New research from Eastern Michigan University sociologist Grigoris Argeros and graduate student Jordyn Gerwig reveals that Oakland County’s standing as an affluent tri‑county community is more nuanced than commonly believed. Their findings, originally reported in The Conversation, are part of a larger study on socioeconomic patterns across metro Detroit and reflect variations beneath the county’s overall prosperity.

To better understand how conditions vary across communities, the researchers moved beyond county‑level averages. Their analysis uses a composite index combining indicators such as poverty, unemployment, median household income, occupational structure, and educational attainment. Housing characteristics, including home values, rent, and homeownership, were also incorporated to create a multidimensional measure of local socioeconomic status.

“Oakland County is far more varied than its reputation suggests, and prosperity isn’t evenly shared across its communities,” Argeros said. “These differences stem from a mix of development patterns, housing types, and local economic bases. Some areas have higher‑income households and strong professional employment, while others reflect older development and more mixed economic conditions. These disparities aren’t new, but they’re becoming more visible.”

Read the full EMU Today story.

Peter Blackmer, Associate Professor of Africology and African American Studies, has been appointed to a body to preserve the history of the Black Power Movement in Newark, N.J. In collaboration with the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), the Newark Think Tank will be responsible for guiding the development of a Memorial Park at 24 Rector Street in downtown Newark–the site of the 1967 National Conference on Black Power–and the hosting of the 2027 National Black Power Conference, marking the 60th anniversary of the landmark gathering.

Under the leadership of Junius Williams, Official Historian of the City of Newark, the Newark Think Tank will serve as a distinguished advisory body for the development of the Memorial Park and the planned 2027 National Black Power Conference. This group will ensure the project is anchored in the historic legacy of Newark, the authentic spirit of the 1967 Black Power Conference, and a true sense of the evolution of the concept of “Black Power,” as of 2027.

Read the full EMU Today story.

Eastern Michigan University is celebrating an unprecedented sweeping victory following last night’s 79th Annual Tony Awards in New York City, where EMU Theatre alumni collectively secured three Tony Awards in a single evening.

Alumnus Michael Page (BS, 2002, Theatre Arts and English Literature) achieved a rare double victory, securing his first two career Tony Awards. Page won Best Play as a co-producer of Bess Wohl’s Liberation—which also captured the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Drama—making Wohl only the fourth female playwright in Tony history to have her play receive the honor.

In a historic twist, Page shared his second trophy of the night with fellow EMU Theatre alumnus James Bolosh (BS, 1991, Communication, Theatre Arts, and English Literature). Both men served as producers on the sweeping Broadway production of Ragtime at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, which took home the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical.

The win marks the second Tony Award for Bolosh, who originally made university history in 2024 as EMU’s first-ever Tony winner for the smash-hit play Stereophonic. In addition to his big win for Ragtime last night, Bolosh was nominated for Best Musical as a producer for The Lost Boys and Best Play for Giant.

"To have our alumni walk away with three Tony Awards in a single night is a breathtaking, unprecedented achievement," said Jeromy Hopgood, Interim Director of the School of Communication, Media and Theatre Arts. "The immense success of Michael and James on theatre’s biggest night serves as an incredible inspiration to our students, and it vividly highlights the elite caliber of talent emerging from our performing arts community here at Eastern Michigan University."

Both alumni have leveraged their EMU training into prominent leadership roles in the industry. Bolosh continues a run of producing Broadway hits, while Page balances his independent production work at MWP Entertainment Group with serving as the Program Head of the prestigious MFA program in Performing Arts Management at Brooklyn College.

Update: EMU Today story

Ariel Mejia (MA, Africology and African American Studies, 2024) has been accepted into the Africana Studies PhD program at the University of Pittsburgh. Her admission includes full funding for five years, and she will begin her doctoral studies this fall.

Mejia earned her Master of Arts in Africology and African American Studies from EMU after completing a Bachelor of Arts in Global Studies and Social Impact with a minor in African/African American Studies at Grand Valley State University.

Throughout her academic and professional career, Mejia has demonstrated a commitment to scholarship and community engagement. Her experiences include contributing to urban farming and community food distribution initiatives, such as the GOOD LIFE Project in Baltimore, and serving as a college advisor in the Detroit area, helping students prepare for higher education opportunities. Her acceptance into a fully funded doctoral program reflects both her academic achievements and dedication to advancing the field of Africana Studies. 

College of Arts & Sciences alum Sean Newmiller (BS, Communication and Theatre Arts, 2009) has been selected for a new national initiative focused on helping more students succeed during their first year of college.

Sean Newmiller, chair of Lake Michigan College’s English, Communication and World Languages Department, has been named one of six inaugural First-Year Success Fellows by Strong Start to Finish, a national organization dedicated to improving student achievement in gateway English and math courses.

The fellowship recognizes educators who have successfully implemented proven strategies that help students complete key first-year classes and stay on track toward graduation.

At LMC, Newmiller helped lead efforts to place students directly into credit-bearing English courses while providing additional support when needed. The approach is designed to remove barriers that can delay academic progress and increase the likelihood of students earning a degree or certificate.

College officials say the recognition highlights both Newmiller’s leadership and Lake Michigan College’s commitment to student success.

Read the full story.

Eastern Michigan University’s GeoClub, the student chapter of the American Institute of Professional Geologists (AIPG), has been recognized as the 2026 AIPG Student Chapter of the Year, sharing the honor with Western Michigan University.

The national award recognizes student chapters that demonstrate outstanding activities, achievements, and contributions to the geoscience profession. In a letter announcing the award, AIPG President Charles W. Drake noted that EMU’s chapter “truly distinguished itself among all AIPG student chapters nationwide this past year.”

Led by faculty advisor Dr. Christopher Gellasch in the Department of Geography and Geology, the GeoClub provides students with opportunities for professional development, networking, field experiences, and engagement with the broader geoscience community.

For five days, May 18-22, students from the Preservation Studies program met with Alexis Braun Marks, University Archivist, on site at the Davenport Curtiss Home in Saline, Michigan. Field School, as it is known in the program, is a week-long intensive hands-on immersion into the work of preserving and interpreting historic sites; taking theory and putting it into practice. Field school typically focuses on buildings, the surrounding landscapes and the objects found inside. This year, field school was focused on an appraisal, temporary rehousing, and a processing plan for the archival materials found onsite. Students sifted through photographs, scrapbooks, school books, business ledgers, and the items people collect as reminders of a time and place.

The historic home located at 300 E. Michigan Avenue in Saline, Michigan was built in 1875 and has only been owned by two familial lines: the Davenport and the Curtiss families. The Davenport family owned the home until the 1930s when ownership transferred to Carl Alward Curtiss, a business associate. Many of the belongings of the Davenport families remained with the home, including business records for William Davenport and his descendants Beverly Davenport and Arthur Lynch Davenport in the forms of correspondence, photographs and blueprints. Those records we found in the carriage barn had likely not seen the light of day since they were moved there nearly 90 years prior. 

Each day the class gathered on the property, now owned by the City of Saline, to assess, inventory and make a plan for the next day. Working in groups, students inventoried and rehoused 46 boxes of materials that were found in file cabinets, J.L Hudson Department Store garment boxes, travel trunks and stacked loose on open shelves. Two primary working teams drafted appraisal reports and processing plans and presented Saturday morning to the committee appointed by Saline City Mayor Brian Marl. The committee, which is made up of interested community members, business owners, city council members and the mayor, spent the rest of their Saturday with College of Business professor Diana Wong to determine how the city will use the Davenport-Curtiss Home. Ultimately, eleven students discovered a panoply of oddities, persons of interest and created a path forward for the city. 

Watch the City of Saline Government reel.

Eastern Michigan University’s “Enlighten U” podcast, which supports students in navigating mental health challenges, has been ranked the No. 1 mental health podcast in Michigan and the top 90 Midwest health podcasts by FeedSpot, a content‑discovery platform. The podcast is co-hosted by Lolita Cummings, Professor of Public Relations, and Melissa Thrasher, EMU’s Executive Director of Media Relations and Social Media.

FeedSpot evaluated podcasts based on follower engagement, ratings and reviews, listener counts, posting frequency, and overall influence within the Michigan mental health space. The recognition highlights “Enlighten U’s” growing impact as a resource for students seeking accessible, relatable conversations about well‑being.

“Being included among the top mental health podcasts in Michigan is an honor," said Professor Cummings. "It reinforces the importance of making mental‑health conversations approachable and reminds us why this work matters to our campus community.”

Read the full EMU Today story.

Over the last year, the EMU Geoscience program has made strides to meet the needs of our students and prepare them for the challenges and opportunities our graduates will face upon finishing their studies. Careers in Geosciences and Hydrology are growing and typically only require a Bachelor of Science degree for entry into lucrative and satisfying careers. Beginning Fall 2026, EMU students interested in careers in Geoscience can enroll in the newly revised Geosciences Major or the Water Quality or Landscape Dynamics concentrations in the Environmental Science and Society Interdisciplinary Program (ENVI). 

Past efforts are beginning pay off, too, and we are thrilled to share these successes with the broader EMU community: 

• The EMU GeoClub (Photo 1) was named the Student Chapter of the Year for 2026 by the American Institute of Professional Geologists! EMU GeoClub student leaders, Alexander Bashaw, Vanessa O’Brien, Alex Smith, and Joshua Dominick facilitated the club’s busy schedule this year with field trips, outreach events, research conference presentations, career panels, and fundraising. 

• Associate Professor, Dr. Eric W. Portenga started a four-year, $396,000 research project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through their EMpowering BRoader Academic Capacity and Education (EMBRACE) grant scheme. Portenga’s project, Dating ice retreat and advance along the lobate southern margin of the Laurentide Ice Sheet with terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides, will reconstruct the glacial history of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. Portenga’s award has supported renovations to the Earth Science Support Lab (see below), helped kick off the Great Lakes Earth Exchange speaker series (see below), and will support paid research opportunities for eight current or future Geoscience students. 

• In May, EMU Geosciences opened the doors on new and refurbished facilities in the Mark Jefferson Science Complex. The Earth Science Support Laboratory (ESSL, Photo 2) has been used by the GeoClub and served as storage for thousands of rock, mineral, and fossil samples used in the classroom (Photo 3), but the ESSL lacked basic equipment for whole-rock processing required for research purposes. Following renovations, Geoscience faculty can now cut, crush, grind, sort, and physically and chemically isolate specific minerals from rock and sediment, a routine endeavor for much Geoscience research.  

• EMU Geosciences hosted its first year of the ongoing Great Lakes Earth Exchange speaker series (aka the GLEE Club), which brings graduate students and professionals from Geoscience-related fields, who are studying at Great Lakes universities, and doing Geoscience research in the Great Lakes region (Photo 4). The GLEE Club is supported by the NSF through Dr. Portenga’s EMBRACE Award. GLEE Club talks are open to the public, and future talks will be posted to the EMU Events Calendar. 

• The Geoscience program launched its inaugural Alumni Advisory Board, currently made up of a panel of EMU Alumni working in various sectors. The Advisory Board will provide critical feedback on EMU Geoscience offerings and guidance to ensure our graduates are well prepared for existing and future careers and who can facilitate networking opportunities for our students. 

• Two EMU undergraduate students, McKenzie Hatfield (ENVI Geoscience) and Hannah Brunton (Professional Geology) received competitive research grants through the Michigan Space Grant Consortium (supported by NASA). Both of EMU’s recipients focused on Geoscience related projects and are working with Geoscience faculty, Dr. Eric W. Portenga and Dr. Hannah Blatchford. McKenzie Hatfield’s project is the first to take advantage of the new ESSL facilities (Photo 5). 

• EMU Geoscience faculty have numerous publication successes this year in top journals in their fields (Blatchford et al. (2026) in Lithos, LoDuca (2025) in Journal of Paleontology, Portenga et al. (2025) in Geomorphology). There were also student-authored papers, published undergraduate research findings in journals of the same, if not higher caliber: Allen and Gellasch (2026) in Environmental & Engineering Geoscience, and Shepherd et al. (2025) in Earth Surface Processes & Landforms.  

Our revised Geoscience majors and new Alumni Advisory Board align directly with EMU's push for student-centered support, opportunities, and career readiness. Additionally, upgrading the Mark Jefferson Geoscience facilities means we can do more research on-campus with students, which increases the likelihood of successful external funding for research for years to come, thereby translating EMU's emphasis on high-impact, practical education into meaningful results for communities beyond campus. We, as Geoscience faculty, are confident that our accomplishments and those of our students over this last year will raise the profile of Geosciences at on campus and turn EMU into the first-choice institution for Geoscience students across Michigan.