UM Alumni Education Gateway

Journey through the Alumni Education Gateway
February 2019

Imagine being a U-M student all over again. Only this time, you can study whatever you want, online or in-person. You can listen to a podcast on the gig economy, watch a video about climate change, or take a class on web design. Welcome to the Alumni Education Gateway, where more than 3,000 pieces of content from U-M await your exploration. Developed with the goal of housing many of the digital resources of U-M’s schools and colleges in one place, the website allows alumni to find it all in one easy, curated digital location.

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Though all the content has been selected specifically with U-M alumni in mind, the Alumni Education Gateway is open to all, so start by having a look around. 

Student Loan Forgiveness

I have worked for nonprofits pretty much all my life and will likely qualify for loan forgiveness through this Federal program. As I looked through the application and eligibility forms, it definitely seems complicated. And there's some pretty specific eligibility requirements, include a decade working full time for a 501(c)(3) and a good repayment history.

Still, it can be worth it for people who have debilitating debt. As with most things, I say apply and let somebody else shoot you down.

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program forgives the remaining balance on your Direct Loans after you have made 120 qualifying monthly payments under a qualifying repayment plan while working full-time for a qualifying employer. 

Source: https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service 

Michigan at the cusp of its third century

"As we embark on Michigan's third century, I believe our future success will be defined in part by our ability to contribute to the solution of society's most daunting problems, bringing to bear the full intellectual might of our academic breadth and depth."  

"More than any other university, we have the potential to be so much more than the sum of our many excellent parts. It's this potential to have a positive impact on the society we serve that represents our greatest value as a university. It drives our work. It reflects our values as a 200-year-old public university. And I hope it inspires our elected leaders, donors, partners and all members of the public to support our faculty and students."

~Mark Schlissel 

Source: Looking back and forward, Schlissel stresses U-M's impact on society 10/3/17

Safety: in professional sports, campus life, reading, etc.

There has been a lot of talk around professional sports lately. Google it. However, my little heart just melts for the MLB. Detroit Tigers, to be specific.

Today I saw a tweet that talked about extending the safety netting at Comerica Park in the infield. No doubt, my season ticket partner and I regularly spoke about the extended netting. It is necessary. We saw some rough stuff. After five seasons, I have seen many unfortunate deflections, wild liners, and the terrible, collective groan of a crowd that just watched someone take a hardball to the face. You know it's bad when the entire section motions for the medics, twirling their pointer fingers to indicate, "Hurry up, help!" It's troubling.

The reputation of what it is like on a college campus is interesting, as well. For years, I have gone through fire drills, inclement weather drills, but lately my safety concerns are those of an armed assailant. I mean, really, if someone knows what they are doing, I don't have a chance. However, if I am ready to act quickly and decisively, I feel confident that I could survive some crazy sh*t.

Finally, I have heard about this book for some time and from many eclectic people. I've added it to my reading list, and am prioritizing it much higher: Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence by Gavin de Becker. I've lived in Detroit. I've worked with the public. I have the gift of fear and I would definitely like to understand it better.

Be ready. That way, you don't have to waste time getting ready.

Year of Gratitude - Day 275 - Detroit Red Wings

As an undergraduate, I worked for the student paper for two years and after I left the staff, I wondered what the heck I was going to do with myself. Writing for the paper kept me busy and I had enough energy to write like a machine. One day in October 2002, my creative non-fiction writing professor mentioned there was an internship with the Red Wings available. "Parking, dinner..." and some other things were nonchalantly mentioned. My eyes grew big and my hand shot up. The rest is history.

After submitting writing samples and interviewing, I got the internship that would round out my college experience at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and change my life. After a year, I would be making money as a freelance writer. Real money! I met hockey legends - coaches, players, writers, broadcasters. My first professional interview was a phone interview with Gordie Howe, Mr. Hockey himself. One of my last assignments was a feature on Steve Yzerman's Retirement Night. I would write about Red Wings that I had been a fan of since I was a kindergartner. A few days each summer were spent in Traverse City covering Training Camp. Not only did I get an outlet for my writing, but I gathered friends, stories and a working experience that I will treasure forever. It's a little surreal thinking back on it.

Even though my time with the Wings was extraordinary, the internship and then freelance work afterward taught me two things:

1. If I put my mind to it, I can hustle and pay the bills with my writing.
2. I didn't want to spend the rest of my life writing.

That second item sort of shocked me. When I worked for the Wings, I met writers that are literally hockey historians, full of encyclopedic knowledge on the sport. I was not that and would never be, but I still wanted to be an expert in something one day. Being part of the grind showed me that while I could manage a living doing this, writing would be one of my skills, but not my entire career.

• Related post: 30 Days of Gratitude: Day 26 - Detroit Red Wings

Year of Gratitude - Day 165 - Dr. Sidney Bolkosky

Sid was one of my undergraduate professors. On this day, my birthday, in 2013, Sid passed away after a long battle with disease.  I feel so extremely lucky to have been able to take an intense course like The Intellectual History of Modern Europe with him. When I took his classes and completed the homework for them, I felt my intellectualism and critical thinking were at their best. I looked back on some of the stuff I turned in and felt proud. Sid made me realize my inner-scholar existed.

I miss you, Sid.

Year of Gratitude - Day 73 - Stanford

While I bleed maize and blue, I must say that I've read a couple things about Stanford that made me grateful to hear such a huge institution of higher education adapting to the needs of its students.

• Stanford lets more students in tuition-free - http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Stanford-lets-more-students-in-tuition-free-6164339.php
• "Designing Your Life," a new and wildly popular course for Stanford juniors and seniors, is grounded in design thinking concepts and techniques. http://tinyurl.com/oyw58gw

Year of Gratitude - Day 56 - MLIS from Wayne State University

I really enjoyed getting my masters degree from Wayne State University's library and information science program (it's a school now). The experience I gained, the friends I met, it was all fantastic. And you can't beat being in Midtown Detroit, especially in the summertime. It was a lot of fun.

Year of Gratitude - Day 48 - Creation of Adam

I learned about this part of Michelangelo's legendary fresco painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in my art history class at UM-Dearborn. It was easily one of the best classes I ever had and I had it my first semester at UM-Dearborn. It really got me excited about college. Thanks, Dr. Perlove!

Year of Gratitude - Day 42 - Working with students

In my role at UM-Dearborn, I am the adviser for the Student Philanthropy Council. Working with students is a lot of fun and a different dynamic than working with graduates and professionals. It is very gratifying. I work with very bright and dedicated students. They are so much more mature than I was in my early twenties!

 Yesterday we wrapped up the #DearbornDifference campaign with Tuition Freedom Day. This day signifies the day that if we didn't have external support, the tuition dollars would run out. Each year the tuition runs out earlier and earlier and this year it would have dried up February 10. We posted signs with facts up all over the campus sharing how important volunteers and donors are to the campus.

We had a great day, played a lot of games and had a lot of fun while educating the campus about philanthropy.
 

 

Year of Gratitude - Day 25 - NCES

"The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education."

The NCES has been a great resource for me. As education and pedagogy rapidly change, I think this repository of information will become more and more important.

Year of Gratitude - Day 20 - Free education from MOOCs and Podcasts

Near the end of 2013, I actually rattled off a month of gratitude. One of those was about how podcasts and MOOCs were like free education. I still stand by that. Here's the deal: higher education isn't the answer to everything. Not going to college isn't the answer to everything. Self-learning isn't the answer to everything. There is no one-size-fits-all situation when it comes to education. People learn at very different speeds and through different styles. When I was a kid, teachers either loved me because they knew they could challenge me or hated me because they couldn't.

When you have something like free library databases, the Internet, podcasts galore or these MOOCs, you have a lot of ways to self-learn at your own speed. The catch is that YOU and only YOU are responsible to complete the lessons. That's the thing, most people won't discipline themselves to stay with an entire free course. I'm sure many of these companies count on it, but isn't that something: the world is there for the taking, free in all it's glory from the MOOCs and Kahn Academy's of the world, and most people will never take advantage.

I hope to start showing my gratitude in a more active way by completing my own self guided course soon.

30 Days of Gratitude: Day 18 - University of Michigan-Dearborn

UM-Dearborn was where I learned to write, think critically and truly learn. It was great to get a Michigan education while living in Detroit with my parents, too. I would not have been able to go away to school. The internship office got me a gig with the Detroit Red Wings. Mardigian Library is where my love for libraries was born. And I don't think of this enough, but my then boyfriend now spouse also went there. Our dates often consisted of sitting in my room studying and eating Pizza Place pizza. Those were the days. 

It's a great choice for people in SE Michigan: http://www.umd.umich.edu/

Wikipedia: Redefining Research (infographic)

A bit troubling to the librarian in me, but incredibly interesting.


Via: Open-Site.org

The Collapse of Public Education in America (Infographic)

This infographic hit really close to home because of the poor condition Detroit Public Schools are in. For a university like Wayne State, I think it's important to understand WHY kids aren't coming into higher education prepared.

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The Collapse of Public Education in America (Infographic):
And this post is not just because building books and digital services for education pays my bills. It just makes (all too rare) common sense to invest in your future through education through schools and libraries.



http://www.onlineuniversities.com/collapse-of-public-education

Stephen

Know thy library...Public v. Academic

Libraries are not created equal. What you find in a public library will not be the same materials you find in an academic library. Sometimes, of course, there is cross over, but here are a couple things to keep in mind when going to these two types of libraries.

Public Library - This is where you can find popular titles, novels, newspapers and magazines, tax forms, children's materials, etc. We help you get started with things like job applications, homework assignments, genealogy and all kinds of other stuff, but we cannot devote the type of time a tutor, consultant or private researcher would devote to your project. You get about 15 minutes and then the librarian needs to help others. That's an approximation, but it's different everywhere. Public libraries do not carry stuff like scholarly journals, entire physical sets of legislative papers, laws, bills, technical papers, etc. You know what else they do not have: TEXTBOOKS. Public libraries do not buy textbooks. The only exception, and it's a rare one, is K-12 textbooks and that's really only when the school in question doesn't have it's own little student library.

Academic Library - Are you a student at a college or university? If so, BEFORE you head to the public library thinking they have everything you need (they don't), check your school's resources, ESPECIALLY online. Seriously, go to your school's homepage, type "library" in the search box and become familiar with how to use your institution's library. You pay a LOT of tuition and you need to be aware that you have premium resources available to you. This type of library will have the scholarly, peer-reviewed stuff that professors' dreams are made of. They will also have textbooks for check out. You can also use interlibrary loan services. It's the best. If your academic library doesn't have a book or article, generally they'll order it for you. Score. Give it a shot, you owe it to yourself.

Student Caller Reception at Wayne State University

Usually I'm a bit ambiguous about my work places. Anyone with the ability to read could figure it out. In today's post, however, there is no ambiguity necessary. I am happy to say that Wayne State University is one of the absolute greatest places in the world. Allow me to share.

Last week, I had the honor of sitting in a room with some of the coolest and hardest working kids at Wayne State - the student callers for our annual giving program. Now, quick explanation - I'm in philanthropy and these young men and women are the FRONT LINE fundraisers. They are the people that call you, asking you for money on behalf of your alma mater. Some of us, the alumni, are super rad and give a fatty gift. Others are cool and don't mind that we called them twice in the same week because of not-so-great data. Heck, they give twice! Some of us require negotiation and extra convincing. And then some of us are total assholes.

But these students will give ALL of us a call and I loved getting to know them. I sat with them and I heard their stories. In my mind's eye it felt like the sun was rising on Detroit's future. I saw all these young people developing relationships, sharing experiences, delivering presentations (to the Board of Governors no less), enjoying intellectual banter, supporting each other, cheering for each other, laughing with each other. I joked to my colleague, "Why don't we have this much fun?" Which, of course, we do, but we all had a laugh.

I looked around the room and saw such potential, solidarity, diversity, enthusiasm and straight up smarts. These kids were sharp. All of them are obviously going to change the world in some way. I hope they chose to do it through philanthropy. A colleague told me how she runs into former student callers at professional conferences all the time. I'm not surprised. Shoot, I'd like to get a couple of those kids into Beecher House ASAP. It's time Wayne State University keeps some of that talent where it's needed most: home, Detroit, Michigan.

My experience gave me more clarity about why I love higher education: the students. They were all enthusiastic, high performers. My buddy and I sat at the ballers table. I seriously considered whether we were cool enough to be there. I felt like the freshman at the cool kids' table, but they made us feel welcome. Our table was a loud and fun bunch, but the whole room felt like a group of buddies. It was great. These students are what make Wayne State University the best place in the world, for learning, for friends, for life.

One president steps aside, another steps up

Yesterday was a pretty intense day and it had to do with two presidents: former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Wayne State University's 11th President, Allan Gilmour.

Around noon on my way back to the office, a young man passed me holding the Egyptian flag above his head, smiling. It was 8 degrees out, but this young man was elated in the frigid sunshine. When I sat down to my computer, I heard the news that Mubarak stepped down. I watched the celebration live. Before my very eyes, history unfolded. The people of Egypt spoke as one, powerful voice and accomplished something epic together. Reading the New York Times coverage today has been amazing, as was watching the Al Jazeera coverage all yesterday. It was truly one of the most amazing things I've ever witnessed. We will see what the future holds for Egypt.

A couple hours later, my entire division got to hear from President Allan Gilmour. This man is incredible. He's already the talk of the campus and especially Beecher House. Just the other day he came up to our office and introduced himself to EVERY SINGLE PERSON on our staff. What a guy! After he spoke yesterday, I felt really confident in having the university in his hands. So did others. People told me later they had to hold back cheers as the president went from point to point. There was no battle cry at yesterday's meeting, but I still felt that everyone in that room could rally around the president. He spoke so eloquently and honestly. He clearly stated he knew nothing of Wayne State back in August and he sees something here. He has vision and he's for keeps. With his guidance, I think he's going to help us do incredible things.

Later at the bar, someone asked me "Do you think things will ever change?" I pondered that, because it's a very real question. The game here is exhausting to play sometimes. I've been on campus since 2005 in multiple positions. I've been in academia since 2000 and these kinds of institutions aren't exactly known for lightspeed improvements and progress. But about a year ago I had a sense that things were changing at Wayne State. There's no question that this ship's already turning around now. We will see what the future holds for Wayne State University.

Order out of chaos

At a meeting just before Christmas break my boss said that I often made order out of chaos. I chuckled at the thought of my parents hearing that. The last two years of my professional life was figuring out where my department was, where we had to go and getting the team ready to GO. Maybe my boss already saw it then, but apparently some of the chaos was turning to order. As January wraps up and I look back on the first month of 2011, I think I starting to see it, too.

While I love trying to make sense of it all, I realize it's really freaking hard. My work in higher ed has taught me that I can take nothing for granted and that I have to do my homework and check it thrice. It's challenging, but entirely exhilarating when done well. I find in my personal life sometimes others don't see it that way. Though people will banter on all varieties of subjects, they can't go very deep when confronting the complexities of a topic, be it racism, revolution, world economies or poverty. There are many examples of aborted conversations in my personal life. And as a librarian I have seen people crash and burn at the very thought of some real deal research to try and understand those complexities.

Over the 2010 holiday I picked up a few full-day shifts at the public library. It sort of took me back to the old days of 8 hour reference desk shifts at an academic library I worked at. I shuddered. Working that long with the public is exhausting, especially you're pedaling information and not a commodity.

In the first half hour of my afternoon shift, I got a call from who is hands down my favorite caller to date. First, if you know who Underdog Lady is on the Howard Stern show, then you can pretty much substitute that voice for my caller. That afternoon, the patron nervously asked about two cities up north and which was better for a homeless person to live in.

"I know it's not an easy question to answer," she quickly said, her voice teetering on the edge of an anxiety attack. I agreed that it was a difficult question and had a few moving parts. I assured her that with a bit of research we could at least start answering that question.

I commenced with the reference interview. The first city that actually popped into my head was Portland, OR. She wasn't very interested in that. I began to ask her questions about what type of data she was looking for, basically, what she meant by "better for a homeless person."

"No data," she replied.

No data. Of course not. I asked her why she wouldn't be interested in say how many homeless shelters, churches, missions, etc. there were in the cities. I said that there was information about how much private funding goes to counties' humane causes. I asked her why she didn't want to browse some newspapers for stories on the homeless in those cities. Our NewsBank database subscription is tremendous and has a comprehensive collection of newspapers from all over the state, not just the main rags. What about census info on poverty? She would hear none of it.

Anyway, I knew where all of this was going. It was only a matter of time before my trying to answer her question would make her have a mini-meltdown. And so it began with a pause...and then...

"Well, can I have the phone number to (City 1)'s police depart-- no- never mind, this is getting too complicated," and hung up on me. The end of this call was very similar to the last.

The encounter lasted about five minutes and I thought back on how it could have been different. How could the question be answered better? I recalled the first call with this person a few weeks back and decided she was looking for a quick answer from a librarian that is easy to understand, no more than 2-3 sentences and still completely legitimate. The acceptable answer to her question would have sounded like this, "(City 2) is better for the homeless because people are friendly and the police do not harass the homeless too much." Yet, because I would NEVER make assumptions on things I don't know of, I would never throw a quick answer out like that.

Which brings me back to making order out of chaos. It's terribly difficult. Higher education and my adventures in research have taught me that the truth is never served up on a silver platter with no strings attached. In the case above, the truth was there and could have been discovered, but not without work. You must work for knowledge.

Public library encounters make me question some parts of academia

This month I picked up a few extra shifts at Southfield Public Library and I've noticed an influx of students from colleges and universities getting ready to wrap up their semester. For me, it's been an interesting return to reference in a higher education context. I haven't worked in an academic library since 2007, but I still have a great working knowledge of WSU's library system because I constantly use it. There have been a number of patrons that I've run across in just the last week that make me wonder what the heck is going on in academia.

There was one day that people were asking about a lot of citation assistance. But it wasn't just "How do you cite this?" I found myself explaining to college students how you have to list your references and give credit to others when you use their work. One patron's professor told the class to write a paper, then the professor returned the papers and instructed the class to go to the library and find out how to cite their sources after the fact. It seemed to me that this was a wild goose chase. Don't introductory college English classes teach the basics of MLA and APA writing styles BEFORE they ask a student to write a paper? And if the class showed no compentency in the areas of APA or MLA, wouldn't YOU teach them before sending them to a library? I was not amused, but I was compelled to help.

I've written for a long time, so perhaps research paper writing and plagiarism have been on my radar for a while, but logic stands that you can't just steal other people's work, right? Anyway, that's what I found myself explaining while working at SPL.

The second thing that I found myself (happily) doing was telling university students that even though they weren't at Eastern Michigan University or at Wayne State University they still had access to their school's databases from any computer with internet. The first woman was in her fifties and her topic was family counseling. She didn't really tell me too much more, because I told her we wouldn't have too many academic journals. She asked if Borders would have them and I said no. I found out she was going to EMU, so I told her she had access to their library system. I sat her down, helped her log in and started her on two psychology databases. Just like that she went from "I've never done research" to conducting her own searches in her school's databases. It was great.

Within an hour of that encounter, a Wayne State University student came up to me asking about the microfilm readers. Now I was REALLY have flashbacks from my academic library days. I spoke with her and looked at some old indexes and then she shared more about the project. It turned out that she could only get articles from either the New York Times or the Washington Post on certain topics. WSU's library system has full access to many, many years of digital, searchable archives for both of those publications. Though I commended her for trying to use the newspaper and indexes, I knew that I was going to have to show her some of the university library's glorious historical newspaper resources.

I had a most resourceful hour with both students and it was fun work, however, it still made me question why these folks were not being given the knowledge that they need to succeed in higher education. I continue to be interested in teaching and I am thankful to work at SPL and continue to have the opportunity to teach in little bite sizes. Yet, these small looks back into academia make me wonder if there is a bigger role for me in teaching at the university level.