 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. WHERE: Central Campus Diag
WHAT: A panel of Peace Corps alums will discuss their service and experience. WHO: International Center WHEN: 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. WHERE: Mason Hall, 1330 Honors Lounge
Stephen Hobbs
Discussion on higher ed
Designing Hudson Yards
Machine learning lecture
WHAT: Anant Agarwal, edX CEO will speak about the future of higher education. WHO: Office of Digital Education and Innovation WHEN: 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. WHERE: Hatcher Graduate Library, Hatcher Gallery
WHAT: The symposium will consider the creation of Hudson Yards. WHO: Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning WHEN: 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. WHERE: Ross School of Business, Blau Auditorium
WHAT: Christian Sandvig, an associate professor of communication studies and information, will speak about machine learning. WHO: Institute for the Humanities WHEN: 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. WHERE: 202 South Thayer Please report any error in the Daily to corrections@ michigandaily.com.
Study: Exercise cuts risk of disease Daiily Staff Reporter
Physicians have long recognized the health benefits of regular exercise. Now, University researchers are getting closer to explaining the ways in which exercise helps reduce susceptibility to disease. Steve Britton, a professor of anesthesiology, and Lauren Koch, an associate professor of anesthesiology, have long bred rats to model how exercise affects the risk for developing certain diseases in humans. “We believed that there was a
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SENIOR NEWS EDITORS: Shoham Geva, Will Greenberg, Amabel Karoub, Emma Kerr, Emilie Plesset, Michael Sugerman ASSISTANT NEWS EDITORS: Tanaz Ahmed, Alyssa Brandon, Katie Penrod, Sami Wintner, Gen Hummer, Emma Kinery, Tanya Madhani, Lara Moehlman, Lea Giotto, Isobel Futter
WHAT: Justin Wolfers, professor of economics and public policy, will host a conversation with TIAA-CREF president Roger Ferguson. WHO: Ford School of Public Policy WHEN: 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. WHERE: Lydia Mendelssohn Theater
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Multicultural Peace Corps Greek Council info session
strong relationship between how long one was going to live and how large their exercise capacity was,” Britton said. “It seemed that those who had a large exercise capacity were living healthier and longer.” To test the theory, University researchers in 1996 developed a selective breeding process to generate rats that were either “high capacity runners” or “low capacity runners.” To do this, Koch said they took a large sample of rats and measured their endurance on treadmills. The rats that could run for longer periods of time were then bred together. “We believed that if we had lab rats that we could selectively breed on low or high exercise capacity, then we could develop a model system to see how low capacity and high capacity rats harbor complex disease risks and health risks,” Koch said. “So it
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36 generations of rats later, ‘U’ researchers connect inactivy and illness
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CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES
WHAT: South African artist Steve Hobbs speaks on his various projects focusing on urban planning and Johannesburg’s architecture. WHO: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design WHEN: 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. WHERE: Detroit Film Theater
FRIDAY: Photos of the Week
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CAMPUS VOICES: ADVICE TO FRESHIES The Michigan Daily asked students walking across the Diag on Monday to give freshmen students words of advice.
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was a good way to look at health and disease genetically.” Since the beginning of the breeding process more than 20 years ago, Britton and Koch have bred 36 generations of rats. Now, years of breeding are beginning to pay off — allowing researchers across the country to use these selectively bred lineages of rats to conduct their own studies. Britton said their model is the only one to allow for direct artificial selection for exercise capacity. He added that the rat model has been studied at 60 institutions nationwide, and has been the subject of about 100 papers in scientific literature. Results from the rat model studies have confirmed researchers’ theory that exercise stimulates health and life expectancy, Britton said. The rats bred with a high exercise capacity have been shown to be more resistant to memory loss, sleep disorders, obesity and fatty liver disease compared to those bred with a low exercise capacity. In addition, their average life expectancies are between 28 and 45 percent higher. Koch said these results are a step toward figuring out exactly how exercise benefits the human body. “We know that exercise is good for you,” Koch said. “But we don’t know the underlying mechanisms behind it. This model is helping us uncover some of the connections between both exercise and health and inactivity and disease.” Britton cited his collaboration with colleagues at Colorado State University as an exciting avenue for future studies. Researchers at CSU are testing the effects of exercise capacity on susceptibility to breast cancer, and their preliminary data shows rats with a lower aerobic capacity are 5.6 times more likely to develop inducible breast cancer than high See STUDY, Page 3
THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW TODAY
1
Scott Walker has ended his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, the New York Times reported. He confirmed the reports at a news conference in Madison Monday evening. Walker had struggled to secure donors and make gains in the polls.
2
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh stuck up for starting quarterback Jake Rudock during his Monday press conference. The Wolverines take on Brigham Young on Saturday. >> FOR MORE, SEE SPORTS, PG. 7
Apple Inc. is moving forward on efforts to create an electric car, Market Watch reported. The car is expected to launch in 2019. Sources involved in plans say Apple executives recently provided the go-ahead to triple the size of the project’s team.
3
BILL From Page 1 he sponsored the bill because he sees giving adults the right to make their own decisions is consistent with American values. “I think we need to let adults make their own choices about what they eat and what they put in their body,” he said. Currently, it is only legal in Michigan to use marijuana for medical purposes authorized by a physician. In Ann Arbor, marijuana has been decriminalized since 1972, meaning its use is still illegal but the only punishment for firsttime offenders is a $25 fine. Statewide — including on University property, which doesn’t follow city ordinances — marijuana use and possession is a felony. Under the bill, the state would impose both Michigan’s 6-percent sales tax as well as an additional 5-percent excise tax on the wholesale market for marijuana. The excise tax would increase by 1 percent each year, capping off at 10 percent after a five-year period. The revenue from this excise tax — based on comparisons with Colorado, where the wholesale excise tax on nonmedicinal marijuana is 15 percent — would total roughly $100 million, according to a Michigan House Democrats press release. Forty percent of the tax revenue would go toward early childhood education, another 40 percent would go toward Michigan roads and the remaining 20 percent would be used to fund substance-abuse treatment programs. Irwin said he felt complete prohibition as a method for controlling marijuana use and distribution doesn’t work because it’s too costly to the taxpayers and individuals who are prosecuted. “There’s both practical and philosophical motivations (to legalize marijuana) — the practical motivation is that prohibition is a colossal, costly failure: It doesn’t accomplish any of its goals, it promotes the black market, it puts money and
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Hussein Hakim Finance and Operations Manager Claire Ulak Production Manager Jordan Yob Marketing Manager Matt Pfenning UAccounts Manager Chris Wang Classifieds Manager Asja Kepes Local Accounts Colin Cheesman National Accounts Anna He Special Guides and Online Manager The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the University of Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for fall term, starting in September, via U.S. mail are $110. Winter term (January through April) is $115, yearlong (September through April) is $195. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscriptions must be prepaid. The Michigan Daily is a member of The Associated Press and The Associated Collegiate Press.
power in the hands of criminals and it makes (marijuana) more available to young kids.” He also noted that, based on examples of other states that have legalized marijuana, it is unlikely that doing so in Michigan would impact the amount of people under 21 who use the drug. “The law has very little impact on what people choose to do,” he said. “If you look at what’s happening in Colorado, teen use is pretty much the same as what it was before legalization.” However, marijuana legalization bills across the country have drawn opposition from some health professionals. Carl Karoub, a physician who practices in Royal Oak, said he legalizing marijuana is not a smart decision. He noted the state has an incredibly high incidence of depression, and legalizing a drug such as marijuana, which can be used to increase endorphins, in a place ripe for substance abuse could be dangerous. Karoub said while he doesn’t turn to it as his first option, he is not inherently opposed to the use of medical marijuana for certain patients who are, for example, experiencing chronic pain and for whom conventional treatments would not succeed. He cautioned, though, that marijuana makes people less productive, and that the effects of using it last for extended periods after the fact. “Marijuana has certain psychiatric and psychological effects that may not end when you stop using marijuana. They may be persistent for days, for months, and sometimes they stay for a lifetime if you used it chronically. If you smoke it, you run the risks of heart disease, high cholesterol, heart attack and loss of brain cells,” he said. Irwin said he thinks marijuana should be regulated similarly to how alcohol consumption is regulated in the United States because the health risks associated with marijuana are no more harmful than those associated with alcohol. “This idea that we have legally available alcohol, which
is addictive and incredibly intoxicating — and can kill you — yet we strongly punish people who possess and use marijuana, despite the fact that it’s non-toxic, it’s not physically addictive and you can’t overdose on it,” he said. “That’s always struck me as silly.” There are also several organizations currently working to legalize marijuana in the state through ballot initiative. If a legalization petition receives 250,000 signatures of Michigan voters, the legislature has 40 days to adopt or reject the proposal. If they reject it, the proposed legislature would then go before the electorate for approval on the 2016 ballot. Irwin said there are many legislators who support the principles behind his legislation, but that for political reasons, they may be reluctant to jump on board. As a result, he said it is marginally more likely that the issue will be decided through ballot initiative than in the legislature. Third-year law student Reid Murdoch, the executive director of Law Students for Sensible Drug Policy, echoed Irwin’s sentiment, saying the several ballot initiatives are the real story in the legalization debate. However, he said Irwin’s bill could potentially add momentum to the debate in Michigan. “Even if there was political will in the legislature to pass it, it’s probably not going to be a priority,” he said. “The bill being out there — it’s a talking point, it’s a way for people to see it and it’s a way for those who might be more on the fence to understand that it’s going to the legislature as well.” Murdoch said some of the students involved with his organization on campus volunteer with the ballot initiative MI Legalize to help collect signatures, and added his organization has worked with Irwin in the past. “This legislation signals that we are trying to treat our young people with more dignity,” he said. “A drug conviction can keep you out of all sorts of professions.”
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News
Tuesday, September 22, 2015 — 3
SURVEY From Page 1
HALEY MCLAUGHLIN /Daily
SACUA Chair Silke-Maria Weineck, professor of Comparative Literature, addresses the Senate Assembly in Palmer Commons on Monday. The Senate discussed the possible publication of students’ online teacher evaluations.
ASSEMBLY From Page 1 the right direction. “We’re not talking about something that is going to change the entire culture of the University overnight, nor are we suggesting that the majority of our students aren’t extremely serious,” he said. “What we are suggesting is that there has been an upsurge in alcohol-related issues and that if Friday becomes a regular school day … the issue of drinking will decline.” SACUA chair SilkeMaria Weineck, professor of comparative literature, said University officials have expressed support for the proposal, but would prefer the initiative be driven by faculty, not the central administration. “The administration has signaled to us that they would be very open to such a suggestion coming from the faculty, but they don’t want to be the ones introducing it because it would, of course, require that quite a few of us actually show up on Friday to teach classes,” Weineck said. Weineck also proposed offering some sort of incentives for departments willing to
COUNCIL From Page 1 site so it can be sustained without further federal investment.” The federal funding will go toward updating the site’s vehicles’ software, upgrading infrastructure and security, and marketing the site to potential application developers and external investors. Amendments to snow removal policy approved Council also approved an amendment to sections of the city’s snow removal policy — a change recommended by the recently-released Pedestrian Safety and Access Task Force. The ordinance amended three sections in the Code of the City of Ann Arbor and added a fourth amendment regarding sidewalk snow removal policies. One of the amendments asks alters language in the section that calls for the removal of snow greater than one inch, so that residents are now required to remove any snowfall that lands on the sidewalks outside of their property. A second amendment states that residents will have 24 hours to clear their sidewalks, after which they will receive a citation from Community Standards. From the time they receive the citation, they will then have another 24 hours to clear their
SENTENCE From Page 1 of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity and a University alum, plead guilty in July to malicious destruction of property totaling more than $200, but less than $1,000. He was initially charged with a more serious, felony malicious destruction of property charge, but the judge later reduced the charge to a misdemeanor. Vlasic is prohibited from using drugs and alcohol while
STUDY From Page 1 capacity rats. “We believe these studies will
have more classes on Fridays, especially those with large introductory courses. “We haven’t discussed this in any detail but maybe the University could offer some incentives for departments willing to do that,” she said. “If you have the Econ 101 and Psych 101 as a required lecture on Friday morning, you take out a lot of drinking.” Senate Assembly discusses release of student data The issue of whether or not to publicly release student course evaluations also generated debate among members of the Senate Assembly. Biology Prof. John Lehman, a SACUA member, said that last November, Pollack, the University provost, asked the University’s Academic Affairs Advisory Committee to consider the release of numerical responses in student course evaluations to the following four prompts: overall this is an excellent course, overall the instructor was an excellent teacher, I learned a great deal from this course and I had a strong desire to take this course. Lehman said he presented the proposal to the Senate Assembly and conducted a straw poll
property themselves before the City does it for them and issues the resident a fee for doing so. The third amendment clarifies that the fine for the citation and the fee for the City clearing the resident’s sidewalks are two separate fees. Councilmember Stephen Kunselman (D–Ward 3) said he is pro-“clear pavement,” but he said the ordinance presents too abrupt of a change. “I would like to define ways of getting to a lower threshold of snow, in a way that is gradual and takes into account other things like fines and really going after the chronic offenders in a way that doesn’t feel so abrupt for the rest of the community,” Kunselman said. Vote on zoning change postponed During Monday’s meeting, an ordinance to amend a zoning law pertaining to a new apartment complex was postponed until the Council’s second meeting in November. The amendment, if passed, will re-zone what is now 53.61 acres, located off of Nixon Road and M-14, of agriculture and wetlands to make way for development of a new complex, the Woodbury Club Apartments. The apartment complex would consist of 282 apartment units and 575 parking spaces. Many community members who live in the area, which is now
among members of the assembly that same month. Among those who responded — which was about half of the assembly — close to 60 percent supported releasing the scores. In their April meeting, Lehman said, AAAC members discussed creating alternatives to two of the four prompts — overall this was an excellent course and overall the instructor was an excellent teacher — because of concerns that they were based on popularity, not student-learning objectives. According to Lehman, Pollack said she would ask the Center on Research for Learning and Teaching to formulate new questions. However, Lehman said as of SACUA’s Sept. 11 meeting with Pollack, those questions hadn’t been generated yet. Lehman said student representatives at the AAAC meeting said they want the evaluations made public to help answer questions such as which professor they should select for courses taught by multiple people and the difficulty of the course. “We need to take notice of the fact that student faculty governance has unanimously called for the release of this information, they’ve transmitted all of this to the provost and
composed mostly of wetlands, spoke out against the development project. Among those concerned were residents who live near Barclay Park, an area that borders the prospective development site. “I speak for the board and the membership when I say we are opposed to any new development north and west of Barclay Park,” said William Quinn, Barclay Park Board of Directors president. “We are very concerned about the impact the development will have on the wetlands and traffic.” Several councilmembers also expressed concerns. Councilmember Jane Lumm (I–Ward 2) said if the Council voted to postpone their vote on the bill, it could use that time to try to solve some of the community’s concerns with the project. “This time can be used to work through all of the issues, get more clarity, definition and get in concert with the neighbors,” Lumm said. Councilmember Sumi Kailasapathy (D–Ward 1) echoed Lumm’s opinion. “I would like to see a move from a perspective of mitigation to actually preservation,” Kailasapathy said. “The whole lens through which we now see things is ‘Okay, let’s destroy some trees and then let’s plant some other trees over there.’ I think Ann Arbor can do better than that.”
on probation, and is subject to random testing. Vlasic was one of 270 SAM fraternity and Sigma Delta Tau sorority members from the University who attended the January ski trip at the Treetops Resort in Gaylord. Chapter members reportedly caused more than $400,000 in damages during their stay. Business juniors Joshua Kaplan and Zachary Levin, former president and treasurer of the disbanded fraternity, respectively, are scheduled to appear in court Thursday to
file a plea agreement. University alum Jesse Krumholz, the fourth SAM member to receive criminal charges, plead guilty to malicious destruction of property less than $200 in July. He will be sentenced October 5. In March, the national SAM organization disbanded the University’s chapter, citing the failure of its members to fully cooperate in the investigation. The Treetops Resort announced in June plans to sue the fraternity for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages.
lead to focused translational studies for humans,” Britton said. Nursing junior Alex Fauer, president of Michigan Triathlon, said he is optimistic the study’s results will provide even more rea-
son to engage in regular exercise. “The first stage of change that will make people motivated and aware to health benefits of high capacity exercise is just getting the data out there,” Fauer said.
met with the provost,” Lehman said. “It certainly seems to me speaking with her that she’s receptive to this.” Weineck, the SACUA chair, presented several caveats to releasing course evaluations to the assembly, such as that faculty might teach to the evaluation, the evaluations might hurt junior faculty seeking tenure, race and ethnicity courses tend to score lower in evaluations because the course content is uncomfortable and data shows students treat female faculty and faculty of color differently in evaluations. Comparative Literature Prof. Catherine Brown said reworking the course evaluations so that students actually care about the results could boost response rates and make the evaluations a better student tool. “The percentage of people that respond to the evaluations is tremendously low,” she said. “So my concern would be that folks would be making their decisions based on extraordinarily low response rates.” In a straw poll, the assembly voted to bring the issue of releasing student evaluations to the faculty as a whole during the next Senate Assembly meeting on October 19.
happening. With the new and sweeping set of data, University administrators will now be able to both gauge the accuracy of its own campus sexual assault survey results and assess how the University’s findings compare to peer institutions nationwide. According to a University release, 6,700 University students participated in the AAU survey, making for a 17.6-percent response rate. The national response rate was 19.3 percent. The AAU survey also pointed to high numbers of sexual harassment among students. Nationally, 61.9 percent of female undergraduates reported being sexually harassed. At the University specifically, 54.7 percent of students reported having experienced sexual harassment since entering college, and 73.2 percent of female undergraduate students reported instances of sexual harassment. The AAU survey found 60.4 percent of gay and lesbian students report being sexually harassed, compared to 45.9 percent of heterosexual students. The AAU survey also reported that transgender, genderqueer, non-conforming or questioning students had the highest rates of sexual assault. The national data also reveals a general hesitance to report instances of sexual misconduct, with some variance based upon the severity of misconduct. Nationwide, the highest reporting rates occurred when a subject was stalked (28 percent) or physically forced into penetration (25.5 percent), but drop to 5 percent if the subject was sexually touched while incapacitated. Additionally, 35.9 percent of students who experienced sexual misconduct did not report because they were “embarrassed,” “ashamed” — or because doing so “would be too emotionally difficult.” One-third of students said they did not report because they did not think anything would be done. In a conference call with reporters, AAU President Hunter
Rawlings said he hopes the participating universities will use the survey data to the benefit of their students. “The purpose of this survey is to enhance the safety of students on our campuses,” he said. “It is our hope that these universities and others will be able to make use of these data on behalf of their students.” The AAU survey’s large sample size, in both universities studied and number of student respondents, makes it unique among similar surveys conducted on campus climate. With a national response rate of 19.3 percent, Bonnie Fisher, professor at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Education Criminal Justice and Human Services and developer of the survey, said the relatively large sample size allows analysts to get a more accurate picture of campus climate. “This is a strength because it allows for a greater estimation of the prevalence of different forms of sexual assault and sexual misconduct on each campus,” Fisher said in a conference call with reporters. Some data points, including whether students would report and how students believed the University would respond to a reported assault, varied by up to 25 percentage points among college campuses. According to David Cantor, who is vice president of Westat, the research firm that conducted the survey, factors such as size and whether the institution is public or private only provide a weak correlation to explain the variance. “It is important to slice and dice these events very carefully and that is one of the strengths of the survey,” Cantor said in the conference call. University President Mark Schlissel has identified sexual assault on campus as a top priority for his administration. The University’s response to allegations of sexual misconduct is currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education. Earlier this month, Schlissel told The Michigan Daily that he hopes to update the University’s Student Sexual Misconduct Policy before the new year.
Opinion
4 — Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com JENNIFER CALFAS EDITOR IN CHIEF
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Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
Defending trigger warnings
W
hen you live in an apartment occupied solely by English majors, some interesting revelations are bound to arise. The first thing you’d probably notice is the everpresent opportunity for generic living-room chats to morph into moments of thought-provoking literary discussion and analysis. You unintentionally begin to acquire full MELISSA synopses and major plot points for books you’re not SCHOLKE even reading, and discussion questions for classes you’re not even in. Many of my evenings this past week involved one of my roommates — as we sat doing homework — recanting grisly tales of bloodshed and violence from “The Iliad” while I brought up themes of sexuality and societal pressures within “Giovanni’s Room.” These discussions led me to the realization that English majors — along with a multitude of students immersed in humanities courses — read, examine and analyze some of the most controversial topics out there. Sexuality, gender, race, discrimination, violence, inequality, injustice, tragedy, oppression and morality — more often than not — comprise the bulk of our subject matter. While these are crucial intellectual matters to discuss, for individuals who personally experienced certain forms of trauma, such as sexual assault, they may experience some difficulty as they initially engage with them.
The stigma that views these warnings as an extreme byproduct of an overly politically correct environment exaggerates their intent. Therefore, I was surprised to learn Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure of the American Association of University Professors, earlier this month, described “trigger warnings” as a “current threat to academic freedom” and stated the group’s opposition to the practice of issuing them to students. While Committee A argues against “trigger warnings” (in particular, mandated ones), its statement does make a clear distinction between “academic regulation” and “faculty judgment.” The report acknowledges the possibility of scenarios emerging where an instructor may find it necessary to forewarn students about concerning material, and it asserts the instructor’s personal right to do so. However, merely mentioning the phrase “trigger warning” in the last few months has prompted an outpouring of critiques stigmatizing the phrase. Accompanied by this debate is a myriad of accusations that today’s college population is a mass of individuals who are “coddled,” “over-sensitive” and politically
HEIDI LIU
correct to a concerning degree. A recurring argument in the vast amount of commentary is that these warnings don’t exist in the real world, so providing them to students in their courses leaves them unprepared to handle similar issues once their college careers end. Yet, warnings in the media aren’t a novel concept. Various media, for years, have been categorized according to a system of ratings to provide viewers with information about the content they’re consuming. Songs are frequently marked as explicit. Labeling on video games warns of questionable content. Granted, these ratings were originally instituted and primarily serve as safeguards for younger audiences. Yet even content that undisputedly is mainly intended for adult audiences still retains these warnings. If you go to an R-rated movie, the film’s rating is still justified by a list of the potentially controversial images and themes that adult viewers (including those only a year away from legal adulthood) can expect to encounter. Television shows, such as “American Horror Story,” for example, feature warnings advising “viewer discretion” before the opening credits and still depict horrific imagery, unsettling themes and gruesome scenes of violence. Sometimes, “trigger warnings” happen naturally, whether we use that particular term or not. A few days ago, as a friend messaged me about a newly released music video, he mentioned beforehand that there might be some potential content issues. Immediately after sending me a link to an article about the video, he followed up by saying it was difficult to watch but told me it was something that needed to be shared. Students — regardless of any particular concentration — encounter challenging and discomforting topics in their studies. They personally experience and understand the reality of the complex and distressing issues that permeate our society. Rather than shy away from these issues, students often seek out discussions about racism, classism, sexism and injustice on their own in order to prepare to work to remedy them. Advocating for a brief overview of potentially troubling content doesn’t equate to asking for an excuse to completely avoid potentially jarring material or texts one may not fully agree with. As students ask for information about particularly disturbing material beforehand, it’s a respectful request for the acknowledgement that not every student’s experiences are similar, and to avoid the assumption that every individual in a classroom will react the same way. The stigma that views these warnings as an extreme byproduct of an overly politically correct environment exaggerates their intent. At the most basic level, “trigger warnings,” whether you choose to label them as such or not, are intended as preventative measures and simple warnings. For those affected by particular emotional traumas, this foresight isn’t meant to inhibit discussion. Rather, it allows students to prepare themselves and acknowledge any potential personal issues while they still continue to try and engage with the material, but in a different manner. — Melissa Scholke can be reached at melikaye@umich.edu.
E-mail Heidi at heidimae@umich.edu
COME TO THE DAILY YOU WILL MAKE A LOT OF FRIENDS FOUR TWENTY MAYNARD
U
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
“That’s retarded”
nfortunately, insensitivity is commonplace without exposure to individuals with intellectual disabilities. When I ask my LIAM mom wheth- WIESENBERGER er she knew my oldest sister, Selina, had Down’s Syndrome before she was born, she always responds, “Thank god I didn’t.” Even she admits to not having challenged stigmas until she raised her first child. I, on the other hand, have grown up with a disabled older sister, making me very aware of others’ use of vocabulary pertaining to individuals like Selina. The use of the word “retarded” has changed quite a bit in the last century, from a technical to a derogatory term, and I have a problem with how it’s used today. It was originally accepted as the way of referring to people with mental disabilities, but has since come to be loaded with a very different connotation. My whole life, I’ve heard it used as an insult. Whether used self-deprecatingly (“I can’t believe I said that. I sound so retarded!”) or a fun jape between friends (“Dude, you looked like a retard!”), for some reason the use of this word has yet to be curbed. Unlike problematic terms referring to other minorities, such as “faggot,” I don’t see much backlash to the use of “retard” or “retarded” at the University of Michigan. Usually, if I hear someone use a slur against the LGBTQ community, which is already rare, they are called out pretty quickly. Despite
my friends and students at the University being relatively forward with social justice, for some reason, slurs against intellectually disabled individuals aren’t kept in check quite as much. Could it be because many like my sister don’t have the option of attending college, and therefore aren’t worth changing campus culture for? But then again, it’s not as if I do a lot for the cause, either. Just last night I was hanging out with some friends and repeatedly heard the word used, but said nothing. Why do I value the comfort and peace of a social situation over the dignity and respect of individuals with intellectual disabilities? I have sometimes in the past called people out for using the word, and I always got one of three responses. The first option is that the person recognizes their mistake almost immediately and apologizes, and I can tell that they sincerely regret using it. The second response is that the person who I called out remembers that I have an intellectually disabled sibling, and I can tell in their eyes how uncomfortable they are. They’ll apologize, but I can tell that it is a hurried and awkward apology, done for my sake rather than out of a desire to use less offensive vocabulary. The third response I’ve gotten
is something along the lines of “I don’t actually mean retarded ‘retarded!’ That’s not even the word they use for disabled people. Stop being so sensitive.” While it is true “an individual with an intellectual disability” has replaced “mentally retarded individual,” using this slur will always draw upon connotations of people like my sister. And every time I hear it, I will think back to elementary school, when other students actually would directly bully the kids who had legitimate developmental disabilities. It’s not as if hearing the word makes me never want to hang out with those who use it. Part of my frustration is just knowing how jealous Selina is of the fact that I get to attend college and be surrounded by so many friends. It kills me that my friends — the types of people who she would love to also be friends with — use a word so negatively charged with such a casual lack of self-awareness. My sister is extremely sensitive to the respect and feelings of others. I can only hope those who use the word “retarded” might choose to be a bit more like her.
For some reason, slurs against intellectually disabled individuals aren’t kept in check
quite as much.
— Liam Wiesenberger can be reached at wiesliam@umich.edu.
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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Ben Keller, Payton Luokkala, Aarica Marsh, Adam Morton, Victoria Noble, Anna Polumbo-Levy, Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm, Stephanie Trierweiler, Mary Kate Winn, Derek Wolfe
I
Why the family dog matters
didn’t get poison ivy this summer. I usually get it from my back yard, which is a wooded lot in Illinois. Instead, TOM while I was away WEST in New York for an internship, my dog died and I picked up a violent variety of Manhattan crabs. There’s a coming-of-age anecdote there, if you look too closely. I’m joking, of course — about the crabs, at least. My dog really did die. But the parents are fine — better than I thought they’d be since my dog collapsed at the dinner table. It’s pretty much just them in the house now — you know the gears of age are turning when you start worrying about your parents, and not vice versa. But I guess they’ve been dealing with the death of the dog longer than I have. They called me right after he collapsed and, yeah, I cried. But it really doesn’t hit you until you’re back in the old house and realize how quiet it is. Or you see the spot where the dog’s bowl used to be. This isn’t an obituary for a dead pet, I promise. But it is a story about why the death of a family dog really matters. I was in Washington Square, near New York University, when my mom called — the dog had a tumor around his heart. There’s no feeling quite like hearing your mother cry — it sticks you in the gut and stays there. I hung up quickly. I didn’t want her to hear my voice cracking. Crying is fine in Washington Square, though; about a quarter of Manhattan’s crazies gather there daily. There was one lady chewing on her hand, and another man with a dead parrot on a leash, and me, a hirsute 21-year-old in hysterics over a golden retriever. I know why I reacted that way, and it wasn’t just about losing a dog. We bought the dog when I was 13. Mom put the kids in the pickup truck and drove out to McHenry, out in the country, to a farmer whose golden retriever just had a litter. I was going into eighth grade and it was the summer my cousin, Allie, came to stay. Allie’s home life back in Boston
wasn’t ideal, so for the summer she At about noon I snuck out of the lived with us in Illinois. It seems sad office and loosened my tie. I was now, but back then it was magical: already sweating through my shirt We had the pickup truck, my older when I got to the subway platform. sister had just gotten her driver’s I sweated even more when the train license, and every night that sum- broke down somewhere between mer we could make it to McDonald’s Union Square and Grand Central. before it closed and get ice cream And then, after a half-hour of waitfor a dollar, which we’d eat in the ing, I finally emerged from the subtruck bed while we looked out over way. Allie’s text came through: She the lake. couldn’t get a But suddenly hold of me and it was already had caught an Crying is fine in August. Eighth earlier train. Off Washington Square, grade loomed to Boston. just around the It was about though; about a quarter 12:45 corner, and the p.m. I had light at the end of Manhattan’s crazies to be back to work of the tunnel sometime in the gather there daily. was the puppy. next half hour, He ran with but I sat down at us around the the food festival lake, he slept with us in the bed of and had something to eat. I loved the pickup. New York — the culture and cuisine And then, suddenly, I was 21 and were palliatives for loneliness and a in New York. Eight more summers low paycheck. had turned to fall and then winter But here I was, crying into an artiwithout me even noticing. sanal, gluten-free pork-belly kimchi And then the dog was dead. A taco. Was this worth it? Being half a tumor on his big, stupid heart. And it world away from home? Did I abanseemed that summer was dead. The don my aging parents in an empty weather was hot, but all it did was house for jazz concerts and fusion make my suit sticky. After gradua- street food? tion, there would never be another It’s not just about the dog. It boils summer of freedom. But with the down to this: Time moving fordog’s death, that summer before ward can be a lot to handle, someeighth grade came back. I smelled times, and that’s OK. Each year the tobacco smoke stuck to the feels shorter than the last. We lose truck’s interior. I saw the progres- people. Whole patches of our lives sion of constellations. I heard Allie can only be remembered through crying on summer nights. the people we spent that part of our Washington Square was getting lives with. Like Allie, and in a way, dark. I started walking to my apart- like the dog. It feels like when we ment, but then kept walking. About lose them, we lose a whole chunk 10, I reached Central Park, about of ourselves. But this doesn’t have 50 blocks north of my place. I don’t to be true. remember getting home. But the I wound up getting poison ivy, by next morning, Thursday, I got a call the way, on some cliffs outside Bosfrom my cousin Allie. She would be in ton, visiting Allie. I left New York a New York for about an hour the next little early and made a trip of it. We day, en route to her home in Boston. had 99-cent ice cream — with beer, Things with her parents had turned now — by moonlight on the cliffs. for the better years ago, so after she Then, a week later, I flew home, left that summer I rarely saw her. to my parents’ house. I faced the The call seemed like providence. place where the dog’s bowl used to We planned to meet at some food be. And I paid attention to the way festival in Midtown, before she things are today. hopped on the train at Grand Central. If I sprinted to the subway on — Tom West can be reached my lunch break, I could catch her. at tkwest@umich.edu.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, September 22, 2015 — 5
FILM REVIEW
EVENT PREVIEW
Professor discusses Beautifully shot, but intersectionality depressing ‘Everest’ By COSMO PAPPAS Daily Arts Writer
Intersectionality is ubiquitous in contemporary women’s studies. However, its entry into discourse has a complicated history. This Jennifer concept has C. Nash roots in a rich history of North Quad Black feminist 2435 thought and practice that Sept. 24, 2015 was formally 4:10 p.m. articulated, but Free not originally developed, by legal scholar and critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw in her 1989 paper “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” The idea that people inhabit multiple social positions and identities (race, class, gender, nationality, sexuality, religion) that mutually and simultaneouslyaffect each other is one in U.S. Black feminist thought that long predates Crenshaw’s work in a specifically legal context. A central category for much of women’s studies scholarship, it is an analytical tool used now in many disciplines that seeks to describe the interaction of multiple oppression, discrimination and exploitation that affect people who occupy multiple identities. For Jennifer C. Nash, professor of American Studies and Chair of the Women’s Studies Department at George Washington University, intersectionality emerged as a kind of “outsider knowledge.” “By ‘outsider knowledge,’ I’m trying to think about the ways that intersectionality emerged from women of color who were trying to describe a particular set of experiences, some of which were
being excluded from the legal system or having experiences of discrimination rendered invisible by law, some of which were being rendered invisible by feminist theory,” Nash said in an interview with The Michigan Daily. However, intersectionality has begun to appear into the language repertoire of university administrations in the past 20 years in ways that largely conflate it with diversity and minority enrollment. Nash devotes a great deal of energy in her career to describing and intervening in the place of Black feminism in the corporate university system, women’s studies departments and other disciplines. Her talk on Thursday, Sept. 24, will focus on how intersectionality has become institutionalized in the language of women’s studies departments and university administration that largely conflate it with inclusion, diversity and difference. “My own interest in how intersectionality has been taken up, particularly in women’s studies as a field and discipline, is the way that intersectionality gets collapsed into diversity, particularly at universities,” Nash said. “So I’m interested in the way that, in women’s studies, it becomes almost a requirement that we describe our work and our teaching as intersectional.” Intersectionality “gets deployed by universities (and women’s studies departments),” Nash wrote in the event description online, “to signal commitments to inclusion and difference.” She describes in her forthcoming book “Black Feminism Remixed” how Black women, through the language of intersectionality, are referenced only as “metaphor” in many academic settings. “One of the things that is really interesting to me is how Black feminism, Black women and intersectionality get collapsed
into each other,” Nash said. “So what I’m doing in the long article (“Practicing Love: Black Feminism, Love-Politics, and Post-Intersectionality”) is trying to say, in part, Black feminists have this very long intellectual tradition that’s varied, and complex, and multiple, and in the last five to 10 years we’ve come to assume that what Black women produce is intersectional work, and that’s it.” In her work, Nash opposes the reductive, identitarian version of intersectionality that you see in universities with a “politics of love” that she sees as critical in the history of Black feminist intellectual history. Nash’s talk will work to reorient other intellectual histories that now celebrate certain political forms, like a politics of love, that Black feminism laid the basis for in the 1970s. Nash’s talk will be very important for many campus political and academic actors because it seeks to critique a vocabulary like “intersectionality” that so many take for granted. Such a critique is significant because it attempts to draw attention to how universities continually exclude certain Black women in spite of celebrating diversity and inclusion through intersectionality. “What I’ve tried to develop is this idea that women’s studies has been obsessed with the figure or the metaphor of the Black woman and making Black women into metaphor or symbol, that is, Black women as never dealt with as a fleshy, material body,” Nash said. “When intersectionality moves into university discourses through the language of diversity, Black woman continues to operate as a symbol, whether it’s Black woman as the symbol of the most marginalized subject, or Black woman as the limits of agency.”
WIKIPEDIA
Won’t this look so much better in IMAX?
By REBECCA LERNER Daily Arts Writer
If you don’t feel like risking your life to climb the most infamous mountain in the world, the view of Mount Everest in the Ball its IMAX 3D glory is Everest probably Rave Cinema as good as you’ll get. Universal Pictures The sweeping vistas of the mountain, captured in a depth that couldn’t be achieved without that extra dimension, make you feel like you’ve made it to the Nepalese mountains. But without that nasty frostbite that makes your toes fall off. Aside from the magnificent views, “Everest” seeks to answer the looming question of why. Why would people risk everything they have for this? Director Baltasar Kormakur’s portrayal of the 1996 expedition that claimed eight lives answers it with a display of the ferocity with which these people attempt to conquer the beast. The cast does its best through the heavy parkas and facemasks to convey the tragic
story. Australian guide Rob Hall (Jason Clarke, “Zero Dark Thirty”) must lead his group up the mountain alongside his rival guide, American hippie Scott Fisher (Jake Gyllenhaal, “Nightcrawler”). Hall’s wife, Jan, (Keira Knightley, “The Imitation Game”), is a climber as well but is pregnant, so she cannot go on the trip. Also in their crew is Jon Krakauer (Michael Kelly, “House of Cards”), a reporter who later captured the events in his book, “Into Thin Air,” the brash Texan Beck Weathers, (Josh Brolin, “Inherent Vice”) and the sole woman of the trip, Yasuko Namba (Naoko Mori, “Humans”) who conquered the world’s Seven Summits by climbing Everest. The backstories of the characters become less of a concern when the foreshadowing of the disaster ahead becomes fully clear. Aside from the literal corpses of past hikers they trek past, the communication via walkietalkie is lacking, there are missing oxygen bottles and there are far too many people on the mountain for safety. If people are willing to pay $65,000 for this trip, from an economic standpoint it would make sense to take more
climbers. But from a safety standpoint, it feels reckless. Much of the film focuses on this commodification of Everest. It’s become less of an conquest solely for experienced climbers and more of a fatal tourist trap. Especially after glacial ice crashed down Everest’s west side and killed 16 sherpas last year, it weighs heavy the risk that this business creates for everyone. The tour leaders, like Hall and Fisher, have an inherent contradiction in their jobs – they must aid these people in achieving their dreams of summiting Everest but they also have to get them down the mountain alive. With a terrible storm coming, these goals prove to be mutually exclusive. The story is gut-wrenching. To see people deliberately go to their death with the film’s foreshadowing playing as a funeral march is emotional and tense. But the movie’s thick coats and voices muff led through wind and snow leaves too much unexplained. Its beauty is absolute, so much so that you think you can reach out and touch the snow on the peaks. But “Everest” makes it hard to justify that beauty with the cost of human lives.
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
Beyoncé is Beyoncé, will continue to be so By CHRISTIAN KENNEDY Daily Arts Writer
Beyoncé is back. No she hasn’t released any new music quite yet (save one feature that dropped last week), but she is back, and it’s clear that this is a new era for Queen Bey. I’m one of the few people who has a Tidal subscription, so without having to make the trip to Philly and miss Welcome Week, I was lucky enough to watch Bey’s Made In America festival set from the comfort of my own bed. That’s when I realized it: This isn’t the same Beyoncé I saw last summer on the On The Run Tour. This isn’t the same Beyoncé who dropped a surprise album in Decem-
ber 2013. Yes, that Bey and this one are eerily similar, but this one has a few new tricks for her loyal fans. For starters, anyone who has seen all of Beyoncé’s tours/DVDs knows that she keeps up fan favorites throughout her shows. She’s been daunting the same intro to “Get Me Bodied” for years now and same for her go-to finale “Halo.” But now, her set has clearly been revamped, so it begs the question: was MIA just a singular b-day show, or was it the mark of Beyoncé’s new realm of royalty? Even throughout the first minute or two of her set, it’s clear that it is the ladder. Beyond new choreography, she chose to open with the sul-
try 2015 remix of “Crazy in Love” topped off with lip-biting and kiss blowing. She’s taken on the role of seductress. As she has gotten older, Bey has clearly become increasingly open with her sexuality (just ask Mike Huckabee). Beyoncé was the first album in which she got down and really dirty, and since then, she hasn’t let up much. “7-11” can be some filthy dance floor music in the right setting, and her appearance on “Feelin’ Myself” with Nicki Minaj isn’t something she would’ve been privy to long ago. Nonetheless, her subtle transformations are more than her embracing of her sexuality. MIA is by far the most feminist context in which she
has put herself. She boasts “FEMINIST” as proudly as she did on the VMAs in 2014, but now she goes even further. The French section in “Partition” is repeated in English during an interlude. “Do you like sex? Sex. I mean, the physical activity. Coitus. Do you like it? You’re not interested in sex? Men think that feminists hate sex, but it’s a very stimulating and natural activity that women love.” She also embraces fellow badass Ronda Rousey when she uses her “Do Nothing Bitch” quote as an intro to “Diva.” And even more intriguing is the new intro to “Grown Woman:” a reading of Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman.” A single dancer moves gracefully as the poem is read.
Not only has she embraced her womanhood, it seems that she also managed to pick up a few tricks of the rap game while on tour with Jay. Her covers are typically glossy and high-class, like Whitney Houston or Lauryn Hill, but this set was coverless. However, the guest spots during dance numbers where a special treat to the Philly crowd and will certainly be appreciated in whatever tour plans may arise. Not only did she go for her guest spot in “Feeling Myself,” but the unmistakable beat of “Truffle Butter” as well as “Trap Queen,” “Nasty Freestyle” and Lil Ronny MothaF’s “Circle” made sick cameos. And finally, while the video of her
new Naughty Boy-produced collab with Arrow Benjamin doesn’t quite resonate with all of this, her message is there. The power in her voice equates with the badass-ness of her new persona. The defiance of “If I lose myself, I lose it all” speaks to her commitment to herself and her commitment to genuinity. After an extensive career, Bey has taken the best of the best, dropped the old and thrown some spice overtop to create the most captivating Beyoncé show ever. It seems that, at the ripe age of 34, Beyoncé Knowles has reached the age where she is going to do whatever she damn well pleases … and that makes for the best Beyoncé yet.
Arts
6 — Tuesday, September 22, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
TV REVIEW
LITERATURE COLUMN
Wheezing ‘Queens’ Replacing reality By ALEX INTNER Daily Arts Writer
About halfway through the premiere of “Scream Queens,” a girl sits in her bedroom. She receives a text on her phone that says “Brave Benough to open the door?” She Scream does and her Queens university’s Red Devil mascot Series Preenters the room. miere He texts her Tuesdays “Do you want to dance with the at 8 p.m. devil?” After FOX they dance, he sends another text that says “I’m going to kill you now,” to which she responds “Wait what?!?!” over text and he proceeds to stab her. Set in the Kappa Kappa Tau sorority house on the fictional Wallace University campus, “Scream Queens” follows what happens when a Red-Devil-suited axe murderer descends upon the residents. The show’s ensemble has a lot of talented actors and celebrities popping up in the first two hours, many of whom have worked with Murphy before. The cast is fronted by Emma Roberts (“American Horror Story”) as the president of the sorority, and Skyler Samuels (“The Nine Lives of Chloe King”) as a freshman who rushes to feel closer to her dead mother. Jamie Lee Curtis (“Freaky Friday”) plays the dean of students of the university. Ariana Grande (“Victorious”), Lea Michele (“Glee”), Niecy Nash (“Reno 911”), Nasim Pedrad (“Saturday Night Live”), Keke Palmer (“Masters of Sex”) and
“ FOX
The life and times of Mimi Zak.
Abigail Breslin (“Little Miss Sunshine”) round out the cast. “Scream Queen” ’s ensemble is among the strongest of the new fall pilots; however, they’re hampered by one-note characters. Roberts is probably the biggest victim of the group, as she’s saddled with a character who, at her core, is a stereotypical sorority girl. She has minions who do her work for her, holds her nose up at fatties and weirdos and orders pumpkin spice lattes. While the show attempts to play these characteristics as jokes, her character appears grating in almost every moment she’s on-screen, and Roberts can’t do much to improve upon that. Other actors such as Nash and Pedrad do well with comedic material, but don’t do much besides add a couple laughs. Even Curtis, who has accomplished a lot across her film career with thin characters, is hampered by a character who only plays different versions of angry. The one thing that saves the show from mediocrity is that a few of the horror-comedy moments are quite effective — though not many are original. The scene described earlier is probably the
Classifieds
only one that plays into the show’s sorority-girl elements and creates an entertaining scene. Nash also has some strong moments where she generates a lot of laughs as an incompetent security guard. However, other attempts at horror, including copious gross, bloodless deaths (it’s on FOX after all), and comedic elements (which include hazing gone-wrong and “weirdos” being creepy) that don’t land because they come off as neither scary nor funny. In particular, the show makes a lot of jokes at the expense of everyone from the deaf to the developmentally disabled that come off as mean and unnecessary, and squeeze out any of the fun from what came before. If you’re reading this and thinking, “Screw this guy, ‘Scream Queens’ sounds like a show I’d like,” then by all means give it a watch. You might find the characters to be more interesting and the horror and comedy elements to be more successful. However, for this critic, the show wastes talented cast with one-note characters and humor that comes off as mean, which overpowers some of the strong horror-comedic elements in the show.
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HELP WANTED RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 1 Where to find screwdrivers? 7 Buddhist teacher 11 Circle segment 14 Bold & Crispy Fries maker 15 Eagerly interested 16 Sea, in Marseille 17 *Six-time ’30s’40s N.L. home run champ 18 Zippo 19 Square root of IX 20 Relatives of gulfs 21 MD-to-be’s exam 23 Lightly burn 25 *Donny’s ’70s TV co-host 27 Nickname for Ruth, with “The” 31 Strahan co-host 32 Coral island 33 One-named Nigerian singer 36 Bruins’ sch. 39 *Sense of duty, per one’s personal ethics 42 Baseball glove 43 Caustic cleaners 44 __-wip: dessert topping 45 Swiss river 47 School periods 49 *It’s often “burned” during exam week 53 Cases the joint for, say 54 Sunup point 55 Ingrid’s “Casablanca” role 59 Fashion initials 60 Apple computer 62 Record label founded in Detroit ... and, when divided into three words, where to find the answers to starred clues? 64 Where Antwerp is: Abbr. 65 “Uh-uh” 66 Banded together 67 “Bambi” doe 68 Daring exploit 69 Gets wise with
DOWN 1 Lay an egg, so to speak 2 Neck of the woods 3 Depend (on) 4 Hombres en la familia 5 Home alarm co. 6 Bruce Wayne’s alter ego 7 Island veranda 8 Striped quartz 9 Trendy, ’60sstyle 10 Andre of tennis 11 Protein building blocks 12 Sit on the throne 13 Bawled 22 Trio member with Stills and Nash 24 Ascribes 25 Pepper grinder 26 Calif. neighbor 27 When doubled, playmate of Pebbles 28 Yours, to Yves 29 Italian pork sausage 30 Brazenly obvious
34 Ingredient in a black and tan 35 ’70s clubs 37 Ore deposit 38 Spanish cordial 40 Cassini of fashion 41 Sea divided by shrinkage 46 On the upswing 48 Acid or base indicator 49 Waffler’s word
50 “A Doll’s House” playwright 51 Oodles 52 “Be silent,” in music 55 “How sweet __!” 56 Oodles 57 __’Pea 58 Clause joiners 61 Stooge with bangs 63 “Cat __ Hot Tin Roof”
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09/22/15
Question: What goes great with your morning coffee?
Answer: michigandaily.com By Frank Virzi ©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
09/22/15
with catastrophe
And may the odds be ever in your favor,” announces an organizer of the fictional but gruesome Hunger Games, which end when all the contestants but the winner have been murdered. This chilling sentiment from Suzanne Collins’s REBECCA postapocalyptic LERNER bestseller of the same name is an echo of the difficult times in which the book was published. “The Hunger Games,” published in 2008 during the Great Recession, swept the world into the trend of futuristic and dystopian novels. While a glimpse of doom or the supernatural is not uncommon in American literature, depressing accounts of the ominous American future described in novels such as “The Maze Runner,” published in 2009, and “Divergent,” published in 2011, came fast and furious throughout the Great Recession. Over the past few years, the market for dystopian novels has become a very profitable mirror held to a world of anxiety and fear. The Great Recession, the worst global recession since World War II, was caused by failures in financial regulation and the deflation of the housing market in mid-2007. It resulted in a drop in employment, financial uncertainty and a widening wealth disparity in the country. As of 2014, only 14 percent of the American workforce felt that they had fully recovered from the recession, indicating that for some, its effects will be felt for years to come. In spite of the economic restlessness the recession caused, people did not want to be buoyed by their literature. Instead, they wanted to read about fictional societies doing things that were even worse
than their own society was doing to them. The desire to put the fictional less-fortunate on display is reminiscent of the concept of “disaster porn.” It’s why people slow down to see the gore of a car crash and why horrible events are played over and over on a loop on the news. According to Emily Godbey, a humanities professor at Albright College, it’s satisfying because “we’re able to experience the existential dilemma of human lives … (but) there’s no real risk.” When “The Hunger Games” came out, I was on a lake with my friends and several parents. One of my friends, who was 16 at the time, began to read from the novel. We were all transfixed. At dinner that night, gone was the hushed discussion of finances and disappearing nest eggs. The topic of conversation was who at the table would survive the Hunger Games — and who would be killed within minutes. Although we were astonished by it, we could still talk and even laugh about this because the idea is so unreal. Of course our government would never force children to kill each other for sport. But it isn’t so absurd that we couldn’t let our imaginations run a bit wild and place ourselves in the setting just long enough to forget how bad things were in real life. And yet, people have not always wanted to replace reality with imagined catastrophe. The earlier match for the Great Recession, the Great Depression, had a substantially cheerier tone in its entertainment. Instead of craving more destruction and pain in their entertainment, the audiences of the early 1930s wanted to laugh at and root for their heroes and heroines. The era’s more positive literature included fish-out-of-water stories like “White Collar Girl,” written by Faith Baldwin in 1933, about a charming young collegiate woman who returned
to work in her hometown to ease her family’s financial woes. There were many tales of adventure, like the 1932 novel “Mutiny on the Bounty,” by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. And then there were novels written that were just for fun, like Virginia Woolf’s imaginative “Flush: A Biography,” a view of city life told by Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s dog. In other realms of entertainment, comedy and singing acts like Shirley Temple, Judy Garland, and Fred Astaire dominated the movie theaters. People were eager to forget their worries through a few hours of happiness, even when the dismal conditions made such a thing in short supply. Entertainment has always represented a chance for escapism. In the Great Depression, people looked to the light of happier days, perhaps because such days had been with them not long before during the ephemeral prosperity of the Roaring ’20s. People retreated into lightness because the downturn had been such a terrifying quick reaction, an unexpected slap in the face to the entire country. But in the Great Recession, the memories of past few years in the wake of the harrowing terrorist attack on Sept. 11 and the anxiety that followed it, haunted its entertainment and turned it into the dark dystopias to which so many flock. The American public had been primed for doom through the disappointment of the early aughts, leading to novels full of death and despair. Though the memories of the Great Recession will be with us for years to come, the dystopian trend is winding down. Upon leaving the recession, maybe our country’s next beloved characters will find themselves in happier times. Lerner is hiding from President Snow. To relay a code to her, e-mail rebler@umich.edu.
FILM REVIEW
Compelling ‘Phoenix’ By BEN ROSENSTOCK Daily Arts Writer
It’s the black of night, and a lone car is stopped by American soldiers at the border of Germany after the liberation A of the concentration Phoenix camps at the end of World Michigan War II. The Theater young soldier peers inside Sundance Selects and sees a tall, wise Jewish woman driving. In the passenger seat sits a woman with bandages wrapped around her face. She is curled up in a blanket, avoiding the soldier’s gaze, but he demands she remove her bandages so he can see her face. We only see the soldier’s expression as she finally does. We see his eager smile sucked away. He swallows and lets them pass. Writer-director Christian Petzold (“Barbara”)’s latest film, “Phoenix,” doesn’t hit you right away. It begins slow and contemplative. Nelly (Nina Hoss, a regular in Petzold movies like “Jerichow”), recovering from facial reconstruction surgery after she was rendered unrecognizable by a passing bullet, glimpses her new self in a shard of broken glass. She’s not happy. The only friend she has is Lene (Nina Kunzendorf, “Unspoken”), a surrogate mother who pays her constant attention throughout her recovery. No one from her old life knows she’s still alive. Most are dead, indicated by crosses scrawled above their heads on old photographs. But there’s one face without that fateful cross: her husband, Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld,
“Barbara”). As Nelly sets to rebuild her life, everyone urges her to take advantage of this opportunity to restart. Her doctor, before the surgery, suggests she pick a completely different face, like that of a beautiful movie star. Lene wants her to move to Palestine with her, where they’ll both be safer than there in Germany. Nelly rejects all these suggestions. She just wants her old life back: the same face, the same friends and most of all, the same husband. When Nelly finally finds Johnny, instead of telling him all that happened, she finds herself pretending to be someone else — pretending to be someone quite like herself, but not the same, because she’s afraid of the rumors, the idea that Johnny was the one who betrayed her and sent her to the camps in the first place. So Johnny and Nelly enter into a shocking, twisted relationship, with Nelly impersonating herself to help Johnny collect her inheritance money. All the while, Johnny observes her constantly, the gears in his brain turning. Who is this woman who looks so remarkably like his dead wife? One of the most impressive accomplishments of “Phoenix” is its ability to avoid the pitfalls of its somewhat unbelievable premise. In a soap opera melodrama, Johnny would be a cartoonish villain, a greedy, soulless sociopath who only cares about money, but it’s clear he loves Nelly, regardless of whether or not the rumors are true. Just as easily, it could strain credibility that he can’t recognize Nelly when she has the same voice and the same general appearance. Yet perhaps somewhere deep inside Johnny,
he knows it’s her from the very beginning. Even when Nelly emerges in her old favorite dress with her hair re-dyed to match her old self and asks, “Do you recognize me?” Johnny pushes her away. Denial is a powerful thing. The biggest risk from a narrative standpoint is delaying the inevitable confrontation in which Johnny will realize his wife is still alive. From Nelly and Johnny’s very first scene together, it’s easy to groan and wonder, “Are we really going to have to wait until the last scene for him to figure this out?” Waiting so long could feel like plot-mandated wheelspinning, but the film overcomes that trap by imbuing every scene with magnificent tension building towards the day when Nelly will come out of hiding. If there is a flaw in the film, it lies in a third-act twist of sorts, a reveal of new information that could’ve just as easily come early on but must wait until the end so that the climax can be timed correctly. It’s also paired with a barely telegraphed tragic turn that feels unnecessarily grim. Still, as clumsy as this sequence may come across to some viewers, it serves its purpose well, setting up a ferociously tense climax devoid of extraneous characters or subplots. Even if the rest of the film had disappointed, it’d be worth sticking around just for the final scene, which finds Petzold, cinematographer Hans Fromm (yet another of Petzold’s regulars) and the film’s outstanding cast firing on all cylinders. Almost certainly 2015’s best final scene, it’s an awe-inspiring display of suspense, shock, regret and devastation. As the lens blurs and the world silently falls to black, tears will spill and hearts will stop. It’s unforgettable.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Trips provide a learning experience for Michigan By ALEX KHALIFEH Daily Sports Writer
The trips were far from home, and the Michigan men’s tennis team split up, heading to different parts of the country this past weekend. Such is life when preseason begins on the road. And while starting with two out-of-state tournaments may seem like a hectic road trip, for Michigan, it’s just what it wanted to prepare its youthful group. The Wolverines sent sophomores Carter Lin and Davis Crocker to California and freshmen Myles Schalet and Gabe Tishman to New Jersey. The sophomores participated in the Battle of the Bay Invitational, where they faced California and San Diego, among others, and played in both singles and doubles competition. In doubles action, Lin’s and Crocker’s strong performances propelled them against Southern California, 8-7. Yet Saturday, the Wolverines fell to San Francisco’s Nils Skajaa and Thomas Takemoto in a tightly contested 8-7 loss. Lin advanced to the semifinals before falling to the Golden Bears’ Flip Bergevi in straight sets. Lin’s other two singles opponents, California’s Oskar Wikberg and San Diego’s Slip Vittek, fell to Lin in two and three sets, respectively. Opposite Lin was Crocker, who faced difficulty against
Wikberg, falling in straight sets, 6-4 and 6-1. The loss put Crocker into a consolation draw, where he found success against Pepperdine’s Stefan Menichella, whom he defeated in straight sets. Crocker, however, bowed out in a three-set match to the Toreros’ James Ponwith. 2,800 miles across the country was the Princeton Invitational, which held the debut of freshmen Myles Schalet and Gabe Tishman, both of whom participated in their first tournaments as Wolverines. Schalet advanced to the semifinal portion of singles competition after two straight-
“Both of them did a great job of just competing hard.”
set victories over Darmouth’s Max Schmidt and Wisconsin’s Lamar Remy. Saturday in his last matchup, a semifinal draw against Cornell’s Colin Sinclair, Schalet fell in three sets, 6-3, 5-7 and 6-3. Rather than focus on the results of each match, coaches came away pleased by what they saw out of their roster. “They want to do great things for Michigan, and that’s awesome,” said Michigan associate head coach Sean Maymi. “But we also want them to focus on the right things. So if they start thinking about the result as opposed to the process and how to get that result, they’re gonna have trouble. “It was good for me to see some of (Schalet’s and Tishman’s) strengths and weaknesses. Both of them did a great job of just competing hard.”
FILE PHOTO/Daily
Carter Lin helped Michigan to a win against Southern California.
Yurovsky represents ‘M’ in new California tournament By BEN KIM Daily Sports Writer
It’s an uncommon sight to see when someone competes for Michigan with no other team members around. For 19th-ranked senior Ronit Yurovsky, she had to do just that in the inaugural Oracle/ITA Masters tournament. She was the lone Wolverine representing the Michigan women’s tennis team in Malibu, Calif., to start off the season. Yurovsky was unable to find success, losing in the first round of the championship and consolation bracket. “Result-wise, I wish (this weekend) went a little bit better,” Yurovsky said. “Playing-wise, I feel pretty good out on the court. It was the first tournament back. I think I struggled a bit with confidence because I haven’t played that many matches (over the summer). Just looking ahead, I think this weekend was good just to get me back into competing again.” Yurovsky faced ninth-ranked Hayley Carter of North Carolina
in the first round. Carter put the pressure on early, jumping to a 4-0 lead. Yurovsky was able to roar back, taking the next three games to cut Carter’s lead to 4-3. But her efforts weren’t enough, as Carter was able to take two of the next three games and the set, 6-4. The next set was more evenly played, but ultimately Carter prevailed. The two split the first eight games, 4-4. Yurovsky would go on to win two of the next three, putting her in position to win the set. However, Carter was able to force a tiebreaker and eventually won the set and match, 7-6. In the consolation round on the second day of the tournament, Yurovsky faced off against Vanderbilt’s 14th-ranked Astra Sharma. In the first set, each player took turns winning two games in a row until they had four games apiece. Yurovsky didn’t win another game in that set as Sharma closed out for a 6-4 win. In the second set, Sharma won five of the first six games. Yurovsky tried to make up the deficit, but came up
short, losing 6-4 and ending her stint in the tournament. “Hayley (Carter) was tough. She’s a really good player and so is Astra (Sharma),” Yurovsky said. “Everyone’s good there. It’s the top 16 players, so you’re not gonna get a bad match. I just focused on having that belief, that confidence that I could win the match, but I just couldn’t pull it out in the important points.” This tournament, in its inaugural year, was uncharted territory for the lone senior, especially since she had no teammates competing with her. Yurovsky will have plenty of time to regroup and prepare for her next competition, but will need to get used to being the only Wolverine present when she heads to the ITA All-American tournament on October 8. “I’m a little bummed this weekend didn’t go as planned, but I’m excited because I knew I was playing well,” Yurovsky said. “I’m glad I got two matches under my belt, so going into AllAmericans, I’m back into the swing of things.”
CONNOR BADE/Daily
Senior Ronit Yurovsky lost in the first round of the championship and consolation bracket in California.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015 — 7
Harbaugh sticks up for starter Rudock
ROBERT DUNNE/Daily
Fifth-year senior quarterback Jake Rudock received a vote of confidence from Jim Harbaugh on Monday.
By JAKE LOURIM Managing Sports Editor
Five interceptions in three games for fifth-year senior quarterback Jake Rudock led fans to question Rudock’s performance at the helm of the Michigan football team’s offense. But coach Jim Harbaugh isn’t having it. Asked Monday in his weekly press conference what areas Rudock can improve, Harbaugh said simply, “There’s areas.” When pressed to specify which areas, he vigorously defended his offense. “The question, to me, just the way you started the question after the game, questions to divide and compare, we’re all working,” Harbaugh said. “We’re all working to get better. “I sense sometimes the questions to compare and be divisive. I’m quick to turn those off.” He didn’t turn off the next question — rather, he gave a vote of confidence for Rudock. “To be clear, Jake Rudock is the best quarterback. Not by a small margin, he’s our best quarterback,” Harbaugh said. “And when it comes to precision of the passing game and the timing, that’s something that we’re all working together at.” Still, the statistics show a need for improvement. While Rudock has proved a capable game manager and his receivers have made plays, the passing game has yet to establish a rhythm. The Wolverines’ longest pass play of the season is 28 yards. Every Big Ten team has one longer — even the struggling offenses of Penn State, Rutgers and Maryland. Rudock has overthrown deep balls in every game, but his receivers are quick to share the
blame. They anticipate seeing an improvement soon. “It’s getting there,” said redshirt junior wide receiver Jehu Chesson. “I don’t think I can say we’ve completed a deep pass, but his confidence is there. In terms of getting us in the right plays, checking, audibles, that nature, he’s doing great. The passing game will come. I’m very confident that it will. He’s very confident that it will. Coach Harbaugh is very confident that it will.” Rudock, a fifth-year senior with plenty of experience, has other assets, too. He picks up the play or a choice of plays from the sidelines. Then, he decides the one he thinks will be better, or even calls an audible at the line. On a more micro level, Chesson also said he does a nice job of enunciating the play calls in the huddle. It might seem minor, but with players fatigued and the stadium contributing noise, a couple of miscommunicated words can switch the play. All of these factors go into Michigan’s impression of Rudock, and all of them lower the anxiety level inside the program as compared to outside of it. “At the end of the day, nobody really sees the 90 percent that goes into the game, only the 10 percent that we have to execute that Saturday,” Chesson said. “We’re judged by our performance, and (that’s) how it should be. But at the same time, if we could understand how hard this kid works leading from Sunday after the game to Saturday to get the whole team prepared, it’s amazing.” Rudock was not available to the media Monday afternoon or after the game Saturday, but when he talked after the games against Utah and Oregon State, he took responsibility for his
mistakes. He and the receivers will shift their focus ahead toward cleaning up the deep passing game and making it a threat in the coming weeks. “It’s definitely something that’s emphasized, because we do need to do that,” Chesson said. “We have the ability to do that, so we’re only short-handing ourselves if we don’t attempt to do it and if we don’t execute it either.” The Wolverines know it’s important for them to establish timing sooner rather than later. No. 22 Brigham Young comes to town this weekend, and then Big Ten play opens, with a home game against No. 2 Michigan State looming on Oct. 17. The power running game has gotten Michigan to 2-1, but it might not always be enough. “When the bullets start flying and guys start thinking, you’re just trained for that situation,” Chesson said. “You do what you’re trained to do.” Perhaps an improvement in that area will help Michigan establish an offensive identity. Harbaugh said Monday he doesn’t have a word for its identity yet, and Chesson added that the Wolverines get a chance to prove it every week. They’ll get another opportunity against BYU, and a chance to solidify it with consistency at Maryland after that. It’s up to the quarterback and the receivers, but the onus inevitably falls largely on Rudock either way, fair or unfair. “The nature of the position is, you get too much glory when you’re doing great, and you get too much ridicule when you’re doing bad,” Chesson said. “But I think he has a very level head. Things are going to click for us. I really do believe it.”
Sports
8 — Tuesday, September 22, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
FOOTBALL
Michigan’s defensive goal? Turnovers and more turnovers By MAX COHEN Managing Sports Editor
Three games into the season, the Michigan football team does not yet have a definitive identity. The offense has mixed and matched pieces, and the team’s defenders have given their own unit varying reviews. But spending just a few minutes with senior linebacker James Ross and junior cornerback Jourdan Lewis makes it clear what the Wolverines’ defense wants its identity to be. They arrived to their media availability Monday wearing the same logo — Lewis wore it on a fleece sweatshirt, and Ross wore it on his baseball cap. The logo had the wings of a carnivorous bird with a skull head between. It read “Ballhawks.” Defensive
coordinator DJ Durkin has given out the gear since the spring, as a reward for creating turnovers in practice. The gear is a way to emphasize what has been an area of weakness for Michigan in recent years. Last season, the Wolverines recorded just five interceptions and recovered five fumbles, which was tied for 108th among all Football Bowl Subdivision schools. The need to create takeaways has been a constant teaching point in practice ever since the new coaching staff took over. They have drilled it into the players’ heads to the point that it is a mantra the players often repeat. “When we get on that field, we want to get that ball back for our offense,” Ross said.
The new strategy manifests itself in multiple ways. When tacklers hit ball carriers, they are encouraged to do so with force and to make an effort to punch out the ball. “We probably coach turnovers more than any defense I’ve ever been around, and in the camp and throughout practices we’ve had more turnovers than I can ever remember,” said Michigan defensive line coach Greg Mattison last week. Mattison has held defensive coaching positions with eight different colleges and one NFL organization since 1977. So far, the new mentality most evidently paid off when Michigan played Oregon State in the second game of the season and junior defensive end Taco Charlton knocked the ball out
of the grasp of Beavers’ running back Victor Bolden. Michigan senior linebacker Joe Bolden snatched the ball out of the air in what became a game-changing play. “We just learn to be way more aggressive than we’ve ever been,” Ross said. “That’s ripping the ball out, that’s making it very uncomfortable for the ball carriers no matter what. I’m not saying I punch the ball out rather than make the tackle. It’s not that. It’s just I’m reaching for that ball every time I’m taking you down.” The secondary takes a similar approach with balls in the air. With the way they speak about their desire for interceptions, it’s as though they believe they have the same opportunity to catch a ball as the intended receiver.
Lewis had four pass breakups in Michigan’s win against UNLV. For some cornerbacks, the absence of pass breakups is viewed as a positive. It merely means the offense is scared to attack them. Lewis is different. He hopes the passes keep coming his way. “Honestly, I wanted a pick,” Lewis said. “Pass breakups are great, but the ultimate goal is the interception.” Lewis will have another chance to prove his point Saturday against No. 22 Brigham Young. The Cougars are a team unafraid to air out the football, illustrated by quarterback Tanner Mangum’s 47 pass attempts in his team’s loss to UCLA last weekend. Mangum, a freshman, took over the starting job when
Taysom Hill was injured in BYU’s season opener. He has had bright moments and gamewinning drives early on, but the Wolverines will attempt to lure him into mistakes. Lewis asserted Monday that Michigan’s secondary can be the best in the country. The unit recorded two interceptions Saturday to bring its total to three this season. Ross went a step further than Lewis, saying that he believes the entire defense can be the best in the country. He thought back to four-hour spring practices and the Wolverines’ taxing fall camp in stating his opinion. “It would be criminal to not think we could be the best,” Ross said. “When you put in so much work, that’s the only belief you have.”