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CAS Student Highlights
CAS Student Highlights
CAS Students to Present Their Research at the Undergraduate Symposium This Friday, March 25
CAS Students to Present Their Research at the Undergraduate Symposium This Friday, March 25
The 42nd annual Undergraduate Symposium, a one-day event filled with presentations of scholarly and creative projects by our undergraduate students in collaboration with their faculty mentors, takes place Friday, March 25th at the EMU Student Center. The presentations, posters, performances, and exhibits illustrate an impressive level of research and accomplishment as a result of these academic mentorships. Hosted by CAS, the Symposium features presentations from all five EMU colleges.
Although this year's event is on campus, some event highlights will be livestreamed for those who cannot attend in person.
Vocal Performance Major Dominque Cooper Wins EMU’s Barry Manilow Competition
Vocal Performance Major Dominque Cooper Wins EMU’s Barry Manilow Competition
Dominique Cooper, a senior majoring in Vocal Performance, was recently named the winner of the Barry Manilow Competition in the School of Music & Dance.
Cooper is a vibrant and creative Vocal Performance major at Eastern Michigan University. While pursuing her Bachelor of Music Arts degree, she has been involved in various performances, from playing "Mama Bear" in Opera Workshop's Goldi and the Three Singing Bears, to traveling the west coast and singing Witness with the EMU choir.
In 1983, Mr. Manilow established the Barry Manilow Endowed Scholarship Award at Eastern Michigan University’s Department of Music. The scholarship is one of several awards to outstanding music departments in locations where Mr. Manilow performs on a regular basis. Each academic year, EMU’s School of Music & Dance hosts a competition where full-time students of all instrumentations perform for a panel of distinguished jury members and the general public. The winner receives a $1,000 scholarship award to support their studies at Eastern.
Economics Student Odia Kaba Is Chosen for Two Selective Academic Programs
Economics Student Odia Kaba Is Chosen for Two Selective Academic Programs
Odia Kaba is making the most of her college experience. A member of the Honors College majoring in quantitative economics, Kaba has eagerly pursued summer academic opportunities, landing spots in two selective programs in as many years.
Kaba took part in the Keith Sherin Global Leaders Program, hosted by the Council for Opportunity in Education (COE). Originally scheduled to be held at the University of the Hague, Netherlands, the 2021 version ended up being virtual, but Kaba made the most of that, too. This summer will be traveling to Prinston to take part in their Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) Junior Summer Institute Fellowship.
World Languages Major Seth Nisley Wins Prize at the 2022 Michigan Japanese Speech Contest
World Languages Major Seth Nisley Wins Prize at the 2022 Michigan Japanese Speech Contest
Seth Nisley, a junior in the Japanese program, won the 2nd prize, university level, at the 2022 Michigan Japanese Speech Contest. Nisley's speech titled "The Importance of Spending Time in Nature" gave the audience and judges much to think about during the current situation of pandemic.
The contest was organized by the Consulate General of Japan in Detroit and was sponsored by the Japan Business Society of Detroit, the Japan America Society of Michigan & SW Ontario, the Japanese Teachers Association in Michigan, and the Japan Foundation in Los Angeles.
During the intermission of the contest, the Japanese Students Association (JSA) of EMU performed Bon Odori dance.
Kristeana Banks Chosen for Public Policy and International Affairs Program Junior Summer Institute
Kristeana Banks Chosen for Public Policy and International Affairs Program Junior Summer Institute
Kristeana Banks, a junior majoring in Political Science, has been chosen for the 2022 Public Policy and International Affairs Program (PPIA) Junior Summer Institute at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
The 7-week, graduate-level preparation program for students committed to public service careers, the PPIA Junior Summer Institute (JSI) was established to address the lack of diversity in professional public service. JSI fellowships are designed to prepare students for graduate studies in fields including public policy, public administration and international affairs.
Art Education Students Present at the 2022 National Art Education Association Conference
Art Education Students Present at the 2022 National Art Education Association Conference
In early March, Preservice art teachers April Embury and Amy Skidmore joined art education professor Dr. Cam McComb in presenting at the 2022 National Art Education Association Conference held in New York.
Their presentation, "Using Visual Journaling to Cultivate Preservice Teachers' Professional Voice," demonstrated how visual journaling can help those training to be teachers to develop their own voice as they visually contextualize responses to course readings through their own beliefs and lived experiences. The School of Art & Design is proud of these two leaders and commend them for having been invited presenters at this prestigious conference.
April Embury and Amy Skidmore
Ari McCaskill (left) and Paul Thomas (right) following their thesis defenses on March 8, 2022. Photo: Peter Blackmer
AAAS Hosts First Thesis Defenses of MA Program
AAAS Hosts First Thesis Defenses of MA Program
On March 8, two Masters students in the Department of Africology and African American Studies successfully defended their Masters Thesis projects. By defending their theses, Ari McCaskill and Paul Thomas became the first two students to complete the thesis-track of the MA in Africology and African American Studies. Ari McCaskill’s thesis, "African American Women and Tenant Management of Public Housing: A Case Study of the Stella Wright Homes," explores tenant organizing in the era of Black Power during the longest public housing rent strike in the nation’s history. Through a case study of Newark, NJ, Ari shows how poor and working-class Black tenants blended grassroots militancy with political savvy as they successfully fought for community control of public housing from the high-rises to City Hall to Washington, D.C. Paul Thomas’s thesis, "The Roots and Influences of Radical Black Women in the 21st Century," examines the roles and contributions of radical Black women in the fight for Black liberation from the Civil Rights Movement through the Black Lives Matter movement. Paul’s thesis offers important context for understanding the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement through a genealogy of Black women activist-intellectuals who have carried the torch of Black radicalism across generations of struggle. The Master of Arts in Africology and African American Studies was established in fall 2018.
EMU Dance Students Perform at American College Dance Association Conference
EMU Dance Students Perform at American College Dance Association Conference
Thirteen dance majors and minors participated in the American College Dance Association Conference at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. The three day conference consisted of master classes (up to four a day), four adjudicated concerts, informal concerts, and presentations. EMU Dance performed twice in the concerts presenting guest artist Barbara Selinger's original work, "Transcending," and guest artist Joori Jung's work "Before Sunrise." Professor Sherry Wilkinson presented her scholarship on ballet pedagogy and the Franklin Method. Both Jung's piece and Selinger's piece will be performed as part of the Annual Faculty and Guest Artist Dance Concert in Pease on April 8 and 9 at 7:00 pm.
EMU Dance students Jaiden Kruse, Leann White, Isabelle Royston, Catherine Zochowski, Alyssa Vermette, Mackenne McKnight, Libby Perugi, Kelly Clair, and Jon Bargas
History Grad Student Connor Ashley Discusses the Veterans History Project with Fox 2 News
History Grad Student Connor Ashley Discusses the Veterans History Project with Fox 2 News
History Graduate Student Connor Ashley was featured in a Fox 2 News story about the recent gift of Veterans History Project oral history recordings to the University Archives. As an Archives employee, Ashley has worked to catalog the donated materials, cross-reference them with those already available at the Library of Congress, and digitize the videos.
"All of the digitized items are available either on our website or on YouTube Channel - Eastern Michigan University Archives - and we’ve created a web page," Ashley said.
CAS Faculty & Staff Highlights
CAS Faculty & Staff Highlights
Assistant Professor Caralee Jones-Obeng Investigates Racial Discrimination
Assistant Professor Caralee Jones-Obeng Investigates Racial Discrimination
Dr. Caralee Jones-Obeng, Assistant Professor of Africology and African American Studies, recently published an article entitled, "Does Racism Discriminate? Racial and Ethnic Discrimination among Nigerians and Jamaicans in Houston, Texas,” in the Journal of Black Studies. This article explored the role of racial and ethnic discrimination for Black immigrants in the United States. While numerous studies have looked at Black immigrants’ experiences with racial discrimination, few studies have examined the role of ethnic identity in Black immigrants’ experiences of discrimination. Drawing from 47 in-depth interviews with Nigerian and Jamaican respondents, Dr. Jones-Obeng explored their experiences with racism and ethnic discrimination. The study found that Nigerian and Jamaican respondents had similar experiences with racial discrimination. On the contrary, ethnic discrimination differed among the respondents based on their ethnicity.
Dr. Peter Blackmer Speaks at Wayne State University and University of Michigan
Dr. Peter Blackmer Speaks at Wayne State University and University of Michigan
AAAS Assistant Professor Peter Blackmer delivered two public lectures at neighboring institutions in February. On February 10, Dr. Blackmer gave a talk based on his current book project at Wayne State University, titled "One Night in Harlem: Riots, Reform, and Repression at the Dawn of Black Power." The lecture was hosted by the Department of African American Studies as part of their Black History Month Lecture Series. On February 25, Dr. Blackmer spoke about his community-driven scholarship in Newark, NJ and Detroit, MI as part of a symposium hosted by the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Michigan, titled "Humanities-in-Recovery: The Case for Engaged Scholarship."
CAS Alumni Spotlight
CAS Alumni Spotlight
EMU Chemistry Alumnus Wins 2022 Alumni Achievement Award
EMU Chemistry Alumnus Wins 2022 Alumni Achievement Award
Prof. Hrant Hratchian (B.S. 2001) has been awarded the 2022 EMU Alumni Achievement Award. He graduated cum laude with a degree in Professional Chemistry from EMU, followed by a Ph.D. in theoretical chemistry from Wayne State University and a postdoctoral fellowship at Indiana University. While at EMU, he pursued several research projects under the guidance of Profs. Milletti and Brewer.
Prof. Hratchian spent the first part of his career as a Research Scientist at Gaussian, the foremost computer software provider for computational chemists. In 2013 he joined the Chemistry Department at the University of California – Merced, the youngest and most diverse University of California campus. He has since received tenure and has been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor. He has served in a number of leadership positions at UC Merced and was recently appointed Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
During his time at UC-Merced, Prof. Hratchian has obtained several grants, totaling more than five million dollars. Most impressively, he has been awarded a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant from the National Science Foundation. He has authored and co-authored more than 50 research publications to date.
CAS Events
CAS Events
EMU Theatre Presents The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
EMU Theatre Presents The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Eastern Michigan University Theatre presents The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, a musical comedy that centers on a fictional spelling bee set in a geographically ambiguous Putnam Valley Middle School. The book is by Rachel Sheinkin with music by William Finn and conceived by Rebecca Feldman. This production is directed by Pam Cardell with Music Direction by R. MacKenzie Lewis.
Performances take place in the Legacy Theatre April 1, 2, 8, 9, at 7 p.m.. and April 3 & 10 at 2 p.m. To purchase tickets in person please visit the EMU Ticket Office in the Judy Sturgis Hill Building, home of the Legacy and Sponberg Theatres. Ticket office hours are Monday-Friday, noon to 5 p.m. and 90 minutes prior to show times. Tickets are also available by phone at 734.487.2282 or online.
For more information about EMU Theatre, our season, and directions to our theatres, visit www.emich.edu/emutheatre, fan us on Facebook: Eastern Michigan University Theatre; or follow us on Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat: @emutheatre.
Victoria Burton-Harris to Deliver the 2022 Olga Madar Endowed Lecture
Victoria Burton-Harris to Deliver the 2022 Olga Madar Endowed Lecture
Victoria Burton-Harris, Chief Assistant to the Washtenaw County’s Prosecutors Office, will speak on "Women Organizing to End Mass Incarceration." The talk will take place at 7:00 pm, Monday, March 28 on Zoom.
Prior to her current position, Victoria Burton-Harris was a prominent defense attorney and activist. Before going to law school at Wayne State University, she studied Political Science and African American Studies at the University of Michigan. Her work as a defense attorney included work at the state and federal level in cases covering numerous issues including domestic violence are murder. When Victoria started her law firm, she had the vision of being a "people's lawyer" and using her law degree to be a vehicle for change. After many years of defending clients against over-charging, excessive bail, and prosecutorial vindictiveness, Victoria realized that her efforts to end mass incarceration as a "people's lawyer" would never be sufficient. She believes that only with a progressive prosecutor can real criminal justice reform take place. In this talk, she will explore the work women can and have done to end mass incarceration.
This talk is presented by the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, the Department of Political Science, and the Women of Color Feminisms and Leadership Symposium.
Philosophy Hosts 12th Annual Undergraduate Conference in Philosophy
Philosophy Hosts 12th Annual Undergraduate Conference in Philosophy
Organized by a team of Philosophy majors, minors, MA students, and faculty, the EMU Undergraduate Conference in Philosophy (UCiP) took place March 19th-20th. The conference was once again held in-person in the Student Center after taking place on Zoom last year.
The conference was a terrific success. Featuring papers from across the philosophical landscape, the conference offered some of the world’s newest philosophers an opportunity to showcase their skills, build on their own creative work, and learn to construct philosophical knowledge together. Since its first year in 2011, the UCiP has become one of the most prominent undergraduate philosophy conferences in North America. This year, the conference drew student presenters from more than 20 universities around the world, as far away as India and Australia.
EMU students organized almost every dimension of this event. Thank you to our student organizers—Natalie Anderson, Zachary Tobias, Omar Khali, Candice Wiesner, Noah Cross, John Milkovich, Kennedy DeFrancesco, Mac Neaville, and Drew Garcia—as well as the faculty mentor of the UCiP team, John Koolage!
Q&A with Keynote Speaker Bethany Ball to Follow Symposium
Q&A with Keynote Speaker Bethany Ball to Follow Symposium
The College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Women's and Gender Studies invites you to a post- Symposium talk + Q&A with novelist Bethany Ball, the Dennis M. Beagen Keynote Speaker for the 42nd annual Undergraduate Symposium. This event will take place on Friday, March 25, 2:30 P.M. in the Student Center Auditorium.
Bethany Ball is an EMU alumna whose work has been published in The Common, BOMB, New York, The American Literary Review, the Detroit MetroTimes, Electrical Literature, Zyzyvva, and Literary Hub. Her novel What To Do About the Solomons was published in 2017 by Grove Atlantic. It was shortlisted for the 2017 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and was a runner up in the Jewish Book Council’s debut fiction prize. Her second novel, The Pessimists, published in October of 2021, was named a 20 books to read in Fall by the New York Times.
EMU Bands Hosts Great Lakes Concert Band Festival
EMU Bands Hosts Great Lakes Concert Band Festival
Eastern Michigan University Bands welcomed 11 high school bands to campus on March 18, 2022 for the Music for All Great Lakes Concert Band Festival. The event included guest clinicians Rodney Dorsey, Craig Kirchhoff, Margaret Underwood, and H. Robert Reynolds, and featured performances by the EMU Wind Symphony and these high school bands:
Redford-Thurston High School
Grosse Point North High School
Jefferson High School Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble
Woodhaven High School
Manistee High School
Traverse City West Senior High School
Detroit County Day Upper School
Traverse City Central High School
Cousino High School
Tri County High School
CAS Program Highlights
CAS Program Highlights
Arts Management & Administration to Unveil New Branding and Updated Website
Arts Management & Administration to Unveil New Branding and Updated Website
The Arts Management & Administration Program will be the first CMTA program to completely rebrand their social media accounts and website. This project has been completed and lead by undergraduate student Olivia Robinson, with the help of graphic designer Claire Moore and and photographers Andrew Fogle, Sophie Swift, Caitlyn Elenz, and Kaitlyn Streets.
The Arts Management & Administration Program brings together a diversity of students from a variety of arts interests which creates a truly unique educational journey.
The full project will be unveiled at the 42nd Undergraduate Symposium this Friday, March 25th.
Connect with CAS
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