College of Education, Health, and Human Services

Health and Human Services

Off

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.

‘How will you make your mark on the world?’

stuxbury — Sat, 21 Dec 2024 19:14:43 +0000

‘How will you make your mark on the world?’ stuxbury Sat, 12/21/2024 - 14:14

Nearly 40 years after Henry Maier earned his diploma from ��-Dearborn, he attended his first campus commencement. The retired FedEx ground president and CEO skipped his own ceremony because he moved immediately after finals to begin working. On Dec. 21, he was back at his alma mater — this time delivering the keynote speech to the Class of Fall 2024.

Keynote speaker Henry Maier

“Thanks for the opportunity to finally attend — even if it is almost 50 years late,” said Maier, who graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in economics in 1986. “I entered ��-Dearborn as a freshman in the fall of 1972, only the second class of freshmen admitted to the university. My family couldn’t afford college, so I had to work one, two and once three jobs to pay tuition. I’m sure many of you sitting here can relate.” Maier went on to have a 35-year career with FedEx. “��-Dearborn made it possible for students like me to get not just a college education, but a Michigan education,” he continued.

Surrounded by family, friends and favorite professors, hundreds of Dearborn Wolverines were awarded 713 degrees during two 90-minute commencement ceremonies in the Fieldhouse. The morning ceremony recognized graduates of the College of Arts, Sciences and Letters and the College of Business. The afternoon ceremony celebrated graduates of the College of Education, Health and Human Services and the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

Delivering the keynote, Maier congratulated the graduates on reaching their goals. He said their hard work will continue to open doors for more opportunities. “Today you reached a milestone, but what you really have done is given yourself choices. You can choose to earn a living, what problems you want to help solve and decide what direction you want your life to go in,” he said.

Maier added that, as life unfolds, the knowledge the graduates have gained will prove important — but so will the understanding that there will always be lessons to learn and skills to grow. “If you take nothing else with you today, be curious, inquisitive and remember that your education does not end when you leave today,” he said.

Student speaker Almunthir Elhady echoed the idea that graduation is not a conclusion. The College of Engineering and Computer Science graduate told his fellow students that with each step they take, they will be called to adapt, to grow and to rise. “The future is not a destination — it is a process of becoming, a journey of constant redefinition, of striving not just for personal success, but for a world that is better for those who will follow,” Elhady said.

Student speaker Almunthir Elhady

As Chancellor Domenico Grasso certified the degrees, he told the students that he looks forward to seeing the good that they bring into the world. “I welcome you to the society of learned men and women and to the pantheon of distinguished Michigan alumni — almost 700,000 strong — who have shaped and defined the world in which we live,” Grasso said. “Today also marks the shortest day of the year in terms of daylight, but from here on, the days will gradually grow longer. Just as the light of the sun increases, so too will the light of your education — symbolized by our university seal — guide you, illuminating your futures for the rest of your lives.”

Then, students in the Class of Fall 2024 — who ranged from ages 18 to 65 and hailed from 14 U.S. states and many nations around the world — turned their tassels, marking their official transition to alumni. During the two ceremonies, 482 undergraduate, 226 graduate and five doctoral degrees were awarded.

Grasso also awarded one special diploma — to Maier. “We are going to present him with the diploma that he did not receive during his commencement,” Grasso said. “Congratulations.” Smiling, Maier accepted it with one word: “Finally.”

Chancellor Domenico Grasso and Class of Fall 2024 keynote speaker Henry Maier

During his keynote speech, Maier noted that the anthem for his generation — the Baby Boomers — was a Graham Nash song titled “Chicago.” He paraphrased the lyrics: “We can change the world. Rearrange the world. It’s dying to get better.” He encouraged the newest ��-Dearborn alums to think about their song, while also talking about what a big day it was for them both — even though their graduations were nearly 40 years apart.

“To the Class of 2024, I ask, ‘What’s your anthem? How will you leave your mark on the world?” Maier said. “What I can tell you is you have already begun.”

Story by Sarah Tuxbury. Photos by Annie Barker and Andrew Mascharka

Commencement

Alumni Engagement

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

College of Business

aMAIZEing Future Educators Conference

Off

Sat, 12/21/2024 - 18:57

��-Dearborn awarded 713 degrees during two 90-minute commencement ceremonies on Dec. 21 in the Fieldhouse.

The Class of Fall 2024 was celebrated at two commencement ceremonies on Dec. 21. Photo by Annie Barker

aMAIZEing Future Educators Conference

shumwong — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 19:53:13 +0000

aMAIZEing Future Educators Conference shumwong Tue, 12/17/2024 - 14:53

The University of Michigan-Dearborn welcomes you to attend our first annual aMAIZEing Future Educators Conference. This FREE conference for future educators, offers numerous workshops and sessions facilitated by current ��-Dearborn Faculty, current students, local school district leaders and ��-Dearborn student support offices.

The program includes information for students interested in:

Elementary Education (Birth to Kindergarten, PreK to 3rd Grade and 3rd Grade to 6th grade)
Secondary Education (5th through 9th grade and 7th through 12th grade)
English as a Second Language Education
Early Childhood Education
Children and Families
Instructional Design and Learning Technologies

2025-04-05T08:30:00-0400 to 2025-04-05T16:00:00-0400

Fairlane Center North

19000 Hubbard Drive
Dearborn, MI 48126
United States

https://goo.gl/maps/V7k4sRBWVNeEpf7b9

Quad E

United States

On Campus

College of Education, Health, and Human Services

umd-cehhs-admin@umich.edu

Undergraduate students

Graduate students

Free Food

Free Stuff

Career / Networking

Conference / Symposium

Workshop / Training

Class of Fall 2024: CEHHS graduate Jesse Whitman

lblouin — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 15:48:18 +0000

Class of Fall 2024: CEHHS graduate Jesse Whitman lblouin Mon, 12/09/2024 - 10:48

Education master’s student and Fall ’24 graduate Jesse Whitman has always been drawn to people and places that don’t match his own background. In fact, when he graduated from his small-town, southwest Michigan high school in 2007, he didn’t apply to a single in-state university — just to guarantee that he’d land somewhere unfamiliar. As it turned out, Miami University in Oxford, Ohio wasn’t exactly exotic, but it was hard to turn down a Division I track scholarship. Whitman’s major at Miami, however, did stretch his horizons. He majored in history, with a concentration in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. He even learned Arabic. “I just have always had this desire to learn about other cultures, and that seemed about as different from my own background as you could get,” he says.

Whitman loved his time at Miami, but he jokes now that his choice of major may have complicated his employment prospects — especially given he graduated in 2011, when the U.S. economy was still recovering from the Great Recession. So fresh out of college, and struggling to find work in his field, he decided to completely switch gears. He says he joined the Navy in small part because his grandfather had served in the Navy, and in large part because he had a lot of student loan debt and the Navy has a generous loan repayment program. When he enlisted, he scored high on the ASVAB exam, a sort of SAT for the military, which put him on track to train to become a “nuke” — technical staff who maintain the electrical systems on the Navy’s nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers. The intense training lasted 18 months, after which Whitman was assigned to the Harry S. Truman, an aircraft carrier based in Norfolk, Virginia, where he worked on operations and maintenance of the nuclear propulsion plant’s high-voltage electrical system.

Whitman says his time in the Navy shaped him in several important ways. The high-stakes environment of operating a nuclear-powered electrical system taught him a lot about the importance of owning your work. And it enabled him to see the world: during his time in the Navy, he went to Dubai, Croatia, Crete and Bahrain. Most importantly, he says, it taught him a lot about people — and specifically, about who Americans really are, deep down, when the issues that divide us aren’t front and center. “I mean, when you’re doing your shift and you’re trying to stay awake at 2 a.m. and you're not looking at your equipment, what are you doing? You’re learning about the person sitting next to you, what they believe in, what they enjoyed about the recent port call,” he says. “The Navy takes a really big sample of America. It’s maybe a better representation of what America really is — or could be. It’s the melting pot. It’s people who have really different backgrounds and beliefs, but there is this expectation that we’re all going to work together regardless of our beliefs because we all have this greater mission we’re contributing to. After being in the Navy, I’m confident I could work with anyone.”

Whitman says the reason he left the Navy was pretty simple: His daughter was born, and his demanding work schedule, which required him to be out to sea for weeks at a time, meant he was missing too many of her “firsts.” He decided not to renew his contract and to head back to school, making what seemed like a logical choice. He enrolled in ��-Dearborn’s electrical engineering program, where he says the stunning new Engineering Lab Building was a big draw. But three semesters in, he simply wasn’t feeling it. “I was doing well academically, but it wasn’t ‘sparking joy’ — to quote Marie Kondo,” he says, smiling. “So I tried to think back to the last time I felt a lot of job satisfaction, and it was teaching.”

In the Navy, it turned out, Whitman got to do quite a bit of teaching, most often about technical subjects having to do with the ship’s electrical systems. Other times, it was more informal, like the mentorship that came with looking out for younger members of his team. “Some of them were 18 years old, and the Navy can throw a lot of money at you, so it’s important to take care of your finances,” he says. “They had questions about how to buy a car or buy a house, and I was a little older, so I could help them with that stuff. It felt good to be able to impact their lives in a really practical way.” Whitman decided to cut his losses in his engineering program and switch to a Master’s of Education. The vibe shift for him was immediate. He says it felt incredible to suddenly be around a group of super positive people who were all committed to serving a greater good — not totally unlike the environment he’d found in the Navy, but it was a better fit for who he’d become.

Whitman says it feels pretty amazing to be bringing this chapter of his life to a close — which, of course, is really just the beginning of a new chapter. In particular, he feels fortunate to have had the time and space to “find my footing as a 35-year-old man,” something he says was only an option because of his wife’s support. And his student teaching experience this past semester has only reinforced the feeling that he’s made a good choice. In particular, he’s enjoyed all the experimentation it's forced him to do. On his very first day, for example, when he bored the first two periods of sixth-grade geography students with a prepared lecture on the fundamentals of maps, he wasted no time pivoting. During the lunch hour, he quizzed his supervising teacher, who gave him some sage advice about the attention spans of 11-year-olds that he’s still using. Developmentally, Whitman says, kids that age are still learning how to digest large “blocks” of information. So this semester, he learned to mix in things like YouTube videos and activities that ask the kids to weigh in with their takes on things. “Luckily, I’m at the age where it’s easy for me to accept that I don’t know everything,” Whitman says. “I’m new to this, so working with teachers that have been at this for 20 years — of course, they’re going to be better at it than me. Why wouldn’t I try out their advice? Even they’re still trying out new things. You see that teaching really is going to be a lifelong learning experience.”

In fact, Whitman’s student teaching experience at his Oak Park middle school has been so enjoyable, he’s now thinking his preferred first job might be something like teaching 7th grade — even though he originally envisioned himself as a high school social studies teacher. “With all things, I try to just embrace the opportunity you find yourself with,” he says. “I kind of think of it like being in a maze. How do you know you’re going the wrong direction? You hit the wall and turn around. That’s happened to me a few times in life. But now I’m finding that I might want to do middle school because I gave it a chance. The path in front of me still feels open.”

###

Story by Lou Blouin

Commencement

Off

Mon, 12/09/2024 - 15:44

After serving in the Navy for eight years, Jesse Whitman is answering a different call and pursuing a career in teaching.

For the final leg of his master's in education, December grad Jesse Whitman has been teaching middle school geography at a school in Oak Park. Photo by Annie Barker

Lecturer Rashid Faisal wants you to remember — and see yourself in — Cornelius Henderson

lblouin — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 14:19:21 +0000

Lecturer Rashid Faisal wants you to remember — and see yourself in — Cornelius Henderson lblouin Mon, 11/18/2024 - 09:19

Two years ago, the University of Michigan announced the launch of the Inclusive History Project, an initiative aimed at studying and documenting the history of the university that’s attentive to diversity, equity and inclusion. But ��-Dearborn Education Lecturer and ’20 EdD alum Rashid Faisal has been chasing down the life story of a 1911 African American U-M engineering grad for a lot longer than that. When Faisal first learned of Cornelius Henderson in 2006 during a conversation with one of his wife’s colleagues, Faisal was surprised he’d never heard of Henderson before, given that African American history is a subject he studies pretty intensely. According to the one-pager he was handed, Henderson was an engineer who was pivotal in two of the most groundbreaking early civil engineering projects in Detroit, the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel. The other detail that immediately caught Faisal’s attention: Henderson attended one of Faisal’s alma maters — the University of Michigan — at a time when it had very few non-white students. “We knew very little about the Black students at the university who attended well before what we would consider the affirmative action era of the 1960s,” Faisal explains. “I mean, we’re talking about 1906 when Henderson started as a student. What was his life like? What was his experience like? It just opened up this window for me to try to learn more about the early African American students at the university.”

When Faisal began that research, he learned of people like George Jewett, who, in the 1890s, became the first African American varsity football player at U-M. And there was Eddie Tolan, a world-record-setting Olympic sprinter who ran track at the university in the 1930s. But Faisal was continually drawn in by the details of Henderson’s story. The rough existing sketch of Henderson’s life that existed at the time was that he was the only African American student in the engineering college and was a standout student despite being isolated by his white classmates. When Henderson graduated and began looking for work, he was denied by every engineering firm in Detroit — except one, which offered him a janitorial position. Fortunately, a chance encounter with one of his U-M classmates led to a better opportunity: The young man urged Henderson to apply for work at his employer, the Canadian Bridge Company in Windsor. Henderson took the advice and ended up building a career there that spanned 47 years, climbing the company ladder from entry-level draftsman to structural design engineer by the time of the Ambassador Bridge and Detroit-Windsor Tunnel projects.

Education Lecturer Rashid Faisal has been chasing down the story of Cornelius Henderson for nearly two decades. Photo by Annie Barker

That general story alone made Henderson an interesting figure, but Faisal was hungry for more of the textural details of his life. And as he did more research, he often encountered things that complicated the traditional narrative. First and foremost, the young Henderson, the University of Michigan student, was often assumed to be a person who endured isolation as the college’s lone Black student. Faisal says one of his professors even described being particularly impressed by Henderson’s achievements in mathematics and science because he, unlike his white classmates, did his work “without help.” But Faisal says other details of Henderson’s life give us reason to question this assumption. Henderson, Faisal says, would have been part of what W.E.B. Dubois often called the “Talented Tenth” — a term for an influential class of early 20th-century African American leaders who were highly educated and dedicated to bettering circumstances for Black Americans. Henderson’s father was a college president and considered one of the most highly educated men of his era. His mother was a teacher. His older brother also attended U-M, went to medical school at the Detroit College of Medicine and became a prominent Detroit doctor. And though he was likely the only Black student in the college of engineering, he shared a rich social life with other Black students who were members of the Epsilon Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the oldest Black fraternity at U-M. His fraternity brothers included people like Richard Hill, a U-M law student who later mentored Thurgood Marshall. “Henderson came from a certain kind of Black American cultural capital: the Black church, the Black fraternity system and historically Black colleges and universities,” Faisal says. “So, from an outsider's point of view, it may have appeared he was doing this all on his own. But just because the culture of support was rendered invisible doesn’t mean the culture didn’t exist. In many ways, he was part of the elite of American society at that time.”

Aside from the Ambassador Bridge and Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, Henderson contributed to a wide variety of projects, including serving as architect and engineer for Memorial Park Cemetery, the first Black cemetery in Detroit. Faisal has uncovered evidence that indicates Henderson was also involved in the construction of multiple apartment buildings and hospitals in the city. Photo courtesy of Rashid Faisal

Faisal thinks recognizing that Henderson’s achievement didn’t happen in a vacuum is important for a number of reasons. First, he says casting Henderson as exceptional, or doing what he did “without help,” feeds the so-called “magical Negro” narrative, a racist trope from the era that framed Black intellectual achievement as unusual. Moreover, in erasing the context for Henderson’s admittedly remarkable life and rendering him only as a talented person who overcame obstacles, we make his story less accessible and relatable to contemporary audiences. For example, it’s long been a priority for higher education institutions to increase representation of Black students in STEM disciplines. But Faisal says if we’re erasing or misrepresenting historical examples like Henderson, we’re failing to give today’s students the opportunity to see themselves not as trailblazers in a field where they've historically not “belonged,” but as part of a long story of achievement in which they are simply the latest chapter. “In the absence of historical memory, we ask students to understand what they’re doing as new when we have a blueprint from the past,” Faisal says.

Indeed, over his many years as an educator of both K-12 and college students, Faisal has leveraged Henderson’s story to challenge students’ views of themselves, others and history. He’s used Henderson’s life as a leaping off point for students to do oral histories of their own families, a project that’s led many students to discover unknown family legacies of college attendance, including some first-generation college students who realized they actually aren’t the first. In 2016, Faisal led a team of fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders, who did their own research on Henderson and created a traveling exhibition, which they presented throughout southeast Michigan, including to a class of ��-Dearborn graduate students, and which was on display at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History for an entire year. Most recently, with support from an Inclusive History Project grant, Faisal asked ��-Dearborn students in his multicultural education course to reckon with the “multiple identity” features of Henderson’s life, especially the sometimes conflicting forces of his race and social class. The results were fascinating. Faisal found it interesting, for example, how easily one Arab American engineering student was able to find herself in Henderson’s story, as she faced similar challenges as a woman in a predominantly male field. For one white male student, it was a revelation that a Black intellectual class even existed at that time. “I had one student who wondered if maybe the discrimination Henderson faced in looking for a job was based on his language,” Faisal recalls. “And I found this so interesting because her comments seemed to be based in certain assumptions of her understanding of the Black vernacular, when in reality, Henderson, because he came from an elite class, probably talked like the rest of the guys in those engineering firms. But I was glad she made that point. It shows that what we see today informs our understanding of the past, and that we often try to understand things that are unfamiliar to us in terms of what is familiar.” Faisal says the hope in doing an exercise like this is that students, when they’re out in the world working as educators, will approach issues of identity in a more nuanced way. “So when that student is out there teaching her unit on Black history, maybe she won’t just reach for Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass,” Faisal explains. “She’ll reach for the lesser-known figures. She’ll make the cross-cultural comparisons. And when you do that, the story becomes alive.”

Along with Howard Lindsay, Lurine Moncrease and Sharon Sexton, members of the Black Historical Sites Committee at the Detroit Historical Museum, Faisial helped create a new historical marker honoring Henderson in Detroit’s Riverside Park. Photo by Annie Barker

Henderson has now been part of Faisal’s life for nearly 20 years, and in some ways, he may be reaching the end of what he can do with the historical record. Unfortunately, many of the details of Henderson’s engineering achievements were likely lost in a fire that destroyed a significant portion of the Canadian Bridge Company’s historical records. But Faisal reckons he’s not quite done with Henderson. He’s thinking his next project might be a book series on Henderson’s life for children and young adults. And he’s hopeful that the next round of Inclusive History Project funding will enable him to create a walking tour of sites connected to the history of U-M’s early Black students, which would include a new historical marker honoring Henderson in Detroit’s Riverside Park near the Ambassador Bridge. “From my perspective, everything U-M is doing with the Inclusive History Project, it’s all positives and no negatives,” Faisal says. “I could see this as a project across all major universities with long histories — and I hope they follow our lead.”

###

Story by Lou Blouin

Faculty and Staff

Inclusion or Diversity

University History

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

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

University fellowship aims to create 'dream team of sustainability'

stuxbury — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 16:07:05 +0000

University fellowship aims to create 'dream team of sustainability' stuxbury Wed, 10/23/2024 - 12:07

College of Business senior Anisa Elezi says an internship where she evaluated eco-friendly procedures opened her eyes to the importance of sustainable practices. And now, through a new fellowship at ��-Dearborn, she’ll be able to explore that interest further in a way that will benefit the campus community and beyond.

Elezi is one of four students named as an Environmental Interpretive Center Collegiate Sustainability Fellow. The program, which is a collaboration between the EIC and the Office of the Provost, selected one student from each ��-Dearborn college to improve sustainability practices on campus, both through individual projects and interdisciplinary collaboration.

In addition to Elezi, students are College of Education, Health and Human Services EdD student Diana Mtairek, College of Engineering and Computer Science master’s student Kirill Nartov and College of Arts, Sciences and Letters senior Leah Williams.

Elezi, who’s majoring in digital marketing and public relations, says she wrote about sustainable practices and identified areas for improvement when it comes to eco-friendly procedures while at chemical firm BASF, where she’s currently a marketing and communications intern. With this new interest, Elezi thought about her time at ��-Dearborn — the other place where she spent the majority of her waking hours.

"I realized that I was getting more into sustainability," Elezi says. "I found it very interesting to see the different eco-friendly things that could be done that may not be incorporated into what we do at ��-Dearborn — yet." That’s when she learned about the EIC fellowship and its goal to develop a central hub for the sustainability efforts across campus.

Professor of Geology Jacob Napieralski, who became the EIC director in 2023, says he’s learned about all of the work toward sustainability that happens across campus — like the Planet Blue Ambassador program, waste reduction initiatives, carbon neutrality efforts, faculty sustainability-focused committee boards and more.

Napieralski wanted a way to amplify these initiatives. “Great things are happening, but it’s not organized in a specific community-facing location,” says Napieralski, who collaborates closely with ��-Dearborn’s Sustainability Coordinator, Grace Maves. “We want to work on sustainability initiatives in a way that it becomes part of our DNA at ��-Dearborn.”

With the EIC hosting many community-focused events that showcase the importance of nature and environment independent of the four colleges, Napieralski saw the EIC as the perfect place for a central hub. His aim is to bring together diverse strands of sustainability work and generate new ideas by cross-pollinating the expertise of students from each of ��-Dearborn's colleges.

The students meet at the EIC on Wednesdays to discuss sustainability ideas and initiatives.

"We looked for students who were very interested in learning, understood that they're going to start with a blank slate and brought a lot of tools to the team," Napieralski says. He noted that applicants demonstrated creativity and originality that the application and interview process, with students submitting proposals relating to the use of artificial intelligence for sustainability projects and the synthesis of automotive engineering with computer coding, for instance. “There were moments when interviewing these students that we said to ourselves, ‘We never thought about that,’" Napieralski observes.

In addition to collaborating with the other fellows, Elezi says she’ll focus on marketing the Environmental Interpretive Center and promoting its ongoing events. She says she is also implementing improvements to the EIC website and newsletter to improve traffic and clickthrough rates in an effort to get people engaged in the community- and student-facing environmental programs.

"I think the EIC is an unknown gem of this campus. Just being there a couple of times a week for the past month has made me want to bring more friends here," Elezi says.

Provost Gabriella Scarlatta says Napieralski approached her to discuss the centralized hub and student fellowship idea — and that ��-Dearborn’s leadership team supported the efforts and funded the student positions.

"This will allow the EIC to boost its footprints on and off campus, improving effectiveness of sustainability-related efforts at the EIC and across campus, and diversifying the participants that engage in environmental sustainability and equity while supporting and strengthening interdisciplinary collaborations," Scarlatta says.

Napieralski, who works on environmental justice projects like flooding issues in low-income Detroit communities, says the fellowship and hub will also make the work taking place on campus more accessible to the community. The EIC brings thousands of community members to campus per year through nature walks, K-12 field trips and more.

“We want to be the go-to pipeline for information and resources. We want to know the priorities at the department- and college-levels and then roll them out at the university-level,” he says. “I see the four colleges as legs and the EIC as the body. Together, we can turn and face the community to show what we are doing and how we can be partners.”

He says the student fellows’ involvement through ideas, advocacy and their college-affiliate work is an essential part of making this happen.

“The four we selected really did stand out in their ability, especially in their past history, their ability to work together collectively and their ideas," Napieralski adds. "Now, we will go from there and build things together."

Story by Sarah Tuxbury and Shaun Manning; Photos by Annie Barker

Nature or Environment

Sustainability

University-wide

College of Business

Off

Wed, 10/23/2024 - 16:02

New campuswide initiative brings together sustainability efforts from all four ��-Dearborn colleges.

EIC Sustainability Fellows are, from left, Anisa Elezi, Kirill Nartov, Diana Mtairek and Leah Williams.

Dearborn Wolverines gain real-world experience through internships

kbourlie — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 16:35:56 +0000

Dearborn Wolverines gain real-world experience through internships kbourlie Thu, 10/17/2024 - 12:35

For students getting ready to enter the workforce, internships offer valuable opportunities to build skill sets and resumes, while also testing out knowledge learned in the classroom in the real world. Reporter recently talked to four students who dedicated part of this past summer to an internship to learn more about their experiences.

Caroline Tepper, College of Business

Business major Caroline Tepper plans to graduate this December and already has a job lined up with Ford Motor Company, thanks in large part to a purchasing and supply chain internship she completed this summer.

“I'm lucky and grateful that I've been extended an offer to actually join Ford Motor Company starting in January. It's really exciting to come back after my internship,” Tepper says. “I'll be a Supply Chain Ford College Graduate in purchasing, and that entails a three-year rotational program. You move through two or three different rotations to help new hires gain experience in the field.”

Tepper says her summer experience gave her a chance to put skills she learned to the test.

“I actually utilized pretty strong data analytical skills throughout learning how to navigate several of Ford's data risk tools that they use in order to monitor risks throughout the entire world,” says Tepper.

For other students preparing to enter the workforce with their first internship, Tepper reminds them, “You have to think of it like a foot in the door to a company potentially extending you a full time position. It’s almost like a longer interview.”

“Try your best, ask questions,” Temper advises. And remember: “We have fresh and diverse perspectives, and what we can bring to a company from our college experience, I think, it’s really valuable.”

Christina Townsend, College of Arts, Sciences and Letters

��-Dearborn senior Christina Townsend found her perfect internship match this summer working in social media and public relations for the Friends for Animals of Metro Detroit animal shelter. The journalism and screen studies major – who is also minoring in marketing – needed to complete an internship to fulfill her degree requirements. For the animal lover, being able to use her videography skills while building her marketing skills was an ideal fit.

“I'm a big cat and dog lover. For the dogs, I joined them on walks around the site and I took pictures with them. With the cats, I visit them in their cat condos and make videos with them or put them in a greeting room and make a more interactive video with some toys. But I also enjoy the people. There's a lot of good people here,” says Townsend.

One of those people was her supervisor, Manager of Development and Community Relations Maria Nardecchia, who Townsend says “took her under her wing” and went above and beyond to make sure she got the experience and knowledge she needed out of the internship. “I left the internship more confident in my ability to market and showcase my skills,” says Townsend.

Logan Kilby, College of Engineering and Computer Science

Mechanical engineering senior Logan Kilby spent summer 2024 continuing to gain hands-on experience through his product engineering co-op with American Axle and Manufacturing. The mechanical engineering student has worked in driveline systems for the company over the last three years, largely focusing on component engineering. While the co-op has given Kilby the real world experience he needs to succeed as an engineer, it’s also given him an opportunity to make industry connections both within his company and with original equipment manufacturers such as GM.

As he looks toward graduating this December, he’s confident in the knowledge and skills he’s built. “I've really gone from not knowing anything to having all kinds of skills under my belt. And I feel confident that I can do the job of any full-time engineer,” says Kilby. “Most of the tools I would use as an engineer, I already have about three years’ experience with.”

This October, Kilby accepted a full time position as a mechatronic engineer with AAM.

Maya Abdallah, College of Education, Health and Human Services

Maya Abdallah

During her final semester at ��-Dearborn, Maya Abdallah completed a summer internship at United Outstanding Physicians with their data entry department. While the internship was not required for her major, Abdallah wanted to get insight into the business and insurance side of healthcare since the next step in her career path is applying for medical school. During her internship, Abdallah was able to learn more about how medical insurance works and the collaboration that happens behind the scenes between physicians and insurance providers to make sure the needs of patients are met. She says one of the best aspects of her internship was the people she worked with. “They were very welcoming and very nice, and they really wanted to make sure that I had a good experience there. They really made sure that I was learning.”

While Abdallah is now looking at applying to medical school, she’s glad to have had this experience early on in her academic career so she can put that knowledge into practice and knows what to expect later on.

“It's a very niche and specific part of the medical field that you wouldn't really see even as a physician,” says Abdallah. “I definitely will be using it in my future career.”

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Interested in learning more about completing an internship as part of your academic journey? College of Arts, Sciences and Letters students can contact the CASL Internship Office. College of Engineering and Computer Science students can contact CECS Experiential Education. College of Business Students can contact the COB Business Career Center. College of Education, Health and Human Services students can contact CEHHS Field Placement.

Story by Kathryn Bourlier. Photos by Julianne Lindsey and Julie Howells.

Careers or Internships

Experiential Learning

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

College of Business

Off

Mon, 10/21/2024 - 16:17

Hear from students across ��-Dearborn’s four colleges who furthered their career goals over the summer.

Caroline Tepper outside of the Ford Motor Company World Headquarters in Dearborn where she completed in internship over the summer. Photo by Julianne Lindsey

Caroline Tepper outside the Ford Motor Company World Headquarters in Dearborn, where she completed an internship over the summer.

Student researchers share what they learned during SURE 2024

jpow — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 15:55:35 +0000

Student researchers share what they learned during SURE 2024 jpow Thu, 09/19/2024 - 11:55

In just a few short years since its founding in 2018, the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience has grown into a mainstay of the campus’ burgeoning research culture. The program pairs faculty mentors and undergraduate students for an 8-12 week summer session in which the student researchers get to do hands-on research, attend professional development sessions and get paid a $3,200 stipend. SURE continued its steady growth this year, providing opportunities for 49 students (up from 32 in 2023), who worked in areas ranging from artificial intelligence and renewable energy to reproductive rights and healthcare. So what are students taking away from this year’s experience? Recently, we talked with two SURE researchers from the College of Engineering and Computer Science and College of Education, Health and Human Services about what they learned this summer. Next week, we’ll have student stories from the College of Business and College of Arts, Sciences and Letters.

Rayan Khalil and Assistant Professor Van Hai Bui
Project: Assessment of solar energy generation towards net-zero energy buildings

Software engineering senior Rayan Khalil says she was drawn to the SURE program mostly because the idea of doing research “just sounded like a really fulfilling experience.” It didn’t disappoint. This summer, Khalil and her faculty mentor, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Van Hai Bui, ticked through a big list of projects focusing on solar energy generation for net-zero buildings. Specifically, Khalil built detailed models that predict how much solar-based electricity a building might expect to produce, given geographically specific variables like wind speed, temperature, day length, cloud cover and the amount of sunlight a site receives in a typical year. Based on those prediction models, she then created an optimization model for net-zero buildings to determine the lowest-cost solar and battery storage installations, while minimizing the amount of purchased power buildings would have to draw from the grid. She even built a user-friendly interface that enables building operators to quickly plug in site-specific variables and get accurate prediction and optimization scenarios.

Rayan Khalil (right) and Assistant Professor Van Hai Bui

Khalil says the summer felt like a super- accelerated learning experience: “In some ways, I feel like I learned as much as I did in two years in two months,” she says. She chalks that up to a couple of factors. First, she’s always had a “passion for sustainability,” and getting to apply her coding skills to something she was really interested in made the whole thing feel “a lot more fulfilling.” Second, unlike in a lot of her courses, there wasn’t a test waiting for her at the end. “Research isn’t one of those things where the answer is already predetermined, so one of the things I loved is that if I tried something and it didn’t work out, I felt like I could learn from that and try something else without worrying that I was going to be graded harshly if I didn’t do it a certain way,” she says. Indeed, Bui won’t be grading Khalil. But he says she accomplished a phenomenal amount of work over the summer, and the prediction models she worked on could be useful in upcoming projects he has planned with DTE. The two are also planning to present their findings at an upcoming conference, for which Khalil is writing the paper. “To maybe have a publication with my name on it — that’s just insane,” she says. It might not be the last either. Heading into her senior year, she says the goal was to finally be done with school and score a full-time job. Now, based on her SURE experience, she’s thinking seriously about grad school.

Sarah Chaban and Associate Professor Lisa Martin
Project: Reproductive freedom on the ballot: How gender and demands for self-determination are driving electoral politics in the post-Roe era

Professor of Health and Human Services Lisa Martin’s first piece of advice for her SURE research partner Sarah Chaban: Set up a new email account. That’s because over the course of the summer, Chaban would be tracking trends in how people are talking about reproductive rights during the election season, a conversation which, needless to say, inspires an intensity that you don't necessarily want flooding your personal email accounts. For her project, Chaban kept tabs on numerous sources, including social media accounts, advertisements, podcasts, state ballot referendums, newsletters and news articles, with a particular focus on language trends. A few of her takeaways thus far? At the highest level, she says voices on the left and right are speaking very different languages, with the latter emphasizing fetal personhood and the former framing things in terms of rights and healthcare. Moreover, especially in the realm of laws and ballot initiatives, there tends to be more uniformity on the right, which Martin and Chaban say reflects a strategy of replicating approaches which have worked well in other states. On the other side, ballot language tends to vary widely both in breadth and emphasis, with states emphasizing (one or multiple) rights and/or healthcare, depending on what organizers think will speak to their constituencies. Overall, Chaban says one of her biggest findings is that the conversation around reproductive rights now has multiple volatile fault lines. Within the post-Roe legal framework, access to contraception and fertility treatments, like IVF, are now being debated sometimes as intensely as abortion.

Sarah Chaban (left) and Professor Lisa Martin

Chaban says one of the biggest lessons she’s drawing from her research experience is how important critical thinking skills are — especially when responding to unexpected challenges. For example, during her project, President Joe Biden, a candidate who rarely uses the word abortion, withdrew from the presidential race, and Vice President Kamala Harris, who uses very different language when speaking about reproductive rights, became the Democratic nominee. “I thought, how am I supposed to put together my poster now that the world has just changed?” Chaban says, smiling. “But this just showed me that when you’re tracking something in real time, you can’t get stuck in your ways of thinking about things. Whatever changes might come, you have to pivot. No knowledge is lost.” Her experience this summer also changed the way she’s thinking about her future. Chaban was originally planning on pursuing a master’s in public health after graduation. But after seeing how many influential voices in the reproductive rights space have legal backgrounds, she’s thinking about law school. And if she can’t choose between the two, she has her eye on the dual degree in Law and Public Health (JD+MPH) at the University of Michigan.

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Want to read more about what students are taking away from SURE 2024? Next week, we’ll feature students from the College of Business and College of Arts, Sciences and Letters. Story by Lou Blouin. Photos by Annie Barker.

Research

Health and Human Services

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Off

Wed, 09/18/2024 - 15:55

The Summer Undergraduate Research Experience had another record year, serving 49 students in 2024. We check in with students and their faculty mentors in each of the colleges, starting with CECS and CEHHS.

CEHHS student Sofia Martínez Barredo presents her research findings during the 2024 Summer Undergraduate Research Experience showcase on Sept. 17.

Undergrad students develop an improved sleep apnea mask

lblouin — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 14:01:44 +0000

Undergrad students develop an improved sleep apnea mask lblouin Mon, 08/12/2024 - 10:01

An estimated 930 million people worldwide struggle with sleep apnea, but two of them in particular played an inspirational role in a group of ��-Dearborn students' recent senior design project. Engineering undergrads Saja Samra’s and Maggie Bustamante’s dads both live with the condition, which causes people to stop and start breathing, sometimes hundreds of times, during their sleep cycle. To treat their condition, their dads both use a CPAP machine, which utilizes a face mask to keep airways open during sleep. The devices can help people get much better — and safer — rest, but the technology isn’t without problems. “Both our dads had similar issues — things like air leakage and discomfort, and that it was too bulky,” Samra says. “Portability was a big issue for my dad,” Bustamante says. “Whenever he would go camping or go on a trip for work, a lot of times he would choose not to bring it, and then he wouldn’t sleep nearly as well.”

This feedback prompted Samra and Bustamante to take a pitch to their senior design teammates: What if we designed a better CPAP mask? Both Ammel Mutahr and Sajida Tohfe liked the idea, so they started digging into what exactly that would involve. All four students majored in Human-Centered Engineering Design, a relatively new program at ��-Dearborn that emphasizes human needs and blends traditional engineering with skills borrowed from art, anthropology, psychology and sociology. So they quickly deployed the strategies they learned over their previous three years in their program. In typical HCED fashion, they started by talking with potential users, surveying more than a dozen people who have sleep apnea about their specific, real-world challenges with their CPAP devices. They also had more in-depth conversations with both dads. From that feedback, they learned that some of the most common issues involve fit around the nose and chin, comfort, the clumsiness of getting the mask on and the overall bulkiness of the device. With only two semesters to work on the project, they decided to focus on the first three issues, to see if they could create a better CPAP mask.

They began with a design brainstorming session, pulling inspiration from things like military pilot oxygen masks, which have inflatable head straps to create a tight fit, and even the Ironman helmet, a full head covering with interlocking panels. They then created low-fidelity prototypes with simple materials like cardboard and masking tape, and gradually moved through a series of higher-fidelity 3D-printed models. The dads proved to be a huge help in making some important tweaks along the way. “We knew comfort was a concern, so for one of our earlier prototypes we used TPU, which is a kind of plastic that has a little more give to it,” Bustamante explains. “But when Saja’s dad tested it, he said it was a little rough on his skin. So we tried this silicone resin, which is this relatively new type of resin used in 3D printing, and that ended up being much more comfortable.”

In addition to the silicone resin, their final prototype included a number of features designed to improve fit and comfort. Mutahr played a key role in developing the inflatable auto-adjusting straps, which not only make the mask fit better but make it easier to get off and on. Bustamante and Samra focused on an auto-sealing mechanism, which used two small motors around the bridge of the nose to seal the mask if pressure sensors detect an air leakage. One of the biggest breakthroughs was when Tohfe discovered a quick and cheap way to create individualized masks. Using a smartphone app called Scandy Pro: 3D Scanner, people could use their phone cameras to perform detailed scans of their faces, which then could be used to create 3D-printing files for custom masks.

The team’s innovative design earned the Best in College Award at this year’s Senior Design Competition. Still, the team says their final prototype by no means feels complete, as the compressed timeframe for the competition meant they couldn’t do everything they wanted. For example, Samra says the motors added some bulk to the mask, a quality they were trying to avoid, so she’d like to explore using a lighter-footprint technology, like actuators. And they’d likely add those to more places on the mask, like along the chin, where some of the people they surveyed say they experience air leakages. Mutahr, who also designed an app interface for their mask, pointed out that even Senior Design Day, when they presented their design to the public and the competition judges, gave them ideas for improvements. “For example, we got a comment from one of the judges, who had sleep apnea, and he had a really large beard, but he had to shave it because of the mask,” she says. “That’s something you probably wouldn't think about unless you’re actually talking with people who have sleep apnea. We heard comments like that from so many people who have issues with their masks. So you do the research, you read the statistics online, but seeing it in real life and how our solution could actually be helpful, that’s probably when you get the best design ideas.”

Mutahr says one of the most gratifying pieces of feedback was that their idea “could be on ‘Shark Tank.’” Indeed, they’re not ruling out trying to commercialize the product. One of their team’s faculty advisors is a patent lawyer, and a different project that Samra, Tohfe and Mutahr worked on in one of their HCED classes is already under review for a patent. The big challenge right now is getting the band back together. Bustamante graduated this spring and is busy with her new process engineering position at GM, where she’s helping retool a factory for EV production. Samra and Tohfe, who also graduated recently, are interviewing for jobs. And Mutahr still has a semester to go. “But we’d definitely love to pursue that,” Samra says. “Maybe after Ammel graduates, we can make it happen.”

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Story by Lou Blouin

Experiential Learning

Technology

Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering

Off

Mon, 08/12/2024 - 14:00

Four seniors from the Human-Centered Engineering Design program built a precision-fit face mask that could bring relief to the millions of adults who live with sleep apnea.

From left, Saja Samra, Maggie Bustamante, Ammel Mutahr and Sajida Tohfe show off their work at Senior Design Day. Photo courtesy of Ammel Mutahr

College of Education, Health, and Human Services Virtual Open House (2.13.25)

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 20:08:16 +0000

College of Education, Health, and Human Services Virtual Open House (2.13.25) Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 07/05/2024 - 16:08

Want to learn more about our programs and the experience you’ll have as a graduate student? Join us for a virtual graduate open house to learn more about our programs and the admission process. You'll have an opportunity to live chat with faculty and staff to have all of your questions answered.

2025-02-13T18:00:00-0500 to 2025-02-13T19:00:00-0500

United States

Office of Graduate Studies

313-583-6321

umd-graduatestudies@umich.edu

Graduate students