University History

Preserving student life through film

stuxbury — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 14:07:42 +0000

Preserving student life through film stuxbury Mon, 03/31/2025 - 10:07

The Oscars may be over, but there’s a red-carpet event happening at the university this week. Senior Sydney McKinney-Williams’ documentary debut takes place at a U-M tri-campus event on Friday.

“With group projects, I’ve shown at film festivals before, but this is my first red carpet. It’s a film about university history that, when looking back, will be an important moment in my own history,” says McKinney-Williams, a journalism and media production major who produced and directed the short movie. “There were a lot of people at U-M who helped me make this film happen and I was able to connect with alumni going back to the 1970s.”

The film will premiere at the Inclusive History Project Summit, which explores histories of inclusion and exclusion at U-M, at 3:45 p.m. Friday, April 4. The summit takes place from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn’s Fairlane Center North. This event is free and open to the public but registration is encouraged. Browse the day’s sessions and register.

The Inclusive History Project is a multiyear University of Michigan presidential initiative designed to study and document a comprehensive history of the university’s three campuses and Michigan Medicine that is attentive to previously overlooked, underrepresented voices.

“IHP projects, like Sydney’s, are a way for our campus to find and claim its collective voice in university history,” says Professor of History Cam Amin, who also serves as director of research for the IHP at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn. “Quoting the Whos in Whoville, ‘We are here, we are here, we are here.’ The variety of projects done through IHP feature the good and bad legacies of our past and can help us chart a better future. We have to understand that past and the way it resonates now.”

During the summit, participants can learn about research, engagement and teaching taking place across the three campuses. The event will also include a hands-on archiving workshop l, and presentations on student-led projects. There will be opportunities for members of the U-M community to share stories about the university at a recording booth led by Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Production Jennifer Proctor and Instructional Learning Assistant Rick Marrone.

IHP Co-chair Elizabeth R. Cole says the IHP initiative — and the daylong summit — is about raising up and celebrating all the people who have made the U-M community what it is, while also looking at the full history of the university’s past and present in an effort to build awareness when planning for the future.

“The Inclusive History Project examines the past, but by no means is it backward-facing — it’s an investment in our future. It’s important to keep in mind what people will need 50 years from now when telling the university’s story,” says Cole, who is a 51��Ƶ-Ann Arbor professor of Women's and Gender Studies, psychology and Afroamerican and African Studies “Sydney’s work is one example of how the university community is contributing to this collective effort. She brings her major, her classroom training and her passion together for her film about the BSU. I love Sydney’s project.”

Funded through a $3,000 IHP grant, McKinney-Williams’ 30-minute film features interviews with 51��Ƶ-Dearborn alums from the past 50 years. They discuss their time in the Black Student Union, its beginnings, its purpose for members, traditions and more.

McKinney-Williams, who’s the current BSU vice president, says the organization, which is open to every student, has helped her navigate the stress of the pandemic, political landscape challenges and personal struggles. “The Black Student Union is a welcoming group that brings people together to have fun. It’s also a place where you can go to discuss what you are seeing and/or experiencing in the Black community,” she says.

McKinney-Williams credits a capstone course during her junior year as the spark for “Uncovering.” As her idea was taking shape, McKinney-Williams’ instructor — Assistant Professor of Journalism and Media Production Adam Sekuler — liked the BSU topic, but noticed some gaps in the film’s narrative. “In my proposal, I said I wanted to feature the Black Student Union, talking about what we are currently doing and our future plans. Professor Sekuler let me know that I was missing how it started. I explained that’s because we have no idea,” she says. Sekuler then told her about the IHP grant. “He told me that he found a way for me to expand my project if I wanted to,” McKinney-Williams says. “That’s how this all came to be.”

The IHP grant allowed her to purchase better equipment, cover travel expenses for alums who agreed to be interviewed and cover some production costs. “This documents an important history about a student org at our university that even the members didn’t know. The Black Student Union now has its history preserved so future members can learn about it and we’re so appreciative,” says McKinney-Williams, who joined the IHP team as a student advisory member after receiving the grant.

Through the oral histories collected, McKinney-Williams — who was advised by Sekuler and Journalism and Media Production Teaching Professor Anthony Luckett during the project — learned about the evolution of the BSU, social movements encouraging people to join, and about the campuswide events put on by the student organization. “One was called the Blackout Barbecue and it would take place by the pond. Everyone was invited to come by for food and games and to learn how to do the ‘Hustle’,” McKinney-Williams says. “I’m about to give everyone an inside scoop — the Black Student Union wants to bring that back.”

The film, which debuts on Friday, is one way to document student voices and experiences — which is an important part of the IHP mission. In addition to the red carpet, photo opportunities and screening, there will be a panel discussion, popcorn and refreshments.

McKinney-Williams, who plans to submit “Uncovering” to film festivals, says her motivation was to document life at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn. Through the class project and IHP support, she not only did that — she also made something that will be preserved in the U-M archives.

To McKinney-Williams, that is an ultimate honor. “Sometimes we don’t realize what’s missing until it’s long gone. IHP helped us get our history back and now we are going to take better care of it. Who knows, maybe in 15 or 20 years, someone will see this film and make a part two,” she says. “My hope was to share the story of the Black Student Union and give people something to build upon as time goes on. I hope by people watching it, they can get ideas on how to preserve their histories too.”

51��Ƶ-Dearborn faculty, staff and students speaking at the IHP Summit include Amin, Proctor, McKinney-Williams, Morrone, Professor of Sociology Pamela Aronson, Assistant Professor of Human Services Finn Bell, Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies Amy Brainer, Professor of History Martin Hershock, Digital Humanities Coordinator for IHP-Dearborn Marlaine Magewick, Professor of Health and Human Services Lisa Martin, Professor of Geology Jacob Napieralski and Mardigian Library Assistant Archivist Hannah Zmuda, with 51��Ƶ-Dearborn alum Leah Olijade serving as the emcee.

Story by Sarah Tuxbury

University History

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

Off

Mon, 03/31/2025 - 14:05

Senior Sydney McKinney-Williams explores an important part of university history with her documentary, ‘Uncovering: History of the Black Student Union,’ which debuts at Friday’s Inclusive History Project Summit.

Senior Sydney McKinney-Williams will show her documentary at the Inclusive History Project Summit on Friday. Photo by Annie Barker

Extra, extra! Read all about getting 51��Ƶ-Dearborn history online

stuxbury — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 16:06:21 +0000

Extra, extra! Read all about getting 51��Ƶ-Dearborn history online stuxbury Wed, 03/12/2025 - 12:06

In 1965, a Michigan Civil Rights Commission hearing took place on campus regarding racist materials that then-Dearborn Mayor Orville Hubbard was posting on City of Dearborn bulletin boards. The mayor did not show up at the hearing — but he did speak candidly to the student newspaper.

In a Jan. 20, 1965 article, Hubbard admitted to putting the items on the bulletin board and called the members of the commission, “a pathetic group. They seem to be a bunch of dreamers with a budget of $500,000 of taxpayer money and a staff of about 40 employees who . . . are looking for problems.”

51��Ƶ-Dearborn Assistant Archivist Hannah Zmuda has been looking through 60-plus years of 51��Ƶ-Dearborn student newspapers recently and this interview was among the many eye-catching articles that she’s read. “I’ve learned so much about campus and the community from reading the student newspaper. We have well over 1,000 papers,” she says. “We might see the past as a foreign country, but we can use it to see ways that student concerns are both the same and different or how they’ve evolved.”

Through a $25,000 grant from the U-M Inclusive History Project, Zmuda is working to make 51��Ƶ-Dearborn’s student newspaper available online and searchable for the public. She was hired in June 2024 and previously did archive work for the Theodore Roosevelt Center and the Wisconsin Historical Society.

She lists off university newspaper article topics she finds amusing — like student smoking rooms in the 1970s, classified ads promoting “reasonably priced” typists to write papers and student opinions about the library being too loud. “I’ve learned that students have been complaining about noise in the library since it opened,” Zmuda says with a laugh. “I guess some things never change.”

The Michigan Journal from Sept. 9, 1974

On more serious topics, student reporters met with divisive figures like Hubbard, attended discussions with two Watergate defendants who came to campus in the early 1980s and covered protest efforts around a Michigan House of Representatives bill to separate the Dearborn campus from the University of Michigan in 1970.

The digitization project has been in the works since mid-2024 and is scheduled to be available to the public by December, Zmuda says. The project will be featured at the IHP Summit, which will take place on April 4 at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn. It is a free event and the public is welcome. Interested? Register here.

Zmuda, whose three-year 51��Ƶ-Dearborn archiving appointment was made possible by a separate grant from the IHP, says she’s organizing the university’s archive — which is on the first floor of the Mardigian Library — and found several iterations of the campus paper, which started publication in 1963. It was called The Dearborn Wolverine in the early 1960s and then Ad Hoc from 1965 until it was renamed as the Michigan Journal in 1971. The Michigan Journal is still in publication.

Zmuda also found student papers in the archive that offered points of view or events that were not covered in the university’s flagship paper, such as The Black Emblem. Published in 1975, it provided more extensive coverage of marginalized groups like disabled veterans and people of color and highlighted more faculty work that promoted equity.

Zmuda says university newspapers give insight into the student voice that other materials, such as annual reports or Board of Regents meeting notes, cannot. “Those are important too, but newspapers were published so regularly — and they were intended to be ephemeral and fleeting — that you end up getting a lot more of a holistic look at a place and time,” she says. “Looking at the Michigan Journal, it’s the most complete and granular documentation of campus life that we have. I look at the Michigan Journal as being one of the few times that we have student voices in the archives in a really consistent, strong and expansive way.”

The IHP grant is also supporting digitization of Lyceum, the student creative arts journal that launched in 1971 and is still published today.

Senior Associate Librarian Holly Sorscher says the library is thrilled to be working on this project. More than a decade ago, before Sorscher worked at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn, the Journal was digitized through the HathiTrust Digital Library, a large-scale digital repository that is co-owned and co-managed by research libraries around the world and administered by U-M. But after the Michigan Journal digitization was complete, library staff learned that access to the papers would be limited. HathiTrust’s materials, which were scanned in by Google through an agreement during the digital library’s early years, fell under copyright restrictions set by Google.

A scan of the Michigan Journal cover from Feb. 23, 1976 that announced the opening of Fairlane Town Center.

“It has become apparent after many, many iterations of trying to figure this out, that all of those items that are digitized in HathiTrust were not available to the public and, if you did get access, it’s not searchable by phrase or context,” says Sorscher, who notes that the 51��Ƶ-Dearborn team has worked extensively with the University of Michigan Library Copyright Office on the current project. “We realized that the only way we're going to get campus history from the Michigan Journal out there is if we re-digitize the entire thing and put it somewhere where it's accessible. We needed money to be able to do that. Through this Inclusive History Project grant, we were able to get money to hire Hannah for a three-year term. And then, through IHP, we were able to get money to digitize again.”

Sorscher says the recent project has been a collaborative effort with U-M Library staff and a copy of the digital papers will be available on the 51��Ƶ-Ann Arbor Digital Collections Library. But the 51��Ƶ-Dearborn archive will have a copy of the records and the Mardigian Library will retain control and ownership.

Both Sorscher and Zmuda say they know the demand is out there for the articles and photos in these papers that document nearly all of the university’s history. They have gotten requests from athletic teams for old photos, alums looking for past articles and faculty members who are in search of news items for research purposes. And now they have a way to get that information easily out to the 51��Ƶ-Dearborn community and beyond.

“We want our students, alums and community members, past and future, to have access to this archive. We want them to be able to look back and check out the years when they were here and what was happening at that time,” Sorscher says. “We are grateful to IHP and everyone that’s been involved with this. It’s a project that’s been a decade in the making and it feels magical to know that we are finally going to be able to publicly share this amazing resource.”

Story by Sarah Tuxbury

U-M staff and students assisting with the project include Bentley Historical Library Lead Archivist for Digital Imaging and Infrastructure Matt Adair, Mardigian Library Systems Administrator Patrick Armatis, Bentley Historical Library Digital Curation Archivist Elena Colón-Marrero, 51��Ƶ-Ann Arbor Digital Content and Collections Director Kat Hagedorn, Michigan Journal Editor Kalaia Jackson, 51��Ƶ-Ann Arbor Digital Conversion Resources Assistant Keith Larsen, Stamelos Gallery Center Registrar Autumn Muir, 51��Ƶ-Ann Arbor Digital Conversion Supervisor Lara Unger and 51��Ƶ-Ann Arbor Digital Conversion Production Manager Larry Wentzel.

University History

Mardigian Library

Off

Wed, 03/12/2025 - 16:05

Through an Inclusive History Project grant, the Mardigian Library is digitizing more than 1,000 student newspapers for a publicly available and searchable virtual database. The project will be complete by December.

Assistant Archivist Hannah Zmuda has been looking through 60-plus years of 51��Ƶ-Dearborn student newspapers for a new digitization project. 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 51��Ƶ-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 51��Ƶ-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 51��Ƶ-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

Student Success

University History

College of Education, Health, and Human Services

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

The incomparable Bruce Maxim

stuxbury — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 20:56:08 +0000

The incomparable Bruce Maxim stuxbury Mon, 10/28/2024 - 16:56

The day I’m scheduled to talk with Bruce Maxim, the first of two conversations we’re to have about his four-decade-long career at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn, he’s about 15 minutes late. When he does log on to Zoom, he explains that he lost track of time; he was finishing a letter of recommendation for a student. He tells me he does about 30 or 40 of these a year, which, though no one keeps statistics on such things, sounds like a lot. In any case, it feels like a window into the status Maxim holds among his students that so many would put their faith in him for something requiring a personal touch. It perhaps also feels noteworthy because Maxim doesn’t come across as a particularly gushy person. His care vibe is more that of a straight-talking father or grandfather. A little soft around the edges, yes, but mostly someone you love and respect because he’ll always make time for you and you can count on him for useful, life-tested guidance. True to form, Maxim’s own explanation for why close relationships with students have become part of his yearly routine is concise and straightforward. “I think I just listen to them,” he says. “I had a student who came to me early in the semester because she was going to miss some time because she was getting married and was going on her honeymoon. And so a couple weeks later, I asked her how her trip was, and she just lit up and told me all about it. Honestly, I don’t always remember their names. I’m terrible with names. But I remember stuff about them and what’s important to them.”

Even leading his classes, Maxim says his primary mode of teaching these days is listening, though that reflects a personal evolution. He came of age in academia when lectures were pretty much exclusively how university professors handled themselves in front of students and so that’s how he did it for the first two decades of his career. But in-class lectures haven’t been his go-to for at least a decade. They’re almost as extinct as the final exam, which he did away with a number of years ago to make time for student presentations. He does generally ask students to do a before-class reading assignment and maybe watch an essentials-only recorded lecture that rarely exceeds 15 minutes. That leaves class time for groups projects, role-playing exercises, student presentations and feedback — what he still calls “active learning,” an antecedent of project- or practice-based learning, which, today, is one of the major cross-college education initiatives at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn. If it’s one of the early weeks in his popular game design course, for instance, students might present a paper prototype storyboard for their game so they can get feedback from the other students. If it’s his software engineering course, one group might pretend to be a client who needs a new software application, while another group role plays as the developer, the two engaging in a fact-finding back-and-forth that Maxim says any successful developer has to get good at. He says subjects for the projects are always of the students’ choosing, noting he has little interest in hearing 15 students present the same project over and over. Maxim, himself, usually spends class time just walking around the room, eavesdropping on students as they problem solve, “offering a pithy critique” as needed to help them push through an obstacle. To accommodate all the brainstorming, feedback and on-the-fly design, he used to carry eight 2-feet-by-4-feet white boards from his office to class and back. Now, he loves teaching in the new Engineering Lab Building classrooms, where students can literally write on the glass walls. The state-of-the-art architecture has finally caught up with his educational philosophy.

The trust he puts in students to direct their own learning is certainly part of what’s made Maxim one of the most beloved professors at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn. But his ability to connect with his students likely also has something to do with the fact that, had he been born 50 years later, he’d probably be just like a lot of them. At age 72, Maxim is still relatable. For example, he loves video games — he’s been playing them since the 1970s and still plays today, though much less and now he prefers games that don’t feel all-consuming. (He is, however, indulging his granddaughter's desire to teach him Minecraft.) With his interest in technology, it’s also hard not seeing a Gen Z Maxim find his way, as he did as a student in the 1970s, into the computer science field. Today, that’s a pretty straightforward path for students, but it was a lot different back then. He says when he enrolled as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan in 1970, there were just two classes in computer science, which, at that time, was still seen as a branch of mathematics. It certainly wasn’t something you could major in. When I ask him how, then, he ended up in the field, he actually has to take a second to think about exactly how it all happened.

Maxim with students in one of his popular game design courses. Photo by Julianne Lindsey

Indeed, much of what ultimately led Maxim to a career in computer science is a mix of circumstance and curiosity. He figures it likely started when he took a position as a research assistant while he was doing his undergraduate work at U-M. Part of his job there was to do statistical analysis, which involved using the office’s computers. It’s worth noting that computers in the mid-1970s had a limited range of functions. Lacking any of today’s niceties, like graphical user interfaces, Maxim says computers were used almost exclusively for numerical computations that humans would only be able to do much more slowly. As a mathematics student, he found this early form of computing interesting and intuitive, and he soon made a habit of not only doing what he was told, but of figuring out new things the office could use the computers for. The work suited him, so he enrolled in one of the few computer science courses at U-M, a class in basic programming for mathematics graduate students that was taught by a friend of his.

More often, Maxim’s computer science education came from real-world experiences. During his time as a PhD student in mathematics education at U-M, he had a plethora of side jobs, which, because of the expertise he was building, increasingly involved computers. When he was working part-time as a teacher at Greenhills School in Ann Arbor, for example, he started computer literacy and computer programming courses. Around the same time, he worked for a “brilliant statistician” in the U-M epidemiology department, where Maxim did analysis for a community health study and eventually worked the four other statisticians there out of a job because he was so productive. Later, when the dean of curriculum at the U-M Medical School needed someone to run the instructional computing course, Maxim not only took on that role, he expanded the curriculum to include a couple dozen workshops a year that helped doctors, nurses and staff use computers for everything from graphing to complex statistical analysis.

Eventually, Maxim built up enough expertise where he thought about making computer science the focus of an academic career. His own PhD was in mathematics education, but he never enjoyed teaching math as much as he did computer science. In the early 1980s, he started teaching programming at Washtenaw Community College, while keeping an eye out for something more permanent. He applied for an opening at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn and got his foot in the door as a visiting adjunct assistant professor in the mathematics department. But, just like everywhere else he worked, Maxim made an impression that quickly led to more opportunity. “I started off teaching pre-calculus, which I took because I honestly wanted to see if I could still tolerate teaching introductory math,” Maxim remembers. “But then they had an opening for 150, the intro course in computer science, and they offered me that. Then the next semester they moved me up to 200, and then they had me teach two or three computer classes that summer.” Impressed, the department offered him a one-year visiting appointment in the fall. Maxim finally felt confident enough to quit all his side jobs.

The following year, a retirement led to an opening for a tenure track assistant professor position, which Maxim landed, and just a year after that, they made him assistant director of the computer and information science program. In those days, CIS was still such a new discipline, nobody knew quite what to do with it. Maxim says the program was initially housed in something called the Division for Interdisciplinary Studies, which no college really owned. But CIS quickly attracted so many students — about 500 majors by 1990 — that it became a little bit of a “bloodbath” fight over which college would get CIS when it was judged to need a permanent home. It ultimately landed within the College of Engineering in 1992, but the transition was messy. For example, Maxim had to resign his position in mathematics and then have faith that the engineering dean would reappointment him there. There was no department chair and very little funding. As Maxim recalls, money was so short he was instructed to “steal” his furniture and computer from his office in the mathematics department. He loaded the latter onto a dolly and wheeled it over to his new office himself.

In those early days, he says the curriculum was a work in progress too. When Maxim arrived in 1985, he recalls a lot of the courses were in need of an overhaul. But within five years, he and his colleagues had updated courses to the most recent curriculum recommendations and launched several new classes, many of which Maxim created. He launched the first course in artificial intelligence at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn in 1988. He created the first software engineering course in 1995, which seeded the development of the first accredited software engineering bachelor’s program in the state in 2002. (Maxim also co-authored what’s been the leading textbook in software engineering for three decades.) And, of course, many know Maxim as the architect of the game design program — one of the earliest in the country — which attracts students who want to build games, but also grad students in a variety of disciplines who see it as a way to improve their use of simulations.

Gray bobby pins are a Maxim fashion accessory. He started wearing them when he grew out his hair and needed something practical to keep his hair out of his eyes. "I initially tried barrettes, but they were too big," he says. Photo by Annie Barker

Maxim powered a lot of innovation within CIS, but his untraditional credentials, born of a time when official computer science bonafides were more of a rarity, sometimes proved to be a professional stumbling block. “When we created the software engineering class, we taught it as a ‘topics’ class for two years,” Maxim explains. “And when we brought in a department chair, who was a software engineer, he said, ‘Bruce, why the hell isn’t this a regular class?’ And I explained to him that it was because the executive committee in engineering won’t let me teach it then — they think I’m unqualified.” (His department chair went to bat for him and he got to keep the class.) Twice, he used his sabbatical to audit classes at U-M so he’d have a record of coursework in areas he was already well-versed in. Perhaps his most surprising career statistic: It took him six attempts to secure his promotion to full professor. The final time, he almost gave up, until the new dean, Tony England, personally urged him to resubmit the application Maxim had decided to withdraw. Now, Maxim jokes that he at least makes more than the incoming assistant professors, “unless we’re hiring a superstar.”

Some of these professional roadblocks may also have been due to the fact that Maxim wasn’t particularly focused on workplace politics. Early on in his career, during the original battle over CIS, he sided with students on a volatile issue, which he’s pretty sure burned a bridge with the dean. Those who know Maxim know he’s not a combative person, but he is sort of a gadfly, both within his department and at the university. “It’s always been very hard for me to see a problem and not try to do something to fix it,” he says, describing his style of confrontation succinctly as “squeaky wheel.” In the early days, he says, that might have rubbed some people the wrong way. Now, you get the sense he’s respected for it — no doubt in part because Maxim has put in countless hours on dozens of committees, including Faculty Senate, trying to make things better. When he was honored with the most recent of several distinguished service awards he received from the university, he says they told him he’d “been on 110 committees and chaired 70 of them.” Maxim assumes they counted right, downplaying the achievement by saying if he chaired so many committees, that means other people were probably doing a lot of the work.

Maxim has now been at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn for 41 years. That’s saying something for a guy who proclaims, with a hint of pride, a history of quitting jobs when he doesn't like the people he works for. Maybe he’s not always gotten his due, but if there is a chip on his shoulder about that, it doesn’t appear too heavy. Part of that is because teaching — and the relationships he has with his students — has always been the part of his job that brings him the most joy. He says when he does retire — probably in three years — it’s easy to pick out what he’ll miss the most. It’s the “whole teaching thing,” he says, especially the time after class when students are looking for guidance, not on the assignment he just gave them, but on something going on with their lives. Sometimes they’re looking for advice on “big, life changing stuff,” like whether to quit a job, or maybe even quit a relationship. Maxim isn’t one to dole out advice, not directly. “I can’t tell you what to do. I can only tell you what I would do,” he says. “Yeah, I quit three jobs because I couldn’t stand the people I was working for or the situation was ethically incompatible for me. But I can’t tell you if that’s the right thing for you — because I don’t know what your family obligations are or what your financial constraints are.”

What he will do, though, is make time for you. To share his own perspective, but probably mostly to listen and understand. And you can always count on Maxim to give it to you straight.

###

Story by Lou Blouin

Faculty and Staff

University History

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Off

Mon, 10/28/2024 - 20:55

One of the architects of 51��Ƶ-Dearborn’s modern computer science department reflects on his career as a squeaky wheel and why he thinks professors should talk less and listen more.

Professor Bruce Maxim stands in his office among an accumulated 40 years of books, papers, electronics and memories. Photo by Annie Barker

Old, new, maize and blue: The new campus archive plan includes all

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 14:46:00 +0000

Old, new, maize and blue: The new campus archive plan includes all Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/08/2022 - 10:46

This article was originally published on October 7, 2019.

Civil rights activist Rosa Parks, poet Nikki Giovanni, President Bill Clinton and President George H.W. Bush have all walked on the same campus that you do nearly everyday.

Surprised? So was Librarian Julia Daniel Walkuski. While looking through campus archive photos, Walkuski says it’s exciting to see the number of prominent people interacting with students, faculty and staff during 51��Ƶ-Dearborn’s 60 years.

“We have so much history here. I can’t believe how many high-profile people’s photos and papers I’ve seen while looking through the library’s archive. Artists, activists, philanthropists, political figures — we’ve had the majority of presidents from the past 50 years here,” says Walkuski, Mardigian Librarian and newly named archivist. “It’s all in the campus archives.”

As interesting as 51��Ƶ-Dearborn’s history is, Walkuski — and anyone on campus who’s tried to find historic information — says it’s not always the easiest to find what you’re looking for or the circumstances that created some moments in campus history. With that in mind, she has a request to people with long-term ties to campus: “Please reach out to me. I’d like to go through the archives with you and hear what you remember about items we have in our collection.” She says the more information people share, the better the archive will be for everyone.

Besides meeting with people who have experienced campus life for decades, Walkuski has been busy improving the archive in other ways. Earlier this year, she researched how to make the items available for all, working with a U-M School of Information graduate student to develop a strategic plan for the archive.

The takeaway? Instead of grouping items by donation date, group them by subject matter and digitize. The campus archive is now in the reorganization process.

“I understand why the archiving process here was by donation date. Many archives do it that way and it works for them,” says Walkuski, a certified archivist. “But we have so many requests for images tied to a campus anniversary or celebration — for example Homecoming — that it makes sense to group materials by subject instead of going through folders and boxes in an effort to find information about the annual event.” In addition to the reorganization, she’ll create “finding aids,” which are documents that contains details about what materials — for example, speeches, programs, images and years of each — are included in the archive collections.

While looking through the collections, Walkuski has noticed that there’s a bit of a gap with items shared with the archive in the digitized age. So she’d like faculty, staff and retirees to contact her with any materials you have that are tied to campus events, research or experiences. For people to get the most out of the archive, involvement is key.

“Send what you have to me; digital files are fine. There is a bit of a gap in our collection today, and in the recent past, because we keep it on the computer and might not think about it. Or it’s not thought of as history because we are living it now. But it may be important when talking about campus in the future, and we don’t want to lose parts of the university’s story because documents aren’t tangible like they used to be.”

Walkuski says reorganization is only a first step. She’s also working with 51��Ƶ-Dearborn student Maggie VanBuhler to digitize the collection. With the collection size and reorganization, it may take a few years, but Walkuski says it will get done. And, based on suggestions from U-M Information Sciences, the library is also looking into content management systems.

“We want this information shared and the goal is to have the archive available to you right at your fingertips.”

Faculty and Staff

University History

Mardigian Library

Off

Mon, 10/07/2019 - 05:00

Mardigian Library is researching how to increase archive access across campus and looking to learn more about campus’ 60-year history from longtime faculty and staff.

Class of ‘73 classmates look back on their formative years at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 18:09:32 +0000

Class of ‘73 classmates look back on their formative years at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/18/2022 - 14:09

This article was originally published on November 25, 2019.

Mechanical engineering was one of two inaugural programs at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn when it opened in 1959, and a few weeks back, dozens of current students, alumni, professors and professors emeritus gathered on campus to celebrate the department’s 60th anniversary. It was a day filled with both big-picture reflections on how far the university has come and colorful personal anecdotes from the old days. Among those sharing a few of the latter were Tom Demmon and Jim Gingrich — two Grand Rapids natives who have been friends since middle school and who were recruited to 51��Ƶ-Dearborn in 1971. After the anniversary events, we tracked down Tom and Jim to talk about their time here, their experience with campus housing (yes, that was a thing in the ‘70s) and how their college experience shaped their lives.

The Reporter: So even today, the vast majority of our students come from the metro Detroit area. You want to tell us how a couple guys from Grand Rapids ended up here at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn in the early 1970s?

Tom Demmon: So Jim and I have been friends since 7th grade. We went to high school together, and then went to what was, at the time, Grand Rapids Junior College. One day, a representative from 51��Ƶ-Dearborn came to campus to speak with us. I remember it was supposed to be someone else, but Professor George Kurajian was a last-minute substitution. When we met him, he was just the nicest guy in the world, smiled ear-to-ear, and, of course, he was incredibly brilliant. I think he had us convinced right then and there to go to 51��Ƶ-Dearborn.

Reporter: You remember it the same way, Jim?

Jim Gingrich: Absolutely. I remember when George came and spoke with us and told us about all the benefits of 51��Ƶ-Dearborn, it just felt like we could really do this. I had a great family, but we had a limited income. I’d saved up money for school working for two years while I was going to community college, but I knew I probably wouldn’t have enough to get through a place like Michigan. What was unique about 51��Ƶ-Dearborn was its co-op program. That meant I could work and pay for school as I went. Without that, I might have been able to afford one or two terms at Michigan, but there was no way I could graduate; and in those days, student loans weren’t a common thing. So having the opportunity to co-op was what made it possible.

Reporter: Give us a snapshot of what that co-op system looked like.

Tom: Well, when we got there, I think the university was just starting its first four-year programs, and engineering and business were only junior- and senior-level co-op programs. So everybody that was in our mechanical engineering cohort of 12 students had two years of college somewhere else. At that time, you alternated between work and classes every semester. So we did three semesters of work with four semesters of school. And Jim and I were fortunate enough to get co-op assignments right away. I got into Chrysler and Jim got in at Federal Mogul. We felt pretty lucky, because the economy was really bad and jobs weren’t plentiful. I completed three semesters at three different locations within Chrysler, and when I graduated, I got a couple job offers from Chrysler and about three other offers. I think it was because we had the experience. We came out of that program not just knowing the theory, but knowing how to be engineers. Companies really loved that.

One big difference between the student experience today and Tom and Jim’s days at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn: They lived right on the main campus. Here's Tom cooking with his wife in their apartment on the south side of campus.

Reporter: And Jim, how’d you fare right after graduation?

Well, it was tremendous. Even though we graduated six months or so later than the kids who had gone to a non-co-op program, we already had a year of on-the-job experience. So in November, just before graduation, I had a very good job offer from Federal Mogul. And I had another great offer back in Grand Rapids. To have two opportunities, at that time, was really exciting. I had been dating my girlfriend for four years; she was an R.N. in Kalamazoo and going to school and I was down at U-M. We wanted to get married, and I said we could go for it as long as we could make $5,000 in a year. So when she graduated and I was close to graduating, we did the math: We figured out between her job in Detroit and the money I would make during my summer co-op, we would make exactly $5,000 that year. When we got home from our two-day honeymoon on Lake Michigan, we had 39 cents in our checkbook. But we felt like we were going to make it. We had two used cars that both ran. We weren’t going to have any debt. There was so much excitement for the future.

Reporter: Wow, that’s amazing. And so careerwise, did you end up staying in the engineering field?

Tom: So right out of school, I went to work for Chrysler’s Institute of Engineering. That was really attractive to me because you rotated around for two years and got a new assignment every three months in their research and development center. While I was doing that, I also got my master’s at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn. It was a pretty great situation because you only had to work three days a week while you were taking your classes, and I never saw a tuition bill because Chrysler just picked it up. I enjoyed it, but my time overlapped with one of the periodic downturns, and I got laid off for three months. So here you were, a 20-something ready to go in your career and you end up in the unemployment line. It kind of soured me on staying in the automotive industry.

I went back to Grand Rapids after leaving Chrysler and I worked in various roles, including engineering, project management, consulting, teaching and leadership. I worked in material handling for about a decade. Then I went to Steelcase for 17 years. And I worked another 15 years at Grand Valley State University, where I ended up working with students in co-op and career services. In fact now, in my “retirement,” I’m working part-time as a career services advisor in U-M’s College of Engineering. So I guess you could say I’ve returned to my roots. That co-op experience at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn meant so much to me, and I still feel like it’s the best way to teach engineering. It’s an applied science, so you need to blend the theory with real-world experience. I’d love to see more universities return to that model.

Reporter: And where did your career path lead you after 51��Ƶ-Dearborn, Jim?

Jim: Right out of school, my wife and I returned to Grand Rapids, and I took a job at Conveyor Logic. I was actually the first college graduate engineer this company had hired, and I eventually became the VP of engineering and sales. It was exciting because it was a rapidly growing company, and I got to hire my own staff. But I left there after about eight years when I got an opportunity to join Herman Miller. I was so fascinated by their marketing programs, so I did a bit of a career change, and I worked as a technical person in the product marketing area. At that time, there were all these new electronics companies sprouting up in the U.S., like Hewlett Packard and Texas Instruments, and we were designing and building office environments for them. I loved seeing the business side of it. But then about two years in, the engineering group had an opening, so I flipped back. I worked first in new product development and eventually became VP of engineering at Herman Miller. It was very exciting for me to have all those different opportunities, and the company was growing so quickly. I think when I started it was about a $300-million company; when I left it was a $1.2-billion company. And the innovation and the high level of engineering at Herman Miller meant we could build nearly anything the designers could come up with.

I’ll second what Tom says about co-op education. If it were up to me, I’d have everybody do it. It’s the best way to learn, but it’s also a great way to find out if something is what you really want to do. The last thing you want to do is spend all this time in college training for a career that’s not a good match for you, and you want to find that out as early as possible. I was fortunate enough to have a co-op program that allowed me to explore something I loved. You know that saying, If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life? That’s exactly how I feel when I look back at my career. And I really think the University of Michigan prepared me for all of it.

University History

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Mechanical Engineering

Off

Mon, 11/25/2019 - 06:00

Longtime friends Tom Demmon (right) and Jim Gingrich shared a 51��Ƶ-Dearborn experience that, in some ways, looks a lot different than the student experience today. But the impacts of their education are everything we still strive for.

Fifty years of creative expression

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Being physically published year after year shows the investment and value in arts that 51��Ƶ-Dearborn believes in and puts the resources to help us continue doing that. Contributions have increased with more time for students to work on their submissions and think in many ways,” Potvin said.

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

Significant changes in the organization have happened over the last two years, the biggest being the transition into Wolverine Media Network (WMN). WMN is the umbrella organization that houses campus’ creative outlets like Lyceum, the Michigan Journal and W51��ƵD Radio.

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

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

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

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

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

Text by Rudra Mehta.

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

Language, Culture, and the Arts

Student Life

Off

Tue, 05/17/2022 - 01:05

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

‘Preparing our youngest learners for success in the future’

stuxbury — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 15:13:17 +0000

‘Preparing our youngest learners for success in the future’ stuxbury Sun, 08/15/2021 - 11:13

Photo Early Childhood Education Center student learning about space travel

During the past 50 years, 51��Ƶ-Dearborn’s Early Childhood Education Center has educated nearly 10,000 children — and thousands of teachers.

“It’s incredible to think about the impact that the ECEC has had on the community and beyond in these 50 years,” said Catie Stone, 2005 51��Ƶ-Dearborn early education alumna. “And it’s not just on the children who were taught here or the teachers who came from the program. It’s the kids who indirectly benefited because they had a great teacher inspired by this really special place.”

Stone would know. Not only did she attend the education lab school as a child in the 1980s, she also did her teaching practicum at the ECEC as a 51��Ƶ-Dearborn student in the early 2000s. And later, after earning her Master’s degree, Stone landed a position as an ECEC lead teacher.

Now teaching at the school for more than a decade, Stone said she enjoys watching her former students return to the center and participate in activities like coming in as guests to read to the younger children or writing letters to share how much the center meant to them.

“The center gave me a strong sense of community at an early age; I kept in touch with my teachers. And now some of my students continue to keep in touch with me. Time has passed, but connections made here remain strong. We are a family.”

The adage says that it takes a village to raise a child. And research shows that the people in our early education systems play an important role in helping raise a child to become a successful adult. Not only does early education increase high school graduation rates by double digits, it also improves the likelihood of having a higher-earning job, owning a home and earning a post-high school education.

“It’s preparing our youngest learners for success in the future. And that’s about more than academics — it’s social and critical thinking skills too,” said ECEC Academic Director Sarah Davey. “Much at the ECEC has changed over the past 50 years. We’ve grown. We’ve changed buildings. But what hasn’t changed is our commitment to educating children through creating lesson plans around their interests and having our highly trained teachers guide a new generation of teachers. We are a family of educators who do this enthusiastically because we know the value of early education.”

And it’s this principle of community and engaged learning that the ECEC was founded on. Started as a childcare and educational co-op in 1971, faculty, staff and students would bring their children to the Henry Ford Estate — which is on the southwest side of campus — and the kids would spend the day at and around Ford’s historic mansion.

Professor Rosalyn Saltz, right, is pictured in this early 1990s photo at the campus’ Henry Ford Estate cottages, the location of the center from the late 1970s until 2008.

Education Professor Emerita Rosalyn Saltz, who taught at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn from 1970 until her retirement in 1996, founded the program after seven returning students asked for her assistance in proposing the idea of on-campus childcare to campus’ leadership.

“The 1970s saw a surge in the number of young mothers who wished to pursue a college education. For many of these women, fulfilling this ambition at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn would have been almost impossible if there were not the opportunity for convenient, quality child care while they were attending classes,” Saltz wrote in a 2009 reflection document. “In addition to providing childcare for students pursuing an education, I saw a child care center on our campus as an opportunity to plant the seeds of a future child study laboratory and teacher training facility.”

At first, the group met in the back of the Henry Ford Estate’s kitchen. However, the space wasn’t ideal for children ages 12 months through five. The following year, in 1972, the group moved to one of the three cottages on the campus, which Henry Ford originally had built as servant’s quarters. At the time, those were used as professor family housing. Several years later, as the center’s enrollment grew, the other two cottages were permitted for use to augment the physical facilities as faculty members moved out. Playground equipment was put in. In 1991, a kindergarten class module building was added.

Saltz noted that by the early 1990s, the center enrolled an average of 140 children per year. And more than 90 practicum students in campus courses earned course credits at the Center each term.

With the continually growing enrollment, age of buildings, and need for a space that resembled a modern classroom for practicum teachers, the Center moved to its current Rotunda Drive location in 2009.

Education Professor Emeritus Mary Trepanier-Street, who worked with Saltz since the 1970s and served as ECEC director from 1995 through her retirement in 2011, said the new building was an important step in ECEC history. It could accommodate more pre-service teachers and up to 300 families (note: this is pre-COVID number). It also gave an opportunity for children with developmental challenges to be integrated into the center’s educational programming because of the partnership made with Oakwood Hospital, now Beaumont, to house their pediatric occupational, speech and physical therapy services — the Center for Exceptional Families — in the same building. “The idea was for children who needed added care to be able to leave their classroom for therapy or a rehabilitation service, and then return to the class or receive therapy in their own classroom.. We wanted to create an inclusive environment.”

Photo of Mary Trepanier-Street at promoting ECEC opportunities at an Education Fair at the Henry Ford Estate in 1978.

Concerned about education access, Trepanier-Street — who understood that not all families could afford the center’s tuition rates — also sought Michigan Department of Education funding to start two Great Start Readiness Program (GSRP) classrooms for economically disadvantaged families.

“Quality education is expensive. And to have low teacher-to-child ratios and highly qualified teachers, it has to be,” Trepanier-Street said. “That’s why it was important for us to find avenues for access. Children who are in low-income families deserve quality education too.”

Early education advocates for decades, Trepanier-Street and her colleagues were ahead of their time. She’s glad that the federal government is now paying attention to its importance with the recent passage of a $3.5 trillion spending blueprint for social programs — like universal preschool for all Americans — in the U.S. Senate.

Although there are more federal hurdles to overcome before this plan can become a reality, College of Education, Health, and Human Services Dean Ann Lampkin-Williams said she’s hopeful. But no matter what is decided at the federal level, the school will continue to contribute to the community through Reggio-Emilia-inspired teaching — that’s a preschool student-centered pedagogy where lessons emerge around child interests — and preparing teachers.

“It is a blessing to have the talent that we have here — and a huge responsibility,” Lampkin-Williams said. “We know the impact our practicum students will have on young lives in the future. So our university professors and ECEC teachers give them the experience needed to learn, grow and excel. Have an idea for a lesson plan? Bounce it off your teacher. Want to lead a class? You will do that too. Our job is two-fold. Help our youngest learners build the foundation they need for success; and pass along our expertise, research and experience so our future teachers are career-ready and positioned to help early childhood students. We’re great at what we do because of the dedication of our talented and professional ECEC team.”

Davey, who is a CEHHS faculty member in addition to her ECEC director role, agrees. She sees this as a supervisor — and as a parent. Her youngest daughter attended the center last year.

“They know how important education is to families. We were open during the majority of the pandemic. We welcomed children into classrooms safely and worked to give them the best experience they could have,” Davey said. “Even when everything else seemed uncertain, we were a constant. Our teachers and staff went above and beyond because they believe in what they do.”

Back in the classroom, Catie Stone is getting ready for a new academic year. To her, it’s another year to welcome both new and familiar faces and leave a positive impression.

But in the history books, it’s a major milestone. For five decades, 51��Ƶ-Dearborn early childhood educators like her have done their part to teach and inspire the generations to come.

Article by Sarah Tuxbury. If you are a member of the media and would like to talk with Director Sarah Davey about the Early Childhood Education Center or the topic of early childhood, please reach out to 51��ƵDearbornNews@umich.edu.

Student Success

University History

College of Education, Health, and Human Services

Early Childhood Education Center

Off

Sun, 08/15/2021 - 15:11

51��Ƶ-Dearborn early childhood educators have been inspiring minds for 50 years. And no matter how much the Early Childhood Education Center grows, it continues to stay close to the child-centric mission that it was founded on in the 1970s.

'Was there a place for me in college?'

stuxbury — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 02:29:58 +0000

'Was there a place for me in college?' stuxbury Mon, 07/05/2021 - 22:29

Illustration highlighting Alumna Helen Morrison

In the 1970s, the women’s liberation movement made headlines around the country. Social norms began to shift as more females entered the workforce and the college classroom. And Helen Morrison, a 45-year-old homemaker who had the dream of a college degree, became a local representation of this cultural change.

On a national and regional level, Morrison was highlighted in Michigan Media’s 10-part PBS series Worlds of Women (it can be found in the Bentley Historical Library’s collections), which explored this changing role. Closer to home, people at Morrison’s church and in her friend group questioned why she was putting in the effort for an education.

“I was a woman with a dream — a dream I had since I graduated high school in June 1945. I wasn’t looking for attention when I started at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn in 1973. The timing seemed right with my youngest finishing high school,” says Morrison, now 93. “I hope seeing a middle-aged lady in the classroom inspired others to be up for challenges they faced. I wanted my story to be helpful somehow to someone along the way.”

Decades after graduation, Morrison — who studied sociology and education and started Career Life Planners counseling following her 1978 graduation — continues to help others through giving advice, annually offering financial support toward educational goals at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn, and sharing stories of perseverance.

The Dearborn Wolverine recently wrote down her experiences in a memoir and shared some of the lessons she learned through earning her degree during a time of social change, persevering after personal tragedy and witnessing how advocacy can change hearts and minds.

Change makes some people uncomfortable. Keep refining yourself anyway.

“I enjoyed being a homemaker and raising my kids. Homemaking is a high-value vocation and many of the skills are transferable to a career (scheduling, mediating, organizing, service). But I wanted something more after my children were grown. I see life like a fine piece of art or sculpture — you keep perfecting it.

Going to college changed how people viewed me at the time. I was seen as a liberated woman. It made some people uncomfortable. At my church, the men (clergy) would make statements like, ‘So you don’t like the kitchen?’ They sounded very insecure...I just smiled. I had friends who questioned me on why I took the extra effort when I could have had the so-called easy life. My answers didn’t seem to stop the questions, so I let my actions speak for themselves.

I resurrected the Student Psychology Association and served as president, got an internship I wanted at the 51��Ƶ-Dearborn Counseling Center, graduated and started my Career Life Planners business that I ran for 40 years. Some people may have still been uncomfortable, but they knew I wasn’t going to pay their negativity any mind. And my friends’ confusion over my extra effort turned into awe. Your journey might not be for everyone and that’s ok. Don’t let them stand in your way. Maybe they will come around, maybe they won’t. What matters is that you keep learning and growing.”

Don’t let preconceived notions discourage you.

“Unfortunately, we are socially programmed to think things like 50 or 60 is too old to fulfill a dream. At 93, I know this is untrue. But at 45, I did wonder if I was too old to go back to school. Was there a place for me in college? My doubts disappeared as I kept reading about the women who were 75 and 80 and getting degrees. I thought, ‘They can do it. Why can't I?’

I graduated at age 50. I’m now 93. That’s 40-plus years with a college degree. If I would have viewed 45 as too old for college, I would have missed out on so much.

Your dream might be different from mine. Whatever it is, don’t let age or anything else hold you back. Find people who walked the path before you: how did they do it? Let them guide and inspire. If you can’t find anyone, you may be the one who inspires others. Take one step — something you know you can accomplish. For example, fill out an application or talk to someone who can help. One step taken is one step closer to your goal.”

Keep advocating for the change you want to see.

“In May 1978, the month after I graduated from 51��Ƶ-Dearborn, I was one of the 10 elected commissioners from the Presbytery of Detroit to the General Assembly, which is the annual conference of the Presbyterian Church. One of the issues at that time was the ordination of homosexuals. Unbeknownst to us, there were demonstrations outside of the conference center that were making national news when we were going to vote on this. While I didn’t agree with the vote that took place on that day in 1978 (it was denied), I was determined to keep looking at the big picture. When I got home, I stayed active in my church, told others what happened at the General Assembly meeting, and did my share of talks.

It took 36 more years...but at the 2014 General Assembly the commissioners voted to approve same-sex marriage and for clergy members to perform same-sex marriages. At the same assembly, I was named as a Women of Faith and the theme was ‘Prophetic Women.’ That was among the greatest honors I’ve received in my lifetime. Please keep speaking up — it may take longer than you want, but change will come.”

Surround yourself with people who lift you up.

“When things are good, it is easy to keep going. When I was approaching my 51��Ƶ-Dearborn graduation everything my husband Don and I worked for seemed to be falling into place. Our youngest was getting ready to graduate college, Don was going to take an early retirement, and we were planning to open a career-life mentoring business together. I always enjoyed helping people and I knew it would be a fulfilling path for me. Don was going to handle the finance and administrative side.

But our lives changed in the blink of an eye. Don’s lower back pain that we attributed to pulling old grapevines out of our backyard was cancer — it had spread and was terminal. We learned that two months before I graduated. I was dazed. But my husband did everything for us to live as normally as possible. Whether or not he’d be there to see it, Don wanted me to keep working toward my dream of having a college degree and a business. As a graduation gift, he registered our business idea and put it in my name. That was a traumatizing time and I could have put everything on hold or stopped. But I had someone who believed in my vision and supported me until the end. Surround yourself with motivators and believers. They will help you make it through the most difficult times.”

You can always make a difference.

“After we found out my husband had metastatic prostate cancer, what was ahead of us was pretty scary and final in so many ways. He was given three months to three years to live. I cannot imagine what was going through his mind. But Don kept looking at ways to better the world we live in. He was pleased he could contribute to experimental drug research with the time he had left. I’m so grateful for Don and people like him because two of our three sons have since benefited from prostate cancer research. People today are benefiting from what Don did 40 years ago.

If you are experiencing something difficult, please know what you are doing matters. You might not see the impact you have, but your actions can make a world of difference for someone. Struggles can turn into stories of inspiration. Failures can become valuable lessons. Moments that seem so final can have an everlasting impact. I don’t have all the answers, but I do know that it’s never too late to make a difference.”

Interview by Sarah Tuxbury. Helen Morrison’s unpublished memoir is called “Yearn, Learn, Earn.”

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Tue, 07/06/2021 - 02:24

Dearborn Wolverine Helen Morrison, ‘78 B.A., shares lessons she learned through earning her degree during a time of social change, persevering after personal tragedy and witnessing how advocacy can change hearts and minds.

51��Ƶ-Dearborn ‘icon’ dies at 91

stuxbury — Wed, 15 Apr 2020 14:34:39 +0000

51��Ƶ-Dearborn ‘icon’ dies at 91 stuxbury Wed, 04/15/2020 - 10:34

Acting Chancellor Bernie Klein talks to UAW President Doug Fraser following Spring 1980's Commencement ceremony.

Bernard “Bernie” Klein was called a “witty Ph.D.” in a 1970 Detroit Free Press article — and his colleagues say that description is about as accurate as it gets.

For Klein’s 90th birthday last year, Political Science Professor Ron Stockton said Klein was as funny and sharp as the day that article was printed. “Bernie was showing signs of age physically, but mentally he had not lost a step. He regaled us with half an hour of uninterrupted entertainment. It was like a standup routine.”

Klein, a legendary member of the 51��Ƶ-Dearborn community who taught political science from 1971 to 1993 and led the campus on three different occasions as interim or acting chancellor, died on April 12 at the age of 91 of COVID-19-related complications. He had a prolific career with a variety of leadership roles in academia and government throughout southeast Michigan.

Klein was a high-profile City of Detroit official during the 1960s until 1970 for then-Mayor Jerome Cavanagh — Klein was Detroit's top financial officer.

When he left his city post for campus life in 1971, it gave political science students an inside look into Detroit during a historic, turbulent, time.

Stockton said Klein was in the mayor’s office during the Detroit riots and shared his bird’s eye view from Woodward. Because of Klein’s experience, he was even quoted in Sidney Fine’s book The Detroit Riot.

“One day... a notorious furniture store was being looted. This place was infamous for offering low prices but at inflated interest rates that exploited the poor,” Stockton recalled from one of Klein’s stories. “The looters were carrying off a sofa. Bernie said, ‘They are still getting ripped off.’”

Faculty and staff liked his frankness and ability to find a compromise in even the toughest situations. When a 1980s recession started rumbling about a potential 51��Ƶ-Dearborn campus closure, Klein went straight to then Michigan Gov. Jim Blanchard — and got a written governmental guarantee that that state viewed 51��Ƶ-Dearborn as an essential college and would continue to support campus’ operations. Students enjoyed Klein’s intellect, stories and humor.

51��Ƶ-Dearborn gave Klein its Distinguished Teaching Award in 1990. His three terms as acting/interim chancellor occurred in a span in 1979 and 1980, from September to December 1992, and — even after he retired in 1993 — between July 1999 and June 2000.

Chancellor Domenico Grasso said he met Klein shortly after Grasso's summer 2018 arrival on campus. Klein traveled to the Chancellor's Office — a familiar place for Klein — to share his 51��Ƶ-Dearborn experiences.

"His vigor and good humor belied his years, and his enthusiasm for our campus was as palpable as a graduating senior. He was truly an inspiration. Bernie was also kind enough to attend my inauguration, I was touched by his support and good wishes," Grasso said. "My wife Susan and I, along with our university community, express our deepest and most sincere condolences to the Klein family. We have lost an icon of our 51��Ƶ-Dearborn community."

Stockton, who was hired by Klein in 1973, said there will never be another Klein.

“Bernie has a record that no one in the annals of universities has ever achieved, and no one will ever achieve again. For three separate times, on three separate occasions, he was chancellor of the same university — when chancellors left for other jobs, he was called into service,” Stockton said. “He knew the university inside out and had connections in Lansing and in Ann Arbor. He was someone everyone knew and everyone trusted...And now he is gone. We will not see his like again.”

Memorial contributions can be made to University of Michigan-Dearborn, Bernie Klein Memorial Fund via the online giving site or by mail to 4901 Evergreen Road, 1040AB, Dearborn, MI 48128. Gifts will be used to support CASL students for tuition, fees, books, research, travel, conference fees, and other student needs identified by the Dean to reflect Klein's fondness for educating students and concern about growing student debt.

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Wed, 04/15/2020 - 14:32

Bernie Klein, 51��Ƶ-Dearborn professor emeritus, was known for humor, intellect and congeniality.