Short news items from around the University of Michigan.

A group of panelists highlighted U-M’s anti-racism efforts and called on people to actively fight racism during a June 4 online discussion, about a year after a similar discussion following the death of George Floyd.

U-M will launch a new Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention to generate knowledge and advance innovative solutions that reduce firearm injury, a public health crisis that leads to more than 100 U.S. deaths per day.

U-M is among more than 200 higher education institutions in 43 states to join the White House’s COVID-19 College Vaccine Challenge, which seeks to provide vaccination opportunities and access to all members of the university community.

The Institute for Research on Women and Gender received a five-year, $1.2 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to develop Student Opportunities for AIDS/HIV Research Program.

Five faculty members have received 2021 Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Awards for their contributions to the development of a culturally and ethnically diverse U-M community.

The Energy Equity Project — a partnership among SEAS and the Energy and Joyce foundations — will create the first standardized tool for collecting and tracking data to improve equity in clean energy policies, programs and investments.

Starting June 1, the four canopies on campus can be reserved from 8-10:30 a.m. Monday through Friday for use by departmental units and student organizations looking to conduct university business outdoors.

U-M entomologist Thomas Moore, 91, has spent nearly seven decades studying periodical cicadas, which emerge every 13 or 17 years and are only found in the eastern half of North America.

Investment in augmented and virtual reality is expected to mushroom in the coming years, and so are the opportunities for those advertisers who would use the technology to manipulate, U-M researchers say.