Multimedia Features | The University Record

January 11, 2022

What lies beneath

For a long time, the importance of the Detroit River to the history and identity of southeast Michigan has not been recognized by many area residents. U-M’s Detroit River Story Lab leverages the resources of the university community and local organizations to research and amplify stories of the Detroit River to bring its rich history and current challenges to life for the local community. This video follows a summer excursion the Detroit River Story Lab took aboard the tall ship Inland Seas.

Read more about the Detroit River Story Lab

January 10, 2022

2022 MLK Symposium — special section

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium provides opportunities to participate in lectures, live performances, exhibits, workshops and community service projects sponsored by academic and non-academic units, student and staff organizations and community groups. The theme of the 2022 MLK Symposium is “This is America.” The Record offers a preview in a special section.

Read the Record’s MLK Symposium special section

January 7, 2022

STEM toys

This pull-back wind-up car was made by UM-Dearborn students in Georges Ayoub’s IMSE 382 course, as part of a project in which students created toys that demonstrate STEM concepts. The toys were then donated to the Dearborn Toy Library, a nonprofit that lets kids check out toys, including many educational ones. This toy car shows how stored elastic energy can be transformed into kinetic energy to move the vehicle. (Photo by Mary Gladstone-Highland/Dearborn Toy Library)

Addressing COVID concerns

In an email message to faculty Wednesday, Provost Susan M. Collins addressed some of the most common concerns and questions that have arisen about U-M’s decision to begin the 2022 winter semester with as much in-person instruction as possible, even as COVID-19 cases surge. In this video, Preeti Malani, U-M’s chief health officer, provides context and perspective for the university’s approach.

Read the provost’s instructional update

January 5, 2022

The legacy of Jim Toy

Spectrum Center co-founder and U-M alumnus Jim Toy died Jan. 1 at age 91, leaving a legacy for his work advancing LGBTQ+ rights in Ann Arbor, the state of Michigan and the nation. He was a fierce champion for human rights, and in 1971 helped establish the university’s Human Sexuality Office — later becoming the Spectrum Center — the country’s first campus office dedicated to supporting LGBTQ+ students has provided outreach, education and advocacy on campus and within the local community. This video from 2012 recalls Toy’s legacy during the 40th anniversary celebration of the Spectrum Center.

2021 Winter Commencement

LSA graduates Asahni Eichelberger (left) and Alivia Morgan were among the hundreds of U-M graduates on hand Sunday for the 2021 Winter Commencement ceremony at Crisler Center. Speaker Ruth Simmons, president of Prairie View A&M University, told graduates, “Continue to value the fearless pursuit of truth. Keep seeking and forging commonalities among people who are different from you. Recognize and commit unabashedly to learning as a lifelong endeavor.” View more commencement photos. (Photo by Eric Bronson, Michigan Photography)

Read more about the 2021 Winter Comencement

December 16, 2021

Central Campus Classroom Building

When the 2022 winter semester begins, U-M students enrolled in about 90 undergraduate and graduate classes will experience the term in the new 105,000-square-foot Central Campus Classroom Building. It was built to support the growing need for active and team-based learning spaces, particularly for larger classes. Located at Geddes and Washtenaw avenues, the CCCB features 1,400 classroom seats in various room configurations ranging from 100 to 572 seats. (Photo by Daryl Marshke, Michigan Photography)

Read more about this innovative new classroom building

December 15, 2021

iNaturalist Challenge

This autumn, students, faculty and staff in LSA’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology teamed up for an iNaturalist Challenge to observe and photograph some of the surrounding biodiversity. The activity helps participants open their eyes a little wider to the natural world. Three teams competed to see which could observe the most species. Siliang Song, a graduate student instructor and Ph.D. student, photographed this seven-spotted lady beetle.

Read more about the challenge and view other photos

December 14, 2021

Detroit Center for Innovation

The Detroit Center for Innovation, a future world-class research and education center anchored by U-M, will now be built in The District Detroit, situated between the city’s downtown and Midtown. The center, which initially was to be built on the former Wayne County Jail site, will be part of the university’s growing footprint in and around Detroit, where the university was founded in 1817. As part of the three-building DCI development, U-M will operate an approximately $300 million, 200,000-square-foot center focused on academic programs and research related to fields in which advanced technology is increasingly critical. (Artist’s rendering courtesy of Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates)

Mammals on the menu

Modern snakes evolved from ancestors that lived side by side with the dinosaurs and that likely fed mainly on insects and lizards. Then a miles-wide asteroid wiped out nearly all the dinosaurs and roughly three-quarters of the planet’s plant and animal species 66 million years ago. A recent U-M study shows early snakes capitalized on that ecological opportunity, rapidly and repeatedly evolving novel dietary adaptations and prey preferences. This video explains how evolutionary biologists figured this out.

Read more about how snakes evolved after the asteroid