Alumni Engagement

51��Ƶ-Dearborn named an Opportunity University

stuxbury — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 11:18:27 +0000

51��Ƶ-Dearborn named an Opportunity University stuxbury Mon, 07/21/2025 - 07:18

At 51��Ƶ-Dearborn, 50% of students are Pell-eligible. The university has the second lowest tuition among the state's 15 public universities and ranks No. 4 for student earnings after graduation.

As a result of numbers like these, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the American Council on Education recently named 51��Ƶ-Dearborn a top-tier “Opportunity University” through their new Student Access and Earnings Classification. 51��Ƶ-Dearborn is one of four public Michigan universities on this list, along with Central Michigan University, Ferris State University and 51��Ƶ-Flint.

The Student Access and Earnings Classification is based on data from universities across the U.S. indicating the degree of access for students from lower socioeconomic and historically underrepresented racial/ethnic backgrounds, as well as the wages of Pell-eligible students eight years after enrolling. Here's the methodology.

Annesha Hardy

Annesha Hardy, a Fall 2024 alum who majored in marketing, said she’s not surprised to hear this news — it reflects her story. Hardy, a Pell-eligible student who grew up in Detroit’s Warrendale neighborhood, landed a technical business developer role at Amazon Web Services in Seattle immediately after graduation. “Growing up, you hear the phrase ‘dream big’ — but that’s hard to do when you live in an environment that’s disadvantaged and you don’t know what’s possible for you,” Hardy said. “The people at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn are focused on helping you learn how to do that — and then work to reach what that means to you.”

Hardy — who noted that Amazon was impressed by the AI knowledge she gained through her College of Business curriculum — said that, from the beginning of her educational journey until her graduation, people were there to help. She had mentors from student organizations, like Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. Hardy received career coaching and sought internships through Career Services. And, right before graduation when Hardy struggled with financial hardship, 51��Ƶ-Dearborn staff members connected her to a scholarship opportunity. “I was working almost full time and going to school full time, but it wasn’t enough. I was running out of resources. When I shared with Dean of Students Amy Finley that I was worried, she told me about the Edward J. Bagale Difference Makers Scholarship — it couldn’t have come at a better time,” said Hardy, who was a 2024 51��Ƶ-Dearborn Difference Maker.

When it comes to the accessibility part of the Opportunity University designation, Vice Provost for Enrollment Management Melissa Stone said 51��Ƶ-Dearborn’s accessibility and affordability mission is affirmed through the data that the Carnegie Foundation reviewed.

To increase access, the university reworked its financial aid program in 2021 to open doors for more students. The 51��Ƶ-Dearborn Go Blue Guarantee Program, which offers free or reduced tuition to high achieving students from low-income situations, started in 2021. And, in 2025, GBG expanded the scholarship to students whose families make up to $125,000 a year.

“There is immense value in education. There’s the critical thinking skills you gain that will be beneficial to you throughout your life. Education opens doors for career and increased earning opportunities,” Stone said. Among people ages 22 to 27, the average median income in the U.S. is $60,000 for someone with a bachelor’s degree, compared to $36,000 for someone with a high school diploma.

“Looking at lifetime earning numbers, data shows the impact of a college degree can change the trajectory of someone’s life and the lives of people around them. And this extends to their community, region and our state,” Stone adds. And a vast majority of 51��Ƶ-Dearborn students stay in Michigan: 95% of students who accepted employment in 2023-24 remained in the state.

Fatmah Saleh

Alum Fatmah Saleh, a Pell-eligible student who graduated in spring 2025, grew up, went to school and continues to live in Dearborn. Prior to commencement, she accepted a full-time international accounting analyst position at Stellantis. “My degree has helped me build a life where I have a job at a company I care about while living in a community I love. And I’m able to work hybrid, so I have the opportunity to be home with my mom, too,” she said. Saleh, an accounting major, has worked full time since her high school graduation to help support her mom, who has a long-term illness. Saleh is her mom’s caregiver. Her father passed away when she was six.

While the cost of attending 51��Ƶ-Dearborn is among the lowest within Michigan’s public universities, 51��Ƶ-Dearborn grads’ annual earnings are very competitive. According to Student Access and Earnings Classification data, 51��Ƶ-Dearborn Pell grant recipients go on to earn a median income of $57,847, while median earnings in the region are $37,232.

When including both Pell-eligible and non-Pell-eligible students at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn, the average salary earned is just above $62,000, said Career Services Director Laurel Draudt. The Career Services team surveys graduating undergraduate students six months postgraduation for the annual National Association of Colleges and Employers First Destination self-reporting survey.

Both Saleh and Hardy are pleased with the jobs they landed after earning their degrees and the earnings that come with those. They credit 51��Ƶ-Dearborn’s career support offerings — as well as their own tenacity and drive — as instrumental in their achievements. Both had internships that they found after attending career fairs: Hardy at ADP and Amazon, Saleh at Yakuzi and Stellantis.

Draudt says internships are key because employers use them to find top talent, as was the case for Hardy and Saleh. She says 51��Ƶ-Dearborn makes an effort to get the message out to all students to get involved in internship fairs, mentoring programs and resume workshops starting the first year. “The sooner you get involved, the more competitive you will be,” she said. Draudt said Career Services has had 931 interactions with Pell-eligible students since they began recording student interactions in Fall 2022.

The success of the Pell-eligible students they have worked with is reflected in student testimony and the data gathered in the Opportunity University designation. But Draudt wants to do more: “We need to continue getting the word out to our students, many of whom are first in their families to go to college. It’s especially important to reach them because they may not have someone at home to let them know that these opportunities are right here,” she said. Career Services holds internship and job fairs twice a year, and offers job outlook resources that include average salary numbers, networking events, virtual interview coaching and more.

Hardy said 51��Ƶ-Dearborn offers a supportive community that helped build her skill set, resume and confidence. She’s now eyeing graduate school to understand the more technical side of her field.“I’m dreaming big. I wouldn’t be where I am today without my time at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn,” she said. “Getting into 51��Ƶ-Dearborn got me into the rooms — classrooms, interview rooms, board rooms — that changed my life.”

Article by Sarah Tuxbury

Accessibility or Affordability

Business Career Center

Financial Aid & Scholarships

Off

Mon, 07/21/2025 - 11:17

New Carnegie designation recognizes schools with high access and post-grad earnings.

Alum Annesha Hardy, pictured above, said she’s not surprised to hear that 51��Ƶ-Dearborn was named an Opportunity University for its work with Pell-eligible students — it reflects her story. Photo by Derek Juntunen

News

‘I’m here to build pathways to justice’

stuxbury — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 14:16:42 +0000

‘I’m here to build pathways to justice’ stuxbury Mon, 06/23/2025 - 10:16

Working at Henry Ford Health System, Teaira Ross helps homeless patients find places to live, connects people in need with food resources and shares information on other service programs relating to health care, mental health and more with community members.

A patient resource coordinator and early intervention specialist for the Detroit-based hospital system, Ross blends advocacy, case management and patient education to help people with chronic conditions like HIV find what they need to improve their health and quality of life.

Ross, a sociology major who graduated this past spring, has wanted to do advocacy work since she was young. After all, she saw the impact it made for her. “Supportive people and services really helped to change my life and save me,” Ross says. “I know what it’s like to grow up poor in Detroit. My mother raised three girls by herself. I realized how important help is to address barriers from the time I was small. I wanted to put my cape on and save the world.”

To achieve that dream, Ross says she needed to go to college. “I just wasn’t sure how to do it at the time,” she says. She ultimately started at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn in her 30s. “I’ll forever be grateful for this university helping me get to where I am today,” she reflects. Before starting college, however, she had some challenges to face.

As a child, Ross lived with a grandmother who struggled with mental illness. “There wasn’t adequate mental health support to help her at that time. Even as a family, we didn’t really know how to respond when she’d have a manic episode,” Ross, who is African American, says. “Mental illness is not something that’s often openly discussed in the Black community.”

Ross got pregnant at 16. “I was so scared to tell my mom. I told her right before school. She didn’t get angry like I thought she would. Instead, she acknowledged what I said and then told me to get my bookbag,” Ross says. “That one conversation shifted my perspective to realizing it wasn’t the end of the world. Life will keep moving forward — and so will I.” Ross finished high school in 2007 as a mother of a toddler.

After high school, she moved out, worked long hours at a fast food chain, among other places, and still couldn’t get ahead. She lost her home. “I had to live in my car for a summer. One of the reasons I worked so much is so that I’d have a place to go at night,” says Ross, noting that her young daughter stayed with a favorite aunt during that summer. “I needed to move beyond what I knew and get out of survival jobs. To reach my dreams, I needed to trust myself and take chances. I knew where I was at. I knew where I had come from and I knew where I wanted my daughter T’Kari and I to go. A degree was key in making that happen.”

Ross then sought out job opportunities and state resource programs. She landed an office job at an accounting firm where she got on-the-job training, saved up and found a two-bedroom apartment. “It was the first time my daughter had her own room. I decorated her room before she saw it and put her name on the wall and everything,” Ross says. “I will always remember the excitement in her face when she saw it.”

Ross also enrolled in the Wayne County Community College District. She inspired her mother to enroll too — and they both graduated from WCCCD in 2015. “I want people who are thinking about returning to school to know you can do it. It just might take you some time — I call that building capacity,” Ross says. “As a single mom who was in the working world, I didn’t know how I’d perform in a space with just-graduated high school students who are fluent in Spanish and are great with long division. But once I got there, I could see how my experiences fit in too. There’s enough space for us to learn from each other.”

After earning an associate degree in liberal arts, Ross set her sights on a bachelor’s. As Ross’ daughter started high school in 2020, Ross had a new school too: 51��Ƶ-Dearborn. In addition to liking the program offerings, the friendliness of the campus and smaller class sizes, Ross discovered that she had an opportunity to get a scholarship through the 51��Ƶ-Dearborn’s SOAR Program, which supports returning adult students who are parents, veterans or ages 25 and older seeking their first bachelor’s degree.

Ross says 51��Ƶ-Dearborn did more than provide access to education, it also helped her find the right career focus — for example, lessons in Associate Professor of Anthropology Rose Wellman’s Contemporary Issues in Anthropology course prompted Ross to reflect on her experiences. “The class helped me to understand my own positionality and what that means in the world that I live in and, most importantly, what that means for the people that I serve,” she says. “My family had a lot of help from support services, but no one looked like me. I noticed that, even as a kid. If I wanted to change that, I figured I’d better start with me. I can be the person that I wanted to see.”

While at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn, Ross did casework for the nonprofit UNIFIED-HIV Health and Beyond. She stressed to her clients that they were not defined by their diagnosis. “You're not living with HIV. HIV is living with you. You're a person above everything else,” she says. “We all have our struggles. We all need support to handle our challenges. We should not be defined by what we face — we are all much more than that.”

A year before her April 2025 graduation, Ross landed her current role at Henry Ford Health System. She meets with patients and compassionately listens. After assessing what services may help them, she offers to make phone calls, to provide resource lists and to make sure people have the care they need. “I’m here to build pathways to justice and belonging for underserved populations. People don't really need to be fixed — they need options or tools to get better or to do better. Sometimes they just want to be understood and know that someone cares.”

Looking at the path she’s traveled to improve life for her family, Ross sees how it all comes together. T’Kari, who is now 19 and a college student, is considering attending 51��Ƶ-Dearborn in the fall. Ross, who has a career that she’s passionate about, is looking into earning a Master of Public Health — ideally at U-M. And she’s assisting underserved populations in the city where she was born and raised.

“Purpose is all about helping people turn what is into what could be,” Ross says. “I saw how it worked for my family and now, with my education, I’m able to do it for others.”

Story by Sarah Tuxbury

Alumni Engagement

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

Off

Mon, 06/23/2025 - 14:06

Teaira Ross, ’25 CASL grad, says 51��Ƶ-Dearborn helped her go from surviving to thriving. Now she’s working at Henry Ford Health System to do the same for others.

Photo courtesy Teaira Ross

News

Five fun things to do this summer

stuxbury — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 02:47:43 +0000

Five fun things to do this summer stuxbury Sun, 06/15/2025 - 22:47

51��Ƶ-Dearborn has more than classes — it’s full of enjoyable activities and unique experiences. And the summer, a quieter season on campus, is a great time to visit the university.

Check out these five fun things (most are free!) to do at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn this summer.

Get out and play some games.

Photo by Annie Barker

On a nice sunny day, head to a grassy area with a giant Jenga or ladder golf — or, on a rainy one, play some checkers or Uno in the newly renovated area of the Renick University Center.

The Office of Student Life has many games the university has for students, faculty or staff to check out for the day. There are nearly 20 board games and five yard games to choose from. There are also waterproof picnic blankets available for checkout. “We offer this for something fun to do while on campus, as a way to connect with others, and as an activity for student organizations hosting events,” says Student Life Director Alex Bakhaus.

Interested? Go to the Campus Involvement Hub (RUC 2190) with your MCard to check out the games. Games are available on a first-come first-served basis. For student organizations or departments interested in checking things out ahead of time for an event, there’s a request form.

For a game that’s not quite as leisurely, consider pickleball — a popular sport that combines aspects of tennis, badminton and pingpong. There are a couple courts behind the Fieldhouse in parking Lot F. Want to play, but need equipment? The ball and paddles can be checked out at the Fieldhouse. Go to the lower level with your MCard.

See a starry, starry night at the observatory.

Photo courtesy of the 51��Ƶ-Dearborn Observatory

People can stargaze through the telescopes on the observing deck of the Science Learning Research Center this summer. 51��Ƶ-Dearborn’s annual “Public Nights at the Observatory” events start on Friday, June 20 at the 51��Ƶ-Dearborn Observatory. Additional summer dates are June 27, July 18, July 25, Aug. 1, Aug. 15 and Aug. 25. For times, directions and future dates, go to the observatory’s website.

“During the summer, you can see stars, globular clusters and nebulae. Some of the prominent constellations of the summer sky are Lyra, Cygnus and Aquila, which are home to the three bright stars that make up the ‘Summer Triangle’ — Vega, Deneb and Altair respectively,” says retired Physics and Astronomy Lecturer Carrie Swift, who runs the observatory’s public events. “And, of course, if it’s up, you can observe the craters and maria of the Moon through a telescope. For many people, that is a highlight of their experience at the observatory.”

If staff levels permit, participants may take a brief tour of the observatory’s dome, which houses the observatory’s .4-meter telescope and learn more about how modern astronomical observations are made.

People are also encouraged to ask questions if they see anything interesting. Swift says educational outreach is a goal of the program. Observatory nights are free and open to the public. These events only take place if the sky conditions are favorable. Please check the website before coming to campus.

View art on campus.

Photo by Annie Barker

The Stamelos Gallery Center is located at the center of campus, right on the first floor of the Mardigian Library. This summer there’s an exhibition by a 2011 51��Ƶ-Ann Arbor grad: “Laura Cavanagh: Perchance to Dream” runs through Aug. 10.

The exhibit features two bodies of work from Cavanagh. In one, she creates artworks of imagined women in a collage-style that’s heavily influenced by portraiture from the Renaissance Era. In the other, she fabricates mid-20th century interior and exterior spaces that are inspired from Cavanagh’s personal memories of watching older films and television shows.

Art Curator and Gallery Manager Laura Cotton notes that the artist wants to take viewers on a visual odyssey, either to a time in history that they can recall firsthand or to a time they can only imagine. See Stamelos Gallery Center hours.

If you want to explore university art outdoors, there are sculptures displayed across campus grounds. In addition to planning exhibitions, Cotton is working with 51��Ƶ-Dearborn student interns in the university’s Art Collection and Exhibitions Department to research and gather information about these large artworks for future plaques. “Most of these sculptures had no information in our files and we've had to do a lot of digging and contact artists to find information on them,” Cotton says.

So far, they’ve learned that the welded bronze and copper tree-like sculpture outside of the ELB doors, “Nexus,” was a 1961 gift to campus from the Class of 1924 51��Ƶ-Ann Arbor engineers. They also discovered that "10 Stories," a tall rust-colored welded steel sculpture near the Social Sciences Building, was once at Chicago’s Navy Pier. That sculpture’s artist, Michigan Hot Glass Workshop founder Albert Young, wanted to merge shapes found in nature — like in honeycombs or flowers — with industrial materials. If you have information about campus sculptures that you’d like to share, reach out to Cotton.

Photos courtesy of Laura Cotton are "Nexus," left, and "Ten Stories," right

Explore nature trails.

Photo by Sarah Tuxbury

Don’t be a bump on the log — but see some wildlife friends who are when you walk the trails at the Environmental Interpretive Center.

EIC Naturalist Mike Solomon says it’s the time of year when turtles are often seen basking in the sun on the logs in the middle of Fair Lane Lake. “There’s always something new to see with the changing seasons. Right now, you can hear the frogs and see the turtles. The turtles are relaxing in the sun, just like I’d like to be,” he says.

Photo by Mike Solomon

In addition to wildlife — which include a variety of birds that migrated to the EIC for the summer from locations around the world — walking the trails offers pretty sights like blooming flowers, along with fresh air and exercise. “For long weekends, people pack up and drive a few hours to go up north for what you can get right here,” Environmental Studies Area Manager Rick Simek says.

Anyone can walk the trails on their own from sunrise to sunset, but there are also opportunities for guided trail walks. Solomon is leading one later this month: “Photography in Nature Walk” will take place from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. June 26. He’ll point out interesting scenery, plants and wildlife to photograph. It’s BYOC — bring your own camera — and it’s OK to use your phone. Fancy equipment is not required. Register here. If you photograph a butterfly, bee or other pollinating insect, consider entering the EIC’s Pollinator Photo Contest. Submit photos here. Entries are accepted until Sept. 30, with winners announced by the end of October. Winners will receive EIC-made maple syrup.

If you want to walk the trails on your own, the EIC front desk has trail maps. You can also check out these articles highlighting sights along the campus trail around the lake and near the Henry Ford Estate.

Grab a meal at the Canteen.

Photo by Annie Barker

Right across from the university — it’s visible from the path near the CASL Building that takes main campus’ walkers and bikers across Evergreen Road — is a lunchtime spot that has picnic tables, an airy atmosphere with a canopy of outdoor lights, and a variety of food trucks. The Canteen at Midtown is about a 10-minute walk from the university.

Marketing and Digital Strategy Director Bailey Ayers-Korpal says it’s a new favorite meet-up spot of hers. “The Canteen is a close-to-campus fun place with lots of food options for lunch with a colleague or to meet up with family and friends after work for dinner,” she says. “My personal favorite is a sandwich from The Terry Melt food truck.” Vendor food offerings currently include burgers and fries, shawarma, sushi, pasta bowls and desserts. If you don’t want to sit outside, there is also an indoor food hall.

In addition to good eats, a vibrant Dearborn mural is perfect for photos. There are also a variety of table games to borrow while you wait. If you are particularly good at chess, show off your gaming skills during a work-time break. Here’s a tip to know if you go: They don’t take plastic credit or debit cards. They accept cash at the food trucks or you can use tap-to-pay, like Venmo or ApplePay, through a QR code.

If you want to go for a longer walk, there are many restaurants in downtown west Dearborn — including Buddy’s Pizza, Ford's Garage and Paris Baguette, which took over the old Andiamo location — that you can get to by traveling the Rouge River Gateway Trail. There’s a sign that marks the trail, which can be accessed off Fair Lane Road between the Henry Ford Estate and the backside of the Fieldhouse.

Article by Sarah Tuxbury

Alumni Engagement

Athletics

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

Environmental Interpretive Center

College of Business

College of Education, Health, and Human Services

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Student Engagement

Off

Mon, 06/16/2025 - 02:46

51��Ƶ-Dearborn offers more than a career pathway — while on campus, you can also play games, walk nature trails, stargaze and more.

Stephanie and Kenzie Warneck — children of 2006 alums Rachel and Brian Warneck — play a giant Jenga game at last summer's Alumni Picnic. Photo by Sarah Tuxbury

News

A city without schools

lblouin — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 11:07:20 +0000

A city without schools lblouin Mon, 06/09/2025 - 07:07

To the extent that many Michiganders know much about the schools in Inkster, a small, mostly blue-collar, mostly African American city in Detroit’s western suburbs, their knowledge likely revolves around the state government’s dramatic intervention that ultimately led to the dissolution of the school district in 2013. Inkster was one of several districts that had come under the scrutiny of then-Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration during a period in which the state appointed emergency managers to run several districts (and, in some cases, the cities themselves) or entered into consent agreements that required districts to financially restructure. The administration pitched the strategy as a tough-medicine approach to longstanding debt problems. But because the vast majority of the cities and districts Snyder pursued were majority African American, many residents, activists and policymakers voiced concerns, arguing that many white districts were also experiencing financial problems but were not subject to the same measures. Many cities eventually regained local control of their districts. Inkster was one of two places that did not. In 2013, the state declared that the Inkster School District, saddled with about $15 million in debt, was financially unviable and hence would be fully dissolved. Its approximately 4,000 students would be sent to schools in four neighboring communities. The state plan included $5 million in grants to cover costs associated with the district’s dissolution, including the demolition of all but one of Inkster’s school buildings.

Fleda Fleming, a lifelong Inkster resident who served as Inkster High School’s dean of students for 12 years prior to the district’s dissolution, says the fast-moving state action caught everyone in the community by surprise. Sure, Inkster had financial problems, as did many other districts, she says. But the narrative that Inkster was a failing school was, from her vantage point, not rooted in reality. Fleming, who had been with the district during some hard times in the early 2000s, says Inkster schools had actually been on a roll not long before the state dissolved the district. She attributes much of that to a young superintendent, Thomas Maridada, who came to Inkster in 2004 with a ton of energy and a new vision for public education in an urban community. Under his leadership, Inkster became one of the first districts in the state to adopt an “academies” model in the high school, a now popular approach in which students choose something akin to a college major to structure their academic experience. In Inkster, there were three concentrations: pre-health, business and entrepreneurship, and the performing arts. Inkster’s program also became the first in the state where academies students earned both a high school diploma and an associate degree in four years through a dual-enrollment partnership with Wayne County Community College.

Fleming says Maridada also dramatically shifted the culture of the schools. She recalls a day, for example, when he asked her to order trophies for a new year-end assembly to celebrate students' academic achievements. She thought it was a little curious he wanted two of everything. “It turned out he wanted one for the students to take home and another to put in a trophy case at the school so everyone could see them,” Fleming says. He rallied staff and students alike to the cause. Fleming remembers when she started in 2001, it was rare to get 400 students in the high school for school count day. Five years into Maridada’s reforms, they had 1,200 kids in the building, many of them college bound, many of them school choice students from other cities. “It was amazing work,” Fleming says. “It was one of those jobs where getting up to go to school every day really did feel like a joy for students and staff alike. It was hands down the best time of my professional career.”

Maridada, who earned a nod as Michigan’s Superintendent of the Year in 2008 for his efforts, left a mark on the district. But his style of leadership also inspired Fleming personally. It showed her just how much leaders mattered, a lesson that was reinforced when he left the district in 2009 to lead a similar charge in Pontiac and the Inkster schools lost some ground. She credits him and that experience, in part, with inspiring her interest in what was then an all new Doctor of Education program at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn. Maridada was working on his own doctorate during his five-year tenure in Inkster and spontaneously developed a habit of referring to Fleming as “Dr. Fleming.” She initially enrolled in the doctoral program without a particular professional aspiration in mind. But it proved to be a profound experience. Fleming fondly recalls being academically challenged and personally galvanized by her initial dissertation chair, Assistant Professor Maiyoua Vang, along with her committee members Professor Les Thornton and Professor John Artis. Her dissertation research experience was particularly meaningful for her. Under Professor of Education Chris Burke, she took on a qualitative study of African American sibling pairs, one female, one male, where the former attained higher levels of academic achievement. This was a theme ripped straight from her own life: In her family, Fleming and her two sisters all attended college, two of them earning advanced degrees. Three of her four brothers never finished high school. Moreover, she knew this was a common experience in many African American families. She wanted to know why Black women were collectively faring so much better than men when it came to academic achievement.

Though not a formal part of her study, the story of differential achievement in Fleming’s own family was, in many ways, indicative of the larger trends she would explore in her research. Her two oldest brothers started their high school years in Inkster schools, which she says were demographically pretty similar back in the late 1950s. But during her oldest brother’s junior year, the family moved from the west side of the city to the east side, which put the family in the Westwood school district. There, she says about nine in 10 students were white. It was a “cultural shock” for her three eldest siblings. After their move, her oldest brother actually secretly enrolled himself in his old school, which worked until the school discovered his east Inkster address. He chose to drop out rather than return to Westwood.

Her second-oldest brother eventually followed suit. But interestingly, her eldest sister made it to graduation. Fleming says her sister’s experience was not without difficulties: Fleming recalls one story where her “strong-willed” sister objected to the director of the school play casting her as a maid. But in the areas of discipline and expectations for academic achievement, Fleming says the situation was more difficult for young Black men. Moreover, by the time the three youngest children, which included another older sister, Fleming and her baby brother, reached high school, the demographics of the school district had shifted. Now, Westwood had just a small majority of white students. “I remember it was sort of like what Rodney King said: ‘Can’t we all just get along?’ We all just got along. Race was much less of a factor,” Fleming says. In the wake of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, her baby brother earned his high school diploma and ultimately went on to college, earning a master’s degree in guidance and counseling.

Fleming says she was not conscious of these dynamics growing up. But viewing it now through the eyes of a researcher, several interesting takeaways emerged. The changing racial and gender politics of the era certainly were relevant. But she also became fascinated with how expectations, both within the family and in the schools, shaped her siblings’ journeys. In particular, she now found it remarkable that her parents, who were both college educated, didn’t blink at the three oldest boys dropping out of high school, though she says they would have been “outraged” had any of the young women in the family followed that course. That spoke to something profound about the way gender and economics interacted at that time. After leaving school, two of her brothers got solid jobs in the auto industry, and the third earned his GED and served in the U.S. Navy. They all ended up doing quite well for themselves. “The joke in the family is that the boys' income levels surpassed the girls despite our advanced degrees ,” Fleming says. “So it reveals how the family viewed education. My parents valued education very highly. They were sticklers about using ‘proper’ English and were equally adamant about ensuring that all of their children were highly proficient in the core subject areas. But the endgame of schooling was not academic achievement, it was employability. And if boys could find that at the factory without a high school diploma, then the educational system was unnecessary. But that same path was not available to young women. And my parents were more protective about their daughters’ working conditions, so formal education and post-secondary education became essential to their employment.”

Fleming collected dozens of such stories from sibling pairs over the course of her research, many with similar experiences to her own family’s. Notably, sometimes the outcomes were quite different. She documented how, as economic conditions changed and a high school or college diploma became a qualification for more jobs, young Black men paid a higher price for lower expectations for their academic achievement. Many of the men in the youngest sibling pairs, who attended high school in the 2000s, also noted how the educational and disciplinary modalities of high school left them feeling unmotivated or unchallenged. Several noted that their mostly female, mostly white teachers failed to find ways to connect with them. The depth of what she was learning and experiencing through this research, and in her program more generally, also left her feeling more personally inspired. Fleming may have begun her doctoral program without the common professional goals of EdD students, who typically find it a useful bridge to a superintendent position or policy job. But she now found herself dreaming of a somewhat poetic final chapter to her career: She’d love to become superintendent of Inkster schools herself and restore some of the momentum she’d helped build. Indeed, it even felt urgent as the school choice dynamics that had brought many students from outside Inkster into the district started to flip after Maridada’s departure, as students left, in some cases, to follow their favorite teachers. Bolstered by what she was learning in the program, she thought she could help finish what they'd started.

Then 2013 happened, and with the dissolution of the district, Fleming’s dream was essentially rendered impossible. She didn’t experience this so much as a personal setback. Because of the stage she was at in her career, she was able to fairly easily transition into retirement. But she and many residents immediately grew anxious over how Inkster becoming a city without schools would impact the community. Along with its churches, the schools were the thing that regularly brought families together, and there was a lot of pride in what Inkster had built academically. More kids were going to college. They also had a state championship football team, a state championship girls basketball team and a highly acclaimed performing arts department that the city rallied around. Now, its students would be scattered across districts in other cities. In some cases, where district lines divided neighborhoods, kids who grew up together would be attending different schools.

Almost immediately, Fleming began using her retirement to try to fill the void. By winter the following year, she had founded a new nonprofit, EQUIPPED, the purpose of which was “to create a space and opportunity for kids to do some of the same things we were doing in the high schools,” she says. In practice, that included things like academic enrichment programs, after-school ACT prep courses, life skills classes, a traditional community baccalaureate celebration and anything she could think of that could help students transition to their post-high school lives. The Inkster community immediately bought in, funding it with personal donations. She says if anybody needed help with anything, they knew the first step was to “get Ms. Fleming’s phone number.” Fleming says that informal, grassroots vibe has always been part of EQUIPPED. She never aspired to open a formal space for the organization, opting instead to host workshops and events in libraries, churches and community spaces. That has helped her keep costs down so she can funnel all the donations into programming. But it’s also just been more effective to meet students and families where they already are.

Over the past 11 years, Fleming says the programming has evolved a lot. “Basically, wherever I see a need, I try to find a way to address it” is the simple mantra that guides her. In recent years, that’s often meant putting an emphasis on the arts to counter cuts in programming that many schools have experienced. Fleming, who regularly produces holiday pageants at her church and jokes that she may have missed her calling by not going into the arts, is a particularly big fan of performance. Over the years, EQUIPPED has produced multiple student-led stage productions, including “An’Dee”, an original African American-centric reimagining of the classic musical “Annie.” Most recently, she partnered with Westwood schools to produce “Westwood’s Got Talent,” a variety show that featured performances by students, staff and community members.

Through all that evolution, one of EQUIPPED’s most consistent offerings has been a scholarship for college-bound students. Over the past decade, she says they’ve been able to annually award at least $15,000 in scholarships to students mostly from Inkster but also in surrounding cities, all powered by donations from community members. She calls the application process “easy peasy.” Students have to have at least a 2.5 GPA, a limit she set so that the scholarship could “reach down” to serve students who traditionally wouldn't be eligible for other academic scholarships. Applicants have to submit a college acceptance letter and two letters of recommendation, one from someone at their school and another from a community member. Then, there’s a 500-word essay, the topic of which hasn’t changed in years. “It’s always the same: ‘What advice would you give to a ninth, 10th or 11th grader about how to be successful in high school?’” She says the straightforward prompt is intended to get students to think critically and consciously about all the things that led to their success, so they might impart that wisdom to others. But it’s also a perfect way to mine ideas for new youth-focused programming.

Fleming with some past EQUIPPED scholarship recipients. Photo by Annie Barker

Even as the ranks grow of young people touched by EQUIPPED, including many who’ve gone on to graduate from 51��Ƶ-Dearborn and 51��Ƶ-Ann Arbor, Fleming knows she can’t fill all the gaps. Despite the work, and that of other community organizations in the city, Fleming says the closure of the city’s schools has left Inkster a changed place. “We’re strangers now,” she says. “Because students were scattered across several districts, there’s this feeling that you don’t know where your kids are, you don’t know how they’re doing and you don’t know how to help them. We’re from a culture where we say it takes a village to raise a child. When you remove the village’s impact from your children, you’ve not only lost a sense of community but an avenue for perpetuating your culture.”

In the immediate aftermath of the district’s dissolution, she says people in the community had many conversations over whether they could get their schools back. She says that fire never completely died out, and it’s recently started to smolder again. Not surprisingly, Fleming now finds herself as one of the people at the center of that effort. She recently teamed up with one of her former academies students and a ’96 Inkster High School graduate, both of whom have earned doctoral degrees themselves, to undertake a research project focused on the aftermath of the school closure. She says it’s not so much to investigate and relitigate the state’s decision-making process, which many think was racist, unjust and ignored alternatives, like the state’s 2023 effort to wipe away school districts’ legacy debt with state funds. (Notably, those funds also eliminated $12 million of debt Inkster residents were still paying off through their taxes, even though their schools had been closed for a decade.) Instead, the focus of their study is to document the impact the dissolution of the schools had on the students and families who lived through it, as well as the lasting impacts on the community. As in her dissertation research, Fleming is hoping that giving voice to these personal stories will help people understand that they form a common narrative — which she thinks could help motivate the community and policymakers to eventually do what she thinks is the right thing for the city.

Fleming knows any fruits of that effort, especially anything as dramatic as reestablishing the Inkster School District, could be years away. It’s likely too far off for her to ever fulfill her dream of becoming that future district’s superintendent. Moreover, the state’s decision to demolish the city’s physical school buildings obviously could make things far more complicated and expensive for the community to realize that vision. But Fleming remains resolved, plucky and cheerfully defiant. “They tore the schools down. That’s fine,” she says. “That just means our kids will get all new buildings, like the rose that grew from concrete.”

###

Story by Lou Blouin

Opinion or Voices

Volunteer or Community Service

Alumni Engagement

College of Education, Health, and Human Services

Education

Off

Mon, 06/09/2025 - 11:05

’14 EdD alum Fleda Fleming reflects on the legacy of the state’s 2013 dissolution of the Inkster School District and how her nonprofit has helped restore a lost sense of community.

Alum Fleda Fleming stands at the former site of Inkster High School, which was torn down after the state dissolved the city's school district in 2013. Photo by Annie Barker

News

51��Ƶ-Dearborn Alumni & Family Picnic

sgaither — Wed, 07 May 2025 15:17:12 +0000

51��Ƶ-Dearborn Alumni & Family Picnic sgaither Wed, 05/07/2025 - 11:17

51��Ƶ-Dearborn alumni and their families are invited to attend the 2025 51��Ƶ-Dearborn Alumni & Family Picnic.

Enjoy delicious food, connect with fellow alumni, and discover what's new on campus. The day will feature music, engaging activities, and opportunities to explore the latest developments around the university. Don't miss out on a chance to capture memories with photo opportunities and take home some great giveaways. It’s a perfect occasion to reconnect and relive your college days with family, friends and fellow Wolverines!

To support 51��Ƶ-Dearborn students, please consider making a $5 per person suggested donation to the Fund for 51��Ƶ-Dearborn.

2025-07-27T12:00:00-0400 to2025-07-27T14:00:00-0400

Engineering Lab Building

ELB

4901 Evergreen Road
Dearborn, MI 48128
United States

https://goo.gl/maps/U4nX7wqCHa5pVHzW6

United States

On Campus

Office of Alumni Engagement

313-593-5131

umdalumni@umich.edu

Alumni

Alumni Engagement

Meet the first 51��Ƶ-Dearborn alum elected to the U-M Board of Regents

lblouin — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 13:21:04 +0000

Meet the first 51��Ƶ-Dearborn alum elected to the U-M Board of Regents lblouin Wed, 02/12/2025 - 08:21

In December 2024, Carl Meyers visited the 51��Ƶ-Dearborn campus for his official swearing-in to the University of Michigan Board of Regents. For him, the location felt apropos. “What better place to start than at the beginning?” Meyers said in his remarks, referring to his formative undergraduate years at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn in the late 1970s. Meyers, who grew up two miles from the university, says he and his family chose 51��Ƶ-Dearborn for reasons that will sound familiar to many of today's students. Living at home was a practical way to make college more affordable — which was important given that Meyers had to pay his tuition with money he saved from his summer night shifts on a truck assembly line and a personal side business painting and wallpapering people’s homes. His original plan was to attend 51��Ƶ-Dearborn for a year, do well and then transfer to the Ann Arbor campus. But from his first moments as a student, he started putting down roots that proved hard to pull up. “Some of the people I met at my orientation at the Henry Ford mansion are still friends to this day,” Meyers says. “That first year, I got involved in Student Government, got involved in politics on campus, and I ended up staying all four years.”

Meyers says 51��Ƶ-Dearborn in the mid-to-late 1970s was, in some ways, a pretty different place. For one, it was cozier, with a total enrollment under 5,000 students and a much smaller physical footprint. He estimates his incoming class was around 1,000 students and he remembers playing intramural football on the site where the Renick University Center now stands. But in other ways, he thinks the vibe has remained remarkably consistent over the 50 years since he attended. On a non-residential campus, he says you had to work a little harder to cultivate a social life — an ethos that’s still echoed by students today. Most importantly, he says Dearborn was then, and is now, “a serious place.” It’s not a place you go, he says, if your idea of college is huge frat parties on the weekends, or even sit-ins in an administration building. “Students at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn are people who have families, mortgages, homes, they have car payments, they have childcare to worry about,” Meyers says. They are pragmatic students who primarily see college as a path to a better economic future for them and their families.

To keep that dream within reach, college must remain affordable for working and middle class families, Meyers says. Affordability was the backbone of his 2024 regents campaign — and three previous unsuccessful runs for the board dating back to 2004. Meyers says his concern over the affordability of higher education grew organically out of his own professional life as an investment advisor. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, he helped many clients put together financial plans to pay for their children’s college education. Back then, he says there were some pretty good options. “The bond rates were 8%. The Michigan Education Trust was priced below market value,” he recalls. But in the early 2000s, tuition rates began a steep climb, which Meyers attributes mostly to the increased availability of student loans and decreased investment by the state in higher education. “That dream started to become out of reach,” he says. “Families couldn’t afford it with normal investment and savings strategies. So what did they do? Some sacrificed their own future for their children by raiding their retirements or home equity. More often, people took on student loans.”

Meyers (left) with his father, Carl, at the December oath ceremony on the 51��Ƶ-Dearborn campus. Photo by Annie Barker

At that time, Meyers, who has long been active in the Michigan Republican Party, started sounding the alarm bells, including with some U-M Regents, with whom he was friends or acquaintances. He says the prevailing attitude, however, was essentially that the debt was still worth it, given that those with college degrees had much higher lifetime earnings. Meyers didn’t see it that way. Instead, he saw that student debt often rippled through people’s lives, including delaying other important life decisions, like buying a home or starting a family. And that had consequences for their long-term wealth, their ability to pass wealth onto their children and their well-being. “When I ran in 2004 for the first time, I was saying that in the next generation or two, if we don’t get a handle on this, there will be a massive student debt problem in this country and college education will be out of reach for many,” Meyers says. “Twenty years later, Americans are carrying $1.9 trillion in student debt. To put that in perspective, there is approximately $1 trillion in consumer debt outstanding today. And the travesty is that it’s very difficult to discharge student debt through bankruptcy.”

This time around, Meyers' affordability-based message resonated with voters: He was the top vote-getter among all candidates elected to governing boards for U-M, Michigan State and Wayne State — the three state universities with constitutionally mandated elected boards of regents. He says he’s excited that one of the big agenda items for the U-M Regents will be working out the details of a recently announced expansion of the Go Blue Guarantee — a financial aid program that supports free and reduced tuition for high-achieving students from lower-income families on all three campuses. Meyers says the initiative has the ability to put college back within reach for thousands of families. "If you can take the cost issue out of the formula, you can begin to address greater affordability for all — at least to a point. For example, to tell a family to go out and borrow $150,000, it’ll be a good investment — that’s a very hard message to sell to a family whose home might not even be worth that much. But now, if you can say that tuition for your son or daughter is free at the University of Michigan, I think they’re going to figure the rest out. So I think the expansion of the Go Blue Guarantee is absolutely one of the best policy decisions we can make.”

Along with continuing to beat the drum on affordability, Meyers’ other big priority is to advocate for investment in 51��Ƶ-Dearborn and the regional campuses more generally. He says that’s not something that just started with his term on the Board of Regents. For example, he says, for years, he urged his friend Ron Weiser, who Meyers is succeeding on the board, to “get over to Dearborn” and see what makes the place special. Weiser did, and he and his wife, Eileen, ended up donating $1.25 million for the renovation of the campus’ Engineering Lab Building. “Mike Behm, who’s on the board now, he’s close to 51��Ƶ-Flint like I am close to 51��Ƶ-Dearborn. So it’s kind of up to us to keep the awareness out there,” Meyers says. “It’s so easy to become immersed in everything that’s going on in Ann Arbor and see Dearborn or Flint as a secondary product. But I see 51��Ƶ-Dearborn as a valuable part of the University of Michigan’s portfolio, because it gives students a chance to get a University of Michigan education who might not otherwise have the means to do it. So I’m honored to be the first regent from the Dearborn campus. A bunch of us have tried before, and I’m honored to be the one who could do it.”

###

Story by Lou Blouin

Administration & Governance

Mon, 02/17/2025 - 13:18

’79 College of Business graduate Carl Meyers talks about his time at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn and why he thinks U-M’s regional campuses are so important.

U-M Regent Carl Meyers (right) poses for a photo with Michigan Supreme Court Justice Brian Zahra at Meyers' Dec. 12 oath ceremony on the 51��Ƶ-Dearborn campus. Photo by Annie Barker

News

‘How will you make your mark on the world?’

stuxbury — Sat, 21 Dec 2024 19:14:43 +0000

‘How will you make your mark on the world?’ stuxbury Sat, 12/21/2024 - 14:14

Nearly 40 years after Henry Maier earned his diploma from 51��Ƶ-Dearborn, he attended his first campus commencement. The retired FedEx ground president and CEO skipped his own ceremony because he moved immediately after finals to begin working. On Dec. 21, he was back at his alma mater — this time delivering the keynote speech to the Class of Fall 2024.

Keynote speaker Henry Maier

“Thanks for the opportunity to finally attend — even if it is almost 50 years late,” said Maier, who graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in economics in 1986. “I entered 51��Ƶ-Dearborn as a freshman in the fall of 1972, only the second class of freshmen admitted to the university. My family couldn’t afford college, so I had to work one, two and once three jobs to pay tuition. I’m sure many of you sitting here can relate.” Maier went on to have a 35-year career with FedEx. “51��Ƶ-Dearborn made it possible for students like me to get not just a college education, but a Michigan education,” he continued.

Surrounded by family, friends and favorite professors, hundreds of Dearborn Wolverines were awarded 713 degrees during two 90-minute commencement ceremonies in the Fieldhouse. The morning ceremony recognized graduates of the College of Arts, Sciences and Letters and the College of Business. The afternoon ceremony celebrated graduates of the College of Education, Health and Human Services and the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

Delivering the keynote, Maier congratulated the graduates on reaching their goals. He said their hard work will continue to open doors for more opportunities. “Today you reached a milestone, but what you really have done is given yourself choices. You can choose to earn a living, what problems you want to help solve and decide what direction you want your life to go in,” he said.

Maier added that, as life unfolds, the knowledge the graduates have gained will prove important — but so will the understanding that there will always be lessons to learn and skills to grow. “If you take nothing else with you today, be curious, inquisitive and remember that your education does not end when you leave today,” he said.

Student speaker Almunthir Elhady echoed the idea that graduation is not a conclusion. The College of Engineering and Computer Science graduate told his fellow students that with each step they take, they will be called to adapt, to grow and to rise. “The future is not a destination — it is a process of becoming, a journey of constant redefinition, of striving not just for personal success, but for a world that is better for those who will follow,” Elhady said.

Student speaker Almunthir Elhady

As Chancellor Domenico Grasso certified the degrees, he told the students that he looks forward to seeing the good that they bring into the world. “I welcome you to the society of learned men and women and to the pantheon of distinguished Michigan alumni — almost 700,000 strong — who have shaped and defined the world in which we live,” Grasso said. “Today also marks the shortest day of the year in terms of daylight, but from here on, the days will gradually grow longer. Just as the light of the sun increases, so too will the light of your education — symbolized by our university seal — guide you, illuminating your futures for the rest of your lives.”

Then, students in the Class of Fall 2024 — who ranged from ages 18 to 65 and hailed from 14 U.S. states and many nations around the world — turned their tassels, marking their official transition to alumni. During the two ceremonies, 482 undergraduate, 226 graduate and five doctoral degrees were awarded.

Grasso also awarded one special diploma — to Maier. “We are going to present him with the diploma that he did not receive during his commencement,” Grasso said. “Congratulations.” Smiling, Maier accepted it with one word: “Finally.”

Chancellor Domenico Grasso and Class of Fall 2024 keynote speaker Henry Maier

During his keynote speech, Maier noted that the anthem for his generation — the Baby Boomers — was a Graham Nash song titled “Chicago.” He paraphrased the lyrics: “We can change the world. Rearrange the world. It’s dying to get better.” He encouraged the newest 51��Ƶ-Dearborn alums to think about their song, while also talking about what a big day it was for them both — even though their graduations were nearly 40 years apart.

“To the Class of 2024, I ask, ‘What’s your anthem? How will you leave your mark on the world?” Maier said. “What I can tell you is you have already begun.”

Story by Sarah Tuxbury. Photos by Annie Barker and Andrew Mascharka

Commencement

Alumni Engagement

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

College of Business

College of Education, Health, and Human Services

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Off

Sat, 12/21/2024 - 18:57

51��Ƶ-Dearborn awarded 713 degrees during two 90-minute commencement ceremonies on Dec. 21 in the Fieldhouse.

The Class of Fall 2024 was celebrated at two commencement ceremonies on Dec. 21. Photo by Annie Barker

News

Everything you need to know about 51��Ƶ-Dearborn’s comprehensive campaign

lblouin — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 13:24:31 +0000

Everything you need to know about 51��Ƶ-Dearborn’s comprehensive campaign lblouin Wed, 12/11/2024 - 08:24

You’re probably starting to hear more about the University of Michigan’s Look to Michigan fundraising campaign, which is a coordinated effort across all three campuses and kicked off its public phase in late October. But this latest comprehensive campaign has actually been going on for about three years, says 51��Ƶ-Dearborn Vice Chancellor for Institutional Advancement Casandra Ulbrich. That’s typical of big fundraising pushes, which try to raise about a third to a half of their total fundraising goal from big donors in a “quiet” or “private” phase before courting a larger base of small-dollar donors in a “public” phase. Ulbrich says campaigns are organized this way for a couple of reasons. First, a private phase is a great test of whether your message is going to resonate with people. “The majority of your giving is coming from a small percentage of people. And you’re not going to be successful unless they’re on board with your vision,” she says. Second, demonstrating that your cause already has momentum can help make public-phase donors feel more confident about supporting your cause.

This campaign differs from 51��Ƶ-Dearborn’s last big push — fundraising for the Engineering Lab Building — in that it’s what development staff call a comprehensive rather than a capital campaign. Ulbrich says university capital campaigns typically raise money for something very specific, often a building. Comprehensive campaigns target donors who feel passionately about a wide range of causes, and priorities typically include specific programs and scholarships, though it might also include buildings. In some ways, this makes it much easier to fundraise. “With a comprehensive campaign, we have priorities that give us guideposts, but if a donor comes to us with something they’re passionate about that falls out of the official case for support, we can likely find something within the university that they can support. So we’re not pigeonholed for what we’re raising money for," Ulbrich says.

For the Look to Michigan campaign, 51��Ƶ-Dearborn’s general guideposts are fourfold: student experience and success, faculty and staff excellence, holistic excellence and economic sustainability. And within that structure, Ulbrich says a few priorities seem to be especially resonating with donors. First, people are really getting behind the university’s prioritizing of need-based financial aid. The free-tuition Go Blue Guarantee is the flagship program in that area, but under the university’s new financial aid scheme, families who don’t meet the GBG’s income requirements are still often eligible for some need-based aid. Second, Ulbrich says donors are excited about the university’s practice-based learning initiative. “As soon as you talk to them about the theoretical versus the hands-on, that makes total sense to them,” she says. “And here at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn, that includes things like internships, study abroad, experiential learning — so there are a wide array of things donors can support.” Ulbrich says they even played up the practice-based learning theme with a soft launch gift that was mailed to recent donors and prospects. The custom Block M Lego set with a Dearborn base came unassembled so supporters could get a little taste of the hands-on ethos at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn.

Compared to past fundraising efforts, Ulbrich says the current campaign is leaning more heavily on the support of standout alumni like Anthony Williams (left), pictured here at the Look to Michigan campaign launch event in October with College of Business Dean Frédéric Brunel. The '03 COB alum and CEO of Corktown Health is making a difference in Detroit and beyond as he works to provide comprehensive and affirming health care to the LGTBQ+ community. Williams was also recently appointed by Governor Whitmer to the state's first LGBTQ+ Commission. Photo by Carolyn Noble

So who exactly is our donor base this time around? Ulbrich says this campaign is a little different in that we’re relying most heavily on alumni support. “This has changed a lot at Dearborn over the years,” she says. “Our fundraising used to be more heavily skewed toward corporations and foundations. But a lot of corporations have cut back on giving, and foundation money has become much more competitive. Now, the majority of our fundraising comes from individuals, the vast majority of whom are alumni of the institution. Larger gifts also tend to be alums.” She says most large donations come in the form of planned gifts, where donors pledge to give a certain amount of their wealth after their deaths. “This is an attractive option for a lot of people because it allows them to support something they believe in and be recognized for it without having to reorient their finances while they're alive,” she says. Ublrich also expects this fundraising campaign could have a different shape than the typical donor pyramid: The rule of thumb is that 80% of your fundraising comes from 20% of donors. But with a little more grassroots support from smaller donors, Ulbrich says the donor pyramid “might start to look a little more like a rectangle.” So far, Ulbrich says we’ve raised about $26 million, which puts us “ahead of where we’ve been in past campaigns.”

With the public phase in full swing, the development team will continue to seek out big-dollar donations, but a lot of energy will now turn to social media, newsletters and direct mail efforts that court small-dollar donors in the wider 51��Ƶ-Dearborn-connected community, especially alumni. Another big thing to look forward to: On May 1, the university is hosting a gala at the newly renovated Michigan Central Station. “We decided on a soft launch for the public phase for a couple reasons. We didn’t want to compete with the 50 events happening in Ann Arbor. But we also wanted to have an event at a location that was significant historically for us, and with our connection to Ford, we had our heart set on Central Station. With the renovation, they simply weren’t ready for us,” Ulbrich says. Details for that event are still forthcoming, but Ulbrich says they’re planning to have a discounted faculty-staff ticket price.

In fact, though alums make up the lion’s share of the donor base, Ulbrich doesn’t want faculty and staff to overlook their role in supporting the campaign. One of her talking points with bigger donors is that a large number of people who work at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn also choose to give. “Faculty and staff giving is hugely symbolic, because it’s a show of faith in the institution,” she says. “I give to the Go Blue Guarantee. And so I can say that to a donor and explain why it's important to me to give. To show a donor that the people who know the institution best are willing to support it with their own dollars — that can be very persuasive.”

###

Ready to make a gift? Find a cause you're passionate about and donate now. Story by Lou Blouin

Accessibility or Affordability

Experiential Learning

University-wide

Alumni Engagement

Institutional Advancement

Off

Wed, 12/11/2024 - 13:24

It’s beginning to look a lot like . . . fundraising season. We answer your top questions about the university’s Look to Michigan campaign, which recently entered its public phase.

So far, 51��Ƶ-Dearborn has raised about $26 million during its Look to Michigan fundraising campaign.

News

The art of living a courageous life

stuxbury — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 17:38:33 +0000

The art of living a courageous life stuxbury Wed, 11/06/2024 - 12:38

If someone doesn’t know how to swim and a friend suggests a white-water rafting trip, the answer is likely going to be a resounding no. Unless you’re 51��Ƶ-Dearborn alum Sheri Hunter.

In 2009, Hunter was busy raising her two children with her husband Mannard and staying active in their church. Despite this active life, Hunter was looking for some adventure and community. So, when Hunter’s friend suggested the rafting trip, she, the friend and one other pal packed up the car and headed to West Virginia. On the banks of the Gauley River, the group tightened their life jackets, grabbed an oar and plunged in. Literally.

Sheri Hunter and her Dave Divas friends went on many adventures together.

It was the start of their many adventures together. The trio christened themselves the “Dare Divas” (and even trademarked the name) and embarked on trips that would push their comfort levels, pump up their adrenaline and solidify bonds that only form when tackling scary things. Along the way, Hunter embraced the recognition that getting through tough moments and giving yourself the space to work through your fear can be a powerful catalyst for personal growth.

Adventure Speaks in Many Ways

The rafting trip was the start of many adventures with the Dare Divas and the beginning of deep friendships. The women have tackled skydiving and race car driving, and even hiked Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. But in 2012, tragedy struck. Hunter’s husband died suddenly, leaving her in shock and deep sorrow. “I was trying to figure out the path for my children, keeping them well and whole and also managing my own emotions,” Hunter, an accomplished writer, marketer and public speaker, recalls. “I went back to what really gave me some sort of respite, which is my writing.” She journaled through her anger, her fear, and feelings of uncertainty. “Being able to write helped me order my emotions a little bit, and be able to say what I need to do, because so often you don't really know what to do, but you know you have to move forward.”

She also found comfort and support through her faith and her Dare Divas. The group continued their adventures, injecting joy into Hunter’s life amid the grief. “Doing those different activities following Mannard’s death felt surreal, because I shouldn't be laughing and feeling a sense of glee following his death,” Hunter says. “But it was the one thing that allowed me to shake things up and not become so dire.”

Through it all, she kept writing, chronicling her journey to find joy again. Her experience became a book, “Daring to Live: How the Power of Sisterhood and Taking Risks Can Jump-Start Your Joy.” The book has resonated with many people, much to Hunter’s delight, and it was recently optioned by Amazon Films. “I think, secretly, there’s a number of people who want to do similar types of feats,” she says. “The book kind of stirs something up inside of individuals that want to be daring in some aspect of their life.” Doing things that scare you doesn’t necessarily mean jumping out of an airplane, she explains — being daring might mean going back to school or applying for that job that seems like a stretch.

In addition to the book, Hunter also helps others break out of their comfort zones and fight feelings of imposter syndrome through public speaking engagements and professional meetings. “So often when imposter syndrome arises, it's because some new feat is happening that is outlandish or you've just accomplished something enormous, and everybody is giving you accolades, and you're like, ‘I don't even know how I did that,” she observes.

She says the key to dealing with these bouts of uncertainty is to give yourself a beat and reflect. “There are certain situations that just arise that make you question who you are,” she says. That’s where stepping back is key: “What are the conversations I have with myself? Why am I stymied from moving forward? Why am I allowing these certain situations to impact how I feel and view myself?” While imposter syndrome doesn't necessarily go away, Hunter says taking a moment to comfort your inner self can help you go after the things that really matter.

Hunter says her first lessons in being open to change — and seeing how that can take your life in a positive direction — came in college.

The Power of 51��Ƶ-Dearborn

There were glimpses of Hunter’s adventurous leanings even when she was a kid growing up in Detroit. Afternoons were spent on her bike, riding around the neighborhood and occasionally tackling jumps off dirt ramps. Family vacations to Cedar Point were a childhood treat, and Hunter relished the mixture of joy and fear she felt riding roller coasters. “I feel like I had a really great childhood,” she says. “I grew up with very little, but I always felt so loved, wanted and cared for.”

Between bike rides, Hunter was drawn to writing. In the fourth grade, she won a schoolwide writing contest. “That was the first time I felt like I was really good at something,” she says. The writing bug stayed with her in college. “I think you tend to pursue those things which you really feel that you’re good at and that you also enjoy. I went down that trail for a minute, including at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn,” she recalls.

Her decision to attend 51��Ƶ-Dearborn was an easy one. “I always wanted to be part of the Michigan family,” she says. After visiting both the Ann Arbor and Dearborn campuses and weighing the associated costs of both school and living expenses, she says that Dearborn was the winner. “It's a nice opportunity to develop and grow on a smaller campus,” she says. “I just think that Dearborn is so cool — we're close enough to Detroit, so we have that flavor, and we're close enough to Ann Arbor where we can get a taste of that environment.”

As a first-year student, she was awarded a bank-funded scholarship that provided a four-year tuition award in exchange for interning. Throughout her schooling, Hunter balanced a full class load with 20 hours per week at the bank. The internship made her consider a career in business, but she felt conflicted. “I just didn’t like it,” she recalls.

While talking with her political science professor, Helen Graves, Hunter confessed that she wasn’t happy studying business but felt like she needed a career that would make money. Graves, who retired in 1995, pointed out how well Hunter was doing in political science and suggested focusing on that. “She counseled me and said, ‘You can go in so many different ways with this: You can go into law, you can go into journalism, if you want to reevaluate and go into business, give yourself a beat to assess what’s really best for you,’” Hunter remembers. That conversation gave Hunter the permission she needed to follow her passion and reinforced the importance of trusting yourself.

After graduation, Hunter thrived in various careers, including journalism and banking, and she eventually made her way back to business. She earned her MBA from Lawrence Technological University and today is a marketing and public relations specialist for the City of Birmingham, as well as the president of Lyons, Hunter Media Group.

She has continued to be involved with 51��Ƶ-Dearborn since graduating. In the past year, she was the master of ceremonies for the Alumni Difference Makers Awards and she serves on the Alumni Society Board. Her gift of service reflects her appreciation for her undergraduate experience.

“I look at all of the values and mission that represent what 51��Ƶ-Dearborn is and what it meant to me, and it just really has shaped who I am as a human being, being on that campus,” Hunter says. “And because I value the programs that they have, I value the professors, the teaching, the knowledge base that is there, I feel like being involved with the board is a form of paying it forward.”

As for her adventures with the Dare Divas, the group is committed to both intrepid, physical activity and thoughtful acts of service. Last year, the group went to Africa and volunteered their time and resources to the children and caregivers in a local orphanage. “Wherever we go, we don’t want it to just be a place where we go there, do an activity and leave,” says Hunter. “We hope that when we leave, we’re leaving something that will be meaningful to the community.”

Story by Sarah Derouin

Alumni Engagement

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

Off

Wed, 11/06/2024 - 17:36

Sheri Hunter, ’89 alum, shares her insights on the power of adventure and the importance of giving yourself space to grow.

Sheri Hunter's book "Daring to Live: How the Power of Sisterhood and Taking Risks Can Jump-Start Your Joy” was recently optioned by Amazon Films. Photos courtesy of Sheri Hunter

News

‘Let’s save our families’

stuxbury — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 13:49:50 +0000

‘Let’s save our families’ stuxbury Mon, 09/30/2024 - 09:49

Looking for a place to eat in Detroit that shows off some local dishes? Carlos Parisi — Detroit-scene food enthusiast, entrepreneur and 51��Ƶ-Dearborn alum — has several.

“If you want a good coney dog, go to Duly’s Place; it’s a classic dinner that hasn’t changed much since the 1960s. If you have a pizza craving, head to Michigan and Trumble; it’s a perfectly baked square pizza full of flavors that work,” said Parisi, a 2011 College of Business grad. “Mike’s Famous Ham Shop is where to go for a sandwich and soup. It’s purely a Detroit original.”

And if you want great chips and salsa while supporting a 51��Ƶ-Dearborn business, give Aunt Nee’s a try. A staple at Detroit’s Eastern Market and available for purchase in specialty grocery stores, the business strategy behind Aunt Nee’s started in the university’s Fairlane Center South Building.

Parisi, who was born in Mexico City and raised in Detroit, and fellow College of Business student Pat Schwager were at an American Marketing Association meeting together and began discussing their situations at home. It was during the 2008 recession and both of their families had experienced job cuts. They wanted to save their families from home loss and other financial issues.

Parisi recalled that Schwager said his mom, Lydia Alcala-Schwager, made salsa that everyone loved. Known in her family as Aunt Nee, she sold spice packets at local markets and street fairs. So the Dearborn Wolverines — both of whom grew up cooking authentic Mexican food with their parents — thought of ways they could upscale her home-based hobby. “We were these students who were like, ‘we know how to do sales and marketing, we love food and we’re Mexican. Let’s save our families’,” Parisi said.

Through Aunt Nee’s, that’s exactly what they did. “We knew we had a great product. We got advice from professors. We went door-to-door, store-to-store, basically everywhere to get our salsa packets in front of people. We built connections from the ground up,” said Parisi, whose company transitioned to making fresh salsa a few years later. “When we were still students, we got our product into (stores in) 25 states. Our business saved us.”

Schwager ultimately went on to pursue other interests, so today Parisi is the sole owner. In addition to his business, Parisi has branched out into other ways to celebrate food.

Parisi — who gained exposure through podcasting, networking and his social media accounts — is a regular correspondent on the HBO Max show “What Am I Eating?” with actor Zooey Deschanel. He hosts the YouTube-based Chef RV, where he travels the nation in a camper van, gets tips from highly-rated restaurant chefs where he stops and cooks their signature dishes in his RV kitchen. Parisi partners with other Michigan-based chefs to create fusion-style dishes — for 313 Day this year, he and restaurateur Omar Anani, who has Palestinian and Egyptian heritage, partnered to make tacos Árabes as a nod to the history of Arab-Mexican food influence in the region.

Parisi is also in the 51��Ƶ-Dearborn classrooms, working with students. For the past three years, he’s been a regular in Business Administration Lecturer Tim Davis’ entrepreneurship classes. “It’s important to provide our students industry-focused experiences to show them the problems and solutions they may encounter,” said Davis, COB’s Experiential Learning and Engagement assistant dean. “Partnering with Carlos and Aunt Nee’s for project-based learning courses gives our students even more than insider information on how a successful business is run — it’s also a catalyst for inspiration.”

Earlier this year, Parisi worked with “Business Policy and Strategy: 441” students on a class project that explored the most efficient and cost effective distribution systems for Aunt Nee’s. Parisi said he enjoyed hearing the students’ fresh perspectives and sharing his story with the class.

“When I was a student at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn, I don’t remember talking about what previous alums did — but I’ve since learned there are a lot of successful entrepreneurs that have come out of 51��Ƶ-Dearborn,” Parisi says. Additional 51��Ƶ-Dearborn-alum businesses include Litter-Robot, Pop Daddy Snacks and Huda Beauty. “As a young business owner, it was always really cool to see and talk with people about why they started their business, their challenges and what they’ve done to find success. Hearing from others has helped drive focus and growth in myself. I want students to see what’s possible.”

Parisi said he also wants students to realize they don’t have to know exactly what they want to do now — but he does want them to see that to be successful, there is a love that needs to go into a product or service and it needs to make a mark in the community. He said you also need to be ok with “living life like every day is a fire drill.” “Thick skin is needed. Take in criticism, but know when to take it to heart and when to let it slide off. Even when you think you are doing everything right and everything you can, there is always a need to regroup your strategy and hone it back in,” he said. “It’s hard work, but when you love what you do, it’s fun too.”

Parisi said his professors at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn helped prepare him for where he is today and he gave shoutouts to Marketing Associate Professor Crystal Scott, Accounting Lecturer Susan Baker and Business Administration Lecturer Mike Callahan, who retired in 2020. He also said student organizations like the American Marketing Association and Students in Free Enterprise helped him better understand how businesses are run. The student orgs also connected him with life-long friends.

When it comes to joy and success, Parisi said it can be found anywhere — but the roots of his are right here in, and at, Michigan.

“It’s seeing the faces of people who try my chips and salsa at Eastern Market. It’s giving local recommendations when friends come into town. It’s about being your authentic self and making a living at what you love to do,” Parisi said. “My mom raised me as a single parent and wanted the best for me. She thought a Michigan education was the answer and 51��Ƶ-Dearborn gave me the opportunity to stay close to home. I wouldn’t be where I am today without 51��Ƶ-Dearborn. It left a mark on me so I could go out and make one in my community.”

Story by Sarah Tuxbury

Alumni Engagement

College of Business

Off

Mon, 09/30/2024 - 13:49

During the recession, alum Carlos Parisi launched a business plan for Aunt Nee’s salsa in a College of Business classroom. He credits his continued success to a love of food, family and Detroit, as well as his 51��Ƶ-Dearborn education.

Calos Parisi sells Aunt Nee's chips and salsa at Eastern Market on Saturdays. Photos by Sarah Tuxbury

News