Multimedia Features | The University Record

February 15, 2022

InPACT at Home

When childhood obesity began to rise during the COVID-19 pandemic, Rebecca Hasson, associate professor of kinesiology and director of the Childhood Disparities Research Laboratory, and her team adapted their classroom activity program, InPACT, so students could do it at home. InPACT at Home received $1 million in COVID-19 CARES funds and solidified a partnership with PBS Michigan Learning Channel to air homegrown exercise videos on television. This video explores how the program expanded to homes and families.

Intimate partner violence

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, media reports warned of skyrocketing domestic violence. While the overall prevalence of domestic violence in Michigan didn’t increase, survivors of intimate partner violence experienced new, more frequent or more severe violence during the early months of the pandemic, a U-M study found. In this video, Sarah Peitzmeier, assistant professor of nursing, and of health behavior and health education, discusses the findings.

Prison from the inside out

For 15 years, the Inside-Out Prison Exchange program has encouraged UM-Dearborn students to think about crime and punishment mechanisms in human terms. Class topics include the origins of imprisonment and the construction of social order, reflects on how incarceration affects society outside the prison walls. In this photo, Bryan Jones (left), a former inmate who now works for the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, speaks with UM-Dearborn Associate Professor Anna Müller and students. (Photo by Sarah Tuxbury)

Read more about the Inside-Out Prison Exchange program

February 10, 2022

Snow-resistant coating

In an advance that could dramatically improve the productivity of solar panels in cold climates, a team led by U-M has demonstrated an inexpensive, clear coating that reduced snow and ice accumulation on solar panels, enabling them to generate up to 85 percent more energy in early testing. This time lapse video shows how panels coated with the formula shed ice and snow.

Learning sciences gift

A $14.7 million gift from U-M alumna Eileen Lappin Weiser is establishing The Eileen Lappin Weiser Learning Sciences Center in the School of Education to help reshape teaching and learning to meet the needs of all different kinds of learners. In this photo, students in the Master of Arts with Elementary Teacher Certification program work with elementary school students at Ann Arbor Open School in July 2021. (Photo by Leisa Thompson)

Read more about The Eileen Lappin Weiser Learning Sciences Center

February 7, 2022

A new work home

Abundant sunlight, new offices and a restored rotunda were among the features welcoming about 200 U-M employees who moved from the Fleming Administration Building to the Alexander G. Ruthven Building. A three-year renovation effort transformed the former museum space into a flexible, modern workplace. Visitors are welcomed through a rotunda with its domed plaster ceiling decorated with carvings of delicate flowers, monkeys, geckos and swirling vines. The original 1928 lantern hangs from a medallion in the center. (Photo by Roger Hart, Michigan Photography)

Read more and see photos of the renovated Ruthven

February 3, 2022

And the snow came down …

The Cube in Regents’ Plaza stands unspun as a worker clears the snow around it. With much of southern Michigan under a winter storm warning Feb. 2 and 3, those who ventured out across campus did so amid a gentle, but steady, snowfall. View a gallery of snowfall photos. (Photo by Daryl Marshke, Michigan Photography)

View a gallery of snowfall photos

February 2, 2022

Presidential pop-in

Back on campus, President Mary Sue Coleman speaks to students in a Fundamental Physics for the Life Sciences II class, taught by Jens-Christian Meiners, professor of physics and of biophysics, in the new Central Campus Classroom Building. Coleman stopped by during her first day working in the Alexander G. Ruthven Building, which is connected to the CCCB and is the central administration’s new home. (Photo by Austin Thomason, Michigan Photography)

February 1, 2022

The business of biowaste

Jose Alfaro, an assistant professor of practice at the School for Environment and Sustainability, has pioneered new ways to harness sustainable energy from biowaste through innovative gasification technology. In this video, Alfaro, also a senior research fellow at U-M’s William Davidson Institute, discusses how the institute explored multiple pathways to commercialize and and expand his work.

Read more about developing biowaste as an energy source

January 31, 2022

Visions of safety

It’s one thing to order a soy latte at a coffee shop. It’s quite another to be asked about sexual violence. That juxtaposition was what U-M senior and SAPAC volunteer Sara Fess was hoping for with her Hidden Voices project that asked M-36 Coffee Roasters Café customers: Imagine a world without sexual violence. What would be different?

Read more about Sara Fess’ Hidden Voices project