Arts

Vitalis Im’s winding, unexpected path to academia

lblouin — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 15:49:08 +0000

Vitalis Im’s winding, unexpected path to academia lblouin Mon, 01/20/2025 - 10:49

Violinist. Opera singer. Therapist. Professor and researcher. Vitalis Im, the Health and Human Services Department’s newest assistant professor, has collected a list of life experiences that makes you think a career in academia wasn’t always his life goal. Indeed, Im says that is entirely true, and, in fact, it was far from a sure thing he'd even attend college. Growing up in a low-income family in rural upstate New York, the only Asian American student in a town of about 2,000 people whose high school was colloquially referred to as a “dropout factory,” Im describes his younger self as someone who “didn’t have any purpose in life and definitely wasn’t thinking about what I wanted to do with my future.” Then, sort of out of nowhere, at age 16, he developed an intense interest in classical music. He says it was kind of weird, actually, because listening to music of any genre wasn’t part of his childhood or adolescence. But browsing YouTube one day, he ran across a recording of the Second Movement of Bach’s Violin Concerto in D Minor and couldn’t stop listening to it. Things snowballed from there, and he immersed himself in classical music the way other kids his age consumed pop or hip hop. One day, he confided in his school librarian that he was interested in learning to play the violin. As it happened, she was also taking violin lessons, and she offered to give Im her spare instrument if he promised to practice every day.

The librarian also gave him the phone number of the woman she was taking lessons from — Anastasia Solberg — who owned a small music school in town. Im knew he couldn’t afford the lessons, but he called Solberg anyway, and after meeting with her, she offered to give him lessons for free. He took his practice seriously, and after discovering he actually had a talent for it, he started thinking about music as something he could do with his life. He knew, having started lessons so late, he probably couldn’t get into a decent music school. So he enrolled at the nearby community college, where he ended up studying music for three years. Then, in what he calls a “Hail Mary application,” he applied to Bard College, a private liberal arts school in upstate New York, and got in. Im says Bard was a big turning point in his life. His plans going in were to major in music, which he did, though he later switched from violin to voice after discovering a latent talent as an opera singer. But Bard’s educational philosophy was also to foster well-rounded people and interdisciplinary thinking. “At Bard, it was, like, ‘You’re studying music, but what else?’” Im says. For him, that other thing, and second major, turned out to be anthropology. Early on, he remembers taking a class called “Race and Nature in Africa,” which he says was the first time he was introduced to the idea of race as a “concept.” “It was super mind blowing for me, and really put so much of my own life experience in perspective,” Im says. “And this was also a time when Black Lives Matter was gaining steam, so it was also connecting me to politics and so much of what was going on in the world. I had attended community college for three years, but this was the first time I really felt intellectually stimulated — that my brain got moving in that way.”

Im’s experience at Bard was so meaningful that it left him, maybe for the first time in his life, with a fairly clear picture of what he wanted to do. “I loved academia. I love the idea of sitting around and talking about ideas,” Im says. “It seemed like a luxury to think that’s even something you can do.” Still, it sort of remained a dream, and, at first, he didn’t see the path he’d follow to get there — other than knowing it would require a PhD. After graduating from Bard, he made ends meet for a couple years by teaching music lessons and working as a personal care aide for people with traumatic brain injuries. The latter he characterizes succinctly as “very hard work,” something he says he’d never want to do again. But it did open an unfiltered line of sight into the social services system and how inefficient it can be for people. Social work wasn’t something he’d really considered for a career before. But after that experience, he began thinking about it as a real possibility, even if he didn’t see how his background in music and anthropology would get him there. Then, in another twist of good luck, it turned out his undergraduate anthropology mentor at Bard had studied at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. During a chat with her one day, she tipped him off that the university had a joint social work-anthropology program. It felt fortuitous, and he decided to apply.

In Ann Arbor, Im flourished. He says he’s always seen value in knowing how to do a lot of things, and grad school enabled him to explore a whole new set of interests. In the same way that race emerged as a theme during his undergraduate years, masculinity became the framework for much of his graduate studies — inspired, in part, by the reckoning with male identities that was triggered by the #MeToo movement. During one of his field placements, he worked with men in a program called Alternatives to Domestic Aggression, which was run by a local Catholic social services organization. The heart of the program was a regular group meeting, where men who had committed acts of violence against their domestic partners would, with the help of a facilitator, sort through the messy business of accountability, self-reflection and, in many cases, their own experiences as victims of violence. Im says it was a life-changing experience. He remembers, in particular, being totally floored by the skills of the group facilitator, Jeffrie Cape. “She was incredibly kind and generous, but she also wouldn’t hesitate to lay you flat when you needed it,” Im says. “And you had to be like that. Eighty-five percent of these men were court mandated and they did not want to be there. They would push back and do all kinds of things to obfuscate their responsibility. So she was never just kind or never just super blunt. She was able to see that contradiction and just kind of hold it. That’s what the situation demanded. That was the kind of intimacy you needed to do the work.”

Im says working with the men was a profoundly challenging experience. But it also taught him something important about himself — namely, that he was made of stuff that could weather that kind of emotional intensity and therefore help people. “One of the things I learned is that there are very few spaces in the world where people can be ugly, and therapy is a space for that,” Im says. “But to have spaces for that, you need people who can tolerate that.” As Im began thinking more deeply about his own approach as a therapist, he found himself returning to an important part of his past. The idea that he might combine arts and music with therapy was, he says, motivated in small part by some of the literature he was reading; but mostly because he missed doing music and wanted to figure out some way to bring his passions together. “I mean, music was life changing for me,” he says. “Without it, I don’t know where I would be. So that was sort of on my mind. Prison, violence, men, art — just sort of thinking through all of it.”

Around that time, in another instance of serendipity, he met a woman named Mary Heinen McPherson. Heinen McPherson began serving a life sentence in 1976, and while in prison, became a leading advocate for the rights of incarcerated people. Among the many things she accomplished before she was even released after a sentence commutation in 2002 was co-founding U-M’s Prison Creative Arts Project, which brings various people impacted by the justice system together around the arts. Heinen McPherson was looking for someone to go to a prison and lead a music-based workshop and asked Im if he was interested. He couldn’t say ‘yes’ fast enough. Arts-based workshops in prisons have basically been a major theme of his life, teaching and research ever since. As someone who is an artist himself, you might expect Im to be an unabashed evangelist for the power of the arts to profoundly impact people in prisons. But his own view is that we should be careful about romanticizing the arts. Im says it is absolutely true that the arts have many practical benefits for people in prisons. Often, the value of a workshop is simply breaking up the intense monotony of prison life. Sometimes, the value lies in giving people space to do something human that’s generally not allowed in prison, like laughing or “being able to complain about sh*t.” Sometimes it’s deeper, like when a person experiences poetry as a powerful medium for self-reflection or discovers a latent talent for writing. (Im says you’d be amazed how many guys are naturals at improv theater.) But he says the same vulnerability that the arts inspire can also be “weaponized.” He tells the story of a man who attended one of his poetry workshops and would write “stacks of pages” of poetry every week, often exploring deep topics, like what it’s like to be a gay man living in a prison. Then, one day, during a lockdown event, Im says this man’s cell was searched and the guards discovered his writing. They took turns reading it aloud to each other, laughing, and then tore it up. “So, you know, one of the goals is to give people a chance to exercise parts of their humanity that have been taken away,” Im says. “But their humanity can be turned against them. Vulnerability is not always rewarded in prison. The arts aren’t some kind of magic shield against the violence of prison.”

More recently, Im has become deeply interested in the arts as a communication vehicle between people in prisons and people who live in the free world. Particularly, he’s interested in exploring what power the arts have to help the latter understand the former. After all, unless you have been impacted by the justice system yourself, or have a close loved one who has, you likely have never been to a prison and don’t have any reason or occasion to interact with someone who has been in one. But “art travels,” Im says. Art, writing and poetry can be exhibited and shared outside prison walls, and people who run prisons, surprisingly, often have few objections to doing so. People in prisons can make podcasts. And it all has the potential to help those living in the free world understand — in a nonabstract way — the humanity of people in prisons, and how our lives on the outside depend, in some ways, on us being explicitly or implicitly OK with more than a million Americans living behind bars.

Right now, Im is pondering creative new ways to probe that space, including one project focused on homemade greeting cards, a popular medium that many people in prisons use to communicate with people on the outside. (Im says making greeting cards is also one of the few “honest ways to make a living” in prison.) And he’s also working on a pilot program that would provide free therapeutic services for formerly incarcerated people in Michigan, which he’s hoping can launch this fall. That’s on top of his heavy teaching duties, which new assistant professors are, of course, expected to shoulder. Thankfully, Im says classroom life has been a pleasure so far, in no small part because he feels an affinity with many of his students. “I think, in general, students at ��-Dearborn are very pragmatic,” Im says. “Part of it is a class difference. Many of them are getting a degree so they can start working, which I’m really sympathetic to, actually. I mean, when I was at community college, it was ‘get me out of here so I can do what I need to do,’ which was to make money.” On the other hand, Im loves that he can also give his students a kind of experience that he had at Bard. He knows his “Death, Dying and Bereavement” course, which he taught last semester, may not be as essential to their life goals as organic chemistry. But there’s no missing seeing their eyes — and perspectives — widen when they discuss, for example, how some cultures see cannibalism as a perfectly normal way of mourning loved ones. “To dive into those cross-cultural perspectives with them, to think generously and relatively — that’s kind of the whole point of college,” Im says. “To engage in this intellectual curiosity kind of for its own sake, not the sake of something else — that still feels like such a luxury to me. And when you have other more practical things in your life you have to worry about, like paying your bills or taking care of a family, you don’t always have space for that. So it’s a real joy to be able to share that kind of experience with them.”

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Story by Lou Blouin

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Faculty Research

College of Education, Health, and Human Services

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Mon, 01/20/2025 - 15:48

The new Health and Human Services assistant professor talks about his prior experience as a musician and therapist, his life’s serendipitous turning points, and his current research on the impact of the arts on people in prisons.

Assistant Professor of Health and Human Services Vitalis Im started at ��-Dearborn in Fall 2024.

Celebrating baseball’s unsung heroes

lblouin — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 13:30:19 +0000

Celebrating baseball’s unsung heroes lblouin Mon, 03/25/2024 - 09:30

Baseball scouts are responsible for discovering and recruiting the next generation of players for each Major League team. So who is your favorite scout? If you struggle to name one, you're not alone. Unlike other roles in pro sports, the talent and dedication of scouts often goes unrecognized. Retired University of Michigan-Dearborn professor Jim Gilmore hopes to bring scouts and scouting into the limelight with his new documentary “Fielding Dreams,” which debuted earlier this year at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

Gilmore was a clinical professor of communication in Journalism and Screen Studies, the department now known as Journalism and Media Production. While he does not see himself as one to carve a niche in the field of sports documentaries, the success of “Cracking Aces,” Gilmore's recent film about the women of professional poker, and a family connection led him to create “Fielding Dreams.”

Image courtesy Acadia Pictures

"I have a cousin who is a baseball scout for the Texas Rangers," Gilmore says, and this cousin's parents live right down the road from him. "Whenever he would come over, he'd always tell us these stories of the life of a baseball scout. After ‘Cracking Aces,’ I said to him, ‘Look, if you're going to keep telling these stories, I'm going to pick up a camera and I'm going to start recording, because I think it's going to be interesting,'" Gilmore says. "He was really helpful in connecting us with a bunch of other baseball scouts as well."

When Gilmore began filming for “Fielding Dreams,” he conceived of the film as a quick, fairly straightforward oral history project. "I thought this one I could crank out in a year," he recalls. "Well, we started in the summer of 2019, and all hell broke loose." The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically altered the focus of the film and, of course, took a significant toll on the work of the scouts themselves.

"They were shut down from doing their work," Gilmore says. "They couldn't go visit schools, they couldn't go to any games." So instead of being a broad film about the lives of baseball scouts, “Fielding Dreams” by necessity incorporated the impacts of a pandemic on a very specific group of professionals. But, with the worst of pandemic restrictions over, Gilmore wanted to make sure the film would be relevant to viewers today and in the future. "We wanted to make sure that COVID wasn't the focus of the documentary, but a part of the documentary," he says.

That left Gilmore with the challenge of defining the film's arc. "That came when we were doing an interview with John Odell, curator of history and research at the Baseball Hall of Fame, who was telling us that there are no baseball scouts in the Hall of Fame," Gilmore says. As it turns out, scouts are essentially the only baseball industry professionals who are not represented in Cooperstown.

"That ends up becoming the hook of my documentary," Gilmore says. "Who are these people that aren't part of the Hall of Fame, that are perhaps the most important people to the game itself?" The conversation with Odell also created the opportunity for Gilmore to debut “Fielding Dreams” at the Hall of Fame. Sadly, Odell passed away before the film's premiere, but members of his family were in attendance.

Gilmore says that he hopes his film will draw attention to baseball scouts and get some of these professionals inducted into the Hall. But even outside of being denied the prestige of Cooperstown, Gilmore says, "What I came to find out is oftentimes they're treated kind of terribly." The filmmaker spoke of scouts' working conditions: they often operate on year-to-year contracts with no job stability. "As soon as a new general manager comes in and hires a new scouting director, often that scouting team is let go. And it's not always easy to find another job," Gilmore says. He adds that the salaries scouts receive are often modest, without substantial benefits, and the toll of constant travel makes it difficult to maintain a family life. "All of these people have spent their life loving baseball," he says. “And they'll do anything to be part of the game."

��-Dearborn’s College of Arts, Sciences and Letters played an outsized role in creating the film. Gilmore used faculty development and travel funds from the CASL Dean’s Office and elsewhere to support production. And he turned to Instructional Learning Assistant Rick Morrone, an alum and Gilmore’s former student, to design the music for the film. "Music's very hard to secure for a documentary, so in many ways, it's easier if you can get a composer to create an original score," Gilmore says. Having kept in touch with Morrone after his student's graduation and hiring him for his current position at ��-Dearborn, their collaboration seemed a natural fit.

"The score of the film is amazing. It's what makes the film sing in many ways," Gilmore says.

Following its Hall of Fame premiere, “Fielding Dreams” will make its festival debut at the Sarasota Film Festival April 5 to 14, and Gilmore is hoping to schedule a screening in Michigan as well.

In the meantime, Gilmore is working on a documentary project with students at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida, where he has been a visiting filmmaker since retiring from ��-Dearborn. Their film explores the history of Fort Mose, the first free Black settlement in what would become the Americas.

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Story by Shaun Manning

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Faculty and Staff

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

Language, Culture, and the Arts

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Mon, 03/25/2024 - 13:24

In his documentary, “Fielding Dreams,” Professor Emeritus Jim Gilmore celebrates the lives of baseball scouts — the game's only professionals not represented in the Hall of Fame.

��-Dearborn Professor Emeritus Jim Gilmore (left) with producer Tracy Halcomb at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Photo courtesy Acadia Pictures

'Art is a bridge to learning'

stuxbury — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 17:41:04 +0000

'Art is a bridge to learning' stuxbury Wed, 03/15/2023 - 13:41

Dental students often take art classes, like calligraphy, for finger dexterity. Engineers and architects use illustration to visually highlight their projects to audiences. And studying art improves bedside manner — research found that medical students who study art are better able to interpret the emotional expressions on patients' faces.

“Art is a bridge to learning. These are just a few examples to show that you do not need to be an art major to benefit from studying art,” said Lecturer Madeleine Barkey, who teaches in the applied art/art history program. “Art also has a wellness component that will benefit you at work and at home. It gives us ways to express ourselves and alleviate stress.”

In short, art benefits everyone. And so does nature. Thinking about these two universally available mental health boosters, Barkey wanted to connect them to show students how closely aligned the two are.

To do this, Barkey created the course ART 327: Scientific Illustration. Students worked closely with subjects related to geology, biology and botany. For their last project, they created a layered anatomy of an animal.

“Students in the class majored in biomedical engineering, environmental science, psychology, pre-health disciplines and more,” Barkey said. “They didn’t all see themselves as art students and were concerned that they wouldn’t deliver. By the end of the course, they were amazed at the level of work they produced."

Art in the Scientific Illustration Showcase by Bella Porbe and Keziah Eggert. Photo/Sarah Tuxbury

Barkey, who wanted to expand her student’s experience beyond the university’s art studio, worked with ��-Dearborn’s Environmental Interpretive Center. The EIC provided the students with resources when they needed samples and references. Barkey and EIC then partnered with the class to showcase the work. The art exhibit “Scientific Illustration” is on display in the EIC’s lobby now through the end of April. Hours are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.

EIC Program Supervisor Rick Simek said he’s impressed with the caliber of work in the show and encourages the campus community to take a look.

Simek also wants ��-Dearborn community members to know that EIC staff is available to share hands-on nature and environmental studies lessons and the EIC team welcomes ideas for course collaboration. “We are here as a resource for professors and students. We have classroom space, an observation room and acres of natural areas. Our natural areas have lessons that change by season, so there’s a lot of ground we can cover.” Interested? Let the EIC staff know.

Senior Alexis Kott is a student in the Scientific Illustration class. The urban and regional studies major dreams of designing cities and neighborhoods. And she is especially passionate about bringing green spaces to heavily developed areas.

Growing up in northern Michigan, Kott said the woods were just steps from her home. She’d birdwatch with her grandmother and hike with her father. And sometimes she’d be inspired to draw. A lily pad painting in grade school ended up in an art show at her local museum.

With her dad’s military career, Kott moved around a bit. With each move, she began to realize the lakes and woods that inspired her as a child weren’t a universal experience. She saw factories that lined bodies of water and neighborhood streets that had much more gray than green.

“We need nature to live. If we embrace it, nature can provide a lot. It reduces pollution and improves mental health. If you don’t consider the environment when planning, there are consequences like poor air quality, flooding and decreased health outcomes,” Kott said. “Everyone should have access to parks, trees and greenspaces. One of my professional goals is to help make that happen.”

Kott, an applied art minor, said she uses art skills she’s learned from Barkey’s classes in her work. In addition to the Scientific Illustration course, Kott also took Barkey’s intermediate drawing class that allowed her to focus on her own interests, like architectural and perspective drawing.

Alexis Kott draws birds that she sees outside of the EIC observation room.

Kott said potential employers in the city planning industry have told her that they like how she merges art and function. At a recent Michigan Association of Planning Conference, Kott interacted with city managers and planners. She’d talk about green infrastructure ideas for a community and share some of her artwork.

“Art is important in the urban planning field because it’s a language that helps people understand future projects no matter your age or background,” Kott said. “Even if your community members speak different languages, art can help communicate an idea clearly.”

But until graduation comes, Kott connects communities with nature by serving as a student naturalist at the EIC. She takes out elementary student groups to teach them about the land and nature’s benefits. She birdwatches with them in the observation room and even shows them her sketches.

A group of children on a field trip to the EIC recently told Kott that they’d never seen the woods. She said there was wonder in their faces as they looked for wildlife and viewed tapped maple trees that dripped sap for syrup.

Kott said she’s proud to be on a campus that provides that type of education and experience. After graduation, Kott’s goal is to take the lessons she’s learned from her time at ��-Dearborn and meet communities where they are by creating spaces outside of their homes that will evoke wonder, promote wellness and possibly even inspire a future career.

Article by Sarah Tuxbury.

Arts

Nature or Environment

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

Environmental Interpretive Center

Language, Culture, and the Arts

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Wed, 03/15/2023 - 17:40

In the new Scientific Illustration art course, Dearborn Wolverines created pieces that focused on biology, botany and geology — and discovered how art can advance careers in health, conservation and more.

Senior Alexis Kott has multiple works of art on display in the Scientific Illustration Showcase, which is up through the end of April in the EIC lobby. Photo/Sarah Tuxbury

Why the new Stamelos Gallery Center is more than just a bigger, better venue for art

rudmehta — Thu, 22 Sep 2022 22:40:37 +0000

Why the new Stamelos Gallery Center is more than just a bigger, better venue for art rudmehta Thu, 09/22/2022 - 18:40

April 22, 2019.

Associate Professor of Art History Diana Ng said viewers might be a little surprised by some items in the Stamelos Gallery Center’s debut exhibit, “The Art of the Everyday: Objects from Ancient Daily Life.” Typically, the kinds of ceramics, dinnerware, symbolic votives and other common items that make up the heart of the show are considered more archaeological artifact than art. And some of the objects, she said, are borderline “ugly.” Really. The 2,000-year-old ceramic jug in the form of the head of Dionysus, on loan from U-M’s Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, was featured as the museum's “ugly object of the month” back in 2018.

For sure, Dionysus has had more flattering renderings than this first-century BCE Roman “juglet” (right). (Credit: Juglet, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology 6542, University of Michigan; statue, 2nd-century Roman, Louvre)

So what are audiences to make of their encounters with these humble, imperfect everyday objects? Ng said there are plenty of interpretive leaping off points for the student-curated show. The Dionysus ceramic, for example, is an interesting example of a Greek god showing up in early Hellenistic Egyptian culture; while other objects might inspire modern reflections about the mass-produced items that fill our own homes.

“For the students, one of the big questions revolved around technology,” Ng said. “When you strike a coin individually on an anvil, there are going to be irregularities. Today, with our modern quality control standards, an object like that would probably be rejected. But perhaps that’s just a modern expectation, and ancient users of the objects had a different mentality. So this exhibit gives us a window into changing perceptions of what an acceptable mass-produced item can be.”

It’s the first show at the new gallery, but it’s indicative of the broad new frontiers the space promises to open up at ��-Dearborn. In fact, Art Curator and Gallery Manager Laura Cotton said hosting this show would have been impossible before the Stamelos. To borrow things like antiquities, museum lenders have very strict climate control requirements in order to prevent the degradation of sensitive pieces. And because ��-Dearborn never had a space that could accommodate those needs, Cotton said the university has typically been limited to exhibiting artwork from the past 75 years.

The Stamelos, however, has all the amenities modern lenders are looking for — including full climate controls, improved security and adjustable LED lighting to protect especially sensitive materials. “We can borrow from the Detroit Institute of Arts or the Art Institute of Chicago now,” Cotton said. “I don’t think it’s overstating things to say that this opens up a whole world of possibilities.”

Ng said it also opens up big new opportunities for her students. Curating and staging “The Art of the Everyday” is the capstone project for students in the Museum Practice Seminar course that’s only offered every few years. This year, with the perks of the new gallery, the students were able to experience an end-to-end process that Ng said closely mimics the way things work in the wider art world.

“I think one of my favorite moments was watching the students during the handling sessions at the Kelsey,” Ng said. “They got to put on gloves and literally hold these centuries-old objects. You see them making the direct connections with these items when the experience is so tactile and personal. Then, to be able to bring these objects to our campus and stage the exhibition makes this a really unparalleled opportunity for experiential learning. And it’s something that’s only possible because we have a gallery which is absolutely state-of-the-art.”

The Stamelos Gallery Center was made possible with a gift from longtime supporters of ��-Dearborn’s arts community Electra and William Stamelos. Electra was a longtime faculty member in the art department. “The Art of the Everyday: Objects from Ancient Daily Life” features items from the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, as well as glasswork from the Toledo Museum of Art and ��-Dearborn’s own collection. The exhibit opens Friday, April 26, with a reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. A fall grand opening party for the gallery is scheduled for September 12. More info at library.umd.umich.edu/stamelos.

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Mon, 04/22/2019 - 05:00

��-Dearborn’s new Stamelos Gallery Center, which opens Friday, boasts the look and feel of a modern art venue. But it’s the backend amenities that make this a turning point for the university’s arts scene.

Biology sophomore Kari Perkins carefully handles the ancient artifacts that are the heart of a student-curated exhibition opening Friday at ��-Dearborn’s new Stamelos Gallery Center.

Breaking down walls through art and expression

stuxbury — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 01:17:52 +0000

Breaking down walls through art and expression stuxbury Wed, 09/07/2022 - 21:17

Bryan Jones composes music. An accomplished piano player, he works for the Chamber Music Society of Detroit. Steven Hibbler draws and paints. Harper’s magazine and a ��-Dearborn exhibit have featured his work. Graduate student Penny Kane writes. She won a prestigious U-M Hopwood Award for her non-fiction collection.

Through artistic expression, all three found a sense of freedom while serving prison sentences. They also found — perhaps, more importantly — human connection.

“Artistic expression helped me become more than a number when I was inside (the prison). It’s also helped me create connections in the outside world, too,” said Jones, who guest lectures in the university’s Inside Out program. Jones served time for a robbery he committed as a teen. “Art opens doors and, for me, created a lifeline.” Inside Out, which began on campus 15 years ago, is a project-based learning class that encourages ��-Dearborn students to think about crime and punishment mechanisms in human terms.

Bryan Jones, left, talks to Associate Professor Anna Müller during the Winter '22 Inside Out course.

Sociology Professor Paul Draus and History Associate Professor Anna Müller are both long-time faculty in the program and have also developed courses, research and study abroad experiences around the power of artistic expression in challenging situations. From their work, they know the importance art plays in human connection when it comes to confinement. Beyond prison, this includes internment camps, medical-related isolation, substance abuse, poverty, and more.

“We all have walls. Some are imposed on us by others and others are the prisons we create for ourselves. Art is freeing and can help us express ourselves, learn about others and find connections where we didn’t see them before,” Draus said. “Art is a tool. It’s powerful.”

Now, they’ve created a new way for the public — students, faculty and staff from ��-Dearborn and surrounding schools; community members, formerly incarcerated citizens and others — to engage in dialogue that is focused around creative expression. The program is made possible through a U-M Arts + the Curriculum grant.

Professor Paul Draus

“Art and Agency from the Inside Out” consists of free arts-centered workshops and discussions where people can openly share their experiences under the direction of facilitators trained in areas like writing, dance and metal arts. The program will take place throughout the academic year and will have a different artistic focus each month.

There will be two sessions per month, which will take place at 6 p.m. on the second and fourth Tuesdays in the Mardigian Library. Refreshments will be served.

The program is drop-in, but it’s encouraged that participants attend both workshops in a given month, as the material is spread across the two dates. The first session will typically be introductions, icebreakers and creative activities. The second continues with the activity and allows for in-depth dialogue and discussion. Formerly incarcerated individuals will serve as facilitators and guest lecturers along with Draus, Müller and the artists.

The first workshop, which takes place Sept. 13, is titled “Connection” and will be led by Kristin Palm. A journalist, essayist and poet, Palm co-facilitates Writer’s Block, a weekly poetry workshop at Macomb Correctional Facility. In part inspired by her experiences with the Inside-Out program, she recently joined the ��-Dearborn staff as assistant director of Communications. October’s session will feature either visual or performing arts. More details will be shared soon.

Müller said participants can share their experiences and listen to others in an educational space that serves as a platform for social commentary and utopian imagining. “Caring about others is the essence of friendship and citizenship. And, as humans, we are wired to imagine and dream and see beyond the situation we are in,” she said.

Students in the university’s popular Inside Out course — in which Jones, Hibbler and Kane have all been active guest lecturers or contributors — served as inspiration for the program, Müller said. Facilitators also include Jemal Tipton and Lynn McNeal.

The Winter 2022 Inside Out class planned several outreach events that included an art exhibit and a community conversation BBQ with police and formerly incarcerated individuals. At the end of the semester, students wanted to continue finding ways to engage with the greater community when it comes to learning about stigmas, resources, social justice efforts and the power that expression has when it comes to tearing down walls. Typically, students would go into the prison for the class, but COVID restrictions have created on-going challenges and the Inside-Out faculty team looked for other ways to create these important human connections.

“Our students saw how creative practice helped them reframe their own circumstances and also break down us versus them distinctions,” Müller said. “That helped them understand themselves better, and recognize the similarities they have to people they once saw as very different.”

Draus said “Art and Agency from the Inside Out” is designed to encourage people to think critically, learn from perspectives outside of our own and find the common ground necessary to create lasting change.

“Lack of connection with the world is harmful to both individual and collective life. So we wanted to provide a space that allows people to connect to each other in healthy ways, confront the injustices and limitations they experience, and come out of the experience having created something beautiful, something meaningful.”

Interested in attending the free “Art and Agency from the Inside Out” sessions? Choose the dates that work best for you and register. Registration is not required, but it’s strongly encouraged.

“Art and Agency from the Inside Out” program was made possible by a U-M Arts + the Curriculum grant. Draus and Müller received one of the nine inaugural awards, which promotes the connection between teaching and the arts. Proposals for the program’s second round of funding are due Sept. 26. Grants are available up to $10,000 for individual projects from U-M faculty and staff, and up to $20,000 for teams.

Article by Sarah Tuxbury.

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Thu, 09/08/2022 - 01:16

A new program inspired by the Inside Out Program and funded by a U-M Arts + the Curriculum grant offers art-focused workshops and discussions that are free and open to the public.

Drawing of Yusef “Q” Qualls by Sociology Professor Paul Draus. Q was a juvenile offender who is currently serving time at the Cooper Street Correctional Facility in Jackson.“If thoughts are things ° Words are the hammer ° That I swing”

Student artists reflect on the African American Freedom Movement

rudmehta — Wed, 06 Jul 2022 17:32:10 +0000

Student artists reflect on the African American Freedom Movement rudmehta Wed, 07/06/2022 - 13:32

This article was originally published on January 11, 2021.

The Holocaust was the primary context for a recent MCubed project organized by Professor Julie Taylor, Associate Professor Danielle DeFauw, Associate Professor Mike Sevick (��-Flint) and teachers Tim and Kyria Gore of the Douglass Academy for Young Men in Detroit. And the goal was to use visual art and historic photographs to explore themes of resistance, liberation and memory with high school students. But in light of 2020’s historic protests around racial justice, the group decided to extend the project and apply those themes to the ongoing struggle for racial equality in America.

Two ��-Dearborn undergraduates ended up being central to that effort. With funding from the MCubed grant program and the Office of Metropolitan Impact, Taylor and the team commissioned original pieces from mechanical engineering sophomore Ghassaq Nassir and graduating communication, organizational leadership, and applied art senior Antoinne Bell. Nassir’s work consists of nine moody watercolor portraits of the “Little Rock Nine” — the group of nine Black students who enrolled in Little Rock, Arkansas’s Central High School in 1957 as the first big test of the Supreme Court’s 1954 landmark school desegregation ruling. Bell, who specializes in abstract art, created a murallike painting that explores the generational inheritance of activists in the Black liberation movement.

Nassir says she decided to do individual portraits of the Central High School students to highlight their intense personal courage. “We typically refer to the ‘Little Rock Nine’ as a group, but as I explored each of their stories, I thought it was important to remember that each of them were individuals who decided to do this incredibly brave thing.” Interestingly, Nassir says the monochromatic treatment for each portrait was rooted in her synesthesialike experiences of each of their stories. “It’s kind of weird, but sometimes when I meet a person, I associate a color with them,” Nassir says. “So as I learned more about each person, I started to associate a color with their stories and that’s the color I used for each painting.”

"Little Rock Nine" by Ghassaq Nassir

Bell’s acrylic on canvas, which measures about two feet by three feet but has the feel of a building-size work, features protestors marching atop a sea of fists. Bell says the fists represent the foundation laid by past generations of Black liberation activists, who have made it possible for today’s activists to make new gains. One of the most striking features of Bell’s painting is the high contrast used in the faces of the contemporary protestors, which shades from light to dark within each face. Bell says that technique acknowledges that the African American Freedom Movement can’t just be considered the work of Black people, but a cause everyone must be part of. “If things keep going the way they are, we’re all going to be part of one big human race,” Bell says.

"Society of Nonconformists" by Antoinne Bell

oth Bell and Nassir’s works have now been donated to the collection at the Douglass Academy, where Taylor says students and educators will use them in the coming years.

###

Taylor, DeFauw and Sevick’s research article about their project, “Holocaust memorial art and history education,” was recently accepted for publication in “The National Social Science Journal.”

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Mon, 01/11/2021 - 06:00

As part of an MCubed project, two ��-Dearborn undergrads created original pieces that are now part of the collection at Detroit’s Douglass Academy for Young Men.

Watercolors from a series done by ��-Dearborn student Ghassaq Nassir, featuring portraits of the "Little Rock Nine."

Fifty years of creative expression

stuxbury — Tue, 17 May 2022 01:05:38 +0000

Fifty years of creative expression stuxbury Mon, 05/16/2022 - 21:05

The floppy disk. Atari video game consoles. The VCR. All of these were revolutionary when Lyceum debuted. And the campus’ creative writing journal outlasted them all.

With a history as rich and sophisticated as Lyceum, the 50th-anniversary celebrations at the newly inaugurated Wolverine Commons last month were much more than just a release party. As Lyceum heads into the second half of its first century, the student organization’s key figures spoke at length about what Lyceum strives for.

“Lyceum is a community of people interested in the creative arts from all different walks of life and majors and interests,” said College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters faculty member P.F. Potvin. “The priority is to celebrate the diversity of experiences and voices in our community. This includes students, alumni, faculty and staff. It’s a very nonrestrictive environment, allowing you to explore the many aspects of the human condition.”

Reflecting on the five decades of Lyceum, Potvin says it is significant that the print journal still exists even after 50 years. He was a visiting writer for Lyceum before joining campus as a Composition and Rhetoric lecturer. Fast forward a decade from his first Lyceum experience — he became the faculty adviser in 2015 after Lecturer Tija Spitsberg retired.

The 50th-anniversary publication is a one-of-kind mega edition with multiple years of student creative contributions and a cover that’s a collage of the past Lyceum artwork from 1972 through now. It's much more than just a milestone for Lyceum. It also celebrates the evolution of the creative arts while still staying true to its roots.

“Being physically published year after year shows the investment and value in arts that ��-Dearborn believes in and puts the resources to help us continue doing that. Contributions have increased with more time for students to work on their submissions and think in many ways,” Potvin said.

Ava Abramowicz, a sophomore majoring in Professional Writing and Rhetoric and Journalism and Screen Studies, is the Lyceum publishing editor. She took over the role last August when the opportunity arose. “I was looking through Victor’s Link to gauge the clubs, and I found Lyceum, which aligned with my hobbies and interests in writing and fine arts, photography and poetry. As the publishing editor, my tasks include creating posters, publishing info on social media, and running the website."

Significant changes in the organization have happened over the last two years, the biggest being the transition into Wolverine Media Network (WMN). WMN is the umbrella organization that houses campus’ creative outlets like Lyceum, the Michigan Journal and W��D Radio.

“The change was announced in my freshman year when I didn’t know the magnitude of WMN,” Abramowicz stated. “Funding has been a struggle because publishing is expensive, leaving little room for other events. However, the WMN merger gave us more space to collaborate within and outside the WMN.”

Potvin said Lyceum officers share the roles in putting the publication together and running workshops. Collaboration is key, and the students are competent regardless of their prior experience. Lyceum is open to all majors.

“They do a great job, and I am in awe of their work. In my role, I offer advice and suggestions for the finer workings and help out with the process as much as I can. However, the mentoring program where each member looks out for the other helps bridge any gap quickly, and everyone knows what everyone is up to. The growth is tremendous and always visible no matter what major a student is pursuing.”

No matter what changes, the long-time student organization continues to be a voice and platform for all different people from various backgrounds, helping them express themselves through the written word.

Copies of Lyceum’s 50th Anniversary edition are available in the University Center, room 2128. You can also contact Potvin for a copy.

Text by Rudra Mehta.

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Tue, 05/17/2022 - 01:05

The 50th-anniversary publication of Lyceum is a one-of-kind mega edition with multiple years of student creative contributions and a cover that’s a collage of the past Lyceum artwork from 1972 through now. It's much more than just a milestone for Lyceum — it also celebrates the evolution of the creative arts while still staying true to its roots.

College of Arts, Sciences, & Letters: A historical insight into the creation and evolution of CASL

jtenn — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 18:21:10 +0000

College of Arts, Sciences, & Letters: A historical insight into the creation and evolution of CASL jtenn Thu, 04/21/2022 - 14:21

Twenty-four years ago, four architects presented the design concept for a building that would house the humanities, mathematics, and behavioral sciences departments at ��-Dearborn. The planning for this project took years but was finally actualized in 2001 into what is commonly referred to as CASL, aka the College of Arts, Sciences, & Letters.

At the design meeting, members of the university were able to learn about the proposed features for the new CASL Building as well as the ideologies behind some of the design choices. One of the project’s architects, Coke Florance, explained that “the faculty had established a certain goal with respect to the building: that it underscore the significance of liberal arts at ��-Dearborn; that it provide a strong identity for the campus; that it be a student-centered building.”

Up until this point, the university was yet to create a space for students to spend time between classes. One of the hopes for the CASL Building was that it would fill this gap through the use of open seating areas.

Rotunda

In explaining the design concept, Florance pointed out that “the basic strategy was to provide generous light and views for the public spaces and controlled light and views for the general classrooms on the ground floor.”

This design concept will seem abundantly familiar to anyone who has stepped inside CASL. The foyer is enveloped with floor-to-ceiling windows, making the building’s entryway bright and inviting. The choice to control the amount of natural light in classrooms was due to the college’s use of advanced electronic and technological equipment which required the rooms to be darkened.

In addition to lighting, John Pressley, CASL dean at the time, explained that “certain elements of the design, including the serpentine wall and the rotunda, reflect the history of Dearborn. In addition, as a practical manner, the master plan calls for buildings to face inward toward the green part of the campus, away from the parking lots. While this building complies with that, at the same time, it projects an interesting facade toward the parking lot.”

The rotunda mentioned above can be seen in CASL’s central area. The window-covered, student hub is round in shape and can be seen from all four floors of the building. In the images shown below, you can see the rotunda and serpentine wall that Dean Pressley highlights, as well as the building’s facade.

What’s Been Added Since?

Since its inception, there have been numerous additions to the College of Arts, Sciences, & Letters that were created to enhance and accommodate the changing needs of its students. Some of which include:

Archaeology and Biological Anthropology Lab - This lab space, utilized by the anthropology and archaeology departments, is an area students can use for independent study projects, research, and teaching.

Math Learning Center (MLC) - The MLC is a great resource for students that offers free walk-in tutoring, exam preparation and proctoring, mathematical and statistical software assistance as well as a study space.

Center for Arab American Studies (CAAS) - The Center for Arab American Studies — which spearheads many wonderful projects, research and cultural programs — serves as a center for academic inquiry and creative expression for the investigation of the Arab American experience.

CASL Media Studio (upgrades) - The CASL Media Studio is a production area that is mainly utilized by our Journalism and Screen Studies (JASS) students. This space includes a 30'x30' full-service TV studio, an audio production studio, and several suites of Macintosh workstations incorporating Adobe Creative Cloud.

*Note: JASS will be changing to JuMP! (Journalism and Media Production) starting Fall 2022.

Quotes for the Proposed Design of the ��-Dearborn College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters Building were taken from the “Proceedings of the Board of Regents (1997-1998).”

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Thu, 04/21/2022 - 18:21

Twenty-four years ago, four architects presented the design concept for a building that would house the humanities, mathematics, and behavioral sciences departments .

��-Dearborn student competes with, learns from Bhangra dance team

nlerma — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 21:45:43 +0000

��-Dearborn student competes with, learns from Bhangra dance team nlerma Tue, 11/21/2017 - 16:45

Jasnoor Singh and the �� Bhangra dance team

Jasnoor Singh believes in second chances—and even thirds. As a mechanical and bioengineering student who has worked as a research assistant, he knows the importance of trial and error: It’s how success is found.

But, for Singh, that lesson goes beyond the lab. And it’s helped the sophomore discover one of his now-favorite pastimes—Bhangra dance.

Singh had tried the Punjab, India folk dance several times as a child at his parents’ urging, and he didn’t connect with it. But when he picked it back up as an older teen, something had changed.

“For many Punjabi kids, it’s something parents push on them. When I was 8 or so, I was not enthusiastic about it even after doing two or three performances. But when I got involved again when I was older, I found purpose in the dance. Something clicked because I was open to it,” he said. “It’s self expression, collaboration, culture sharing and, overall, joy. When you perform, you are smiling. The audience is smiling. You can feel the energy. It becomes part of you.”

Today, Singh showcases his love for Bhangra dance on the award-winning University of Michigan dance team. Making the team as a ��-Dearborn freshman, Singh has traveled across the nation representing his university.

Singh recently returned from a second-place win at the international Boston Bhangra Competition, where his entire family was in the audience cheering for the Michigan team’s performance.

Wearing a vibrant orang Bhangra costume that was made in India with a custom Block M, Singh said the cheers from the nearly 3,000 fans in the audience kept the 14-person team energized throughout their number.

“You feed off of the audiences’ energy. If you haven’t seen a Bhangra competition, you should go,” he said. “There are people leaning against the stage, you can feel the vibration of the drums, you can hear cheering for all the teams. It brings out so much good.”

Singh knew about the ��-Ann Arbor team before college, which is well known in the Bhangra circuit. But he didn’t know if ��-Dearborn students—where he planned to attend because of proximity to his family and the quality of engineering programs—could join.

“When I tried out, they made it clear that we are all one University of Michigan—the campus location didn’t matter,” he said. “What matters is skill or potential, team fit and love of Bhangra.”

After college, Singh would like to work in the biomedical field. And he knows he’ll take the lessons he’s learning from Bhangra—putting in more than you expect to get out, working as a team to achieve optimal results, and continuing to give opportunities another chance—with him.

“Bhangra has changed my life,” he said. “It’s shown me what giving something another try—a sincere try when you truly are committed to the effort—can do.”

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