Michigan’s hate crime law could see an expansion
By Lindy Stevens, written on Jul. 24, 2008, 8:22pm
Michigan’s current hate crime law might see an expansion if state Rep. Paul Condino, a Democrat from Southfield, and other Lansing lawmakers get their way.
Condino announced yesterday that he would introduce a bill at the beginning of August to create a more comprehensive version of the state’s existing hate crime law.
If passed, Condino’s version of the bill would mean that crimes against gays, lesbians, and people with disabilities could now be legally charged as hate crimes. The House Judiciary Committee chairman’s bill would also mean that hanging a noose and burning a cross could be considered property crimes in a court of law.
Though the legislation isn’t likely to be discussed until after the November elections, talk of Condino’s new bill came almost exactly two months after the Detroit based Triangle Foundation found that hate crimes against individuals in the lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual communities were up by more than 133 percent in Michigan for 2007.
According to the Triangle Foundation’s Youth Initiatives Coordinator Brett Beckerson, though, the LGBT advocacy group has never used Michigan’s current hate crime definition to calculate any of its statewide statistics.
“We define a hate crime just like the FBI defines it,” Beckerson said in an earlier interview. “If you googled or looked up the word hate crime in the encyclopedia, that’s how we’d define it.”
Greater LGBT inclusion into Michigan hate crime law is something that the group has been working towards since 1997 according to Beckerson, but it will probably be another few months before any serious talks of Condino’s bill will take place.
Ann Arbor city tensions–the live mini-feed
By Sara Lynne Thelen, written on Jul. 22, 2008, 7:21pm
“The thing is, John at first said he was against it, and then he changed his mind,” says Tom Wall, referring to Ann Arbor mayor John Hieftje’s alleged waffling on the new $15 million county courthouse proposal. “That doesn’t settle right in my stomach.”
Hieftje doesn’t miss a beat. “Well, I hope Tom gets some antacid or something,” he replies with a charismatic smile. “It took me over a year to change my mind.”
We’re off. Tonight at 7 p.m. a debate between Hieftje and his opponent, Ann Arbor resident Tom Wall, begins a live broadcast of Ann Arbor politicians sounding off–and facing off–over platforms for the August 5th city elections.
Hieftje, who has won the past five consecutive 2-year terms as Ann Arbor’s mayor, is comfortable and personable at the podium. Wall, a former special education teacher who runs a driver’s education business, got 9,000 votes when he ran as an independent two years ago. He speaks less smoothly, but remains confident.
Included on Hieftje and Wall’s plates tonight were transportation, parking, local green space and the said county courthouse contreversy.
Wall closes his statement talking about his plans to fix “any frustrations” the city has had in the past eight years. “I’m not in the mayor’s office, I don’t have access to the books (about the budget),” he said. “A mayor that I produce is the kind of person who gets out, shakes hands and talks to people,” he said.
Hieftje remarks that Wall could have studied and learned about books that are available in his weekly office hours. “I’m available if they want to come in and talk to me,” he said, adding that anyone who wants to be mayor should learn about the budget.
A lively, patriotic march plays through the closing credits. Up next: city councilmember Stephen Kunselman.
9:43 p.m–Kunselman (D-Ward 3) says he wants to increase the supply of smaller housing units. That means that students are being consolidated near campus. Stay tuned for any zoning changes in your neighborhood.
City council and mayoral candidates will be profiled in The Michigan Daily the week of August 4th.
City council postpones student apartment complex
By Lindy Stevens, written on Jul. 22, 2008, 6:41pm
At a meeting of the Ann Arbor City Council held last night, council members voted to postpone their decision on the construction of a new student-housing complex set to be built off of Maple Road on the west side of the city.
Known as the “42 North” project, the proposed complex would house 640 people in apartments designed to hold four or five occupants. The new complex would also allow each resident to have an individual parking space.
Though the City Council voted 10-1 to reject the same project back in January, apartment complex developers reworked their initial plans and presented them for a second time on Monday.
City council members discussed and reviewed the newest set of construction plans at last night’s meeting, but the latest postponement was meant to give Ann Arbor city officials more time to work out remaining details with project developers.
Stormwater and sewer drainage near the new apartments was the latest issue raised by nearby neighbors of the potential complex at Monday’s meeting.
City Councilwoman Joan Lowenstein (D- Ward 2) said a number of Ann Arbor residents were concerned about drainage issues, particularly because the proposed complex would sit on the highest point in the entire city.
“A lot of areas east of the proposed location have had problems with basement flooding and sewer backups,” Lowenstein said. “So they have concerns and I don’t really know if they are justified at this point or not.”
Lowenstein said many of the residents were concerned that the new apartments could exacerbate some of the problems that nearby residents already have.
Regents approve medical campus expansions
By Sara Lynne Thelen, written on Jul. 21, 2008, 3:09pm
The University Board of Regents at the July 17 meeting approved almost $52 million in plans to expand facilities for the University’s medical campus.
A new Information Technology facility will replace the existing IT location in the Taubman library. “I guess they need a bigger one,” laughed Bruce Spiher from public relations at the University Hospital.
But seriously, the “massive” project–which proposed last December–will be the first devoted solely to IT and should contribute to a rapidly evolving medical campus.
“The use of information technology is expanding beyond the space we have to support it,” Spiher said.
The 47,000-square-foot, tornado-resistant building will host 11,000 square feet of data center, 7,500 square feet of support space and 28,500 square feet of infrastructure.
Groundbreaking is set for August 2008, and occupancy will begin in December 2009.
Scraping up the smaller portion of the $52 million are two properties on Wall Street off of Fuller Street that were recommended for purchase to fulfill “conceptual” plans from June 2005 for medical campus parking, classroom, research or adminastrative purposes, said the Ann Arbor News.
One property, 8100-square-foot vacant lot on 1059 Wall Street, was recommended for purchase at $162,000. Developers negotiated pricing for the second, a small apartment building on 953 Wall Street, at $790,000.
University representatives could not be reached for comment about the development, but you can view these and other long-term development plans on the University Health System’s Master Plan website.
Solar car team overcomes penalties to keep large lead
By Charles Gregg-Geist, written on Jul. 19, 2008, 9:16pm
The University’s solar car team is enjoying Winnipeg, Canada right now, more than an hour ahead of its closest competition, the team from Principia College. Continuum arrived at Red River College in Winnipeg, Manitoba at 11:32 this morning and the team is now enjoying themselves at a barbecue thrown by the college.
College of Engineering senior Jeff Ferman said the team was happy with the progress Continuum had made since leaving Sioux Falls, South Dakota Friday.
“The drive today was wonderful,” Ferman said. “We’ve been going right at the speed limit.”
But things haven’t been going as well as they might for the team. Continuum would be even further ahead of the pack if not for some costly penalties they picked up on the drive into Sioux Falls.
The team was set back twenty minutes for four counts of speeding. But the big penalty the team picked up was for an hour and ten minutes when Continuum’s emergency braking system began to wear out.
Continuum uses “regenerative braking” most of the time, Ferman said, because it regains some of the power that would otherwise be lost by braking. But they use mechanical brakes, like those found on any other car, when they need to stop quickly.
When they used the mechanical brakes to slow Continuum’s descent down a hill towards a stoplight, they had some trouble stopping, but just thought the driver hadn’t begun braking soon enough, Ferman said. About five miles later — after successfully stopping at a number of lights and stop signs using the regenerative braking system, Ferman emphasized — they tested the brakes and realized that their brake pads had worn through. Though they were only five miles from the site they’d chosen to stop for the night, but two miles later they pulled off the road, he said.
The team won’t file an objection to the penalty, Ferman said, but he also maintained that it hadn’t made any errors.
“While (our brakes) were reduced in one form, we have redundant systems for a reason,” he said. “We were operating safely.”
But he added, “Given that the penalty was for running with an un-ordinary brake system, we did do that, so we’re not going to appeal that.”
The team will submit a brief to race officials explaining why they decided not to stop immediately. But for the most part, the penalties seem to be in the past, and the team is pleased with their position. They even got to partake in a parade today, Ferman said.
“Morris (Manitoba) has an annual stampede,” he explained. “It just happened that this weekend was the parade.”
When Continuum arrived at the little town the parade was just getting organized. At first team members were worried they’d have to stop and wait for it to finish, but that didn’t happen.
“Rahter than wait for it, they let us join the parade,” Ferman said.
Parading through the town with the horses did slow Continuum by about ten minutes, but Ferman seemed philosophical about the loss.
“It would have been worse… if we had come later. They did stop teams,” he said, and added, “We did get some good press from it.”
Solar car team leads North American Solar Challenge Race
By Charles Gregg-Geist, written on Jul. 17, 2008, 4:56pm
For many students, summer is a time to work, take an internship, and see their families. For others, summer is a chance to travel — to leave Ann Arbor, to leave their home town, and see a little more of the world. For 18 undergraduates, it’s an opportunity to usher a solar-powered car across the continent from Dallas, Texas to Calgary, Alberta.
Right now, the University’s Solar Car Team and their car Continuum are parked in Sioux Falls, South Dakota waiting for their competition to catch up. They arrived in Sioux Falls yesterday at 12:35 p.m., an hour and 40 minutes ahead of their closest competition, the team from Principia College. The next team to arrive, from Bochum University of Applied Sciences in Germany, pulled in an hour and 35 minutes after that, around 3:15 p.m.
The University’s team was also the first to qualify for the race, and won the right to start first by outlasting the other cars on a racing track. Engineering senior Steve Hechtman, Continuum’s project manager, said the early start allowed them to escape bad weather and was part of the reason the team was able to take a big lead.
“The front-running teams were able to use their battery packs to get out in front of the storms, but the slower teams got caught up in the storms and that really slowed them down,” he said.
Another reason for its success is the car’s ability to stay on the road. Hechtman, who is also one of Continuum’s drivers, said they haven’t had any mechanical errors or even a flat tire. Some “electrical bugs” kept them off the road for about 20 minutes in the first day of driving, he said, but there haven’t been any other problems in the 22 hours they’ve spent on the road.
In fact, he said the biggest constraint so far has been the speed limit, which has been about 55 mph on most of the highway they’ve driven. But they’ve done a good job staying at a legal pace, and haven’t picked up any penatlies, which are assessed for traffic violations.
We’ll see if they can keep it up. At about 2400 miles, the NASC is the world’s longest solar car race.
I’ll keep you up to date on the team’s progress here on The Wire, but you can also check the team’s blog for reports from the road.
Desmond Tutu will lecture on campus in October
By Charles Gregg-Geist, written on Jul. 16, 2008, 4:48pm
Desmond Tutu, 1984 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the first black Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, will lecture on campus October 29. Tutu will give the Wallenberg Lecture after receiving the Wallenberg Medal from University President Mary Sue Coleman.
Tutu is best known for his efforts to end South African apartheid as the head of the South African Council of Churches. He championed international disinvestment to weaken the South African government, and led protests that were critical in freeing Nelson Mandela from prison.
Mandela later appointed Tutu chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which is widely acknowledged as having played an important role in encouraging harmony in the South Africa when Apartheid ended.
He was also an outspoken critic of Nazism and Communism. The Wallenberg Medal is awarded annually in honor of Architecture Alum Raoul Wallenberg. Wallenberg was sent by Sweden to Budapest, Hungary in 1944, and is credited with saving as many as 15,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazi death camps by issuing them passports identifying them as Swedes awaiting repatriation. He is thought to have been killed in a Moscow prison in 1947.
Wait! A university president turned down a six-figure bonus?!
By Andy Kroll, written on Jul. 16, 2008, 12:00pm
Asking “to be treated just like everybody else” at his university, James Ramsey, president of the University of Louisville, recently turned down a six-figure bonus offered to him by the school’s trustees.
Ramsey instead accepted a $700 raise, which is the same percentage all UL full-time faculty and staff will receive as a result of this year’s 1 percent salary pool increase, Inside Higher Ed reported.
“This was a tough budget year for us,” Ramsey told Inside Higher Ed. “I don’t want the attention to be focused on me.”
The decision to turn down the $113,857 bonus–or 25 percent of Ramsey’s base salary–was mostly symbolic, as the money would have come from a private foundation and not from university funds. Still, the move resonated with the faculty at UL.
“We think symbolism is very important,” said Beth Boehm, chair of the University of Louisville Faculty Senate. “It’s a gesture that means something. It’s a show that we are one as a university.”
With Kentucky’s state budget strapped for cash and state funding for higher education declining (sounds familiar…), Ramsey isn’t the only university president turning down the extra cash. Inside Higher Ed also reported that University of Kentucky president Lee Todd will only receive a portion of the bonus he is set to receive this year, per his own request.
Although Todd was eligible to receive a $145,500 bonus because of his high performance rating as president, he chose to only receive $95,500 of the bonus and will give the the remaining $50,000 to various programs at the university.
LSA senior awarded for her work on reproductive rights
By Lindy Stevens, written on Jul. 15, 2008, 11:50pm
Recognized for her work on reproductive rights, LSA senior Kym Lovell was one of five individuals recently chosen from across the country to receive Choice USA’s 2008 GENERATION award. The Washington, D.C. based organization announced the winners earlier this week and on Thursday, Lovell will travel to Washington to receive her award.
The annual award recognizes young people under the age of 30 who have had a significant impact in the area of reproductive health. This year, Lovell was recognized for her work with an on-campus campaign to give University students access to affordable birth control. The LSA senior was also recognized for her work abroad, where she traveled to the Dominican Republic to conduct her own research on the cultural challenges associated with contraceptive use.
More recently, Lovell traveled to Morazan, Honduras, where she worked with local women in a rural health clinic.
On campus, Lovell serves as chair for the University’s chapter of Students for Choice.
The GENERATION award is the only one of its kind that recognizes young adults from across the nation for their work with reproductive health issues. In a press release issued on Monday, Choice USA Executive Director Kierra Johnson had this to say about Lovell.
“Kym is a remarkable example of the depth and breadth of concerns that today’s college students have when it comes to reproductive rights,” Johnson said. “She has created a truly integrated, holistic approach to the new landscape of choice. She recognizes, and has worked hard to address, the complex, interconnected web of issues that must be addressed for choice to have a real meaning – from costs issues to cultural barriers.”
Ferris State University rumors gain headway…in war of ridiculousness
By Sara Lynne Thelen, written on Jul. 14, 2008, 2:33pm
Ask a random Ferris State University student why their sororities don’t have houses, and you may be nonplussed by their response.
“The rumor is, and it’s always been, that there are no (sorority houses) because there’s a city ordinance from the 1800s that says if there’s more than four unrelated women living in a house, then it’s a brothel,” said FSU alum Austin Oubre, a newly hired intern at Big Rapids city hall.
“I suppose somebody should probably start telling people, but no,” he laughed. “Everybody’s convinced that it’s totally legitimate fact.”
Mary Bacon, the public affairs representative for the panhellenic association at FSU, said that “nothing could be further from the truth.” She guessed that the sensational sexism of the brothel rumor is what has allowed it to hold water for the past several years. Mark Gifford, the director of neighborhood services in Big Rapids, said he gets a handful of calls per year from reporters who want to verify the rumor.
Bacon was more than happy to steer this one in the right direction: by the time panhellenic sororities came to campus in the 1960s, she said, zoning regulations and insufficient space had rendered sorority houses more of a headache than they were worth.
“There’s just very few large homes that have a lot of property that could be converted, or what one might consider a fraternity or sorority house,” she said.
Not to mention “all the rules that go with sorority housing–no booze, no boys. Not everybody likes that,” she said.
Panhellenic rules make it mandatory for all sororities to agree on issues like the construction of houses. But Bacon said that sisters on campus are content.
“You don’t join the house, you join the organization,” she said. “Was it ever true? I don’t know–who cares? There are a lot more important things we can talk about, that sororities can do for the community.”