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April 18, 2005
There was a time when jumping from an airplane had zero appeal for Michele Pushies. U-M secretary Michele Pushies has logged more than 600 jumps since getting the skydiving bug from her husband, Dan. She’s joining the Misty Blues women’s skydiving demonstration team, and hopes to be part of an effort this June in Chicago…
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April 11, 2005
Judith Dinsmore, a secretary for nine years at U-M-Flint, is known as the person to look for when it comes to applying to the University. She enters applications into the database, writes admit letters and coordinates the schedule for U-M-Flint counselors who visit with graduating high school students. (Photo courtesy Judith Dinsmore) What many people…
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April 4, 2005
It’s in the flu medicine your doctor prescribes. The mulch heap for your garden is packed with it, too. It’s tossed in with the $25 insalata di funghi at your favorite Italian restaurant. (Photo by Marcia Ledford, U-M Photo Services) It’s fungi, and for Pat Rogers, collection manager for fungi and lichens for the Herbarium,…
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March 28, 2005
If you dial the telephone and tell the operator you don’t know the name of the person you seek, you may hear a click, if not a slam. (Photo by Marcia Ledford, U-M Photo Services) That is unless you are calling U-M operators such as Benisa Anderson, an Information Technology Central Services (ITCS) employee who…
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March 21, 2005
Susan Rowe spends her weekdays keeping the U-M-Dearborn government relations office running smoothly. After work—and sometimes during her lunch break—she’s focused on a different office. (Photo by Jennifer Sroka, U-M-Dearborn) Rowe is one of six Wayne City Council members who oversees budget and services for the small, 20,000-person community in western Wayne County. Serving her…
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March 14, 2005
The smell of dried bones and dusty fur peppers the air as you enter Steve Hinshaw’s office. Tucked away between rows of file cabinets filled with thousands of skulls and skeletons, he sits at his desk organizing genera or updating databases. Steve Hinshaw displays the bones of three animals cleaned by beetles in the Museum…
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March 7, 2005
By day, Robert Pichler is a safety analyst for the U-M Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI). By night, he plays with fire—fireworks, that is. Robert Pichler holds a demonstration fireworks shell showing the inner components. On a real shell, the inside would contain tiny stars made from gunpowder and charcoal composite that create fireworks’ shapes and…
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February 21, 2005
A glass of rum welcomes all visitors to the Dominican Republic, a Spanish-speaking nation in the Caribbean that is blessed with pristine beaches, warm weather and an easygoing atmosphere. The capitol, Santo Domingo, is an old city abuzz with activity. Professor Maureen Tippen, left, and Rebecca Pettengill, right, volunteer every year for a medical mission…
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February 14, 2005
She’s a four-mile-a-day walker. She has a 40-minute commute to work—on foot. And she walks so much that she hasn’t owned a car in 18 years. Not impressed? You should be. At 85 years old, Fredda Clisham is leaving commuters half her age in the dust. (Photo by Martin Vloet, U-M Photo Services) Clisham, a…
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February 7, 2005
Their tiny haunches may not fit into an English saddle, but Janet Hoff has found a way to train lab mice as effectively as she does her horses. Hoff, a lifelong horse lover, teaches mice to perform simple tasks—such as walking across mouse-sized balance beams—as part of her job as research associate and coordinator for…
