External Relations

The 51��Ƶ-Dearborn website is making the jump to Drupal 9

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Jun 2022 19:46:13 +0000

The 51��Ƶ-Dearborn website is making the jump to Drupal 9 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/23/2022 - 15:46

This article was originally published on October 25, 2021.

For those of you who work as content editors for the 51��Ƶ-Dearborn website, you know that content management systems matter a lot. CMSs are the backend software platform you interact with on a near daily basis, as you strive to build smartly organized multimedia web pages that share vital information and stories about your part of the 51��Ƶ-Dearborn community. In almost every way, CMSs make routine tasks so much easier than the old days. In the pre-CMS era, even doing something simple, like creating a department web page or a news story, took some basic coding knowledge and maybe help from a web professional. With a modern CMS, anyone can quickly learn how to build and update great looking pages, without knowing a stitch of HTML. And that allows folks across the 51��Ƶ-Dearborn community to collectively share the role of creating our university website. Go team!

51��Ƶ-Dearborn’s content management system is Drupal, a powerful open-source CMS that’s a favorite of educational and government institutions, and version 7 has served us well for many years. Next month, though, we’re making the jump to Drupal 9, which Web Strategy and Services Director Laura Garling says adds important new features that both content editors and public users of the website will notice.

Improved navigation is one of the Drupal 9-related upgrades Garling is most excited about. For example, a student visiting today’s version of the Undergraduate Admissions page would find a left-side navigation menu that contains nine different main menu options, e.g. “Incoming Freshman,” “Transfer Students,” “Admitted students,” “51��Ƶ-Dearborn Admissions Blog,” etc. In the new version, Garling says each of the main menu options has the ability to open a collapsible set of more specific options. Click or tap “Transfer Students,” for example, and you’ll now get a sub-menu of relevant topics, e.g. “Apply as a Transfer Student,” “Will My Courses Transfer?” and “Meet Your Counselors.” This lets folks find the most popular resources much more quickly, without having to dig through a web page.

Check out the improved left-side navigation.

Garling says content editors are also going to love the new creative potential of Drupal 9. For example, there’s going to be more flexibility for organizing multimedia content, including new options for image sizing and alignment and for embedding videos hosted on the university YouTube channel. And the interface our content editors interact with is more efficiently organized (for the CMS geeks out there, Garling describes it as “more Wordpressy”), giving editors the ability to tweak content and page settings from a single screen. One other cool feature: Editors can now share unpublished versions of pages or stories with colleagues so they can get feedback before their work goes live. “We tried to be really responsive to the kinds of things our editors were asking for, and I think in general, folks will login and immediately see they have options that will make their jobs easier,” Garling says. “The platform will still be recognizable, which is important — you don’t want to change everything at once. But I think this sets the stage for doing a lot of fun and interesting things on the website that we couldn't do before.” Garling says they’ll have drop-in training sessions and written documentation to help content editors make the transition.

Preparing for this upgrade has been a huge team effort, and everyone on 51��Ƶ-Dearborn’s small but mighty web team has played an important role. Garling says Karen McCullough, who started at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn in March, provided some essential fresh eyes, especially on visual aspects of the project. Christina Hu came back from an unexpected leave and immediately jumped in to help take the project over the finish line. And Adam Zehel, who’s the marketing and communications specialist for the College of Business, took on some extra hours with the web team, providing an essential “insider’s perspective,” given his usual role as a content editor.

Look for signs of all their hard work when the Drupal 9-powered version of the 51��Ƶ-Dearborn website launches this November.

###

Story by Lou Blouin

Technology

University-wide

External Relations

Off

Mon, 10/25/2021 - 05:00

Content editors of the website, rejoice! An upgraded content management system is headed your way. Here’s why that matters (for all of us).

Graphic by Violet Dashi

Campus Colleagues: Rudra Mehta

tinahu — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 19:07:56 +0000

Campus Colleagues: Rudra Mehta tinahu Mon, 02/28/2022 - 14:07

Rudra Mehta hails from Mumbai, the New York City of India and a world away from suburban Detroit. But studying at 51��Ƶ-Dearborn was a natural choice. He has a bachelor’s in automotive engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University, and when he was looking for a master’s program, it seemed like a great fit to relocate to one of America’s hubs for mobility research. “I wanted to be a pilot when I was little, and I started diving into all sorts of aircraft and their engines,” he says. “From there, I got interested in automobiles and their engines, and that sparked something in me. Like, these things, they are incredible. I just wanted to study more about them.”

He loves anything and everything related to soccer and has pledged his allegiance to FC Barcelona. In his free time, he likes to game on his PC, compose music, and play the guitar and the keyboard. He loves rock music and is an avid Linkin Park fan, his favorite song being “What I’ve Done.” He also reads books, only hardcover, and is a huge Potterhead. The last book he read was “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Learning French.” Mehta attributes his inquisitive nature to reading a lot of encyclopedias growing up and is super curious about the working principles behind almost everything. This has also made him quite detail oriented.

Since moving to Dearborn, he has already made many friends, though this being his first international trip, he misses his family. It helps that he has enough things on his Google Calendar to keep him occupied for 30 hours a day. Mehta loves walking to get places — “this cold snowy weather adds to the fun of walking,” he says — and he enjoys taking in the scenes along downtown Dearborn’s stretches of Michigan Ave. He is not much of a foodie but loves to get ice cream at La Gelati. When he wants to get away from the concrete landscape, his favorite places are the Rouge River trail and the Henry Ford Estate.

As anyone who meets Mehta will figure out in a minute, he stands for kindness and inclusivity. “Diversity is obviously required but inclusivity is more important to me, as you can be as diverse as you want but it doesn't matter unless everyone is accepted,” he says. He can speak nine languages and has recently started learning American Sign Language.

He is quite excited about this new job as the editorial assistant at the Department of External Relations, where he writes about anything and everything that happens around the campus. He also looks forward to being part of the business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi, the 51��Ƶ-Dearborn Racing-Electric team, and the Michigan Journal.

###

Story by Ruthvik Sankar

Faculty and Staff

External Relations

Faculty Senate

Off

Mon, 02/28/2022 - 19:07

Meet our newest editorial assistant on the campus’ External Relations team.

51��Ƶ-Dearborn graduate student Rudra Mehta at one of his favorite new places in Dearborn, Avenue Brunch House on Michigan Avenue.

Campus Colleagues: Finding inspiration in history, writing and the Block M

stuxbury — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 02:59:07 +0000

Campus Colleagues: Finding inspiration in history, writing and the Block M stuxbury Wed, 12/01/2021 - 21:59

51��Ƶ-Dearborn Executive Writer Carl Paulus has a history with the University of Michigan. His family’s had football season tickets since the 1960s. Carl was in the stands when running back Tim Biakabutuka rushed for 313 yards and a touchdown, denying the Buckeyes a national championship and a trip to the Rose Bowl. (It’s a fitting memory to recall, considering our recent football Saturday win.) And he earned his undergraduate degree, studying history, from U-M before getting a Ph.D. from Rice University.

After nearly a decade working in politics at the nation’s capital — where history is made all of the time — Carl came back to his home state and the University of Michigan family in early 2020.

Get to know Carl, a Michigan alumnus, persuasive writer and civic-minded communicator, who works to inspire the leaders and best.

You’ve worked as a writer in Washington, D.C. for nearly a decade. In that time, you experienced two presidential inaugurations. What was that like?

“I was fortunate to land a job in the U.S. House of Representatives after graduate school. I eventually found myself working on presidential campaigns, in the Senate and eventually in the Department of Health and Human Services before coming home to Michigan. In my last political position, I focused mostly on the opioid crisis and lowering the cost of pharmaceuticals.

I got to D.C. right before President Barack Obama’s second inauguration. It was a big party atmosphere — kind of like a championship team parade. President Donald Trump’s inauguration was more formal, more tense. They both have very different styles. It was pretty amazing to be in D.C. for two inaugurations and see people get ready for them.

There are many good people in D.C. who are trying to do what they feel is best for our country. But during my last couple years there, I felt like the politics became a bit too toxic. When considering where we wanted to start a family, my wife Sarah and I jumped at the chance to move to Michigan. I’m glad we did. The timing was right for us.”

Is life in Michigan slower than it was in D.C.?

“It’s different, but not quite slower. We now have a 14-month old, so a lot of my non-work time is spent chasing him around.”

What’s your son’s name?

“William Quincy Paulus, his middle name is for President John Quincy Adams. John Quincy Adams had an epic post-presidency. After he ran for re-election and was defeated by Andrew Jackson, he could have stepped out of politics — he already served as the president. But he wanted to serve his country and the public. He was eventually elected to the House of Representatives where he fought against a ‘gag rule’ that southern Congressmen put it place to automatically table petitions against slavery; which he eventually helped get repealed. He stood against the Slave Power until he collapsed on the House floor and died shortly thereafter. John Quincy Adams showed that you don’t have to be the president to fight for your ideals. That’s important to remember.”

You have a deep interest in history. And you’ve done executive communications, which includes speech writing, for many years. In your opinion, who are some exemplary speech writers from our past?

“My wife Sarah is a historian who studies Abraham Lincoln, and we've often discussed his speeches. The beauty of his speeches is how masterful the language works both as read and spoken. President Lincoln had a unique ability to deploy wit, aspiration, joy or sobriety depending on the situation called for.

During the early days of the pandemic, I read Prime Minister Winston Churchill's speeches during World War II because of how he spoke about hope during a crisis. Churchill knew that the public needed messages of hope and he responded to that need in an authentic way.”

How did you know that a writing career was the right avenue to channel your interest in politics and history?

Cover of Slaveholding Crisis: Fear of Insurrection and the Coming of the Civil War by Carl Paulus, 51��Ƶ-Dearborn executive writer

“Nearing the end of my undergrad years, I was considering law school or a Ph.D. in history. I have always loved being creative, researching and writing. I had a great thesis adviser in undergraduate at U-M, (History Professor Emeritus) Mills Thornton III, who encouraged me to apply to Ph.D. programs and gave guidance about where to apply. It became one of those fork-in-the-road moments in my life and one of the best decisions I ever made.

I didn’t go to law school — which I sometimes think broke my mom’s heart — but it led me to Rice, where I wrote my dissertation that eventually became a book (The Slaveholding Crisis: Fear of Insurrection and the Coming of the Civil War, LSU Press) and led to a career in writing that I enjoy. The guidance I’ve been given and my experiences brought me to where I am today. I'm lucky. It's great to be a Michigan Wolverine.”

Faculty and Staff

External Relations

Staff Senate

Off

Thu, 12/02/2021 - 02:58

Get to know Executive Writer Carl Paulus, a Michigan alumnus, persuasive writer and civic-minded communicator, who works to inspire the leaders and best.

Photo of Executive Writer Carl Paulus and his wife Sarah and sone William Quincy