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December 3, 2012
Although Ellen Rowe says she was born with perfect pitch, she continues to hone her skills with daily practice at the piano. Primarily self-taught as a child, her high school band director insisted that she take jazz piano lessons in order to play in the jazz ensemble at the school. Without the discipline imposed by…
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November 19, 2012
As a former high school athlete and current staff athletic trainer for U-M’s Athletic Department, Jeremy Marra understood that all athletes have to overcome challenges. But until he worked with the Paralympic Games in London this year, he didn’t realize the full scope. “Not to take away from what the Olympians or other athletes do,…
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November 12, 2012
Photo by Eric Bronson, Michigan Photography. Behind every structure, too and space is an architect who designed it, based on the needs of the user. This is the work of U. Sean Vance. Vance has been an assistant professor of architecture at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning since Fall 2010, after teaching…
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November 5, 2012
Growing up in Detroit and raised on Motown hits, Michael Turner had a confession to make when, at 18 years old, he saw a Lenny Kravitz music video and a friend suggested he check out a certain left-handed guitarist who inspired Kravitz. “I was a college freshman who didn’t know who Jimi Hendrix was,” he…
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October 29, 2012
What moment in the classroom stands out as the most memorable? Memorable moments are when I realize that through a class experience students discover something fundamental. As part of a course on sustainable development related to hydropower projects proposed in Chilean Patagonia, a student pointing down at the Baker River valley said to me almost…
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October 22, 2012
Brittany Galisdorfer moved around a lot as a child, living in six different states before college. But she found a home when, as a freshman at U-M in 2001, she volunteered in the city of Detroit and fell in love with it. Galisdorfer, a business analyst in the Office of Financial Analysis, now uses her…
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October 15, 2012
Christine Modey has always loved cookbooks, but it wasn’t until she taught a special section of English 125 last fall that she was able to collaborate on the creation of one. As a lecturer with the Sweetland Center for Writing, Modey teaches several classes and seminars, including a section of the first-year writing requirement English…
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October 8, 2012
As the Children’s Program Coordinator for Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum, Liz Glynn works to bring science to children. Her most useful tool for the job is her “bag of tricks.” “It could contain anything, really,” she says of the bag she always brings on field trips. “I like to have magnifying lenses, so…
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October 1, 2012
A large puppet — the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex — hangs from the ceiling of a concrete room, accompanied by similar puppets that annually perform on the streets of Ann Arbor during the carnival-esque event called FestiFools. The puppet holds a carrot in one claw, and a chocolate bar in another, with Mark Tucker,…
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September 24, 2012
On most days Mark O’Brien, a U-M insect division collection manager, is found sorting dead insects into 8-foot-tall specimen cabinets that fill several rooms in the Museum of Zoology within the Ruthven Museums Building. “We’re maybe one of the best kept secrets on campus because we’re not really known for having a program in entomology…
