Category: Campus News

03/3/10

Rethinking and Reframing: A Professional Development Series

University Outreach is pleased to invite UM-Flint faculty to Rethinking and Reframing, a professional development series for faculty interested in advancing their scholarly work while addressing community needs. Public Scholarship is “scholarly or creative activity integral to a faculty member’s academic area. It encompasses different forms of making knowledge ‘about, for, and with’ diverse publics and communities. Through a coherent, purposeful sequence of activities, it contributes to the public good and yields artifacts of public and intellectual value” (Source: Imagining America). Please register for the following events online at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/professional_development_for_engaged_scholars

  • Cultivating Partnerships (3/12/10, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm, UCEN Happenings Room) – Featuring Renee Zientek, Executive Director of Michigan Campus Compact, and Mona Younis, University Outreach Project Coordinator
  • Presenting Public Scholarship – (3/19/10, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm, UCEN Ontario Room) – Featuring UM Ginsberg faculty and 2009 Arts of Citizenship Faculty Fellow Awardees
  • Local Encounters: A Symposium Featuring Ripe Partnership Opportunities for Faculty (3/26/10, 10:00 am – 12: 30 pm, Michigan Room B) – Featuring local community organizations offering multidisciplinary partnership opportunities
  • Making Your Work Count (4/6/10, 10 am – 1 pm, Michigan Rooms) – Featuring Timothy Eatman and Julie Ellison, authors of Imagining America report “Scholarship in Public: Knowledge Creation and Tenure Policy in the Engaged University”

Registration is available for individual sessions, and participants are encouraged to attend the entire series. For questions, please contact Mona Younis at (810) 424-5481 or [email protected].

Rethinking and Reframing is sponsored by Michigan Campus Compact, Thompson Center for Learning and Teaching, and the Office of Research.

02/20/10

Faculty and Staff Awards

Congratulations to the following UM-Flint faculty and staff:

  • Mike Lane, Environmental Health and Safety Manager, who recently received a  $ 45,750 grant from the State of Michigan – Department of State Police for the following project: “University of Michigan – Flint Campus Hazard Mitigation Plan”.
  • Mary Jo Finney, Dean of the School of Education & Human Services, who recently received a $32,906 grant from Mott Community College for the following project: “Smart Teaches as Role Models – STAR .”

Congrats to our recepients!

02/9/10

Undergraduate Students Presenting at NCUR

We’re happy to announce that two of our students – Cameron Waites and Nkemdilim Nwodo – have been accepted to present at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research! Cameron (facutly advisors, Suzanne Selig and Maureen Thum) will be presenting his paper entitled “Oligodendrogenesis After Hypoxic-ischemic Stroke in the Mouse Brain” and Nkemdilim (facutly advisor, Dana Dyson) will be presenting her paper entitled “High School Dropout Rates in Michigan School Districts: The Influence of Poverty, Educational Attainment, and Location for the Years 2004-2007”

This year’s NCUR will take place on the campus of the University of Montana. Congrats, Cameron and Nkemdilim!

For more information about his year’s NCUR, please visit: http://www.umt.edu/ncur2010/default.aspx

02/9/10

Call for Proposals: Research and Creative Activities Awards

The Office of Research and the Research Creative Activity Committee (RCAC) would like to announce the Winter 2010 Call for Proposals.
 
Proposals are due in the Office of Research by Friday, March 12, 2010 at 5:00 pm. 
 
Proposals will be reviewed by the Research and Creative Activities Committee with funding decisions announced in mid-April.  Please note that all proposals must be submitted in hard copy and electronically. Please follow the guidelines located at:  http://www.umflint.edu/research/faculty_funding/RCAC_guidelines.htm. 
Please review the guidelines carefully. 

If you have any questions or need assistance please feel free to contact the Office of Research, 762-3383.

02/9/10

Call for Proposals: Bryer Award

The Office of Development & Alumni Relations and the Office of Research are pleased to announce the Winter 2010 Request for Proposals (RFP) for The Dr. Ben F. Bryer Foundation Medical Research Fund.

The Fund was established by the family of Ben F. Bryer to encourage and support the medical research endeavors of University of Michigan-Flint faculty.  This research fund honors the accomplishments of Ben Bryer, surgeon, scientist, educator, author, and humanist, in his pursuit of medical knowledge.  Special gratitude is extended to Dr. Bryer’s sister and foundation trustee, Bess Hurand, and her husband Arthur for making this fund possible. 
 
Funding is available on an application basis to full-time faculty of the University of Michigan-Flint to provide support for medical and biomedical research, with a priority given to research related to cancer.  At this time, it is anticipated that one award in the amount of $5,000-$7,000 will be available.  As the fund grows, additional RFPs will be announced. 
 
Proposals are due in the Office of Research by Friday, March 12, 2010 at 5:00 pm. 
 
Proposals will be reviewed by the Research and Creative Activities Committee with funding decisions announced in mid-April.  Please note that all proposals must be submitted in hard copy and electronically.
 
Please follow the guidelines located at  http://www.umflint.edu/research/faculty_funding/bryer.htm.  Please review the guidelines carefully.  If you have any questions or need assistance please feel free to contact the Office of Research, 762-3383.

01/22/10

Online Writing Tutoring

From the desk of Jacob Blumner, Director of the Marian E. Wright Writing Center:

This message is for faculty teaching fully-online courses.

Colleagues,

The Marian E. Wright Writing Center is now offering online tutoring for students in fully online courses. We are trying to meet the needs of our students and we are proud to roll out this new service. Students will need to submit papers in Microsoft Word format and will receive feedback using the Comment and Track Changes features of Word. Students are also encouraged to attach an assignment sheet if you have one.

The form students fill out is available on our website, www.umflint.edu/writingcenter. Here is the direct link to the online tutoring form for paper submission: https://www.umflint.edu/formassembly/forms/view/562.

We try to respond to papers within 3 business days, and often it is quicker. Students can also request you be notified via email.

If you have any questions, please email me or call me at 762-0655.

01/11/10

Director Search Update

From the desk of Chris Waters, Acting Associate Provost and Dean of Graduate Programs:

I am pleased to announce the Director of Research Search has been successfully completed. Very soon, on January 19th, Dr. Terry W. Van Allen will assume the duties of Director of Research at the University of Michigan-Flint. Dr. Van Allen comes to us with 11 years experience as Community Builder and Operations Specialist, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Previous to that he was Director of the Office of Research Administration, Contracts, Grants and Sponsored Programs at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. Dr. Van Allen’s PhD is in Public Administration and Policy and he also holds a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree. He has held faculty positions at a number of institutions. I am sure he will be eager to begin the process of knowing us and helping us identify and capitalize on funding for our research and creative activities.

Many thanks to the Search Committee, headed by Dr. Marianne McGrath and supported by Mary Deibis. Other committee members included, Dr. Judith Ablesser, Dr. Quamrul Mazumder, Dr. Seyed Mehdian, Dr. Constance Creech and Joel Rash.

01/6/10

Funding awards

Congratulations go out to Peggy Kahn of Political Science and Tendaji Ganges of Educational Opportunities Iniative.

Tendaji Ganges; Director of Educational Opportunity Initiatives was awarded two grants from from the State of Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth. He received $145,000 for “Bridges to Success – Year 4” and $124,349 for “Transitions Program – Year 4.”

Peggy Kahn, Associate Professor of Political Science received a $750 grant from the Community Foundation of Greater Flint for the following project: “The Status of Women and Girls in Genesee County.”

Congratulations to our recepients!

12/15/09

Initiative from the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)

The Obama Administration is seeking public input on policies concerning access to publicly funded research results, such as those that appear in academic and scholarly journal articles. Currently, the National Institutes of Health require that research funded by its grants be made available to the public online at no charge within 12 months of publication. The Administration is seeking views as to whether this policy should be extended to other science agencies and, if so, how it should be implemented.
 
The Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President and the White House Open Government Initiative is launching a “Public Access Policy Forum” to invite public participation in thinking through what the Federal government’s policy should be with regard to public access to published federally funded research results. To that end, OSTP will conduct an interactive, online discussion beginning Thursday, December 10. The discussion will focus on three major areas of interest:
 
• Implementation (Dec. 10 to 20): Which Federal agencies are good candidates to adopt Public Access policies? What variables (field of science, proportion of research funded by public or private entities, etc.) should affect how public access is implemented at various agencies, including the maximum length of time between publication and public release?

• Features and Technology (Dec. 21 to Dec 31): In what format should the data be submitted in order to make it easy to search and retrieve information, and to make it easy  for others to link to it? Are there existing digital standards for archiving and interoperability to maximize public benefit? How are these anticipated to change?

• Management (Jan. 1 to Jan. 7): What are the best mechanisms to ensure compliance? What would be the best metrics of success? What are the best examples of usability in the private sector (both domestic and international)? Should those who access papers be given the opportunity to comment or provide feedback?
 
Each of these topics will form the basis of a blog posting that will appear at www.whitehouse.gov/open and will be open for comment on the OSTP blog at http://blog.ostp.gov.

12/15/09

2010 Research Partnership Program

From Stephen R. Forest, Vice President for Research and Janet Weiss, Dean and Vice Provost of  the Rackham School of Graduate Studies:

We are pleased to announce the 2010 Research Partnership Program, which includes the following funding opportunities available to faculty and graduate students:

This year we announce a significant expansion of the Spring/Summer Research Grants Program. We will award up to 100 grants to faculty members who plan to work with Ph.D. students on scholarly projects during the spring and summer terms. These grants provide a stipend of $6,000 to the doctoral student. The grants support faculty scholarship while also providing financial support opportunities for professional and intellectual development for participating students. Preference is given to faculty members who include a thoughtful plan for student mentoring in their applications. For the summer of 2010, the stipend for students will be $6,000. Additional information is available at http://www.rackham.umich.edu/rhd.php?id=39.

The Distinguished Faculty and Graduate Student Seminars Program will provide a maximum of 5 awards to groups of faculty, students or graduate programs proposing innovative seminars and colloquia to foster collaboration and stimulate new research. Guidelines and application forms are available at the OVPR website: http://www.drda.umich.edu/funding/um_sources/RPP_Seminars_Guide.html

Please review the materials and websites carefully to note the differing purposes of the two types of awards in order to guide your faculty and students to apply to the most appropriate program for their planned activity. Please make these application materials available to all instructional and research faculty and librarians.

Please note that the application deadline for the two awards is Monday, February 1, 2010.

Stephen R. Forrest
Vice President for Research

Janet A. Weiss
Dean and Vice Provost, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies