The first time someone referred to me as an alien, I laughed. I did not have a big, bald head. My skin wasn’t green and my eyes, while on the large side, looked quite normal to me. The word “alien” followed me around for years. In America, because of my immigration status, I was as extraterrestrial as Zoe Saldana in “Avatar.”
Therefore, when confronted with the question, “What does an alien look like?” in a freshman seminar, my answer was, “they look a bit like us.”
On a warm August afternoon in the Law Quadrangle, my boyfriend and I finally had the dreaded talk about our exes. Beaming with pride, he revealed that he was still friends with many of his exes, with some of them comprising his group of best friends. I suppressed an eye roll as I told him that I wasn’t in contact with most of mine, with a few even being blocked on social media. Eyebrows raised, he looked at me with the all-too-familiar smirk of superiority that I’ve become accustomed to receiving from those who take pride in staying friends with their exes.
Achieving carbon neutrality stands as a defining challenge for the University of Michigan and all of humanity. At the end of the fall semester, the President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality released their drafted recommendations for tackling this challenge.
In recent weeks, thousands of University of Michigan students, alumni and community members signed a petition demanding University Regent Ro
It’s a pretty simple question: “Do you condemn white supremacy?” But even after three public statements, University Regent Ron Weiser (R) still has not answered it.
As the tumultuous fall semester drew to a close at the University of Michigan, the President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality released their preliminary set of recommendations for the critical task of drawing down carbon emissions. This is a long overdue step toward taking responsibility for the University’s role in the climate disaster.
The United States’ immigration policy has been streaming into the nation’s conscience the past four years and an encore is expected during the next four as well. The Biden administration will likely seek to make dramatic changes to immigration policy while maneuvering around congressional challenges — similar to how the Trump administration handled the issue. Many international students in the United States will remain on edge, as many policy changes have a direct and palpable impact on their livelihoods.
