Community Read
Community Read is a program of the Faculty Senate's First Year Experience Committee (co-chairs Kristin Poling and Michael McDonald), similar to NEA's Big Read, to consider vital topics across disciplines.
We are pleased to announce the campus Community Read selection for the 2025-2026 academic year: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Braiding Sweetgrass celebrates the more-than-human communities of care of which we are all part. Kimmerer, a botanist and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, explores how Indigenous ways of knowing can transform our relationships to the land, from gardening to parenting or scientific practice.
This reading aligns with several new initiatives from the Office of Holistic Excellence (OHE), projects based on Native ways of knowing and storytelling and a new campus Native Land Acknowledgement plaque. The book also aligns with an Inclusive History Project, planting Native plants and gardens at the Environmental Interpretive Center.
Braiding Sweetgrass is freely available as an unlimited-access ebook and on Libby through the Mardigian Library. For class use, the short chapters on varying topics can be assigned in many different disciplines.
Please don't hesitate to reach out to any of the members of the FYE Committee (listed below) with questions or suggestions. We look forward to our collaboration throughout the next year!
Our campus Community Read selection for the 2024-2025 academic year was Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions About What to Believe Online, by Mike Caulfield and Sam Wineburg, 2023. Verified offers an evidence-based approach to web literacy to help readers develop concrete strategies for navigating text, images, and videos--skills even more crucial with increased use of AI images and text. The book offers suggested methods, lateral reading and SIFT, plus specific techniques for Google searches, deceptive videos, TikTok trends, and stealth advertising. If you are considering adopting Verified in any of your courses, please request an instructor ebook from University of Chicago Press or request a free copy from FYE. You can listen to an interview with co-author Mike Caulfield on the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast and explore this teaching module on lateral reading from Wineburg’s Civic Online Reasoning program (access is free with registration).
Our reading for 2023-2024 was Hadha Baladuna: Arab American Narratives of Boundary and Belonging, by Ghassan Zeineddine, Nabeel Abraham, and Sally Howell. In 2022-2023,we read All We Can Save, 60 essays and poems related to the climate crisis, edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson, part of the All We Can Save Project. In 2021-2022 we read William D. Lopez's Separated: Family and Community in the Aftermath of an Immigration Raid, tracing economic, social, psychological, health, and educational fallout from a 2013 ICE raid in Washtenaw County, Michigan. Dr. Lopez is assistant professor at the UM School of Public Health. Our 2020-2021 book was How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi. Faculty members created videos on book chapters for class use, now on the UM YouTube playlist, and Mardigian Library posted antiracism resources. Our first selection, 2019-2020, was Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the woman whose famed HeLa cells underlie countless medical breakthroughs.
- Co-chair: Michael McDonald, Academic Affairs: CASL Composition & Rhetoric (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)
- Tian An Wong: Academic Affairs: CASL Mathematics (Term expires 08/31/2026)
- Natalie Sampson, Academic Affairs: CEHHS Environmental Health (Term expires 08/31/2026)
- Jennifer Coon, Academic Affairs: COB (Term expires 08/31/2026)
- Nicholas Iannarino, Academic Affairs: CASL Communication (Term expires 08/31/2026)
- Lynda Dioszegi, Student Affairs, Senior Advisor, START, ex officio
- Amy Finley, Student Affairs: Dean of Students, ex officio
- Jennifer Kowalczyk, Student Affairs: Coordinator, Campus & Family Programs, ex officio
- Kevin Lewtschanyn, Enrollment Management: Director of EM Communication and Events, ex officio
- Rupinder Singh, Student Government President, ex officio
Free Copy of Verified
You can request a free copy of the book from FYE.
Small Faculty Grants
Apply for funding for programming related to Verified with a faculty small grant.
Workshop: Teaching with Verified, September 23, 1-2:30pm, Mardigian Library 1211
All faculty are invited to this workshop, You will learn about Verified, SIFT and lateral reading methods, and specific assignments faculty are already using. You will have an opportunity to discuss how these methods might connect to your own class objectives and work on developing your own assignment. Please help us plan by signing up for the workshop ahead of time. Learn more about the advantages of teaching the SIFT method in this article from the Reporter.
Truth Be Told! Verified Game Show, October 9, 2:30-4pm, RUC Kochoff C
Think you're a pro at spotting fake news? Ready to put your skills to the test? Join us for a fun and engaging game of Truth Be Told on October 9 at 2:30 PM! Mixed teams of students, faculty, and staff face off to debunk falsehoods in a game show-style competition, hosted by the College of Business and inspired by Verified. Bring your own team or join one on the spot--you could win prizes and bragging rights! Please encourage your students to attend!
Chat With the Chancellor! Monday, November 18, 10:30-11:30am, RUC Kochoff A & B
Discussion of Verified with Chancellor Domenico Grasso. Students may pick up a free copy of Verified at Mardigian Library main desk. Everyone is encouraged (not required) to read Chapters 1 & 2 before the discussion. This event is sponsored by the Honors Program Student Organization; all students are welcome, as well as faculty and staff. Light refreshments will be provided.
Teaching Workshop for Faculty, Thursday, May 25, 2023, 2:00 pm, Virtual: Zoom
Faculty Small Grants Program, through April 2024.
Authors' Discussion, Thursday, November 9, 2023, 4:00 to 5:30 pm, Mardigian
Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon, Arab American Authors, April 11, 5:50-7:30, Mardigian
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. About Palm to Palm. About Ranu Welum Foundation, an Indonesian NGO purchasing land to protect endangered species from palm oil development:
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.