Inclusion or Diversity

College of Education, Health, and Human Services

University History

Education

Off

Mon, 11/18/2024 - 14:17

With an Inclusive History Project grant, the education lecturer is challenging his students to reckon with the nearly forgotten life story of a 1911 African American U-M grad who became an accomplished Detroit civil engineer.

Cornelius Henderson attended U-M at a time when it had very few Black students and went on to contribute to two of the most ambitious early civil engineering projects in Detroit: the Ambassador Bridge and Detroit-Windsor Tunnel. Photo by Annie Barker

Takeaways from the Oct. 15 Conversation with the Chancellor

lblouin — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 12:59:47 +0000

Takeaways from the Oct. 15 Conversation with the Chancellor lblouin Mon, 10/21/2024 - 08:59

The past few years have been a historically tough time for higher education, but last week’s Conversation with the Chancellor event was full of good news for ��-Dearborn. Enrollment is up. This year’s budget features a small surplus. The university’s capital campaign is off to a solid start. And the university is taking important steps on new initiatives, like broadening its DEI efforts. If you weren’t able to attend the event, we’ve recapped some of the big takeaways below. Or you can watch the full Conversation with the Chancellor.

There’s a lot of good news on enrollment and the university budget

In the past few years, demographic challenges and the pandemic have made it a historically challenging time for higher education, with enrollments declining at hundreds of institutions across the country. ��-Dearborn actually fared better than most universities over the past few years. In 2023, the university even welcomed its largest first-year class. But in 2024, it’s unequivocally good news on enrollment. This year’s incoming class of full-time, first-year students is up 4.7%. Transfer and graduate student enrollment is also up. And for Grasso, the brightest of the bright spots are the 9% increase in the four-year graduation rate over the past three years and the 2% increase in the six-year graduation rate compared to 2023. “Our students are taking more courses, which means that they’re going to graduate faster, which means everything is going in the right direction,” Grasso said.

This encouraging enrollment picture is translating into a healthier university budget. Grasso noted that universities can, and often do, grow enrollment while still losing money because of generous subsidies to student tuition. But at ��-Dearborn, we’ve also increased our net tuition revenue. In fact, for the first time in several years, the university has a small budget surplus.

The capital campaign is off to a solid start

Speaking of money, the university is in the midst of its latest capital campaign, which has been dubbed “Look to Michigan” to highlight the state's potential to solve big-picture societal problems and the vital role higher education plays in that. ��-Dearborn has yet to publicly announce its fundraising goal for the campaign, but Grasso shared that we’ve already raised about $25 million. The public launch of the campaign is Oct. 25 and the university will be hosting a major fundraising event at the newly renovated Michigan Central Station in May 2025.

What ‘institutional neutrality’ means for ��-Dearborn

Grasso also discussed a proposed institutional neutrality bylaw, which the U-M Board of Regents was reviewing at the time of the Oct. 15 Conversation event and ultimately approved at their Oct. 17 meeting. The new policy means the U-M president, members of the president’s leadership team (which includes the Dearborn and Flint chancellors), deans, directors, department chairs and others authorized to speak for the university or an academic unit will not, on behalf of the institution, make public statements on social or political issues that are not directly connected to internal university functions. Grasso noted that his office already has a similar set of principles that inform his public statements, though it has not applied to deans and other university leaders. You can read more about the new institutional neutrality bylaw in this article from The Record. Relatedly, ��-Dearborn recently updated its expressive activities policy, which governs its approaches to things like protests, demonstrations and free speech on campus.

The future of DEI at ��-Dearborn

One of Grasso’s big priorities for 2024-25 is getting the Office of Holistic Excellence off to a good start. Created in early 2024, the office is spearheading diversity, equity and inclusion-related efforts at the university, but Grasso noted its vision is much broader than the traditional scope of DEI. While the university will continue efforts to improve student, staff and faculty demographic diversity on campus, he also wants to focus on measurable initiatives that enable students from diverse backgrounds to develop their full potential and make the university a richer place. “There is a narrative that seems to be on campus that we’re walking away from DEI. Nothing could be further from the truth. We’re doubling down on the essence and foundations of DEI,” Grasso said. “[We want to] understand what individuals are bringing not just by their demographic characteristics, but by their life experiences, their perspectives. This is why this is a more holistic approach.” You can read more about Grasso’s views on DEI in our recent article, “Can we still find a path to civil discourse?”

Other highlights

The Renick University Center’s first floor renovation remains on track to be completed by early next year.
Grasso announced that the Facilities team is putting together a plan for installing natural plantings around the campus parking lots so the front door to the university isn’t a “sea of cars.” You can read more about ideas to improve the front entrance of campus on the comprehensive campus plan.
Could the university’s budget surplus translate into a mid-academic-year bonus? Grasso teased such a possibility (to spontaneous applause). He promised additional details later this year.

###

Story by Lou Blouin

Administration & Governance

Enrollment

University-wide

Chancellor

Off

Mon, 10/21/2024 - 12:59

Couldn’t make last week’s town hall with Chancellor Domenico Grasso? We have a recap of some of Grasso’s takes on enrollment, the budget, the current capital campaign, institutional neutrality and ��-Dearborn's new Office of Holistic Excellence.

Vice Chancellor for External Relations Ken Kettenbeil (left) talks with Chancellor Domenico Grasso in Kochoff Hall on Oct. 15, 2024.

Sharing nature’s beauty through touch, smell and sound

stuxbury — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 13:58:18 +0000

Sharing nature’s beauty through touch, smell and sound stuxbury Wed, 10/16/2024 - 09:58

Standing on a cruise ship deck recently, Donna Posont felt the wind in her hair, heard the crashes of the waves and enjoyed how the sun felt as it warmed her. Traveling with a group of nearly 25 friends, Posont says she did a lot of observing along the Canadian Atlantic coastline — and she credits her keen senses and a handy tool for giving her the ability to experience it differently than many others.

“Being a blind person, I don’t have the inconvenience of having sight dull my other senses. I’m lucky to appreciate things differently,” says Posont, who always has her white cane to help her navigate new and familiar spaces. Recalling her adventure, she then laughed: “Yes, I got lost on the ship. I should have had the crew take me on a tour first so I got more familiar with the layout. But my sighted friends were lost all the time too, so I don’t think it had to do with blindness.”

“People are people and we just have differing abilities from one another. Some of us need to plan differently. Just because you can’t see doesn’t mean you have a lack of vision.”

EIC naturalist Donna Posont

She’s right. And many people have called her work visionary. Environmental Interpretive Center staff member Posont, a 2015 College of Arts, Sciences and Letters alum, is a winner of the 2024 National Federation of the Blind’s Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award, which honors individuals and organizations that are a positive force in the lives of blind people. And earlier this month, Posont traveled to Grand Rapids to accept the Michigan Alliance for Environmental and Outdoor Education’s Merit Recognition Award. She also was featured in the latest issue of Audubon magazine.

The second blind person in the United States to become recognized as a certified interpretive guide by the National Association for Interpretation, Posont started a birding program at ��-Dearborn for individuals with low-to-no vision in 2009. Birding by Ear and Beyond, an all-ages bird walk, takes place from 9 a.m. to noon on the second Saturday of the month and begins at the EIC. Posont says sighted friends and family members are also welcome to attend and learn ways to experience their environment without using vision.

“The warmth from the sun on your shoes tells you that you are walking into a clearing. You can identify plants by smell,” says Posont. “You know a bird is a mourning dove by the way the wind whistles through their wings when they are taking off.”

Posont, a retired social worker who supported school-aged kids with visual impairments for many decades, enrolled in college at ��-Dearborn in 2008. Posont says she always wanted to be a scientist. But in the 1970s, when she first attended a university in her home state of West Virginia with the goal of studying biology, the school could not accommodate her in science labs and classes. So she found a fulfilling career in social work. Experience taught Posont — who progressively lost vision beginning around age 8 due to retinitis pigmentosa — that she could appreciate science outside of a lab. She’d go the nature route.

While on hikes with a friend at the Environmental Interpretive Center prior to enrolling at ��-Dearborn, Posont — who can see light, so she knows if it is night or day, but does not have usable vision — experienced the campus and the natural environment it offers. It was also close to her Dearborn home, where she moved decades earlier when her husband’s career transferred the family to Michigan. Learning about the strong environmental sciences programs, Posont knew ��-Dearborn would be the right fit for her.

She first got the idea to focus on birds when she was a ��-Dearborn student completing an internship at Camp Tuhsmeheta, a west Michigan outdoor education facility established by the Michigan School for the Blind. To help the children experience nature, Posont got an idea: She’d use bird songs as an entry point. She ordered plush birds that played recorded sounds. They’d listen to bird calls together and she’d make them relatable by assigning English-sounding words or phrases to them. For example, a translated cardinal sound is “Wit, wit! Cheer, cheer cheer!”

Posont says her ��-Dearborn professors also inspired her. As time went on, they became mentors and then friends. Her field biology professor, Orin Gelderloos — or Dr. G as generations of students have called him — taught her about the differences in tree bark and Posont would feel every trunk. She, in many ways, modeled her teaching style after his go-out-and-do lessons.

Later, as Gelderloos neared retirement, he and Posont worked together as a team . “He was my eyes and I was his ears. For example, when looking for birds with students, I’d tell the class what bird they were hearing because his hearing wasn’t as strong. He’d see it, point it out and tell them about it,” Posont says. “We were a great team then and when I see him, we’re still a good team.”

Posont says she’s proud of the connections she made on campus and her ��-Dearborn degree in environmental sciences with a naturalist concentration, and a biology minor. “Nearly 40 years later, I got that biology education I always wanted,” she says. “I also learned that I am a teacher — I didn’t realize that before — and how much I sincerely appreciate the beauty in our world.”

But birding and the great outdoors is about much more than nature to Posont. It’s a way to showcase blind people’s unique abilities in a way that increases confidence through experience and education.

“Through the years, I have had the pleasure of witnessing people once inhibited by their unique abilities turn into scientists taking off down the path using their canes. There have been some people who have been afraid to touch new things. Then, all of a sudden, they would be shaping bird beaks with homemade play-doh. And I’ve seen people who were afraid of speaking in front of others eventually learn to write Braille so they could have notes and share information,” she says.

Posont continues to explain that it’s not just learning about the birds — it’s about knowing what tools are available and becoming comfortable using them. “I always have my cane. I didn’t want to use it when I began losing my sight because acceptance is a process. But once I did, I learned this cane is my freedom. It allows me to travel and to ask for help. People who see it are more likely to stop since they realize that I’m blind. I’ve been able to do so much because of what’s available. I want others to know tools like canes aren’t a sign of weakness — they are the way to independence.”

Posont says knowing what’s available — she started receiving the support she needed after joining the National Federation of the Blind in 1979 — and learning from others is essential. Once concerned about the safety issues that might arise with parenting, Posont, a mother of five, learned from her NFB peers how bells on shoes and ultra-specific communication make the job much easier.

Now the grandma of 14 watches her grandchildren and plays games like Braille Uno with them. “I just need to remind them that they need to use their words. I can’t see if they are shaking their heads yes or no,” she explains.

Looking at her life, her travels and the recent awards, Posont says she didn’t know what was possible when she started losing her vision. What she once saw as a disability she now sees as a sense enhancer. She acknowledges that not having sight is frustrating at times, but wants others with vision impairments — when they are willing and ready to accept it — to realize how much can be done without sight.

“The younger person I once was — who cried and cried and cried because she couldn’t fit in — would be amazed at where this difference in ability has brought us,” Posont says. “You can still get married and have kids if that’s what you want. You can identify birds. You can be a scientist. You can be a teacher. You can experience the world through your other senses. That young person I once was would be amazed at what was possible. And now it’s her turn to let others see what’s possible for them.”

Story by Sarah Tuxbury

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

Teaching Resource

Environmental Interpretive Center

Off

Wed, 10/16/2024 - 13:50

National and statewide awards honor EIC staff member and ’15 alum Donna Posont for her work as an inclusive naturalist educator and advocate.

Donna Posont, right, leads monthly bird walks for people with visual impairments once a month on ��-Dearborn's campus. Photo by Michael Solomon

Alum Zaineb A. Hussein has found her place

lblouin — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 15:42:32 +0000

Alum Zaineb A. Hussein has found her place lblouin Tue, 09/24/2024 - 11:42

The week after 9/11, 17-year-old Zaineb A. Hussein and her mother, Mariam, who had immigrated to Dearborn in 1977 with her husband during the early years of the Lebanese Civil War, were shopping at an estate sale on the west side of the city. Zaineb didn’t share her mother’s love of rummage and garage sales, but when she spotted a pair of ice skates that she simply had to have, she was glad she had tagged along. Her mother led a friendly negotiation over the price, until an elderly woman interrupted and told her mother to “go back to your country.” Zaineb instantly filled with anger. “My mom is my heart. You come near my mom and I see red,” she says. Zaineb was just about to lay into the woman when her mother urged her to hold back. “I was, like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ But my mom said, ‘Stop — she doesn’t know better.’” Then her mother turned to the woman and declared simply, “I am an American citizen and we are proud to be here.” The host of the estate sale, apparently mortified by the encounter, offered her the ice skates for free. They decided to leave without them.

Hussein recalls the encounter as one of her early formative lessons in politics. First, it showed her that, even though her mother had been born elsewhere and would always be viewed as a “foreigner” by some people, she still had so much pride in her identity as an American. Her mother’s roots here mattered to her, and she felt them as strongly as any other American. Second, Hussein says it taught her that you can’t always “meet fire with fire.” “If you really want to see a change in people, you have to be able to demonstrate that in a way that will be received,” she explains. Hussein says that lesson was reinforced again and again over the next few years as a student at ��-Dearborn, where she majored in history and political science. On a diverse campus, her classmates were hardly a monolith when it came to faith, values and politics, and her classes gave her countless opportunities to hone her skills in communicating with people who had views different from her own. More importantly, she developed a working view of human nature, one which makes it feel not just like a political cliché when she extols the virtues of trying to understand others’ views, even ones you might detest. “I think at ��-Dearborn, I really learned that my interpretation of something could be very different from another person’s — even if we were looking at, say, the same historical events,” she says. “I think that’s when I realized just how much our life experiences make us who we are. If you and I lead very different lives, we’re going to have different perspectives, different stories, different values. So if you want to communicate with someone, you have to start there.”

That perspective is certainly part of what has helped Hussein build a dynamic career alongside some of the biggest names in Michigan politics. Post-graduation, she initially headed to Lansing, where she worked for a half decade with the Michigan Department of Human Services and as a director of constituent affairs for then-Michigan State Senator David Kzenek. After burning out on the Lansing political culture, Hussein welcomed an opportunity to return to Wayne County, where she worked as the county’s director of diversity and inclusion and deputy director for external affairs for the county executive. She never thought she’d return to Lansing. But after a conversation with a colleague led to an unexpected opportunity in the Secretary of State’s office, she took a position working as Jocelyn Benson’s deputy chief of staff, where, among other things, she spearheaded minority group outreach initiatives during the 2020 election.

Hussein declares with an understandable amount of pride that she’s rarely had to apply for a job — she’s usually been recruited — and her current position is yet another example. When her longtime friend Abdullah Hammoud, a fellow east Dearborn native and ��-Dearborn alum, expressed interest in running for mayor of Dearborn, Hussein was all in — first answering Hammoud’s call for help with the campaign, and later, when he won, taking on the role of his chief of staff. Alongside Hammoud, Hussein says she’s found a place and a team that makes her feel like she could stay awhile. She sees the work Hammoud is doing as mayor as historic. Indeed, as the first Arab American to be elected mayor in the city’s history, the charismatic young executive is regarded as a symbol of the growing political power of Arab Americans not just locally but nationally. But more than that, Hussein insists what makes Hammoud special is how focused he is on doing the actual work of healing a young, demographically diverse city whose history has been pocked by multiple periods of anti-Black and anti-Arab racism. For example, shortly after Hammoud took office, the administration decided to host the first ever Dearborn-Detroit block party along the cities’ shared border. Hussein remembers more than one instance of a Black Detroiter coming up to the mayor, remarking that it was the first time they ever felt welcome in Dearborn. “I think with this administration, you’re seeing a team that’s actively coming to terms with our history and that’s trying to rectify many past practices that have hurt people in our communities,” Hussein says. “I do think we’re at an inflection point. When I was growing up, it was Arab Americans on the east side and white residents on the west side. But now, almost anywhere you go, you’re finding a diverse group. And people increasingly see our diversity as our strength.”

This moment of transition hasn’t always been smooth. Hussein says there are still outlier voices in the city who aren’t on board with this vision. The past year, in particular, has presented its share of challenges. The war in Gaza thrust Dearborn, which is home to one of the larger Palestinian diasporas in the U.S., into the national spotlight. Some of the old tropes about Arab Americans and Dearborn quickly found new life online and in the press, including a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “Welcome to Dearborn, America's Jihad Capital,” which drew national backlash, including forceful criticism from Hammoud and ��-Dearborn Chancellor Domenico Grasso. As chief of staff, Hussein got used to handling death threats against Hammoud, sifting out which ones to bring to his attention and which to let the police address quietly in order to not cause him added stress. The team has also wrestled with how to use the spotlight to potentially exert their influence on the national conversation over the war. From the start, Hammoud has been outspoken in his criticism of the assault on Gaza and of the Biden administration, a view that’s shared by many in the city. Earlier this year, the collective frustration morphed into a much-talked-about political liability for Biden, as the then-presumptive Democratic nominee risked losing an important part of his coalition in a tightly contested must-win state. In January, Biden’s campaign manager reached out to Hammoud for a meeting. Hammoud turned them down, telling them he would be open to talking with actual policymakers, but not campaign operatives. A few weeks later, the administration followed up by sending several high-ranking officials to Dearborn.

When Hammoud and his advisors were making decisions about these events, Hussein says there was a surprising amount of unity in the room. It’s one of Hussein’s main jobs, of course, to keep the team tight, and working behind the scenes like this is definitely an underappreciated political craft. For Hussein, it’s about being able to spot great thinkers to put around the mayor, but also knowing how to rein them in when a decision must be made and there’s only a couple hours to do it. It’s about pushing talented people past their limits to get something that’s just a little bit better — and not making them hate you for it. And it’s also about being extremely politically aware of opportunities and political landmines. “I try to see things through all possibilities and outcomes, whether I agree or disagree with the approach,” she says. “If one word in a statement we’re putting out could be interpreted differently, then we have to have a plan to address that if that happens. That’s why we labor so hard over words and ideas. Everybody sees the world a little differently.”

Hussein has made her career working behind the scenes for other people, but she’s made enough of an impression that she now gets asked semi-regularly about whether she’ll run for office some day. “Never” is her quick response on the day we talk. Her explanation is that she doesn’t like talking about herself, and she thinks she can have far more impact by using her talents to elevate others, rather than just herself. It’s a nice sentiment, and rings as sincere, if a bit self-deprecating and deflecting. But I then ask if she has anyone in her life that disagrees with this self-assessment. “There are a few people,” she says, noting that one of them is an influential mentor. I then point out that her logic seems sound if she’d be running for legislative office, but her self-described talents — pushing people, helping diverse teams gel, taking pace and crises in stride, anticipating all possible consequences of a decision, listening to diverse constituents — sound like a nice toolbox for an executive. “I guess you never say never,” she says.

Hussein did run for office — once. She was elected junior class president of Fordson High School. Her slogan was “Ask not what Zaineb Hussein can do for you. Ask what you can do for Fordson.” “I know, super cliché. But I thought it was very cool,” she says, smiling. As a person who puts a lot of stock in the power of words, no doubt she’d come up with something better next time.

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Story by Lou Blouin. Photos by Annie Barker.

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

Alumni Engagement

Social Sciences

Off

Tue, 09/24/2024 - 15:41

The chief of staff for Dearborn’s first Arab American mayor talks about why she loves making change from behind the curtain and why she’s still a hard ‘no’ on running for office herself.

‘Education is the equalizer’

jpow — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 19:38:01 +0000

‘Education is the equalizer’ jpow Fri, 07/26/2024 - 15:38

Aaron Kinzel discovered a dusty, old box while searching the property of his grandfather‘s farm in 2021. After opening it, Kinzel sifted through pictures of his immigrant German family, newspaper clippings and legal papers. One document, a divorce decree from the early 1920s, caught his attention: it said his great-great grandfather had been sent to the Ohio State Penitentiary for life and his spouse filed for a separation due to his incarceration.

Kinzel was stunned — not only because it was a family secret, but because it gave him a new perspective on his own life.

“My childhood was like living in a horror movie. We were very poor and there was a lot of violence and abuse. My stepfather almost murdered me when I was 9,” says Kinzel, a lecturer in criminology and criminal justice. “I knew that violence was a part of my growing up, but looking at those papers, I could trace violence and incarceration in my family more than a century back. Incarceration has had a recurring role over multiple generations for my bloodline — including me.”

Lecturer Aaron Kinzel says his family immigrated from Germany more than a century ago — and the American dream wasn't in their grasp. The poverty they found themselves in led to a family history of incarceration. Photo courtesy Aaron Kinzel

If Kinzel wasn’t so open about his background, you wouldn’t suspect that the award-winning educator — he’s the 2024 ��-Dearborn Faculty Awards recipient for Lecturer Excellence in Inclusive Teaching and a King-Chávez-Parks Initiative's Future Faculty Fellow— served time in prison for a violent confrontation with law enforcement as a teenager.

He says incarceration was the culmination of run-ins with the law that began when he was young. “I was in a dark place surrounded by drug dealing and crime. Looking back, that was my rock bottom. I shot at the police. No one was physically hurt, but it still weighs heavily on me,” says Kinzel, who was paroled in 2007 after serving 10 years. “Going to prison and having time to reflect and mature is what helped me turn my life around. Now I want to work collaboratively with criminal justice professionals to make the system and society a safer place.”

Kinzel, who had dropped out of high school, says education was a catalyst in his transformation. He earned his GED while awaiting trial in a local county jail in 1997. Then, prior to his release from prison, he enrolled in several non-credit courses and eventually saved up enough money to be admitted to the University of Maine at Augusta — Kinzel served his prison sentence in Maine — for a psychology course that addressed drug use and how it influences choices, alcoholism and genetics, and brain development.

“The area of the brain that controls reasoning and helps us think before we act develops into adulthood. It was this a-ha moment for me. It will never excuse my actions and I take full responsibility, but my childhood certainly helps explain my criminal conduct. The class helped me better understand my actions and that I had the ability to grow and change,” he says.

As a ��-Dearborn educator, Kinzel, pictured center, has taken students on field trips including prison tours, museums, police stations and boxing clubs (shown here). Photo courtesy Aaron Kinzel

After he was released, Kinzel earned his associate’s degree at Monroe Community College and an undergraduate degree at Siena Heights University. He then went on to earn his master’s degree from ��-Dearborn. He is currently working on his doctoral dissertation and plans to graduate with his Ed.D. from ��-Dearborn in 2025.

But, as important as education was to unlocking opportunities, Kinzel says getting into college came with significant hurdles.

“As a society, we don’t want to educate felons or hire them. I tried to get a job right out of prison, but couldn’t get hired. For college, I applied at multiple institutions. Some outright rejected me, but others noticed my growth. I ended up being the first person ��-Dearborn accepted while still on parole — and that was on a probationary status,” he says. “If the purpose of prison time is to reform offenders, we need to come up with a better path for reentry.” Kinzel hopes academic institutions will begin to expand their DEI efforts to be more inclusive for justice-impacted people.

There are, and will continue to be, many returning citizens in positions similar to Kinzel’s, he points out. “According to numbers, 95% of the men and women in prisons will be coming home. That’s a fact. So now the question is: Who do we want as our neighbor?,” Kinzel observes. “People with skills to help them make a living and be productive members of society? Or people who are sitting around and finding themselves in desperate situations?”

Kinzel says his pivot toward education helped him build skills over time.

While at community college, he became a member of Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society and an academic tutor on campus. As an undergrad, he gained campus employment as a newspaper staff writer and was named a Ronald E. McNair Scholar, a U.S. Department of Education program that teaches highly qualified students from underserved populations about how to apply and succeed in graduate school. He graduated from ��-Dearborn’s Masters in Public Administration program in the top 15% of his class. He also was named a ��-Dearborn Difference Maker.

Throughout his education journey, Kinzel says he gained confidence, built networks and honed skills, while also proving himself to professors and administrators. This led to instructional assistant opportunities, which began while he was an undergraduate. Then in 2015, while a graduate student, Kinzel says support came from a seemingly unlikely place: Donald Shelton, then-director of ��-Dearborn's Criminology and Criminal Justice program and a retired long-time circuit court judge.

“I helped him promote a criminal justice symposium that he was working on and I believe that I exceeded his expectations. He saw my work ethic. Getting to know each other more, I let him know my background and discussed how I was teaching a couple classes part time at Western Michigan University. He thought that with my education, professional accomplishments and personal experience that I’d be a good addition to the criminal justice faculty and encouraged me to apply,” Kinzel says. “This respected judge gave me, a convicted felon, the experience I needed to move up in my career. He’s been a mentor and a friend.” Shelton retired from ��-Dearborn in spring 2024.

Kinzel says he shares these stories with returning citizens — individuals recently released from prison — so they know there are people in the criminal justice system who want previous offenders to have opportunities.

Officer Kaitlyn Wrobel, Class of 2017, speaks to one of Kinzel's classes. Photo courtesy Aaron Kinzel

Wayne County Airport Authority Officer Kaitlyn Wrobel, who graduated from ��-Dearborn in 2017, says Kinzel’s ability to see the criminal justice system through a unique lens has made him one of the best professors and mentors she’s had. He’s written letters of recommendation, provided encouragement during tough times and is now inspiring her to attend graduate school.

She first had Kinzel as a professor in 2015 and recalls when Kinzel shared his background with the class. “You’d have never known if he didn’t tell you — you should have seen the reaction of the class. We were shocked in a good way. I didn’t know it was possible to climb back from a low like he had and be so successful. It’s not something I’d seen or heard about before,” says Wrobel, who has been a guest speaker in Kinzel’s classes since her graduation. “I am a driven person, but Aaron’s story inspired me to push myself further and to overcome any challenges that came my way.”

Kinzel draws on his experiences to advocate for criminal justice reform. He lobbied for the government to reinstate federal Pell grants for prisoners; in 2023, Congress passed a new law that made this a reality. He’s founded and collaborated with numerous organizations to assist returning citizens with their transition from prison to society. Kinzel also works with the U.S. Department of Justice to help train executive-level corrections professionals — Kinzel says former Director of the Michigan Department of Corrections Pat Caruso, one of Kinzel’s mentors, helped connect him to this opportunity.

Kinzel is currently taking his LSATs, with the hopes of earning a Juris Doctorate. He publicly shares his story as an example of what’s possible when someone is given the opportunity to show how they have changed after serving time in prison. He also develops collaborations — like workshops or panels — with justice-impacted people and the criminal justice system to create effective policy change.

Wrobel says Kinzel’s experience not only showed her what’s possible for returning citizens, it also shaped how she views her profession. “It’s important to hold people accountable, but also remember that we are all human and make mistakes. A bad decision doesn’t make someone a bad person. Aaron’s living proof of that. I now train new officers and instill what I’ve learned from Aaron in every person I train,” she says. “Officers run into people on their worst days — and we need to solve problems. It's important to remember that how you handle a situation can have a life-long impact on someone, so we need to use our authority responsibly.”

Kinzel isn’t just making an impact in the classroom and in the criminal justice field. He’s also fostering changes on the homefront. Now a father of a school-focused and community-active teen, Kinzel has noticed a change in his century-long family cycle. “I’m a fan of history, but it doesn’t need to repeat itself,” he says. “The key to change is education. Education is the equalizer.”

Kinzel and daughter Lily. Photo courtesy Aaron Kinzel

Story by Sarah Tuxbury.

Accessibility or Affordability

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

Social Sciences

Off

Fri, 07/19/2024 - 19:38

Criminology and Criminal Justice Lecturer Aaron Kinzel shares how higher education helped break a cycle of incarceration that spanned nearly a century in his family.

Criminology and Criminal Justice Studies Lecturer Aaron Kinzel. Graphic by Violet Dashi

Can we still find a path to civil discourse?

lblouin — Mon, 20 May 2024 14:01:40 +0000

Can we still find a path to civil discourse? lblouin Mon, 05/20/2024 - 10:01

In his younger days, ��-Dearborn Chancellor Domenico Grasso wasn’t much of a reader, aside from his assigned school readings, like “Lord of the Flies,” “A Tale of Two Cities” and “Julius Caesar.” It’s something he chalks up to a number of factors. His Italian immigrant parents, who didn’t read English, didn’t encourage reading at home. As a teenager, he devoted much of his free time to sports. And his main academic interests were math and science, not disciplines, like literature, that didn’t give the indisputable answers he was interested in. That started to change when Grasso met his now-wife of 35 years. Susan, a fellow engineer who started college in the Honors program in U-M’s College of Literature, Science and the Arts, was the opposite — an adventurous and enthusiastic reader who consumed everything from novels to nonfiction, science to literature. When they started dating, he tried to explain that he simply didn’t have the attention span for reading. But she didn’t buy it. “Then why don’t you just read one or two pages and put the book down?” she said. Such a straightforward and simple solution hadn’t occurred to him. He remembers starting with Sinclair Lewis, a novelist and playwright who wrote prescient social commentaries on topics as diverse as the banality of middle class life and the dangers of American fascism. One or two pages at a time, Grasso made his way through Lewis’ “Main Street,” then “Babbitt,” then book after book. The habit stuck.

Now, Grasso says his enthusiasm for reading matches Susan’s. And he’s equally adventurous. Though he’s an environmental engineer by training, his reading preferences bend toward literature, the social sciences and philosophy — interests you see reflected in his selections for the Chancellor’s Book Club, a campus group he started several years ago. His inaugural pick, “Klara and the Sun,” a dystopian novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, is a commentary on the nature of love that focuses on the life of an artificial being. “When We Cease to Understand the World” by Benjamín Labatut is a novel based on real-life scientists that explores the links between discovery and humanity’s penchant for destruction. Annie Ernaux’s “A Man’s Place” probes the familial tensions that arise from transcending social class. Grasso’s latest selection, “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion” by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has been influential in helping us understand important fractures now plaguing society.

Grasso says his motivation for starting the club was straightforward. “To be honest, there are a lot of book clubs out there and I didn’t want to participate in a book club,” he explains. “I just made an offer: If anyone wants to read the same book I’m reading, we can have a discussion.” Grasso hopes the club offers a window into the ideas and perspectives that inform his approach as chancellor. And he believes reading and discussing a really interesting book can, in fact, be entertaining. But the book club is also a gesture toward one of his core values: That we need to have spaces on campus, and in our lives, for discussing provocative, consequential issues and ideas in a thoughtful, open-minded way.

It may sound simple, but the idea that civil dialogue can exist is something that many have, frankly, given up on. Say it out loud, and it sounds a little old school. Some might find it Pollyannaish. Polarization, particularly in the political sphere, along with an accompanying hardening of belief systems, has led many to judge that it’s no longer worth trying to have conversations with colleagues, friends, relatives and neighbors who have different views. Grasso, for one, still thinks such a thing is possible. Or more specifically, he doesn’t have a lot of optimism for a society that completely loses that skill. “I think it is our only hope,” Grasso says. “What I believe isn’t too far from what Thomas Jefferson said about the prerequisite for democracy being an informed electorate. I think you can make the same argument that if you want an inclusive, nurturing, welcoming environment for all the people who live in our society, you need a well-educated group of people who can think through the challenges we have. And we’re losing the ability to have these kinds of conversations.”

Grasso is happy to see that kind of thoughtful dialogue happening within the book club and its sister group, the Chancellor's Video Club, where participants watch and then discuss big idea YouTube videos. (The first was the classic 1965 James Baldwin-William F. Buckley debate and the latest was a panel discussion of Francis Fukuyama’s “Liberalism and Its Discontents.”) Perhaps it’s not surprising things are going well. The clubs’ most active participants tend to be faculty members who are well-practiced in debating ideas and coexisting with colleagues who have different opinions. But as he looks across the university, he thinks we are missing out on some opportunities to nurture the open-mindedness, humility and broad curiosity that he thinks are necessary ingredients for civil discourse and thoughtful problem solving. He points to his own discipline, engineering, as an area where he thinks a narrow mindset is undercutting engineering’s broader potential. “We talk about engineering like it’s only an extension of math and science, and unfortunately, I see so many engineering students, like my younger self, who see the humanities, and English and reading as fluff,” he says. “I even remember a celebratory reception for a colleague who was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, where he proudly declared that he had never read a novel! But engineering is rarely simply math and science. It’s taking math and science and applying it to human problems. Robert Pirsig, who wrote ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,’ observed that technology ends up doing such ugly things because it’s disconnected in any real sense from humanity. Engineers often create things because they can, but without thought as to how their creativity is going to be absorbed and adapted by humanity. And that’s because many engineers are detached from the essence of the human condition.”

Grasso also thinks that, despite the right intentions, we lost the plot when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. “There is no question that whoever is on campus, we want them to represent the whole of human potential,” Grasso says. “But I think we reached a stage with DEI where it started to take on a life independent of what its original objectives were. It was a means that became an end. And we don't have as much to show for it as may have been possible. I do feel like we went down some wrong paths in DEI planning, and I want to go back on the trail a little bit and look for the flashes on the trees and get back on the right trail.” Grasso’s idea for that centers around a new Office of Holistic Excellence, which was recently featured in an article in Learning Well magazine. He concedes it’s an “ambiguous” name — something he says is intentional so the office can become an umbrella for a broad group of initiatives. Specifically, Grasso wants the office to support a more encompassing sense of diversity and inclusivity, which emphasizes a diversity of perspectives and disciplines, in addition to demographic diversity. His thinking is that the capacity for open-minded, thoughtful, cool-headed dialogue — the thing he feels is required to solve a diverse society’s biggest challenges — can be best nurtured by an environment in which members of our campus community encounter views that aren’t their own as a regular part of their lives here. Necessarily, this also means that the university must continue its efforts to ensure that education is accessible and its population is demographically diverse, two of the main goals of prior DEI initiatives. He just doesn't want the effort to be limited to the scope of the traditional DEI playbook.

Grasso isn’t pretending to have all the answers. In fact, his whole point is that he doesn’t — nor does anyone. He believes the best solutions, including in a complex and polarizing area like diversity and inclusion, will require everyone’s involvement. But he feels like, as chancellor, he can help set the tone. “At the end of the day, what I’d like is a community that’s more like the academy of ancient Greece,” he says. “Not that we’re walking around in togas, but that we’re asking important, relevant and deep questions. It’s better to be curious than confident. And I fear that our society is filled with an overabundance of confidence and a scant amount of curiosity. I’d like our campus to be the antidote to that. I’d like it to be a place where people are super curious, and they want to know about other cultures, other disciplines and other ways of thinking about important topics, so we can develop a clearer view for a collectively desirable future.”

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If you’re looking for something to add to your summer reading list, the next Chancellor’s Book Club selection is “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion” by Jonathan Haidt. The New York Times noted that Haidt’s 2012 book “wants to start a conversation about integrating a better understanding of human nature — our sentiments, sociality and morality — into the ways we debate and govern ourselves.” A discussion will be hosted in the fall. Story by Lou Blouin

Civics Awareness

Opinion or Voices

Chancellor

Off

Mon, 05/20/2024 - 14:01

In an era where strong opinions dominate and people are increasingly unwilling to entertain alternative perspectives, Chancellor Domenico Grasso is going old school in his effort to rebuild the foundation for debating big issues.

Credit: Michigan Photography

Class of Spring 2024: CEHHS graduate Weirong Huang

lblouin — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 12:25:23 +0000

Class of Spring 2024: CEHHS graduate Weirong Huang lblouin Mon, 04/29/2024 - 08:25

Being a kindergarten teacher who specializes in working with English language learners was never Weirong Huang’s plan. In fact, when Huang was offered her first permanent teaching position working in a Dearborn Public Schools’ classroom with ELL students shortly after her 2020 graduation from ��-Dearborn, she almost turned the job down. As someone who just a few years earlier was learning English herself, she doubted whether she was the best person to help students. Moreover, while she spoke English, Cantonese, Mandarin and several other Chinese dialects, she didn't know any Arabic, which many of her potential students spoke as their first and only language. But Huang ended up taking the job, and three years later, she has no regrets. In fact, helping children learn English has become such a defining part of her life as a teacher, she decided to return to ��-Dearborn for her M.A. in Education with the English as a Second Language (ESL) endorsement, a degree she officially claimed at Saturday’s commencement ceremony.

Huang, who grew up in southern China, initially came to the United States on a two-year visa working as an au pair for a family in the Dearborn area. But she says she also saw it as an opportunity to continue her education. It’d been a dream of hers to open a preschool in China, but she wanted to study in the U.S., where she says the educational philosophies were less strict and focused more on children's individual interests. After her au pair job ended, she enrolled at Oakland Community College and later transferred into the education program at ��-Dearborn. At the university, she says she found exactly what she was looking for — namely, a program that exposed her to a range of creative educational approaches. In particular, she remembers being shocked — in a good way — the first time she visited ��-Dearborn’s Early Childhood Education Center. The school follows what is known as the Reggio Emilia model, where young children are encouraged to explore the world around them — continuously constructing and revising their individual theories about how the world works, like little scientists. It was basically the antithesis of the “factory” model of education. If she ever did get to start a preschool, Huang thought she’d want it to be just like that.

In her classroom at Snow Elementary in Dearborn, Huang says she likes looking for opportunities to use constructivist techniques with her kindergartners. But day to day, language is always front of mind. In a typical school year, Huang has about 20 5- and 6-year-olds, about half of whom start the year knowing little or no English. Moreover, nearly all of her ELL students are Arabic speaking, so she’s learned a variety of techniques for overcoming the language barrier. In Dearborn Public Schools, English learners aren’t grouped into special ELL classrooms — they attend classes with their English-speaking peers. Huang says this approach has a variety of advantages. One of the biggest is it lets her pair ELL students and bilingual students. Kids being naturally helpful, it’s never hard to get volunteers to translate, though she says this buddy system can definitely lead to a chatty classroom. Another technique: Using more language-neutral tools to jumpstart language learning. “For example, when we do our daily writing assignments, we do a drawing first. Then we write about what we’re drawing,” Huang explains. This gives students a low-pressure task that lays the foundation for their language activities, which helps build their confidence.

Huang says one of the biggest lessons she’s learned both through her program and in her three years leading a classroom is that assessment has to be treated as a nearly continuous activity for English learners. “Maybe you have a student who you just think is quiet, but that’s when you have to make sure that maybe he’s not just quiet, he’s struggling with the language,” she says. “So you have to have little conversations with them all the time, to see where they’re at. My students tease me because even at recess I’m assessing them. I’ll call them in and ask them to count to 100 and then send them back to play.” Little “tests” like this allow a teacher to see if a student is struggling with something. If they are, Huang knows to give them a little extra time — until she sees that unmistakable spark of understanding in their eyes. “You have to always be watching,” she says. “As a teacher, you have so many eyes.”

Initially, Huang thought her own status as an English language learner would be a liability in the classroom. “I honestly feared that if parents knew that about me maybe they wouldn’t want me teaching their kids,” she says. Now, she doesn’t worry about it. If anything, she sees her own ELL status as an asset that helps her relate to her students. She knows what it feels like to come to a new country and be so scared to speak that you just stay quiet. She also knows how good it feels to work hard and overcome that fear. She’s open with her students about her own story, which she says helps build a bridge between them, no matter what language they speak. “I think they are amazed that I’m from China because they think all teachers live at the school,” she says, laughing. “They don't think you have a personal life. Or that you have kids their age, or have a guinea pig and two tortoises, or like to draw. So I like to share a lot with them. So much of education at this age is just about inspiring them and building their confidence and setting them up to become lifelong learners. So whatever common ground we can find and have fun with, you have to use it.”

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Story by Lou Blouin

Commencement

College of Education, Health, and Human Services

Education

Off

Mon, 04/29/2024 - 12:14

The ’20 education alum returned for a master’s to pursue her passion for teaching English language learners.

Graphic by Violet Dashi

If you want kids to learn music, teach it like a language

lblouin — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 12:59:01 +0000

If you want kids to learn music, teach it like a language lblouin Mon, 03/04/2024 - 07:59

The adorably awkward end-of-year music concert featuring kiddos singing their hearts out is a cherished school tradition that Eric Bottorff says he can live without. The Livonia Public Schools elementary music teacher has his reasons for doing away with the “cute concert” genre at his school. For starters, he never wants to set anyone up for disappointment, and the reality is that many of his students have life circumstances that will keep them or their loved ones from attending an after-school event. Prepping a performance is also a huge time suck. The conventional wisdom among music educators, which Bottorff figures is about right, is that every minute of a concert costs a music teacher an hour of instruction. Plus, it’s clear to him that teaching kids to sing a prescribed set of songs, mostly to ensure a cute photo op for their parents, is not the same thing as teaching kids music anyway. Above all, he wants children to leave his classroom feeling like music is “something everyone can do.”

Bottorff’s willingness to experiment with new ways of teaching kids music is earning him recognition and an increasingly large platform for sharing his ideas. He’s a regular presenter at educational conferences, and now gets so many requests for his lesson plans, he’s turned that into a little side business. Here at ��-Dearborn, in addition to being a student in the Department of Education’s doctoral program, he teaches a course on how to incorporate the arts into all kinds of classroom subjects, a key part of which is getting teachers-in-training to see themselves as musical people. Earlier this year, Bottorff received one of his highest-profile accolades: He was named the Michigan Music Educator of the Year by the Michigan Music Education Association, in part for creating a new research-based curriculum for his district that’s more inclusive of the needs of special education students.

Central to Bottorff’s approach is a belief that traditional ways of teaching kids music leave something to be desired. On one end of the spectrum, having children sing songs in unison doesn’t do much to teach them what music actually is. Interestingly, Bottorff says the opposite approach — introducing students to formal musical notation and instrument instruction at a very early age — can leave kids with the same deficits. Instead, Bottorff says we should think about learning music like we do learning a language, an idea that’s supported by research suggesting the brain processes language and music in a similar way. “Very often, in music teaching, we try to jump straight to reading music, as if the note on the page is the only true version of the song,” Bottorff explains. “But realistically, when we learn to read English, or any other language, we’ve had three or four years of hearing people speak it and us speaking it back. But we try to skip all those steps when we try to teach kids music.”

This is why in Bottorff’s classroom, students won’t see musical notation until the end of the second grade. By that time, they’ve had nearly three years to experience music in more developmentally appropriate ways. For example, in kindergarten, Bottorff introduces the students to a diverse range of musical styles, so they can begin to internalize different genres, rhythms and time signatures, using mostly their ears and voices. By first and second grade, they’re starting to learn a bit of vocabulary for reading and writing music. But like a baby learning to babble, they use a language of music that makes sense to them. Quarter notes and eighth notes, for example, are “doos” and “doo-days.” Rhythms and time signatures are learned by clapping hands or stomping feet. Bottorff says this makes the leap to learning musical notation, or an instrument like the recorder or ukulele, a pretty straightforward process by third or fourth grade, since the students already have a working knowledge of what music actually consists of. “I tell my kids my goal is not that you’re a good ukulele player. My goal is when you’re 30 years old, and you need a hobby because you’re tired from working or need a break from your family, you don’t need to call me to learn how to play guitar,” he says. “You can remember some of these skills and figure it out on your own. And feel confident enough to try.”

Bottorff has also revamped how special education students experience music in his classroom. For a variety of reasons, he says music class has traditionally been a “tough time” for many special education students — and the paraprofessionals who aid them throughout their days. When he started teaching special education music classes, he noticed that when students were struggling with a task, their parapros often couldn’t resist the temptation to intervene, either by singing for the student or even taking their hands and clapping for them. So Bottorff collaborated with the aides to come up with some new approaches, based both on his expertise and the parapros’ experience of what worked well for the kids in other settings. “For example, we actually made a poster that hangs in the classroom — the ‘Rules for Adults in the Music Room’ — which I have to hold myself to as well,” he says. “Don’t sing for a kid, let them sing on their own. Let the kids find their own beat. Give them time to process. I mean, we decided that we’re willing to wait 30 seconds for a response, because we want the student to find their way to an outcome that makes sense for them.” Ultimately, his philosophy, which he borrowed from his mother, a retired special education teacher, is to “make sure the kids are happy to show up, sad to leave and are learning something in the middle.” The fact that many of his special education students say music class is their favorite part of the day is an indication that something is working.

Given the impact Bottorff’s had on music education in his district, it may surprise you to learn that he doesn’t see himself in the music field forever. People have been telling him for a while that he’d make a good principal, and he sees how an administrative role would give him a broader platform for creating a supportive educational culture that goes beyond the music room. In fact, his dissertation work at ��-Dearborn isn’t focused on music — a subject he says is so specific it tends to “pigeonhole you as an educator.” Instead, Bottorff is studying various aspects of “advisory,” an educational approach that’s experiencing a bit of a revival. Advisory takes a huge range of forms, but the core idea is that fostering a quasi-parental role for teachers can aid students' social-emotional development. He got a crash course in a fairly intensive form of advisory while he was a young teacher in South Korea. He was assigned 10 sixth graders, for whom he “was their person.” He would meet weekly with the kids, often at the school’s on-campus coffee shop, where they’d do things like play games and talk about their lives. He was also their official advocate if they had a behavior issue that required intervention from the school. Bottorff said he saw some huge benefits to this approach. But he also felt totally unprepared for having that kind of relationship with a student. “I think we have teachers who already feel stretched in their responsibilities. Or teachers who feel like they don't know how to make connections with these kids outside of, say, teaching them chemistry,” he says. Bottorff’s dissertation is focusing on several schools who are using advisory, so he can study what kind of support teachers need to make this approach work.

Those are the kinds of larger reforms he could help foster as a principal, which is one of the main reasons he’s willing to leave a role he loves. He figures he can always teach trombone lessons on the side if he needs his music kick. Plus, it’s hard to imagine someone who’s spent 14 years as a music teacher totally giving it up. A principal who loves to sing and plays tuba, ukulele, trumpet and about two dozen other instruments would likely be someone students never forget.

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Story by Lou Blouin

Graduate Research

College of Education, Health, and Human Services

Education

Off

Mon, 03/04/2024 - 12:50

Education doctoral student and elementary music teacher Eric Bottorff recently won the Michigan Music Educator of the Year award for his inventive classroom approaches, including teaching music to special education students.

Graphic by Violet Dashi. Images by Ruslan Grumble, kues1 and Prot via Adobe Stock

Celebrate the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

lblouin — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 18:13:24 +0000

Celebrate the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. lblouin Mon, 01/08/2024 - 13:13

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. worked tirelessly toward creating a just and equitable society where people were valued and respected, regardless of skin color, abilities or social class. To do this, the civil rights leader and Nobel Prize winner advocated for peaceful approaches to some of society's biggest problems — problems that continue today, more than 55 years after his assassination.

“Dr. King challenged systemic oppression and the people in power were threatened by his words and peaceful actions. Dr. King practiced what he preached. He changed us for the better. And he was murdered for it,” says Mechanical Engineering and Bioengineering Graduate Programs Coordinator Rebekah Awood, a 2000 ��-Dearborn alum who’s participated in MLK Day of Service events on campus for nearly 25 years. “Dr. King changed lives through acts of service — we still need to continue his work and do better. This time of year is a reminder to follow his lead and help where you can, however you can.”

To offer service opportunities in honor of King's legacy, ��-Dearborn is hosting the annual MLK Day of Service and Week of Events, which is a partnership with Henry Ford College, on Jan. 15. There are several volunteer opportunities available on campus, in the community or remotely at home. Times and locations vary, depending on the volunteer opportunity chosen. Opening remarks for the event will take place at 9:30 a.m. in Kochoff Hall in the Renick University Center.

During the MLK Day of Service’s 31-year history at ��-Dearborn, more than 8,500 people have volunteered 42,000 hours in Detroit and the surrounding areas, says Civic Engagement Coordinator JaNai’ James. James says she hopes students, faculty, staff and community members will sign up and add to these numbers and the community impact made.

“There are many ways to get involved. You have strengths that your community needs. If you are concerned that you don’t have the skills to build a house or something like that, I want to let you know that it’s OK. I don’t have that either. All you need to have is a willingness to help,” she says. “If you are open to helping, there is someone who will accept your help.”

James says there are new volunteer opportunities this year. Volunteers are needed to assemble play kits for hospitalized children, create chew toys for shelter animals and put together welcome bags for families entering homeless shelters. This is in addition to soup kitchen assistance, food pantry stocking and clean-up work. Partner organizations include Capuchin Soup Kitchen, Project Sunshine, Auntie Na’s House, Kids Against Hunger, Eternal Light, Wayne Metro Community Action Agency, World Medical Relief Detroit, Tuckerville Transitions House and more.

“Everyone has their own reasons for why they participate, but we all share that we got out of bed on a day off and are choosing to put good into the world,” James says. “The MLK Day of Service emphasizes Dr. King’s spirit of service while giving us time to reflect on our actions and our values. It’s hopefully the first step toward a much larger question: ‘How can we continue this work?’”

Awood says she and her daughter Abigail, 11, will participate again in this year’s day of service. The pair take part in the MLK Day of Service yarn group — they knit and crochet hats and scarves that are then donated to local organizations — that meets in Fairlane Center. Echoing James’ sentiments, Awood says she needs to remember that every act counts — even when it seems small.

Awood, who grew up in a church that preached white supremacy and gender divides, uses the homemaking skills she was required to learn as a way to give warmth to people in need. As Awood crochets, she’s performing her small act of peaceful resistance to honor King’s legacy.

As a child, Awood recalls hearing church leaders say hateful things about Dr. King. “In my childhood innocence, I didn’t understand why they vilified him so much. We were Baptist. He was a Baptist preacher, too. He was formally educated in religious studies. His message was biblically sound,” she says. “When I later connected the comments people made about him to who he was as a person, I finally understood that they vilified him because he was Black. It was disgusting. I consider that a point on my timeline where I realized I needed to educate myself, question the status quo and, finally, leave my church.”

Since the late 1990s, Awood has volunteered during ��-Dearborn’s MLK Day of Service and sought out other opportunities for service. She’s sung in choir performance tributes to MLK, driven students to service sites and attended expert-led conversation-based events that discussed systemic racism. She says she continues to participate and seek out knowledge because learning is continuous.

“Sometimes it feels like there is never enough we can do to undo the damage of things we were taught or experienced — and that these system injustices are too big to take on. But I remind myself that every bit, even if it feels tiny, helps,” Awood says. “The first step is showing up. Then you put in some work. What happens from there is up to us.”

Here are campus events taking place next week that highlight MLK and the importance of continued social justice work.

Civil Rights Anthems Display
ongoing, Mardigian Library
Discover the music that accompanied the movement. The Mardigian Library will have a display on Civil Rights anthems for MLK week. The display will feature a short history of each song, including the iconic "We Shall Overcome," and provide an opportunity to listen to each of the songs.

MLK Week of Events Keynote with ��-Flint Chief Diversity Officer David Luke
1 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 16, Zoom.

��-Flint’s Chief Diversity Officer David Luke reflects on MLK’s legacy through the context of the recent ban on affirmative action and attacks on its successor — diversity, equity and inclusion. While some argue that Dr. King would be opposed to DEI interventions, Luke argues that affirmative action and DEI are outgrowths of the Civil Rights Movement and are tools consistent with Dr. King's fight against racism and systemic oppression.

2024 MLK Peace Rally
11 a.m.-1 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 18. Meet at the Renick University Center.

Poster making begins at 11 a.m.; the rally starts at noon at the RUC's northeast entrance.

A peaceful march from ��-Dearborn to Henry Ford College recognizes the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and commemorates the role that protest has taken in shaping our society. Hear a keynote address from Henry Ford College African American Studies Professor Kalvin Harvell. The rally will end at Henry Ford College's Building L. Refreshments will be provided upon arrival at HFC.

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Article by Sarah Tuxbury

Campus Life

Events

Off

Mon, 01/08/2024 - 18:10

��-Dearborn hosts the annual MLK Day of Service on Jan. 15, followed by a week of events that highlight Dr. King and the importance of continued social justice work.

Members of the ��-Dearborn community make blankets that were donated to local nonprofits during the MLK Day of Service in 2022.

The perfect idea to ensure perfect name pronunciations at commencement

lblouin — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 17:05:14 +0000

The perfect idea to ensure perfect name pronunciations at commencement lblouin Wed, 12/13/2023 - 12:05

At a typical commencement ceremony, the cultural diversity of the American university is on full display, though organizers often struggle to nail one of the most basic expressions of this richness: pronouncing their students' names correctly as they walk across the graduation stage. “Basically no matter how good your name reader is, and ��-Dearborn has a very good one in Marcus Harris, it’s going to be very difficult to be 100% perfect,” says Hafiz Malik, a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering who’s working on a number of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives for his Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Fellowship. “There is just too much variation in pronunciation across cultures — and even within a culture — to get everyone’s name exactly correct.”

After the December 2022 ceremony, Malik was discussing this challenge with some of his colleagues when an idea dawned on them for how to fix the problem once and for all: “You can’t get more perfect than someone saying their own name,” he says. The next day, he circled back with the group with a brainstorm: Rather than having someone read names from phonetic spellings, which is how it’s traditionally been done at Commencement, Malik and his grad students could build an automatic name reading system that would play audio files of the students’ names that were pre-recorded by the students themselves.

Fast forward a year and their name reader system is set to debut this weekend at the December 2023 Commencement ceremony. Here’s how it works: Students recorded their names in advance using the NameCoach feature in Canvas, a tool that many students already use to help their professors with pronunciation. Then, as students walk across the stage, they’ll simply scan a card featuring a QR code. That will trigger the system to play their audio recording and display their name on the big screen. Malik says some graduates have had a little fun with the new recorded name option. One student got their kids to record their name. Malik’s wife, who’s walking this season to celebrate her master’s in health information technology, also opted to get the family involved. “The kids and I recorded her name together,” he says.

For Saturday’s ceremony, about 60 percent of graduates chose to make a recording for the name reader. Harris is recording the remaining 40 percent of names, and he and Computer and Information Science Professor Bruce Maxim will also be on stage to read any last-minute additions to the program. Malik is prepping some backup, too. “This is the first time we’ve done this, so we have backups of all the audio files, backups of sensors and the QR code reader, and we designed the system to work entirely offline so it can still function if the internet goes down,” he says. “We also made sure each person on our team has a backup partner in case someone gets sick that day. And even if my wife wasn’t graduating, I’d definitely be there to make sure everything goes smoothly!” If they do experience a technology glitch, phonetic spellings on the back of the cards provide a simple analog failsafe.

Malik credits his team of graduate students — Abhishek Ashok Borde, Abdul Kareem Shaik, Swetha Rani Kasimalla and Aditya Bendale — for taking this idea and running with it. “They are all from India, and many of them have long names, so I think this idea resonated with them and they worked very, very hard,” Malik says. “I never had to push them, they were so motivated, and I think it was very satisfying for them to create an actual product that is going to serve a need on such an important occasion.”

Malik and the students have submitted a patent for the system and are working with the U-M Innovation Partnerships office to commercialize it so other universities can use the name reader too. Their system boasts significant improvements over similar name reading options available today, which Malik says can cost upwards of $12,000 per ceremony and don’t allow students to record their own names. Malik says in the future, they’d like to embed the QR codes with additional personal information, like the student’s degree and major. “We could also have new students record their names when they get photographed for their student IDs so their recording is already ready to go when they graduate,” he says.

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Story by Lou Blouin

Commencement