Board of Regents scheduled to meet March 19 at University Hall

The Board of Regents will meet March 19 at University Hall in the Alexander G. Ruthven Building. The meeting is tentatively scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m. Members of the public will also be able to watch a livestream of the meeting. To make comments during the meeting, one must attend in person. An agenda will be posted online at noon March 16 at regents.umich.edu/meetings/agendas/. Those wishing to sign up to speak at the meeting, or to submit written or video comments, must do so between 9 a.m. March 12 and 5 p.m. March 16. To sign up or learn more about the public comments policy, visit regents.umich.edu/meetings/public-comments/. People with disabilities who need assistance should contact the Office of the Vice President and Secretary of the University in advance at 734-615-2007. For more information, go to regents.umich.edu.

Privacy@Michigan events planned for March 17 and 26

Information and Technology Service and the School of Information are co-sponsoring Privacy@Michigan events in March to raise awareness and spark thought-provoking conversation on pressing privacy-related issues and topics. 

• March 17, 4 p.m. at the Vandenberg Room, Michigan League, and livestreamed): “The Case for Hope in Dystopian Times,” a discussion with Albert Fox Cahn, founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, or S.T.O.P.
• March 26, 5:30 p.m. (Kuenzel Room, Michigan Union, and livestreamed): “A Conversation with Cindy Cohn” about her recently published professional memoir, “Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance” (MIT Press).

U-M Debate Team takes second consecutive national title

The University of Michigan Debate program has won the 39th annual American Debate Association National Championship, becoming the first school to win back-to-back ADA championships since Vanderbilt University in 2011. The three-day tournament, held March 7-9 at Emory University, featured nearly 200 competitors from 30 institutions. In the tournament’s final round, students from LSA — Eleanor Barrett, a sophomore from Austin, Texas, and Cyrus Esmailzadeh, a junior from Chicago — beat Georgetown University on a 3-0 decision. In the elimination rounds, they also defeated teams from the University of Kansas, the University of California, Berkeley, and Northwestern University en route to the tournament victory. For three other U-M teams, Avinash Shah and Rishi Shetty reached the quarterfinals, Gautam Chamarthy and Jerry Chen reached the Sweet Sixteen, and Robert Ou and Will Agustin reached the elimination round of 32. U-M’s Debate Team, which began in 1903, is one of the oldest debate programs in the United States. The team will conclude the 2025-26 season at the 80th annual National Debate Tournament in Houston, on March 26-30. U-M won that tournament in 2024.

— Compiled by Jeff Bleiler, The University Record