STATE UNIVERSITIES
EMU names Rhonda Longworth executive vice president
Eastern Michigan University President James Smith has announced that Rhonda Longworth will be the university’s provost and executive vice president for academic and student affairs starting April 21. Longworth has been serving as interim in the role since January 2016 and has a 22-year career at Eastern, starting in 1994 as an assistant professor of political science.
MSU partners with aquarium to improve aquatic homes
Michigan State University is partnering with Shedd Aquarium in Chicago to better understand how viruses affect plants, fish and aquatic mammals in controlled aquariums. The research is part of Shedd’s Microbiome Project, which is the world’s first comprehensive look at microbiomes in a human-built aquatic ecosystem.
PEER INSTITUTIONS
UMD signs $87.5M cooperative agreement with NASA
The Center for Research and Exploration in Space Science & Technology, an $87.5 million cooperative agreement with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, has been awarded to the University of Maryland. The center’s science priority will be to carry out observational and experimental research, including the study of the solar system and the universe at large.
Northwestern Block Museum receives major photography gift
Images ranging from Charlie Chaplin to W.B. Yeats are among 44 photographs given to Northwestern University’s Mary and Leigh Block Museum by art collectors Richard and Jackie Hollander. The significant gift of silver gelatin and platinum prints by the Luxembourg-born American photographer Edward Steichen is the second to the museum from the Hollander family, who donated 49 Steichen prints in 2013.
Penn State signs lease for new entrepreneurial center
The Westmoreland County Industrial Development Corp. board of directors recently approved a lease agreement between the WCIDC and Penn State New Kensington. The New Kensington campus will be leasing 4,725 square feet, which will be home to the new entrepreneurial center set to open in fall 2017.
— Compiled by Meg Bauer, The University Record
