Community Read
Community Read is a program of the First Year Experience Committee of Faculty Senate (chair Katherine LaCommare), modeled after the Big Read of the National Endowment for the Arts. The intent is for students, especially those new to campus, to engage with topics from several disciplinary perspectives.
The reading for 2022-2023 is All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, an anthology of 60 essays and poems edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson (One World 2020). The anthology is part of the All We Can Save Project. Members of the Faculty Senate First Year Experience Committee are offering a variety of events throughout the 2022-2023 academic year related to the climate crisis. The Faculty Senate encourages all faculty members at UM-Dearborn to consider ways in which All We Can Save, excerpts from the book, or similar resources can be incorporated into classes across the curriculum.
The book for 2021-2022 was William D. Lopez's Separated: Family and Community in the Aftermath of an Immigration Raid. The book traces wide-ranging economic, social, psychological, heath, and educational fallout from one ICE raid in 2013 in Washtenaw County, Michigan. Dr. Lopez is an assistant professor at the UM School of Public Health. He answered student questions about his work as part of the programming throughout the year, which also included "Books and Brews" events, and a panel discussion.
The reading for 2020-2021 was How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi. UM-Dearborn faculty members prepared video presentations on individual book chapters for use in classes or as guides to prepare class presentations. These chapter video commentaries are available on the UM YouTube playlist. The Mardigian Library also has several web pages devoted to Antiracism resources.
- Winter 2023: The office of the Dean of Students is offering a Campus Grant Program to provide funds supporting curricular and co-curricular efforts aligned with the 2022-2023 Community Read. Funding requests will be considered by the FYE Committee on a rolling basis, and might be expended on, for example, a student field trip, guest lecturer, or classroom supplies for a hands-on demonstration or activity. The committee looks forward to hearing your ideas!
Thursday, March 9, 4:30 pm-6:00 pm, All We Can Save: Confronting Eco-Anxiety & Moving Towards Action, Kochoff Hall B, Renick University Center.
Panel discussion on coping, staying hopeful, and working towards climate change solutions. Featuring UM-Dearborn students, faculty, counselors, support staff and administrators.
Pizza will be served!
Wednesday, March 15, 7:00pm - 9:00 pm. New York-based animator Zoya Baker presents her environmental film, Cranberry Lake, and other shorts, followed by Q&A, IN PERSON, 1071 CASL Building.
Cranberry Lake is a 17-minute documentary about immersive forest ecology courses in the Adirondack Mountains, connecting experiential learning and environmental stewardship.
Thursday, March 16th, Annual Forum on Migration: Climate Change. Hosted by Department of Language, Culture, and the Arts (LCA), featuring students and faculty exploring migration issues of climate change, labor, and studying abroad, 4:00 to 6:00 PM, VIRTUAL
Zoom event: https://umich.zoom.us/j/95921814038 Passcode: 557449
Wednesday, March 22, 7:00 pm
Room 1071 CASL Building
Geographies of Solitude, film and Q&A with filmmaker Jacquelyn Mills.
Naturalist and environmentalist Zoe Lucas has spent over 40 years documenting changes on Sable Island, near Nova Scotia, amassing a collection of taxidermy and marine litter.
This playful, experimental film chronicles the island’s ecological marvels: wild horses, seal colonies, starry landscapes, & melodic insects. This film offers a reflective journey. See https://www.gosfilm.com/
Monday, April 10, Noon-3:00 pm, Sustainability Fair: All We Can Save, Kochoff Hall, Renick University Center.
In celebration of Earth Month, meet UM-Dearborn and community organizations working on sustainability initiatives, offering internships and volunteer opportunities. Film screening of Pollution Has No Boundaries and a “pie the professor” fundraiser for the U of M Dearborn Environmental Interpretive Center.
- Co-chair: Katherine LaCommare, Academic Affairs: CASL Biology (Term expires 08/31/2025)
- Co-chair: Kristin Poling, Academic Affairs: CASL History (Term expires 08/31/2025)
- Anne Dempsey, Academic Affairs: Student Engagement Librarian, Mardigian Library (Term expires 08/31/2025)
- Mike MacDonald, Academic Affairs: CASL Composition & Rhetoric (Term expires 08/31/2025)
- Margaret Rathouz: Academic Affairs: CASL Mathematics (Term expires 08/31/2023)
- Natalie Sampson, Academic Affairs: CEHHS Environmental Health (Term expires 08/31/2023)
- Lynda Dioszegi, Student Affairs, Senior Advisor, START, ex officio
- Amy Finley, Student Affairs: Dean of Students, ex officio
- Tyler Guenette, Student Affairs: Director, Student Life & Dearborn Support, ex officio
- Kevin Lewtschanyn, Enrollment Management: Director of EM Communication and Events, ex officio
- Dareena Matti, Student Government Vice-president, ex officio (Term expires 05/2023)
October 14 and 15th: Students planted trees with the Wildlife Habitat Council, Friends of the Rouge and National Fish and Wildlife Service.
October 28, 9:00 am to 1:00 pm: Dearborn-SHINES schoolyard garden project. Student volunteer activities included weeding, painting, spreading mulch, and topping soil at selected Dearborn Public Schools.
November 10, 7:00-8:30 pm: Film and Panel Discussion: In the Land of Palm Oil. This virtual webinar was organized by Palm to Palm: a student-led, tri-campus initiative dedicated to ending exploitation of humans and wildlife in tropical regions. Panelists included: Emmanuela Shinta (Indonesian social activist), Denise Dragiewicz (film director), Jocelyn Zuckerman (author, Planet Palm: How Palm Oil Ended Up in Everything―and Endangered the World), Dr. Anne Russon (York U psychologist and primatologist), and Dr. Andrew J Marshall (UM anthropologist and primatologist). About the film: https://www.eyesoftheworldfilms.com/in-the-land-of-palm-oil.html About Palm to Palm: https://sites.google.com/view/palmtopalm/home About Ranu Welum Foundation, an Indonesian NGO purchasing land to protect endangered species from palm oil development: https://www.eyesoftheworldfilms.com/
November 17, 7:00-8:30pm: Virtual webinar panel discussion on the revival of the River Rouge, sponsored by the Environmental Interpretive Center and the Friends of the Rouge. Panelists included: Orin Gelderloos - Professor Emeritus of Biology and Environmental Studies, UM-Dearborn, John Hartig - Visiting Scholar, University of Windsor's Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, Sally Petrella - Monitoring Manager, Friends of the Rouge, and Cyndi Ross - Restoration Manager, Friends of the Rouge.
Ted Talks to Pair with All We Can Save
- Begin: The disarming case to act right now on climate change
- Root: If you adults won't save the world, we will
- Root: The forest is our teacher. It's time to respect it
- Advocate: The Bad Math of the Fossil Fuel Industry
- Advocate: It's impossible to have healthy people on a sick planet
- Reframe: The most important thing you can do to fight climate change: talk abou…
- Reframe: How to get everyone to care about a green economy
- Reshape: A healthy economy should be designed to thrive, not grow
- Reshape: The link between climate change, health and poverty
- Persist: The Standing Rock resistance and our fight for Indigenous rights
- Persist: Why you should be a climate activist
- Feel: How climate change affects your mental health
- Feel: What to do when climate change feels unstoppable
- Nourish: Why lakes and rivers should have the same rights as humans
- Nourish: Indigenous knowledge meets science to take on climate change
- Rise: Climate change will displace millions. Here's how we prepare
- Rise: Why community is our best chance for survival—a lesson post-Hurricane Mar…
- Onward: 3 questions to build resilience -- and change the world