Social Sciences

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Thu, 01/16/2025 - 15:54

Some are concerned about overreach with the incoming administration, but Political Science Professor Mitchel Sollenberger says the use of presidential privilege has a long history.

Professor of Political Science Mitchel Sollenberger. Photo by Annie Barker

Alum Zaineb A. Hussein has found her place

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

###

Story by Lou Blouin. Photos by Annie Barker.

Student Success

Alumni Engagement

Accessibility or Affordability

Off

Tue, 09/24/2024 - 15:41

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

‘Education is the equalizer’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kinzel and daughter Lily. Photo courtesy Aaron Kinzel

Story by Sarah Tuxbury.

Faculty and Staff

Off

Fri, 07/19/2024 - 19:38

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

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

'Art is a bridge to learning'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Article by Sarah Tuxbury.

Arts

Nature or Environment

Environmental Interpretive Center

Language, Culture, and the Arts

Natural Sciences

Off

Wed, 03/15/2023 - 17:40

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

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

What we’re missing when we simplify MLK’s life and legacy

lblouin — Mon, 16 Jan 2023 16:02:37 +0000

What we’re missing when we simplify MLK’s life and legacy lblouin Mon, 01/16/2023 - 11:02

Like most Americans, UM-Dearborn Associate Professor of African and African American Studies Terri Laws finds Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech inspiring. But it’s the first two thirds of the speech rather than the oft-quoted “flourish” of its conclusion that speak to her most deeply. Indeed, review the text and you’ll see King spends most of the speech laying out a persuasive moral argument for civil rights based on the most cherished principles of the country’s founding documents. “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir,” King said. “This note was a promise that all men — yes, Black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds. But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.”

Laws thinks our tendency to focus on the more quotable, rhetorically uplifting parts of the speech are indicative of a larger cultural impulse to simplify King — to lionize the less controversial parts of his life and philosophy and diminish or erase his more complex, often radical ideas. Earlier this month we chatted with Laws about this topic, why she thinks King is particularly relevant today, and why her connection to him feels personal. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

So I noticed you have a quote from King in your email signature. And it’s not the kind of inspirational, universal-truth-type quote you often see featured — or misquoted. It reads, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman because it often results in physical death." Tell us why that quote is important to you.

Associate Professor Terri Laws

That’s actually been my signature for years. I did make the font red at some point! But it’s been with me for a long time because it’s really representative of the work I try to achieve. The biggest area of my research is health inequity and health disparities, which is a multifaceted and interdisciplinary field. In addition to exploring how systems create inequalities, I am interested in moral aspects of eliminating health inequity and how African American religious thought and practices as collective action contribute to correcting inequality, whatever the cause. This particular quote shows the breadth of Martin Luther King. To the best of our understanding, he said this in 1966 at a press conference before he addressed an interracial medical group that was trying to push for healthcare as a human right. That group was important because there had long been segregated associations for medical professionals and segregated healthcare, and so here we see King doing the work we saw him doing in every other area of life, namely, to locate inequality where equality needs to be. This was, of course, at a time when terms like health disparities or health inequity did not yet exist, so it was very forward looking.

The key word in the quote is “inhuman,” and it’s interesting to me, because the quote is sometimes written instead with the word “inhumane.” But scholar Charlene Galarneau, who had an interest in this particular quote, did some research to figure out what he actually said, and it appears that he said “inhuman.” This matters, one, because King gets misquoted so often, but also because “inhuman” is a much deeper concept. We have so many examples of people wanting to see him in more benign ways, and to me, for him to say “inhuman” showcases the more radical King. To say that something is “inhumane,” that’s a word we use more broadly to express judgment about a certain meanness in behaviors, including toward animals. But to say something is “inhuman” means someone is failing to see the humanity of a person at all. It is an entirely different level of disrespect and devaluing to judge that people aren’t even deserving of life.

And as you mentioned, it’s an example of this larger issue that American culture has reshaped King to be a simpler, less challenging, less controversial figure than he actually was. Can you talk more about that phenomenon? And in the interest of complicating the story, can we dive into some of the areas where popular images of King fall especially short?

Well, my frame of reference for this is often my students, who are typically coming in with fairly limited knowledge of King. So, for example, when I’m teaching African American Religious Experience, and we get to that part of Black religious history, I want students to understand that he’s more than “Reverend King who preached.” In many sectors of our society, religion has been diminished, so students need to understand the historical, public role of the pastor in Black communities. And this particular pastor is a Ph.D.-prepared systematic theologian. King has undertaken deep study about the nature of God and God’s relationship to humans, and he has the training to argue and reform doctrines. As an outgrowth of his beliefs and research, one of the central themes of his preaching, writing and activism is that despite the inferiorities that Black people have been taught about themselves, God made you as a person and Black people are equal beings in the eyes of God. He then takes this concept of personhood and makes an argument based on the foundational documents of the United States. That’s what makes the entirety of the “I Have a Dream” speech so important. In saying that the United States has given Black folk a check that we can’t cash, he’s making a statement that there is a birthright to this equality. There is a divine birthright. But there is also a legal and civil birthright based on the creeds that are foundational to the type of society we claim to stand for.

Another example that I often see in my students is how they contrast King with Malcolm X. Students are very interested in Malcolm X, and not to oversimplify things myself, but they think he’s so cool! Some are interested because of his conversion to Islam, which may be something of specific interest to our campus, and the religious diversity among Africans and African Americans. Some students are interested in Malcolm X’s outspokenness. Some are interested because they connect him with the Black Power movement. But most often, for them, he’s set in contrast with King. To them, King believed in equality and nonviolence through passive methods, and Malcolm is radical and willing to consider defensive violence so he’s the cool one.

But if you look at, say, the origins of the term “Black Power,” the story is more complicated. We know that the phrase Black Power was popularized by Stokely Carmichael, who was then a leader in SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), and it comes out of this march that took place in 1966. A man named James Meredith became the first Black student admitted at the University of Mississippi. Later, he decided to do a march across the state as a march against fear. A sniper shoots him on the first day, and so King and Floyd McKissick of the Congress for Racial Equality go to Memphis where Meredith is hospitalized. They talk with him and they decide that they are going to continue the march for him. As they are visiting with him, Carmichael shows up, and by this point, he is getting a little tired of the nonviolence philosophy, though they all agree that they’re going to try to do this march. All along the way, however, they’re having these deep conversations about the continuing use of nonviolence as a strategy, which King thought was critical to keeping the movement an interracial one. But during the march, Carmichael and Willie Ricks, who was thought to be the originator of the term Black Power, start this chant: “What do we want? Black Power!” And King is pretty disappointed. He saw Black Power as a slogan, and one the media would not be willing to let go of. He argued for the slogan to demand “Black Equality.” Carmichael argued that it had to be power, because power is what is used against us. King’s concern was when you put white power against Black power, you’re inviting a clash, and he felt deeply this had to be an interracial movement.

My point is this was a nuanced, complex, real debate they were having. Furthermore, King and Carmichael had a good enough relationship where they were actually talking about these things. King, as well as other ministers, continued to evolve their version of the slogan. In the Detroit Studies course, for example, I have assigned a King essay in which he lays out his explanation of Black Power. It’s important in that class for his connections to Detroit as an economic engine and for the political skills learned through Black participation in the labor movement. So you can’t just make it an easy narrative, like Malcolm X is cool, and King is not. Fill in what’s behind the narrative, don’t reify it, and understand it in all its fullness.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X have a chance encounter in the hallway during the Senate debate on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This was the first and only time they met. Malcolm X was assassinated the following year. Credit: Library of Congress

That’s super fascinating. How about one more example of an area where you think our perceptions of King would benefit from a deeper reading of history.

I don't think we give enough attention to how much he was really unpopular — even among people who we commonly think of as allies of the Civil Rights Movement. In particular, King started making connections between economic conditions in our country and what was happening with the Vietnam War. For him, spending money on a war, in which we were disproportionately drafting Black Americans and killing people of color, was money that could then not be spent at home to alleviate the inequitable conditions for the same people in this country. That lost him the favor of President Johnson, which meant that he had to decide whether he was going to stop making these connections, or risk putting the movement in jeopardy. As a moral thinker, he is unable to disconnect himself from the immorality of a war that was harming people both around the globe and in this country. King was interested in full Black citizenship and humanity, but when he turned to economic inequality and matters of national concern that moved beyond race, that made him unpopular, and we forget that. And even thinking of the famous audio of Bobby Kennedy landing in Indianapolis, announcing that King has been shot and has died. The crowd gasps in horror. But this was the same man who, as attorney general, signed off on federal surveillance of King when FBI Director Hoover saw him as a security threat to the nation.

These are the kinds of complexities we don’t think about when we only focus on the version of King that we apparently have decided is the version that K-12 students, or the parents of K-12 students, can accept. But my experience is that students are ready for controversies. They’re ready to learn about a deeper King than the one they learned about in 4th grade and the one they hear about leading up to the third Monday in January. I think we do a disservice to ourselves as a country when we only tell the clean parts of our history, because we’re missing an opportunity to reflect on what that means for the present moment and where we’re going as a nation. Even then, it can be a challenging exercise. For example, every year, folks ask questions about what King would think about contemporary subjects. I don’t typically join in those conversations. Ethically, it’s difficult to do more than guess the moral stance across generations. That said, as someone who studies inequity and culturally based tools to help eliminate inequality, and who is a couple of generations removed from my students, I often think about the types of social investments that were made during my youth, like investments in public schools and expanded rights. So I think understanding the complexities of King’s thought helps today’s generations make decisions for their own forms of activism and what gaps they want closed for themselves and for their children.

Well, that begs the question, what do you think about commemorations like MLK Day?

First, I would say my relationship to King is something that is intellectual, spiritual, but also deeply personal. I’m not a King scholar; I’d consider myself sort of a King hobbyist, and as a young person, much of what I learned about him were things I learned because I was driven by my own curiosities. I have had friends remind me that before King’s birthday was a holiday, I would do things like search newspapers for what happened in the days following his assassination. Later in life, I went to seminary at a place in Atlanta that Daddy King and Benjamin Mays, one of King’s mentors, had helped start.

Regarding commemorations, part of me has come to understand that commemorations occur on lots of different levels. Honestly, how I feel right now is for the people who need the specifics of that day, even if it’s a more cursory version, let them have it. It’s ultimately more important to remember than to labor over the specifics of how we remember. For me personally, one of the most important ways commemorations can occur is as the ritual of remembrance, and specifically, in a way that helps us move to what’s next. Given this specific moment in our history, this is a time for us to really decide as a nation where we are going. In the last year of King’s life, he wrote a book called “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?” and he’s really asking, are we going to live these values that we say we want to live and by what methods and strategies will we pursue them? Today, we can’t even elect a Speaker of the House, we can’t do the people’s business, because we are arguing about who we want to be. In political polling, more Americans are willing to say they believe violence can be an appropriate response to disagreement with our government. That’s where we are right now as a country, and it’s not dissimilar to 1963. 2023 marks the 60th anniversary of the Birmingham Campaign; Kennedy’s speech on civil rights legislation, which Johnson carried forward after Kennedy was assassinated that November; and the March on Washington, the most famous event of that pivotal year. And so there’s an opportunity to reflect more deeply about what King had to say about his own similar moment in history, to see if there are moral guideposts for our own way forward.

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Terri Laws is an associate professor of African and African American Studies. Her teaching and research interests include Women's and Gender Studies, inequality, race and health, and religion and health. Interview by Lou Blouin.

Opinion or Voices

College of Education, Health, and Human Services

Off

Mon, 01/16/2023 - 15:59

Associate Professor Terri Laws thinks honoring Martin Luther King Jr. must start with a more thorough reckoning with his thought, his place in history and his relevance for today.

Martin Luther King Jr. speaks at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol about the Senate debate on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Credit: Library of Congress

Sharing a few grave insights

stuxbury — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 21:14:31 +0000

Sharing a few grave insights stuxbury Wed, 10/26/2022 - 17:14

A few miles away from UM-Dearborn there’s a nearly 155-year-old place where communities come together. There are historic heroes and villains, the rich and poor, immigrants and founding families, trailblazers and followers.

All silent, except for a few words marked in stone.

In Detroit’s Woodmere Cemetery, there are about 200,000 people — all with their own stories. To share some of these narratives and teach local history, Political Science Professor Emeritus Ron Stockton, a noted graveyard researcher, takes students there annually.

“This is not a single community, but a mosaic of diversity in terms of nations, cultures and even religions,” he said. “I share stories about specific people or stones to contextualize it. We need to move beyond seeing cemeteries as these frightening places with dead people. It’s a place where people who shaped our community reside together.”

UM-Dearborn’s Reporter joined Stockton earlier this month as he took Honors Program students on a tour of the cemetery. Here are a few of the stories that he shared.

Best laid plans don’t always come to fruition, even when made by multi-millionaires.

For many Michiganders, the name Vernors brings forth memories of the beloved bubbly ginger drink. The man behind it, James Vernor, Sr. was the first licensed pharmacist in the state and originally created his beverage, like many carbonated drinks in the 1800s, as a medical treatment. He sold it out of his Woodward Avenue pharmacy. Lucky for him, it was tasty — and it made him rich.

He was so rich that he bought a large plot of land in Woodmere and commissioned a statue that’s dedicated to his family. Both his and wife’s family name, Smith, are etched in the side of the monument that marks the plot. James Vernor, Sr. died in 1927 at age 84 and is buried there. A few family members are also there — including his wife, daughter and a grandson. But others, like his son, chose a different final resting place to be with a partner, and other family members moved away entirely.

“In those days, people who were millionaires thought they were going to create a dynasty. It was common to think they’d have generations of family who’d all stay in one place, run the family business and want to be buried together,” Stockton said. “It doesn’t quite work that way. Your children grow up, move to California and want to create their own dynasties. So it didn’t go to plan, but I’m glad he was a bit grand in his thinking — the people who walk around Woodmere benefit. That statue really is a magnificent sight.”

Markers play an important role in memorializing historic events.

There are five red-tinted markers flush with the ground in the northeast section of Woodmere Cemetery. These are the stones of men — Joe York, Curtis Williams, Coleman Leny, Joe DeBlasi and Joe Bussell — killed during the March 1932 Ford Hunger March.

Here’s a little background: When the Great Depression hit, there were no social programs and the banks in Detroit permanently closed and took people’s life savings.Unemployed auto workers and their families were suffering. They appealed to their former boss Henry Ford — one of the richest men in the world — to listen and help. [To learn more, check out The Detroit History podcast episode “The Ford Hunger March,” produced by Communication Professor Tim Kiska.]

“You need to remember that Henry Ford was the Elon Musk of his day. His company might not have been making a lot of money at that time, but he was in a position to help and these people were desperate,” Stockton said. “They marched in peace. But Henry's tough guy Harry Bennett went out, shot into the crowd and killed these men. Four died at the march, a fifth was transported to the hospital where he later died. It was horrible. But what happened there did eventually help lead to changes in employment practices.”

Stockton said there’s an interesting story about Curtis Williams, who was Black, and his stone: He didn’t have one until the early 1990s.

“Curtis’ parents cremated him and spread his ashes. After 1967, and in the years that followed, people started speaking out. Curtis died because of this cause and he needed to be remembered along with the other four. Since he was cremated, they put in a cenotaph — a marker without a body — in 1992. His name is rightfully now alongside the others.”

Pop culture can evolve symbols in unexpected ways.

Many people are familiar with the pointed-ear Star Trek character Spock and his message to “Live Long and Prosper.” No, original actor Leonard Nimoy is not buried at Woodmere, but his Vulcan salute — where he points his hand up and parts his fingers between the ring and middle ones — is seen on several stones around the cemetery.

That hand symbol goes back much further than the sci-fi franchise that made it popular, Stockton said. As the crowd gathered around a stone for E.J. and Annie Cohen, who died in 1914 and 1893 respectively, the symbol was prominently etched at the top of their combined marker.

“The word Cohen translates to priest in Hebrew. This hand symbol is done at the blessing at the end of the service. Leonard Nimoy, whose family was Jewish, needed to come up with a way for Spock to greet people for the show. So he suggested doing what the rabbi did when he was a kid at religious services. That’s how we got the Vulcan salute."

Even when you leave a place, it stays with you.

Across the cemetery, there are national flags from across the world, flora and fauna specific to a place, holy book etchings and more. Stockton said even when people move from one place to another, what represents home stays with you.

Stockton showed the class where his marker is at Woodmere. It has the image of a dogwood bloom on it — a tree that’s native to Illinois, his home state.

Albanian headstones often show an ancient Byzantine Christian symbol of a two-headed eagle facing east and west, alongside a photo etching of an Islamic one, an Albanian mosque. Why both? “This is a people with a lot of history. Albanian identity came first, before culture and religion evolved over hundreds of years with changing leadership. During the long Communist era, this mosque served as a symbol of continuing Albanian identity. Among these Albanian graves, we see that national or ethnic identity often supersedes religious identity, or at least persists alongside it.”

There’s also a grave in the Islamic Sunni section of the cemetery that includes a heartfelt poem in Arabic that Abdallah Berry, aged 100, wrote. It was about longing for his Lebanese homeland and wanting to smell the flowers and feel the soil — but being unable to return, even in death.

Honors Program freshman Sara Moughni said the poem was sad, but touching. And she was honored to read what Mr. Berry left as part of his legacy.

As the students left Woodmere, they kept thinking about the place they just experienced — so in a way, the cemetery was a place that stayed with them.

“I walked in with a preconceived notion that cemeteries weren’t places that I’d want to visit because I did not want to be surrounded by death,” Moughni said. “Dr. Stockton showed us that cemeteries are actually full of lives lived and people representing themselves through inscriptions to share their histories with us. It’s beautiful to see so many people from different backgrounds, places and beliefs together all in one place.”

Article by Sarah Tuxbury. Below are additional images of markers at Woodmere Cemetery. Thank you to Assistant Director for Research Administration Pat Turnball for your photos.

Benjamin Siegel (1860-1936) bought the women's wear store where he worked and changed the name to B. Siegel Company, which became the largest of its kind in the Midwest. Something else interesting? He was in the Ford's Theatre audience when President Abraham Lincoln was shot. He was a toddler at the time, but recalls his parents telling him the story.

Professor Emeritus Ron Stockton shows the tour group the marker that will be in remembrance of him and his wife Jane.

Joseph Michael King's parents commissioned this stone for their son, who died during WWII. The Air Force staff sergeant was 20.

Mollie Helene Kovacs Racz, aged 30, died in 1942. Her husband Victor had this memorial made for her. They lived in the Detroit neighborhood of Delray. After her death, Victor moved to Allen Park and opened a photography studio.

This monument in the veteran's section of Woodmere Cemetery reads, "In memory of our deceased comrades of the 19th U.S. Infantry and other Regts. Erected by the 19th U.S. Inf. Veteran Assn."

Faculty Research

Off

Wed, 10/26/2022 - 21:12

In Detroit’s Woodmere Cemetery, there are about 200,000 people — all with their own stories. To share some of these and teach local history, Professor Emeritus Ron Stockton, a noted graveyard researcher, wants to take you on a tour.

Professor Emeritus Ronald Stockton leads a tour of Woodmere Cemetery. Photos by Sarah Tuxbury

Remembering Keith Dye: 'He's an unforgettable fixture in my educational journey'

stuxbury — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 22:05:10 +0000

Remembering Keith Dye: 'He's an unforgettable fixture in my educational journey' stuxbury Mon, 10/03/2022 - 18:05

When African and African American Studies Associate Professor Keith Dye was a child, he witnessed the 1967 Detroit riots. He saw people in the streets. As his young mind was taking it in, “it looked like war.” As an adult, Dye often reflected on the resilience of the people who made up the city he lived in — and loved.

“What Keith saw as a child was powerful. Looking at his distinguished career, it’s in that moment that he began to go on an odyssey of self exploration to discover his place in society,” said History Professor Emeritus Joe Lunn, who was on the UM-Dearborn committee to hire Dye nearly a decade ago. “Before coming to campus, he was an editor, book author, historian and an extremely talented educator. Ask any of his students. He is going to be sorely missed.”

Dye, a life-long Detroit resident, passed away at home after a brief illness on Sept. 25. He was 67. His funeral service will take place at 1 p.m. Oct. 10 at Swanson Funeral Home, 14751 W. McNichols Road in Detroit.

Associate Professor Keith Dye

A mainstay in the History and African and African American Studies (AAAS) program, Dye was the first person hired at UM-Dearborn whose academic line was stated as "African and African American Studies."

AAAS Associate Professor Terri Laws co-taught the “Studies in Detroit Culture” course with Dye for several years. She said he had a variety of experiences — like growing up in Detroit, a work history that started in a Chrysler factory, founding Detroit’s CityView newspaper (which he sold in 2000) and more — that culminated in an expertise that blended academic theory and real life.

“He was a busy guy because he wanted new experiences that he could learn from. Of all these things he did, something he enjoyed the most was being able to go home and read books, do his research and share his knowledge. Having a life of the mind was an incredible gift to him,” Laws said. “He knew the power of knowledge and had this incredible ability to share information regarding sensitive topics with others in a way that was real, but wouldn’t make people defensive. He’d get needed conversations going.”

Literature and Humanities Professor Deborah Smith Pollard, who helped create the AAAS program with Lunn and other campus faculty, said Dye took on more new courses than most people would have normally handled — and he did it with a smile.

“He always brought his unique sense of humor to the room. All of that along with his work in the community as a journalist, historian and an activist made him a respected and appreciated colleague,” Smith Pollard said. “One of the most interesting experiences both Professor Dye and I had was presenting historical and cultural context at the Motown Museum for recordings, including speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King and poetry by Langston Hughes that were beyond the R&B songs most people think were the Motown Records’ entire focus.”

Dye educated people about the Black experience outside of the classroom too. Sociology Associate Professor Ivy Forsythe-Brown said one of Dye’s research areas was on the Black Manifesto and he would go into communities to present his work and answer questions. Developed during the National Black Economic Development Conference in Detroit in 1969, the Black Manifesto demanded reparations from white churches and synagogues for their participation in the injustices of slavery and segregation committed against African Americans.

Dye would avoid the pro-and-con polemics about reparations themselves, instead focusing on why reparations arose as a momentous departure from the more traditional 1960s civil rights advocacy efforts based around social integration.

“Keith did research and presentations on the Black Manifesto and its links to Christ Church Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills,” Forsythe-Brown said. “I heard Keith do a very well-received presentation on it at the church.”

History Professor Georgina Hickey said she was always impressed with how deeply Dye connected with UM-Dearborn’s students. Hickey said Dye built warm and trusting relationships with students even while challenging them to think more critically. Students often shared that they wished they had an educator like Dye in their lives sooner.

“Students wrote how much they enjoyed his courses, but were mad that they didn’t get the information he taught them prior to college,” said Hickey. “He opened so many minds when it came to the history of racial relations, institutional racism and its effects, and why the city of Detroit and its residents have experienced what they have.”

Reinforcing the bond Dye had with his students, Keith McCallum — who took Dye’s “Studies in Detroit Culture” course in Fall 2015 — said Dye helped him view his hometown in a new light.

McCallum, who now works as the director of client services for the Detroit-based legal nonprofit Street Democracy, said he saw his own vibrant eastside Detroit neighborhood go from a place with fond memories of planting flowers with his grandmother in the 1980s to one where the home burned down when a vacant house next to it caught fire — resulting in her garden becoming a bed of overgrowth. McCallum said Dye explained detailed reasons for these neighborhood changes through a social and historical lens. But he also explained to McCallum why there is hope, especially when it comes to Detroit.

“I knew things were transitioning when I was a kid, but I didn’t know why. Professor Dye helped me connect the dots,” McCallum recalled of their conversations in 2015. “I am so saddened to hear of his passing. He is an unforgettable fixture in my educational journey. I learned about how resilient Detroit was and is and we talked about how access to opportunities can make or break a city. I am very thankful for Professor Dye. His lessons will always be with me.”

Article by Sarah Tuxbury.

Faculty and Staff

Off

Mon, 10/03/2022 - 22:04

Associate Professor Keith Dye, a beloved educator in campus’ African and African American Studies and History programs, died Sept. 25. He was 67.

Associate Professor Keith Dye teaches a Fall 2015 class. Photo by Sarah Tuxbury

UM-Dearborn announces inaugural Chancellor's Inclusive Excellence Fellows

lblouin — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 18:32:30 +0000

UM-Dearborn announces inaugural Chancellor's Inclusive Excellence Fellows lblouin Mon, 10/03/2022 - 14:32

As the campus community knows, our strategic planning effort has led to many new projects and initiatives relating to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI. The DEI working group came up with 60 recommendations in all, many of which have already been implemented. Now, add to the list a new faculty fellowship from the Office of the Chancellor. In late September, a selection committee named Associate Professor of African and African American Studies Terri Laws and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Hafiz Malik as the first recipients of the new Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Fellowship.

Keisha Blevins, chief of staff in the chancellor’s office and UM-Dearborn’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, says one of the core goals of the new fellowship is to give faculty a more formal opportunity to use their expertise to improve and create DEI-focused campus initiatives. “We wanted to recognize the research or teaching that our faculty are already doing in this area,” Blevins says. “But we also wanted to provide them additional space and time to collaborate with administration in ways that they may not normally. Even though our faculty are engaged in a lot of this work already, I don’t think that, on an everyday basis, there was this kind of intentional, specific coordination between administration and faculty around DEI. We thought their individual expertise would be very helpful in carrying out our mission and making the university more inclusive for faculty, staff and students.”

Laws’ year-long fellowship zeroes in on the intersection of college preparedness, student retention and faculty satisfaction. As at many universities, students at UM-Dearborn come to campus with varying levels of classroom readiness. And we have a variety of support programs designed to help improve their skills so they can succeed in the classroom and persist in their programs. What Laws plans to investigate is whether we have a robust, evidence-based understanding of which supports are most effective at creating desired outcomes, like improved GPA, better retention rates or more desirable job opportunities. “I spent the longest part of my career in health care, and one of the things we rely on in health care is this idea of ‘critical pathways,’” Laws explains. “If someone is having a heart attack, there are dozens of possible treatments, but what you really want to know are the key interventions that create the best chance of the best outcome, so you can cut out the steps that aren’t necessary or don’t work so well.”

When it comes to academic interventions, Laws says faculty are often eager to help students who need extra support, but they don’t always have clarity about the “critical pathway” to deploy for a particular challenge, or whether the interventions they pursued ultimately had an impact. For example, Laws says the university’s Early Warning Program allows faculty to communicate with Academic Advising about students who are at risk so they can be connected to support services. “But it is often very complicated when a student is at risk of doing poorly in a class or leaving the university before degree completion,” Laws says. “After I submit an early warning request, I don’t know if that actually made a difference for the student, qualitatively, and across types of early warning interventions, collectively. I think that would help more faculty participate because they will see that reporting is easy — and that it is effective.” She’s hoping her work can help close loops like that, thereby boosting student outcomes and faculty satisfaction. Similarly, Laws will be working with UM-Dearborn Human Resources to evaluate new recruitment and hiring policies aimed at improving diversity in the faculty ranks. Blevins says Laws’ work will also dovetail with the university’s effort to establish Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs, that measure the effectiveness of DEI initiatives relating to representation, inclusion and experiences at work.

Malik’s fellowship is focused on the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program. Piloted just a few years ago to expand opportunities for undergraduate research, the program has been viewed as a big success. But Malik noticed that SURE’s ranks have tended to leave out one large segment of the UM-Dearborn community: students who have sizable work commitments outside of their studies. “I see it all the time — as soon as class ends, students rush off to work with no time to spare,” Malik says. “For them, how they’re going to put food on the table is their biggest concern, and that doesn’t leave a lot of room for things like working in a lab or doing an internship.” In a competitive work environment, not having those kinds of experiences on your resume can be consequential, so Malik came up with a straightforward solution: Do more outreach to working students so they’re aware that an on-campus job in a lab can actually be their job (or at least one of them). “Why wait tables, which is totally unrelated to their field of study, when they could come work in my lab, earn a wage and get an experience that’s going to help them in their career?” Malik says.

Malik’s fellowship year will focus, in part, on helping faculty understand what it takes to recruit working students, which is something he’s been doing successfully for years in his own lab. “Sometimes, we can’t pay as much as their off-campus jobs, so you have to help them understand that the experience has the potential to pay off big for them down the road, once they start their careers.” For now, he’ll be focused specifically on the SURE program, but he says the approach is applicable to grant-supported research in general, which often has funds earmarked for undergraduate students.

UM-Dearborn Chancellor Domenico Grasso, who helped launch a similar program when he was provost at the University of Delaware, says the close collaboration between administration and faculty can help ensure DEI initiatives are themselves rooted in diverse perspectives. “My view of this fellowship is that it’s a two-way enrichment,” Grasso says. “By teaming like-minded faculty and administration, they can see what we’re trying to do, help us see things differently, and maybe also understand what our limitations are. I’ve worked in administration now for a long time, and I understand that faculty evolve and often see things from a different perspective. So I want to learn from them, while they also learn from our perspectives.” Grasso has high hopes for both inaugural fellows and is looking forward to regular conversations with them in the months ahead. He says Laws’ data-driven approach and Malik’s focus on the unique circumstances of our students are both strong examples of how faculty perspectives can add rigor and creativity to our ongoing efforts to make the campus a more welcoming place.

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Story by Lou Blouin

Faculty and Staff

Victors for UM-Dearborn

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Off

Mon, 10/03/2022 - 18:31

Professor Hafiz Malik and Associate Professor Terri Laws will work on two projects designed to make campus a more inclusive place to learn, teach and do research.

Associate Professor of African and African American Studies Terri Laws (left) and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Hafiz Malik. Graphic by Violet Dashi

Mohamad Jaafar has a campus fan club

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 19:09:28 +0000

Mohamad Jaafar has a campus fan club Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/29/2022 - 15:09

This article was originally published on February 15, 2019.

If you want to see a social influencer in action, hang out with senior Mohamad “Moejay” Jaafar for the day.

His reach is wide as he helps run social media sites for the College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters and maintain department websites. But his offline social reach is just as impressive: Visiting table to table in the University Center, he greets everyone by name and introduces strangers to each other so effectively that they continue to talk after he leaves the conversation.

After following him around for a day, it’s clear his affable approach reflects the commitment he has to make the world a more open and inclusive place.

“The more people you know, the more languages you speak, the more cultures you understand, the fewer barriers we all have,” said Jaafar, a communication and political science double major. “Global citizenship is important and it is something we can experience — if we choose to — right on this campus. I want more people to take advantage of it.”

And with Jaafar’s already well-established connections, he may just have the reach needed to make that happen.

9:38 a.m. The start of a good day begins with preparation … and coffee.

My first class today is at 12:30 p.m. But I have a bit of anxiety about being on time, so l come to campus hours early and find ways to be productive. I’ll answer emails, check in with friends, edit videos for work, review my class notes and drink my coffee.

It’s always black coffee. I drink it in this cup from the 1990s that I found in my house. I’m not totally sure if it’s safe to drink from a steel insulated cup after 30 years, but I’m a big believer in sustainability. Until it leaks, I’m keeping it.

12:45 p.m. Take time to study what can strengthen you personally and professionally.

Professor [Margaret] Murray’s classes are so dang good. She has guest speakers and real clients. She teaches us about developing a public relations strategy based on good research from surveys and client interviews.

I’m majoring in communications because it is at the heart of everything that we do in our personal and professional lives. By studying communications, I’m gaining a better understanding of its role in social movements; I’m learning how communication applies to my personal life, and I’m learning how to develop communication strategies for companies, orgs and institutions. I believe identity and image is sacred and I’m interested playing a role in communicating the identity of an organization, company or institution that I believe in to different publics.

I’m also majoring in political science. That’s so I can be a more informed, better citizen.

1:21 p.m. Remember that a little bit can go a long way.

On the University Center stage today, people are making goodie bags that [student organizations] MedLife and Unicef will give to Children’s Hospital. There are so many great organizations on this campus. I know you can’t always join and do everything; there is only a certain level of commitment that can be successfully sustained. But there are also small ways to help. When I’m busy, I try to think about the impact. Ten minutes of my time could make a big difference for a sick child. When I think about things this way, I realize there is time.

2:57 p.m. Every day there’s something new to hear.

I’m working on short videos for both the CASL dean’s office and the Social Sciences Department. For CASL, I’m highlighting majors. For social sciences, I’m highlighting courses. These go on social media platforms and on the website.

In each of these positions, I hear so many different perspectives. Students share why their education will help them make the world a better place. Faculty talk about their expertise and what they hope students will gain. From making these videos, I’m learning new things all the time.

People let me into a little part of their world so I can share their experiences with viewers.

5:34 p.m. Learning a language removes the foreign.

I studied French here and there in the past, but I’ve really improved since I met Rosine in my Speech 101class. Rosine is from the Central African Republic where French is an official language. I told her that I wanted to be fluent, but wasn’t there yet. She offered to help. That was a big moment for me. I was nervous to speak with someone that I didn’t know well in a mess of English and French. But Rosine was glad to help. We’ve learned from each other and a good friendship has come from it.

The dream is to get good enough to make it in Paris. Understanding a language removes a divide and shows a respect for another person’s culture. Rosine said more and more people are speaking English there now. But when I go, I’ll speak French.

6:27 p.m. Agree or not, it’s your right.

In Amnesty International, we plan events and sign petitions to shed light on human rights violations. It’s a small way that we can better understand and show solidarity to these things that might not seem to impact us directly, but in a way do since we are all human.

We need to speak up here because other people in the world don’t have the right to. Freedom of speech is something I strongly believe in. Even if you and I don’t agree, at least we can openly express and debate views that people in other countries die over. Freedom of the press and freedom of speech are so important. I don’t understand why people attack this idea, but I’m OK if someone wants to debate it with me because it’s their right.

7:30 p.m. The day ends here; which is also where it all started.

My mom and I try to make dinner together once a week. We like to make a variety of international foods like sushi, stuffed grape leaves, macaroons and homemade Italian red sauce with noodles. Yes, mom makes the noodles too.

We watched Anthony Bourdain’s shows together for years and still rewatch them because they are so good. I really like that he traveled the world and approached different foods with respect; he never acted like it was this weird thing he was going to eat. Instead, he saw it as another way to be a part of the culture. That’s how mom and I see it too.

I’m definitely a mama’s boy; she’s a big influence in my life. My mom went to school at a French-speaking school in Lebanon. English and Arabic were mainly spoken in our home growing up, but — because of my mom — we’d get these bits of French too. She’d say bonne nuitwhen we went to bed. Mom would play [pop French vocalist] Dalida’s music right into the CD player and I’d listen. I was curious about what was being said. So learning French connects me to my family story.

Understanding culture doesn’t only broaden your understanding of others; it helps you better understand yourself and where you came from too.

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The College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters senior says he doesn’t have a connection with everyone on campus — but our experience following him around for a day says otherwise.

Breaking down walls through art and expression

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Professor Paul Draus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Article by Sarah Tuxbury.

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