Aaron Hughes, a Media Studies and Journalism major, has been admitted to the 2023 Dow Jones News Fund Internship program (DJNF). He will create multimedia content from May to August for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a 2019 Pulitzer Award winner for breaking news reporting.  

Aaron is the first EMU student who has won the prestigious internship opportunity with DJNF in the last decade. Aaron started his professional career in journalism as an opinion writer for The Eastern Echo in freshman year and moved his way up to managing editor. He has also worked as a freelance journalist with magazines and blogs. This summer, Aaron will be tasked with editing content, grammar, style, and punctuation on all of the Gazette's print and digital platforms and designing papers and other forms of visual media. 

DJNF is a national internship program of excellence dating back to 1960. Each year DJNF recruits about 100 college students across the country and provides them with advanced hands-on training, industry mentors and a robust peer, and alumni network. Interns attend one-week training programs before reporting to work in paid internships at top media companies for 10 to 12 weeks. Weekly salaries start at $525. Interns who are enrolled full-time or graduates with federal loans are eligible for $1,500 scholarships. The application is usually due in November. 

Please direct questions about the DJNF internship or other internship programs to Dr. You Li, advisor for the Journalism and Media Studies program. 

Biochemistry major Syed Wasiuddin and Journalism major Ameera Salman have been elected Student Government President and Vice President. 

"I just want to be more inclusive, representing all of campus, using my major as a STEM person to better advocate for all of campus," Wasiuddin told the Echo. "I was born in Dearborn, first generation American citizen, my parents were Indian immigrants, so a lot of seeing them as pariahs after 9/11 has really shaped my view of how we have to advocate and represent ourselves the best."

The Echo reported that Salman wants to bring her perspective as a queer person and Palestinian-American to Student Government. "Having a passion for being involved on campus is really important to me so I think working towards that goal of just making this a place that everyone loves is definitely a top priority."

The College of Arts and Sciences is pleased to announce that the following students have been awarded CAS scholarships for the 2023-24 academic year. The College congratulates these students on their records of academic achievement and community leadership.

Alyssa Adam 

Benjamin Bertrand

Richard Cole

Caleigh Crandall

Carol Detary

Hana Finder

Coreena Forstner

Hatim Hussain

Robyn Kalnasy

Anne Leach

Holly Louria 

Kyle Martin

Sean McCormick

Marcus Mendez-Gibson

Tessa Olthoff

Briana Render

Faith-Destiny Robinson

Sarah Shafi

Samson Shofoluwe

Lindsay Timbs

Undergraduate Symposium Scholarship recipients will be announced later this spring.

At the 27th annual Student Gold Medallion Awards on March 28, five CAS students were recognized for their outstanding contributions to the University:

• Rylee Clairday, undergraduate in Psychology: Outstanding Volunteerism by a Student 

• Amy Coomer, undergraduate in History: Outstanding Professionalism by a Student Employee

• Kifaya Nabilsi, undergraduate in Neuroscience: Outstanding Leadership

• Panida Khuansanguan, undergraduate in Biochemistry: Outstanding Mentorship

• Camila Henriquez Mora, graduate in Applied Economics: Outstanding Mentorship

In addition, COE grad student Lindsay Schimler was granted the Gold Medallion Award for Outstanding Professionalism by a Student Employee for her work as a graduate assistant in the Francine Parker Advising Center.

Rosie Friend, a Physics Research major, has been selected as a 2023 Barry Goldwater Scholar. This year, 413 scholars were selected after a careful review of 1267 nominations from 427 academic institutions across the nation. Rosie's application was supported by classroom, research, and service mentors. She says, "The application process was fairly intense because of the main research essay/personal statement. I had to go through several drafts…but it was well worth it! I found out that I got it when I was at the Undergraduate Symposium…and I was really thrilled."

Rosie works hard in the classroom and has special interest in laboratory work and astronomy. Physics and Astronomy faculty member Dr. Jon Skuza tells about Rosie’s thoroughness in PHY 372 Modern Physics Lab: "Rosie's lab notebook was complete with observations, as well as laying out full calculations (e.g., uncertainty propagation)." This effort demonstrates achievement of the course goal of developing core research skills.

Rosie is active in research, working with Physics and Astronomy faculty member Dr. David Pawlowski to computationally model features of the Martian ionosphere that are observed in measurements made by the Mars Express orbiter. She presented a poster at the 2022 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, and also at the 2023 EMU Symposium. She will continue this research during Summer 2023. 

Finally, Rosie also serves the local and EMU community by regularly volunteering to run or assist presentations at the EMU Planetarium when school groups come to visit, and helping fellow students observe the night sky during weekly Astronomy Club meetings at EMU's Sherzer Observatory. Norbert Vance, the Director of the EMU Planetarium, says, "…we need her energy in the ranks. Not once have I seen Rosie in a sour mood nor disappointed. You are always greeted by a smile and can-do attitude. She works around roadblocks and works well with others."

The University recently granted faculty and staff awards to seven CAS community members in recognition of their outstanding achievements.

Three CAS professors received the Ronald W. Collins Distinguished Faculty Award, the University's highest award for faculty members:

• Adam Briggs, Psychology: Distinguished Faculty Research Award I

• Michael Foster, World Languages: Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award I

• Beth Henschen, Political Science: Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award II

Krithika Prakash, lecturer in Psychology, received the EMU-FT Part-Time Lecturer Teaching Award.

Three CAS community members were awarded Staff Distinguished Achievement Recognition Awards:

• Norbert Vance, instrumentation specialist, Physics and Astronomy: Community Engagement and Service

• Jeffrey Bernstein, director, Bruce K. Nelson Faculty Development Center: Outstanding Innovation

• Gregg Heinrichs, academic advisor, Francine Parker Advising Center: Student Engagement and Success

The National Art Education Association has named Dr. Cam McComb, Associate Professor of Visual Arts Education, as the recipient of the 2023 National Art Educator Award. This prestigious award, determined through a peer review of nominations, recognizes one NAEA member for extraordinary achievements and service of national significance during previous years. The award will be presented during the NAEA National Convention in San Antonio, April 13-15, 2023. 

NAEA President James Haywood Rolling, Jr. states, "This award is being given to recognize excellence in professional accomplishment and service by a dedicated art educator. Cam McComb exemplifies the highly qualified art educators active in education today: leaders, teachers, students, scholars, and advocates who give their best to their students and the profession." 

Founded in 1947, the National Art Education Association is the leading professional membership organization exclusively for visual arts educators.  

Since 2006, a fungal infection called White-nose Syndrome has decimated bat populations in North America. Bridge Michigan reports that a discovery by world renowned bat researcher Professor Allen Kurta gives reason to believe that some bat species may escape extinction. Kurta found that for almost a decade a colony of more than 20,000 little brown bats at Tippy Dam on the Manistee River has coexisted with the fungus, which kills bats by disrupting their ability to hibernate. Kurta and his colleagues are seeking to determine why.

One hypothesis is offered by Haley Gmutza, a former EMU grad student who now conducts PhD research at Ohio State University. Bridge reports, "She theorizes the bats may benefit from the light that enters through the spillway's ventilation holes. In a darkened hibernaculum, bats lose track of time and their sleep-wake cycle gets out of whack. One may awaken at 2 a.m., while its neighbor snoozes until noon. But in Tippy, light exposure keeps the bats on a 24-hour clock. Waking up in unison is less 'energetically expensive,' Gmutza said, allowing bats to share body heat with their neighbors and burn less fat."

Kurta hopes that research will save North American bat species from extinction. "It’s just the fact that bats are such neat creatures in the world," Kurta said. "And it would be very, very sad to see them go."

Leading a team of colleagues and students, Chemistry Professor Cory Emal is developing a new way to analyze the unique chemical "fingerprint" of honey varieties. The goal of the research is a fast and robust test that will yield a detailed history and provenance of the sweet syrup.

Currently, it can be hard to verify claims on a label and there have been documented instances of honey fraud. A specific variety of honey can be adulterated with other varietals or even with corn or rice syrup. In one case, bees harvesting from the New Zealand mānuka plant made 1,700 tons of honey, but more than 10,000 tons of mānuka honey were sold.

Chemistry Professor Gregg Wilmes, Biology lecturer Maria Goodrich, and several students are collaborating on the research. Undergraduates Alia Frederick, Aubrey Martin, and Maggie McCullough came up with the best sample preparation method and ran the initial data collection on the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer. Grad student Justin Norris dug through the dizzying spectral data and figured out a good way to process the data. Norris also came up with an organizational method to sort data and start building the spectral honey variety library.

"Every molecule is going to have its own distinct pattern," says Wilmes. "What we are trying to do is use this to figure out the patterns in honey."

Governor Whitmer has appointed CAS alumna Anupam Chugh Sidhu (BS, Mathematics for Secondary Education, 1994) to the EMU Board of Regents for a term commencing March 23, 2023 and expiring December 31, 2030. 

Anupam Chugh Sidhu, of Canton, is currently the Secretary for Plymouth-Canton Community Schools Board of Education, and also serves on the Board of Directors for the Michigan Association of School Boards. Previously, Sidhu was the Region 20 Director for the Regional Educational Media Center Association of Michigan, the Instructional Technology Manager for Wayne RESA, and a math teacher. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Secondary Teaching Certificate from Eastern Michigan University and her Master of Education in Instructional Technology from Wayne State University. 

Sidhu told WEMU that Sidhu says she is excited to help her alma mater improve in a couple key areas. "As I look at what’s happened to Eastern since I left, we really need to look at increasing the student enrollment and graduation rates here and improving student support and experiences, as well as college affordability."

The History Section is proud to announce that it will present two alumni with awards at the History Honors Reception on April 12, 2023. The History Community Board selected the winners and is providing the awards. This is the first year that the board has awarded outstanding alumni for their achievements.

The winner of the Distinguished Alumni Award is the Honorable Dennis Hertel. Hertel was born in Detroit and earned a B.S. in History from EMU in 1971. He also earned a J.D. from Wayne State University before serving in the Michigan House of Representatives. In 1980, Hertel was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan’s 14th Congressional District as a Democrat. He served in the House from 1981 to 1993, during which time he was a member of the House Armed Services Committee, chaired the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee, and was Ranking Member on the Research and Development Sub-Committee. Since leaving Congress, Hertel has been Vice President of National Environmental Policy Institute and led the International Election Monitors Institute. He is currently a senior counselor with the Livingston Group. He remains active in Michigan political campaigns and lives in Harper Woods.

The winner of the Young Alumni Award is Ms. Sarah Jessup. During her time at EMU, Jessup served as President of Model United Nations and conducted original research on topics pertaining to Ukraine. In Summer 2020, she received the Title VIII Fellowship for Indiana University's Summer Language Workshop to learn Estonian. She graduated summa cum laude in April 2020 with a double major in History and International Affairs. After graduating from EMU, Jessup enrolled in the Erasmus Mundus Joint Programme of International Masters in Central and East European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies. She was awarded an EU fully-funded scholarship and graduated with distinction, receiving her master's in September 2022. She currently has a position at NATO ACT in the Office of the POLAD/International Affairs in Norfolk, Virginia.

Historic Preservation alumni Katie Delahoyde (M.S. 2022) and Luis Pena (M.S. 2021) are working with the EMU Archives to make the 51-year diary of Electa Jane (Jennie) Pease D'Ooge more accessible. Jennie Pease D'Ooge (1857-1937), whose husband, Benjamin, was a professor of Greek and Latin at the Michigan State Normal School, kept a diary from 1886 until her death in 1937, chronicling daily life with a keen eye and sharp wit. Jennie Pease D’Ooge’s diary entries include the everyday activities of her husband and their four children, travels to Europe, family vacations to Charlevoix, and socializing with other Normal School faculty (she mentions meeting music professor Frederic Pease—no relation—who insisted they must be related). In addition to recording her life in Ypsilanti, she notes the impact of major national and world events as well as the minutia of life at the turn of the 20th century. Each diary includes family photographs, clippings, fabric samples, and other items deemed important for her to save in the pages of her diaries. Shortly after she first began recording in her diary, Jennie noted: "Now I have commenced, I am a little ashamed of keeping a record of such un-important events; but perhaps, sometime I will be glad to look back to this happy time." We are grateful she did so; these "un-important events" are rarely recorded. 

Working with University Archivist Alexis Braun Marks, Katie Delahoyde and Luis Pena are transcribing D'Ooge's diary and creating descriptive metadata, so that more people—including CAS faculty and students across disciplines—will be able to find and utilize this rich and strikingly modern historical resource. Scans of the diaries  are already available on the EMU Archives Omeka site, and transcriptions are being published on Omeka as they are completed. 

This project was possible due to a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant, administered by the Library of Michigan.

The EMU Choral Area and Symphony Orchestra will present their final concert of the year in a rare and exciting collaboration on Saturday, April 15 at 7:30pm in Pease Auditorium. The performance will include a variety of masterworks by renowned composers such as Brahms, Handel, Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Verdi.

This performance is free and open to the public.  For more information, contact Dr. Brandon Johnson.

The Philosophy Section of the Department of History & Philosophy hosted the 13th annual Undergraduate Conference in Philosophy on March 18-19 in McKenny Hall. The event was organized by Dr. John Koolage and a team of EMU students: Natalie Anderson, Kennedy DeFrancesco, Linda Amarachukwu Ezikeoha, Josh Hunt, John Milkovich, and Edgar Vasquez. 

The conference featured participants from eight universities who traveled from seven states and Canada to attend and contribute. Papers were accepted by anonymous peer review. Sessions addressed a range of philosophical topics and students presented in formats aligned with national conferences in philosophy, reflecting a model of reasoned and rational conversations around contentious topics.

The 2023-24 McAndless Distinguished Professors will be the Formosa Quartet. 

The Formosa Quartet is an American string quartet hailed for their "spellbinding virtuosity" (BBC Music Magazine), "technical brilliance" (Classic FM), and "dazzling tone" (Charleston Gazette). Committed to an insatiable search for the fresh and new in string quartet expression, the Formosa Quartet gives performances that "go beyond the beautiful and into the territory of unexpectedly thrilling" (MUSO Magazine). 

Since winning the First Prize and Amadeus Prize at the 10th Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, the Formosa Quartet has performed at major concert venues including the Smithsonian, Taipei’s National Concert Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, and the Kammermusiksaal at the Berliner Philharmonie. For two decades and counting, the ensemble has sustained a vibrant career using the string quartet as a vehicle for advocacy, storytelling, community-building, and innovation. The Formosa Quartet's commitment to arts advocacy and diversity, starting with its founding members' interest in championing Taiwanese music, particularly traditions of Indigenous cultures, has since expanded to include the exploration of rich folk traditions and heritages found in America today. 

For their McAndless residency, the Formosa Quartet will be at EMU March 31-April 6, 2024. The School of Music and Dance and the EMU Foundation are seeking funding to add another week of residency earlier in the Winter 2024 semester. In 2023-2024, the Formosa Quartet will be launching the "American Mirror Project," which examines perceptions and assumptions about American music and invites fellow musicians, students, and educators across disciplines in the humanities to broaden ways in which they mirror America in their own creative practice. By nature, such an examination is deeply inclusive of each and every voice in America. The project’s inspiration and namesake is "American Mirror" by composer Derrick Skye, a piece that, in Mr. Skye’s words, "reflects on the coming together of cultures in our society, which consists of many generations and descendants of refugees, immigrants, and enslaved people, and how intercultural collaborations are essential to the well-being of American society." Initially conceived as a Formosa Quartet program offering, the American Mirror Project has expanded to include dialogue and collaboration between FQ, composers, students, and educators across the country.

To explore the themes of the American Mirror Project, Formosa Quartet’s residency will include a series of conversations with students and faculty across disciplines at the College of Arts and Sciences, open rehearsals, and a culminating concert, which will be designed and performed in part by EMU students and faculty. EMU community members interested in participating in this programming or in integrating the American Mirror Project into their Winter 2024 classes are invited to contact Professor Deborah Pae and Associate Dean Jim Egge.

One of the premiere touring ensembles in the School of Music & Dance, the EMU Wind Symphony recently returned from their two-day regional concert tour. On April 4, they presented concerts for students and the community at Milford High School, Rochester High School, and a joint concert with the Troy High School Symphonic Band. On April 5, the Wind Symphony performed a concert at Berkley High School that included district middle school students, and a final concert at Port Huron Northern High School. 

Prior to the tour, EMU director of bands Dr. Mary K. Schneider stated, "Our EMU music students are the best ambassadors for all that is great about our university, and the Wind Symphony can’t wait to share some of its favorite performances from the past semester with new audiences. There will definitely be some special moments!"

On April 10 the Women's and Gender Studies Department and Community Board presented the 2023 Mary Starkweather Award to Senator Debbie Stabenow and former Ypsilanti Mayor Lois Allen-Richardson. The Mary Starkweather Award honors an outstanding woman from the local community who advocates for social justice issues and demonstrates traits of generosity, selflessness, progressiveness, and risk-taking. This award is named in honor of Mary Starkweather (1819-1897). In 1841, she and her husband, John, moved to a 160-acre farm which is now the campus of EMU. As an active women’s club member, her Ypsilanti city home became the Ladies Library in 1890, and in 1897, she funded Starkweather Hall on the EMU campus, now on the National Historic Register.

Debbie Stabenow made history in 2000 when she became the first woman from Michigan elected to the United States Senate. Today she is a key member of Senate Democratic leadership who is recognized for her ability to build coalitions and get things done for Michigan and our nation. She sponsored the Paycheck Fairness Act – which would help close the wage gap between men and women working equivalent jobs – and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which allows women who learn that they’ve been paid unfairly to have their day in court. She is a forceful advocate on behalf of civil rights, sponsoring legislation against hate crimes and racial profiling. Senator Stabenow has been a champion for LGBTQ equality her entire career. She is a sponsor of the Equality Act and helped pass the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act. For this work, she has received the NAACP’s Helping to Heal the Nation Award a 100% score from the Human Rights Campaign during the 114th Congress.

Lois Allen-Richardson was the first Black woman mayor of Ypsilanti. After serving on city council for twenty years, she became the mayor in 2020. An alumna of EMU, Allen-Richard received her BA in Social Work in 1965. During her time on city council and in the mayor’s office, Allen-Richardson adv0cated for the needs of Ypsilanti residents, including the large African-American population. As part of this, she worked with other city residents to create a Community Benefits Ordinance that requires developers to negotiate with representatives from the city in addition to city council. In 2022, the Michigan Legislature presented her with a tribute signed by Governor Whitmer honoring her work for the Ypsilanti community. She hopes that her legacy will be that "all she did was straight from the heart."

At the April 10 ceremony, the Women's and Gender Studies Department also presented the Department Member Service Award to Professor Kate Mehuron, and presented student awards to Jack Hoerle, Gia Born, Annabelle Rickert, Lenny Lamping, James Kirk, and Monioluwa Ogunleye.