Santa Ono talks GEO strike, club sports and his Taylor Swift era

Santa Ono talks GEO strike, club sports and his Taylor Swift era

University President Santa Ono sat down with The Michigan Daily Thursday afternoon for his last interview of the winter 2023 semester. Ono talked about the state of the current GEO strike, spaces and resources for club sports on campus, and what Taylor Swift era he is currently in.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

The Michigan Daily: You’ve mentioned how much you value a liberal arts education. The Flint Transformation project seeks to rehabilitate U-M Flint’s declining enrollment numbers by focusing on the current and future job market. Students at Flint have spoken about their worries that U-M Flint will exclusively focus on STEM fields as a result of the transformation program. How will you ensure that a liberal arts education is valued across all three campuses? 

Santa Ono: I loved my liberal arts education, because I went to the University of Chicago. The core curriculum there has a principle that people should be educated broadly so they can be critical thinkers. And they really do believe, as I do believe, that the more diverse your curriculum, the better you’re prepared for any profession. I firmly believe that, and I do understand the suggestions and concerns of students and faculty at Flint. What I would encourage everyone to do is to understand that this is a transformation process that’s being led by U-M Flint Chancellor Debasish Dutta and not by me. The charge for transformation started with former University President Mary Sue Coleman, as you know, because of concerns about the declining enrollment. There have been multiple conversations with all stakeholders. Chancellor Dutta is doing a great job, and Flint has some data, but they have no decisions yet. Part of the transformation process is meant to ensure that not only the enrollment but the finances of that campus are as strong as possible to support a diversity of courses and programs.

TMD: The University maintains that it is paying graduate students a living wage. Despite this, the Graduate Employees’ Organization maintains that its members are struggling to afford housing and food. Would the University of Michigan consider any other means of creating more equitable living conditions for graduate students?

SO: We’re open to many different possibilities. As you know, we’re actually in the midst of bargaining, which means there’s special time for more back and forth. We have made it clear as an institution that we want to continue with bargaining. We have put forward a number of different increasing suggestions for compensation, and we hope that the bargaining process will continue so that we can reach a mutually acceptable agreement. But there are many other things that we can do. As we consider the campus planning project, many universities are actually building more affordable housing for graduate students. That’s a very big part of what all of us spend our money on in terms of our living. Hopefully moving forward we might be able to have some additional housing that might be more affordable, that might actually have a positive impact, not only for graduate students but for undergraduates as well. You probably also know that relatively recently, we have invested in more child care on campus. That’s a big-ticket item on anyone’s budget, so hopefully in the future, part of the campus planning process might allow us to expand those sorts of services for graduate students. We will consider everything that we can to address affordability for all of our students, including graduates.

TMD: As the strike continues through the end of the semester, how does the University plan to address potential issues in grading that may come about as a result of a lack of Graduate Student Instructors and Graduate Student Staff Assistants?

SO: As you probably know, that’s not something that’s managed by the president of the University. These are happening in certain departments in some of the schools, or all the schools. It’s really more a matter for discussion within departments that rely on GSIs. What I understand from our provost, the outstanding Laurie McCauley, is that she is in regular conversations with the deans of those schools that are most impacted, as well as the department chairs. I’ve been told they have plans to ensure that even if there are delays in grading, they won’t impact students’ graduation and everyone will get their grades. That’s what I’m told, but I’m not directly involved in those kinds of matters or managing that situation.

TMD: Given that the University’s requested injunction at the county level against the current GEO strike was denied, how does the University plan to proceed in regard to the strike? How does the recent decision from Judge David Peltz fall into this plan?

SO: So, both of those things are in flight. Although the initial finding was that there wasn’t sufficient disruption to require that the GSIs go back to work, that’s something that will be assessed as time progresses. So that’s the first decision. The second one was just a recommendation, which, as you know, was the appeal to the Michigan Employment Relations Commission itself. We just have to wait and see how the appeal goes and what MERC decides, and that will be all resolved in a matter of weeks. In the meantime, we can do everything we can to encourage continued bargaining at the table, because we really do want to reach a mutually acceptable agreement.

TMD: Do you have a response for undergraduate students who stand with GEO and have expressed anger or frustration with the University’s handling of the strike, including your and University Provost Laurie McCauley’s emails to the campus community and comments about the strike?

SO: So those emails, as you have read, are expressing the position of the institution, which includes the entire leadership team and all of the Regents. Those emails are necessary for communication about the position of the institution. In terms of students that are frustrated or angry, I have many interactions with students, and, as you can imagine, there are a variety of views. There is a diversity of views at the University, and I respect students’ concerns and frustrations, even their anger, because everybody has the freedom to articulate their perspective, and I welcome that.

TMD: You’ve shown support for the Michigan Women’s Club Hockey team, attending practices and games and posting them on your social media accounts. What role can you have in assisting that program with its goal of becoming a varsity sport in the coming years? From your perspective, what has to be done in order for that team to go varsity?

SO: I absolutely love all of our teams: varsity teams, men’s and women’s sports, and club sports. I try to attend as many games as possible. There are a lot of them, so it’s not possible for me to attend them all in one year, but I’m committed to doing so. I have attended several women’s ice hockey games, and they’ve done fantastically well. Their coaches and the players are fantastic — I have gotten to know some of them, and I try to cheer them on between different periods. It’s so wonderful. I’ve seen a growing fan presence at their games. I’ve tried to support not only the women’s ice hockey team, but also other club sports by absorbing some of the costs that are difficult for them to afford on their own. Renting Yost, the tennis facility or the pool is expensive. Many club sports use those, and right now, the way things are structured, there’s no institutional support for those rentals. In terms of what are considered varsity sports, it really shouldn’t be the president of the University’s decision. We have an outstanding athletic director and coaches, and making the decision on a team becoming a varsity sport is really in their purview. These are complicated decisions because Yost is considered to be a temple to ice hockey, but it’s not configured for both men’s and women’s teams. It would require expensive renovations to Yost, or the creation of yet another ice arena, which has been discussed over the years but has a tremendous price tag to it. It’s not a trivial decision. In addition to how we would support such a team, because they would travel longer distances, there would have to be a conversation with a conference as well as the NCAA. All that takes time. I know there’s tremendous support for making the women’s ice hockey team a varsity sport and I welcome that. Ultimately, if the decision is made by the athletic director and the Regents of the University to move forward, then I think that there’ll be plenty of people that will want to support the team, but it will be a process.

TMD: Club sports have long struggled to find practice fields and, even when they do, their practices often go late into the night. Many club team members have claimed the construction on Elbel Field will worsen these problems. Though the construction of the new recreational sports field will somewhat help mitigate the loss of practice spaces, how does the University plan to support club sports in this drought of practice spaces?

SO: As you know, the loss of Elbel Field has occurred because of our commitment to provide residence halls for undergraduates, especially first-year students. We haven’t invested in that for a long time, so it’s in dire need. You can understand that the University had to prioritize that need. As for understanding the impact on things like recreational fields for club sports, we have been doing a benchmark analysis of how many recreational fields we have relative to our Big Ten counterparts. We are somewhat below average in terms of the amount of recreational space per student. In the long term, through the campus planning process and vision process, we’re committed to providing recreational space. It’s very important for the well-being of our students, faculty and staff. The reason why the North Campus recreational fields were urgently needed was because the construction of the new dorm on Elbel Field will initiate a need for recreational spaces. So the idea was to try to create these fields during the summer months, when there’s decreased need, so that when school starts again in the fall, we will have compensated for the loss of Elbel Field. That’s a short-term solution, but longer term we’ll have to work through the campus planning process to try to address whether we have sufficient recreational space for faculty, staff and students. The reason why we’re going through — for the first time in many years — the creation of a campus plan, is so that we can really think about where best to situate such fields and where best to build new academic buildings and residence halls so that the whole campus serves the community in the best possible way.

TMD: The University is currently facing a Title IX compliance investigation of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering by the National Science Foundation. How is the University currently handling this investigation?

SO: We comply with any request for a review— in this case, it’s not an investigation, it’s a review. The way a review works is there are a set of cyclical reviews that occur of many institutions, and those decisions are made by the size of the institution. All the federal agencies have offices that would review Title IX compliance. We were selected because we are very large and we have a lot of grants from the NSF and we will certainly cooperate with the review.

TMD: On Thursday, April 6, USA Today published an article in which a past member of the Michigan football team was accused of sexual assault, although their name was not released. Is the University Athletic Department investigating this matter? What is the role of the University outside of Athletics in investigating those allegations, whether that be Equity, Civil Rights and Title IX Office or another University office?

SO: That was several years ago, and we know more now than we did then. First of all, I want to say that the story, the situation and context, was tragic and very sad. Every one of us at the University is really sorry about that individual. I wasn’t here when this occurred, but looking back into what happened, I’m confident that the University and what would now be ECRT did review and assess the situation appropriately and we’re committed to doing so in the future if anything else arises. In a situation like this, it’d be ECRT’s responsibility to investigate, and the athletics program and athletic directors are expected to comply. And to my understanding of this situation they did.

TMD: As the numbers of first-year and transfer applicants increased again this year, does the University have any plans to make changes to the campus landscape, other than housing, that would accommodate higher numbers of students? Are there any specific plans related to increasing numbers of faculty and graduate student instructors and maintaining specific student-faculty ratios?  

SO: The President doesn’t set enrollment targets– the way enrollment targets are decided on an annual basis is a conversation between the Chief Academic Officer of the University, Provost McCauley, and the deans of the institution. The matter is within the purview of the provost, as it should be, because they’re assessing interest in particular degrees and the majors and minors and responding accordingly. There’s not always straightforward and easy decisions, so what happened in terms of the enrollment target is a modest increase this year of a few hundred students. The final number isn’t clear until the summer months move through that. Typically we have more people coming than we thought would because Michigan is a very popular destination, but we aren’t sure. It’s sort of an art: we try to guess based on previous historical data what the yield will be, how many offers we will make and how many people will actually show up. To answer your question about how we’ll support them beyond residence halls, at the central level with the executive officers of the University, we have discussions about the projected student numbers. Every vice president or executive officer will take the target and adjust their allocation to support a slightly larger student body. The same thing happens also at the school or department level. The department will know how many students are coming in, so they will have to make adjustments in terms of their allocation of resources internally for advising and for other sorts of support at the departmental or school level. It’s a pretty complicated process, but if there’s a larger enrollment, we would invest more in support services to account and serve the growing number of students.

TMD: As the restructuring of the computer science program to accommodate increasing enrollment takes effect with the fall 2023 incoming class, do you think such a phenomenon may occur in other departments or majors? How will the University ensure the academic needs of all students are met as enrollment continues to increase?

SO: There are certain majors and programs that are of great interest at a time and others that have deep declining interest. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how large that interest will be next year– these changes don’t usually happen abruptly. Computer science is an example of one of these fields; because of the job prospects, there’s tremendous interest. The departments of engineering, material science and computer science took the appropriate action to accommodate the interest by expanding the physical facilities. These departments will hire faculty and people to support students and staff in order to accommodate that growth. These kinds of changes happen across all the 110 or more programs that exist in an institution. These programs are studied carefully, and all that information factors into a decision about whether to extend or contract the program. It’s part of the life of a large research university.

TMD: What Taylor Swift era are you currently in? 

SO: Taylor Swift era? I’m totally lost. 

TMD: Your options are: Debut, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989, Reputation, Lover, folklore, evermore and Midnights. 

SO: Well, I know nothing about any of those. But, I don’t know, what’s evermore?

TMD: So, it’s the sister album to folklore and it’s very indie folk music.

SO: The word ‘evermore’ has some future, optimistic tones to it. Knowing nothing, evermore would be my answer. I’m really sorry — Taylor Swift is four decades more contemporary than me.

Daily News Editor Riley Hodder can be reached at rehodder@umich.edu. Summer News Editor Miles Anderson can be reached at milesand@umich.edu. Daily Staff Reporter Bronwyn Johnston can be reached at jbronwyn@umich.edu.