August 6, 2025

Faculty are testing new approaches, students are engaging earlier, and AI is reshaping everything from assignments to academic programs. This month, we highlight how UMSI is evolving classroom experiences, centering ethical and experiential learning, and meeting the moment with curiosity, creativity, and care.

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July 9, 2025

Planning, preparation, and purposeful design take center stage in this edition of the ADAA newsletter. From innovative teaching strategies to reimagined classrooms and summer programming that supports student transitions, each spotlight offers a look at how UMSI is building strong foundations for the academic year ahead.

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June 9, 2025

This month’s issue underscores the critical role of engaged learning and relevant research in reaffirming the public value of higher education. Cliff shares reflections on community-based learning and student development. Additional features highlight Matthew Bui’s work on data justice, ongoing civic tech collaborations through CUTGroup, and the growing impact of the REDP research program.

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May 8, 2025

In this month’s newsletter, Cliff reflects on the momentum of the past year and the work ahead as we prepare to move into our new home at Leinweber and continue expanding innovative, student-centered learning. Additional highlights include a Q&A with Professor Emeritus Paul Conway on building effective instructional teams, a feature on expanded professional development for GSIs, and student reflections from EXPO.

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April 2, 2025

In this inaugural issue, Cliff reflects on UMSI’s long-standing commitment to civic engagement as part of the U-M Year of Democracy. Additional features include an overview of UMSI’s new Human-Centered AI minor launching in Fall 2025, and a spotlight on the new Auto UX certificate program, designed to equip students with in-demand skills at the intersection of mobility, technology, and user experience.

To submit a topic, article, or event for a future issue, please email: umsi.adaa@umich.edu.

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January 29, 2025

What do you teach? What is the top learning goal for that class?
I teach the special topics course, SI 611.114: Advanced Automotive UI Visual Design. The primary goal of this class is to teach the visual principles of automotive UX design through practical exercises. Students will learn to apply purpose-driven design in the context of automotive UI, focusing on essential visual components such as typography, color, proportion, hierarchy, and layout. Additionally, the course covers the core concepts of UI kits and design systems, using Figma as a primary tool.

The course also emphasizes creating high-fidelity UI graphics within the context of clusters and integrated center stacks, preparing students to design cohesive and functional automotive interfaces.

How and when did you start teaching at UMSI?

Winter 2025 marks my first semester teaching at UMSI. I was introduced to this wonderful opportunity through a former colleague who is now part of the UMSI faculty. I’ve been deeply impressed by how warmly the faculty and students have welcomed me and by the passion and dedication everyone brings to UMSI.

What’s your favorite thing about working with UMSI students?
I’m enjoying the diversity of backgrounds among UMSI students, ranging from design and engineering to psychology, as well as their enthusiasm to learn and grow. I’m also incredibly appreciative of the genuine support I’ve received from faculty, HR, and IT, who made my onboarding process seamless and stress-free.

What’s your deal?
I’ve evolved from being an industrial designer specializing in car exteriors and interiors to becoming a UI visual designer, and eventually, a Creative Director at General Motors. I am passionate about bringing ideas to life with empathy, strategic vision, and a deep understanding of business dynamics. With my industrial design background, I aim to create designs that seamlessly blend physical and digital experiences, believing that their integration is a cornerstone of modern design.

As Creative Director at GM, I led the successful launches of groundbreaking vehicles, including the award-winning Cadillac Lyriq and Hummer EV. I’ve also taught at Lawrence Technological University for many years, where I guided students toward becoming successful designers in the industry.

What’s something you want folks at UMSI to know about you?
Just like my design background, my personal journey spans multiple countries and cultures. I grew up in Seoul, Korea, attended high school in Dublin, Ireland, and pursued mechanical engineering at University College London, England. After a few years, including military service, I shifted to studying design at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California.

Being exposed to diverse cultures and experiences has helped me build stronger empathy, and my journey of switching between entirely different fields has given me valuable insight into what it takes to adapt, grow, and thrive in new disciplines.

January 21, 2025

What do you teach? What is the top learning goal for that class?

I am currently teaching SI 511 - Management of Analytics Teams (MAT).  The class is based on my 2nd book – Building Analytics Teams.  The concept underpinning the book and the class is that analytics teams are more like a salon of artists than a regular technology or project team.  The top learning goal is to begin to teach students to appreciate and to amplify the unique aspects of analytics teams to drive change and transformation.

How and when did you start teaching at UMSI?

Winter 2025 is my first semester teaching at UMSI.  I have long admired Michigan in general and over the past 5 years, I have learned how unique UMSI is.  I am very excited to teach both undergraduate and graduate levels.  It is a true joy to be on campus meeting with students, alumni, faculty, and administrators. 

What’s your favorite thing about working with UMSI students?

I love their unbridled curiosity and willingness to jump into a discussion about almost any topic.  I have engaged with UMSI students for a few years now, but outside of campus.  A couple years ago, we hosted a capstone project with UMSI UX students.  The project was a huge success.  The students brought a whole new level of energy, excitement, and unique ideas to the project.  Our employees were really drawn to the students and the outcome truly improved the software product we were working on.

What’s your deal?

I grew up in Clifford, Michigan.  I went to school in Marlette.  I received my BS from Ferris State in Computer Science.  I think I was one step removed from an abacus at that time.  Prior to college, I was an automotive and diesel mechanic.  I never intended to go to college, but after a year of working, I thought I would give it a try.  I found that I was naturally drawn to programming and computer science.  I have spend the last 38 years building analytical systems and writing books.  I have worked in 20 different industries across the world.  I am publishing my 5th book now – The Path to AGI (Artificial General Intelligence).  My whole adult life, from a professional perspective, has been about solving interesting problems with data and analytics.  My wife and I are about to celebrate our 30th anniversary.  We have two children; a son who is 27, and our daughter who is a UMSI graduate, is 25.

What’s something you want folks at UMSI to know about you?

I love to help people.  I want everyone to understand and feel comfortable with Artificial Intelligence (AI), data, and analytics.  I am a nerd for sure.  Being from Michigan, I love cars, motorcycles and birds.  And while not really a Michigan thing, I love rockets too.  I am so very pleased and excited to be teaching at UMSI, it is truly a dream come true.

January 20, 2025

What do you teach? What’s the top line learning goal for that class?

I teach SI 511: Applied Visual Storytelling, a course designed to help students craft compelling, visually engaging narratives. The top learning goal is to empower students with storytelling and visual design skills to communicate their ideas, whether through presentations, branding, data visualization, or other mediums.

How and when did you start teaching at UMSI?

I began teaching at UMSI in January 2024. I was drawn to this opportunity because of the program's interdisciplinary focus and its talented, creative student community.

What’s your favorite thing about working with UMSI students?

My favorite part of working with UMSI students is their curiosity and collaborative spirit. They constantly introduce me to new tools, workflows, and perspectives that enhance not only their work but also my own. I especially enjoy the thoughtful conversations we have about how storytelling intersects with their professional projects and goals.

What’s your deal?

I’m based in Ann Arbor and run a design consultancy that helps organizations bring their missions to life through creative visual storytelling. Whether it’s a website redesign, brand refresh, or marketing campaign, I strive to make ideas tangible and engaging. Outside of work, I’m passionate about graphic novels, hiking, and analyzing the storytelling techniques in my favorite films.

What is something you want folks at UMSI to know about you?

At UMSI, there’s often an expectation (especially in UX) to aim for roles at large companies like FAANG. I encourage students to think beyond this and explore other fulfilling career paths, including entrepreneurship. Building my own business has allowed me to work on projects I’m passionate about, with clients I admire, while designing a career that aligns with my values. If you’re exploring your options or considering nontraditional paths, I’d love to chat!

November 18, 2024

OK, it's been a minute since I posted. This entry is related to undergraduate reactions to placing our BSI classes on central campus. We're collecting more systematic reactions, but these are some samples of thoughts of our BSI students.

Senior, dual degree student in UX and Organizational Studies with a minor in Entrepreneurship 

I think it’s extremely important for UMSI to continue to serve undergraduates on central campus. Since I’m completing a dual degree and a minor, almost every single one of my classes during my time at Umich have been on central campus. For students with dual degrees or minors, who already spend most of their time in classes on central, having undergraduate SI classes there just makes sense. Even without a dual degree or minor, the majority of undergraduate courses are on central, so it’s just the most convenient place for these classes to be.

As a freshman, I lived in a central campus dorm and took introductory SI courses, like SI 106 and SI 110. If these classes had been on north campus, it would have made my first-year experience less convenient and possibly even discouraged me from exploring the SI curriculum. Now, as an upperclassman living off-campus but within a short walk from the Diag, having SI classes on central campus has helped me feel connected to the overall Umich undergraduate community and experience. Central campus is where most undergraduates are, and where I spend time with friends and participate in clubs and extracurricular activities. Keeping UMSI on central allows us to stay close to the social and extracurricular life that is such a significant part of the undergrad experience at Umich. 

I am excited that UMSI will have a home on North Campus because it will really help bring the UMSI community together in a shared space and designated building. I think having a UMSI home will help bring faculty, staff, and students together and will facilitate more collaboration. With that being said, I am glad that the undergraduate courses will still be on central campus because the BSI students will still have access to the North Campus space, but will have the convenience of taking their classes on central where the majority of the undergraduate community and experience is. 

I also have several friends who are not SI students, but have taken the classes for fun or even to complete a UMSI minor. I don’t know if they would be interested in taking these classes or pursuing the minor if the courses were not on central. From my experience, undergraduate students want to be on central and don’t want to worry about taking the time to take the bus throughout their day. And I personally want to be on central because that's where my friends, my activities, and my classes are, and that's where I really feel connected to the UMich undergrad experience. 

Junior, Major: Information Analysis, Minor: Digital Studies

I think it is extremely important for UMSI to continue to serve the BSI undergraduates on Central Campus. While UMSI as a whole is moving to North Campus, most BSI undergrads are located on Central Campus and have other classes (outside of SI) that are located on Central. For this reason, in my opinion, it is imperative that office hours are still available on Central Campus, in person, or offered online (Zoom) so that BSI students still have access to these. While it is possible to commute to North, it often adds a 30 minute commute (both ways). This is something that is not possible with my schedule, unless the office hours were offered in the evening. Even then, it takes a lot of extra time, and would be difficult to incorporate into my schedule, as someone who does not travel to North on a regular basis.

I am excited that BSI students will have a place to go on campus, to connect with UMSI students in all areas of the program. I am pleased to hear that UMSI is taking action to consider how to still serve BSI students on Central Campus. 

I want to emphasize the importance of a space for BSI students to work and connect on Central Campus. We are a smaller school here at Michigan and connecting as a cohort is something that I want to improve for the program. By allowing undergraduates to still be based on Central Campus, it allows a sense of community to foster between other students that are participating in SI courses and BSI students. My hope is that office hours can still be based on Central Campus, so BSI students can feel a sense of normality with the adjustments that they will have to make next year with UMSI moving. 

September 25, 2024

There are 50 incoming BSI new transfer students who started in Fall 2024. This is more than double the number from last year and represents some great efforts to reach this population of students. While all of our undergraduate students are coming to UMSI as cross-campus transfers or new transfer students, our new transfer student population comes from outside the University of Michigan. UMSI has recently grown the recruitment and admissions team working with new transfers. Special thanks to LeAnna Level and Morgan Gavorek who help students learn about UMSI through various recruitment opportunities, work hand in hand with students on their application materials, and ultimately help them achieve their goal of attending UM.

As incoming BSI new transfer students transition to campus life, UMSI offers a system of support called iSuccess. Special thanks to Libby Jones and the APSL team for leading this work. This program provides opportunities and connects students to resources and offices that will assist in meeting academic, personal, and professional goals. The program focuses on new transfer students in their first year at UMSI but all programming and support is available to any new transfer students at UMSI.

In general, transfer students at Michigan tend to be a little older and more frequently come from a background that  may be underrepresented in higher education. Their contributions in the classroom and to the UMSI community can bring new perspectives and enhance our impact.

Reaching and supporting new transfer students is a key tactic in supporting our UMSI value to reach diverse populations of students. So many other people are involved in helping these students be successful beyond the units named above including the DEI team who leads the Community College Summer Institute outreach program, CDO and ELO for targeted programming and support, and all of the instructors who go above and beyond helping new students transition successfully to the University of Michigan.

September 23, 2024

The weekend before last, we had a real treat of seeing our MADS students, amongst others, join us for events on Friday and Saturday.

The weekend was highly collaborative across several teams, with Allison Sweet, Kelli Lance, and Amy Homkes-Hayes leading the MADS on-campus experience, and DAR leading the Homecoming activities connected to the weekend.

Teams involved in leading the weekend: Student Life, Online Programs, DAR

Faculty lightning talk speakers during the MADS on-campus experience, which were also open to alumni included: Rebecca Frank, Yan Chen, and Jiayu Zhou. Rebecca spoke about using qualitative research to compliment quantitative research on evaluating deep fakes among nuclear disarmament experts. Yan Chen talked about the research she conducted with Alain Cohen on the use of social promotion for economic PhD students on the job market. Jiayu talked about using artificial intelligence in research on early diagnosis of Alzheimers. 

45 MADS students attended!

Homecoming details are with DAR, but anecdotally the homecoming tailgate was packed (Cliff was in attendance and can attest). Many MADS students attended the U-M football game right after, taking pictures of themselves in the Big House! 

Thanks to CDO, ELO, and DEIO for leading activities during the MADS on-campus experience. And MADSA for leading the “dessert crawl” around Ann Arbor on Friday night. Activities included community building with ELO, an introduction to DEIO, and a Designing Your Life experience with CDO. 

MADS students took a campus tour with Lauren Murphy as tour guide.

DAR facilitated a homecoming reception attended by MADS faculty, students in attendance for the weekend, staff, and alumni. Both Qiaozhu and Andrea gave remarks. 

Not only was this a very successful event, but it was a great example of teams working together to create a cohesive experience. Big thanks to everyone involved!

September 20, 2024

Just a short update, but I'm moving seriously into staffing the 25-26 courses with our lovely faculty. Last week we asked them to fill out their preferences. I have the list of courses we are going to teach next year, and I'll try to make the two match.

An important caveat to that is that this process will be continuously disrupted right up to the time that classes start. My goal is to get to 80% settled by the middle of October. We still have many uncertainties about both classes and faculty, but those are super manageable and we will take them as they come. It's an exciting year in this process in that we have so many changes especially in the undergraduate program. 

September 18, 2024

Congratulations to Paul Green for winning the Arnold M. Small and Betty M. Sanders President's Distinguished Service Award from the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society!

Paul is teaching his first class at UMSI this fall in Human Factors, but he's been around the university for a long time. He has served as a Research Professor for a long time in Industrial and Operations Engineering. We're excited that he beings his long experience in human factors to UMSI to share with our undergrads. For those that don't know, human factors and ergonomics are "mother" disciplines of UX, and bringing in some of that core knowledge will serve our students very well.

If you see Paul give him a congrats. I also recommend his acceptance video above, where I think he articulates very well why this area is such a great and vibrant area to focus on.

September 10, 2024

What do you teach? What’s the top line learning goal for that class?

I teach SI 379 - Building Interactive Applications.  My main goal is to enhance student ability to successfully function not only as an employee but as a consultant, analyst, designer, or other software-related role.

How and when did you start teaching at UMSI?

Although this is my first year teaching at UMSI, I have taught at several colleges.  UM happens to be geographically the closest to my home.  I reviewed UMSI course offerings and offered my teaching service to the school.

What’s your favorite thing about working with UMSI students?

I don't yet have much experience with UMSI students.  Given the range of student abilities I have taught at other colleges, I'm curious where the UM student is.

What’s your deal? (Where are you from, what do you do?)

I'm a graduate of UM and am happy to return to campus on the other side of the podium.  In my career, I have split time between academia and industry.  Currently, I'm mostly in industry.  I work full-time for zyBooks writing online learning material for the college classroom.  I enjoy the interactivity of teaching and would certainly consider a return to a full-time position doing so. 

What is something you want folks at UMSI to know about you? 

I love music including the sound of an electric bass so I've been learning how to play one.

September 4, 2024

I'd like to welcome Nikki Sunstrum as a new strategic advisor working out of the dean's office. She's going to help examine the feasibility of some long term plans, look at some change management, and help streamline some workflows in the ADAA office.

Not new to SI, Nikki has taught and supported multiple courses for us including 335 (Social Media in Organizations), 407 (User Experience Design), and 487 (User Experience Final Project). Prior to joining UMSI full-time, Nikki served as Assistant Vice President of Strategic Communications at Indiana University, leading risk mitigation efforts, institutional impact elevation, thought-leadership communications, social media, and video engagement. Some of you may have also crossed paths with Nikki during her tenure as Director of Social Media and Public Engagement here at U-M.

Give her the good old UMSI welcome if you see her around.

September 3, 2024

What do you teach? What is the top learning goal for that class?

I teach the special topics course SI 311.021 Intro to Project Management. The top learning goal for the course is for students to: have an awareness of core project management methodologies (like waterfall and agile), while also having an awareness of hands-on project planning techniques that can be leveraged to help teams define project requirements (the why, what, when, who, how much, and what if).

How and when did you start teaching at UMSI?

Fall 2024 is my first semester teaching at UMSI and I’m absolutely thrilled to join such a welcoming and impressive community of staff, educators, and students!

What’s your favorite thing about working with UMSI students?

I’m so impressed by the rich experiences the UMSI students have shared with me! Their involvement with university clubs and organizations, summer internships, study abroad, and a wide array of classroom curriculum has provided a strong and diverse foundation for them to build upon.

What’s your deal?

I’m originally from Saginaw, Michigan but have called Royal Oak, Michigan my home for the past 20-years. I’ve worked for over 20-years in the field of project management, including positions in video production, print production, event management, automotive digital advertising and marketing, and automotive product development. Since 2018, I’ve worked at General Motors in Warren where I’m a Group Program Manager in the Software & Services Design Ops organization, leading a team of program managers. Outside of work and teaching, I enjoy running, traveling, and of course, spending time with my family!

What’s something you want folks at UMSI to know about you?

I’m so thankful for this teaching opportunity with UMSI! Sharing my experience and passion for project management with students, and helping them build a framework around key project management principles and techniques that can be leveraged for success in both their academic and professional careers, has been a dream of mine!

Busy week! Somehow last week slipped away entirely between launching a class and doing all of the regular stuff as needs doing. It was so great to see folks at Convocation and the energy of that event was really positive and great.

One of the things I've been working on and need to finalize Banned Books Week planning. That is at the end of this month, and Todd Stuart has been incredibly patient in helping me think through the logistics of what to make actually happen. Hopefully, we end up with something cool.

If you have thoughts about that, or anything else to do with the university Year of Democracy - go ahead and grab me sometime to let me know.

August 24, 2024

As we prepate for the School's move to our new home in Leinweber, there will be many details to sort out and many pieces of communication to come out. The Leinweber Taskforce led by Erin will be ramping those communications up in the near future.

But one immediate piece to communicate is our strategy for managing our teaching spaces after we move out of North Quad. As many of you have heard, we're in a situation where we won't be able to fit all of our classes into our new space, especially our larger undergraduate classes. As an aside, I have a soft spot for those larger classes because a) I teach one, and b) they generate a lot of revenue. Yes, I'm shallow.

In discussions of how to make our classroom space work led by Trisha, Sally and Kristen, we looked at a lot of different models to determine which class goes where. What we ended up with as the most straightforward mechanism is to place all of our undergraduate classes on central campus and to have our graduate classes in Leinweber. This makes sense as we still recruit most of our undergraduates from central campus, and having our classes there will mean less travel for them. There is also slightly more flexible placement opportunities on central campus for these courses.

Doing this means we will also have to keep space for things like advising, office hours, student collaboration and all the myriad activities that support the classroom activities. We will maintain some of the space we lease on central - which is an active discussion we are having now. For example, we're looking at growth forecasts and trying to consider not just what space we'll need in 2025, but what we'll need in 2030. Of course, we also have to consider what all of that means in terms of costs and trade offs with other things we want to spend money on.

Some of you may remember the last time we rocked a duo campus model. I think this time will be slightly different. Our *home* will be Leinweber and that will be the center of our activities. But we also want to make the central campus experience like a second home for our students and build a space where our students feel a sense of community.

All of this planning is still emerging, but it's emerging quickly as next Fall is going to happen sooner than we can currently imagine. If you have thoughts about essential elements of culture or operations that you see as important in this decision making, ping me (Cliff) on any of the ten thousand channels I monitor. We all have a piece of the student experience, and I'm not foolish enough to think I have a line of sight on all aspects of that experience. I *am* foolish enough to think wearing weird sunglasses will make me look interesting - but that's another story.

August 22, 2024

Wow! I mean just wow. This week of orientation is wrapping up and I'm going to declare it a massive victory.

I was walking behind some students when I was leaving, and you could see friendship emerging. They were sharing name pronunciations, where they were from, what they wanted to do... connections that will help them throughout their program and further.

The work people put in for this week was a pleasure to behold. It was an all hands event, and everywhere I turned you could see people doing the work. Allison Sweet and the rest of APSL were expertly guiding and cheering the MSI, MHI and BSI students. The online programs team was working with the MADS students and helping them feel the sense of community. Amy Eaton was leading groups of PhD students around North Quad easing them with humor and warmth. Judy Schabel was helping new faculty of all types learn the UMSI way. Blair, Melissa and Anthea were working with the new GSIs helping them learn their new (and potentially overwhelming) role in the school.

And between all of those groups HR, ELO, CDO, IT and more units popped here and there helping orient, guide and assure. 

Thanks to you all for welcoming our new students this week. A strong start is essential to their experience and I see how much love and care you all put in to building that experience.

August 22, 2024

Starting this Fall semester, Scott TenBrink is moving to a full time Lecturer appointment and leaving his position at ELO. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank him for his service as a staff member. 

Scott started over ten years ago when I convince him to join the Citizen Interaction Design project (which was new at the time), as the Community Manager - helping me recruit and manage civic projects. He had a lot of connection in Jackson, and a degree in Urban Planning, so was a great fit for the program. We soon realized I needed him in the classroom to help me advise the students on their projects, and it turns out he had a knack for working with students. 

Scott has covered a lot of ground at ELO, and worked with a ton of students over the years. He helped launch and run CUTGroup and has run eleventy-billion design sessions over his years in the department.

While I'm glad to be getting Scott as a fulltime lecturer, it was clear at his going away party that his team will miss him as a regular co-worker. They spoke of his humor, his ability to build community, and to be reflective as characteristics they will miss. Overall, ten years is a good stretch, and I'm grateful for all of the work he has put into engaged learning.

August 20, 2024

Blair has served this past academic year as our Associate Director for Teaching and Learning and sadly for me she's moving on to a new and exciting position with CRLT. September 6 will be her last day.

Blair has had a remarkably effective year with the school. She's expanded and professionalized our training for GSIs, which will be extended to faculty this fall. She helped lead and establish the Course Assistants program, with almost two dozen new folks trained to support our teaching programs this year. She's also worked closely with our new accommodation testing group and supported their development this year - all amongst other efforts to serve the teaching mission of the school. She's had countless hours of consultations and interactions with staff and faculty amongst others and has made a real contribution to our school.

I'll miss working with her, and I think I join everyone in wishing her the very best in her next adventure.

August 20, 2024

What do you teach? What’s the top line learning goal for that class?

I teach various topics in data science, including machine learning, natural language processing, and network analysis. My primary goal is to help learners understand how their data collection, processing, analysis, and visualization decisions can significantly impact data interpretation.

How and when did you start teaching at UMSI?

Since 2022, I have taught MADS machine learning and social media analytics courses at UMSI.

What’s your favorite thing about working with UMSI students?

I have worked on research projects with over 30 undergraduate and graduate students from various departments across campus. UMSI students have been exceptional.

What’s your deal? 

I came to the U.S. in 2010 to study social networks in a master's program, where I encountered challenges with ambiguous names in co-authorship networks. This experience led me to pursue a Ph.D. in library and information science, addressing this issue using machine learning and natural language processing. Drawing on my research experience, I teach data science courses.

What is something you want folks at UMSI to know about you? 

There are more than 20 Jinseok Kims in academia worldwide. At one point, my Google Scholar profile mistakenly attributed every paper by 'Jinseok Kim' to me, showing that I had published over 300 papers with 10,000 citations. What a great situation that would be if it were true! Unfortunately, it isn't.

Cliff Note: Jinseok just transitioned to a Lec III position starting this fall! We are very excited about the contributions he is going to make across our programs.

August 19, 2024

What do you teach? What’s the top line learning goal for that class?

I teach MADS courses including Milestone 2, Data Mining I, and the upcoming new Python onramp course. I'm excited about the new Python course that will help students get up to speed with their coding skills before diving into MADS. I love to code and enjoy helping others discover how fun and rewarding coding is as well.

How and when did you start teaching at UMSI?

I am a MADS graduate from the first cohort and began assisting with courses in 2022.

What’s your favorite thing about working with UMSI students?

I enjoy working with students from such a wide variety of backgrounds and levels of experience. Many MADS students are already working in various domains of industry, and I enjoy learning from them about their fields of work.

What’s your deal? 

I live just outside Flint, Michigan with my husband and two kids: Hannah, 14, and Jude, 10. I'm a data scientist in the Prevention Research Collaborative at the School of Public Health and work on many projects focused on community violence prevention. I have a special interest in geospatial data science.

What is something you want folks at UMSI to know about you? 

I enjoy solving puzzles and reading sci-fi and fantasy books.

Cliff Notes: Rachel has been doing some great work in MADS, and will soon be teaching the new MADS onramp, which is a big lift. She's been a trouper!

August 15, 2024

What do you teach? What’s the top line learning goal for that class?

I teach Intro to Interaction Design, UX Capstone, and  Intro to Accessibility.

How and when did you start teaching at UMSI?

Dean Finholt invited me to a meeting during summer 2015.

What’s your favorite thing about working with UMSI students?

I love students’ curiosity and enthusiasm.

What’s your deal? 

I’m a home grown tomato from Michigan.  Until Fall 23, I worked in industry and my "hobby" was teaching Interaction Design at UMSI.  Now, I'm figuring out a new hobby.

What is something you want folks at UMSI to know about you?

As an undergrad at Umich, I drove the big blue bus my senior year.

When I started UMSI, my son was 4.5 months old; he is turning 20 in August 2024.

August 13, 2024

This topic isn't related to my admin work, but in parallel with all of the other things going on, I'm prepping to teach SI110 in the fall. I thought I'd say a few words about my process for that prep work. I know a lot of you also teach courses, and might have your own processes I'd love to hear more about.

For context, SI110 Introduction to Information is our undergraduate intro course that we teach in both Fall and Winter. It's currently a prerequisite to the major and the minor, though that will change for the major coming up. It's a broad survey class, and mostly filled with first-year undergraduates. We cover everything from UX and data science, to free speech, privacy, AI, and more. Here's a link to my draft for the 2024 topic schedule. It's the biggest class our school offers. I have 300 students with a waiting list for this fall.

I've taught SI110 a bunch of times. That makes preparing for it different than if it was a new class. Based on feedback and my recent experiences teaching it, I've changed the structure of the class pretty drastically this year - moving topics around and changing some topics based on the changing interests of our students. I've also made a lot of changes to assignments to respond to AI. SI110 is heavily "gamified" by which I mean students have a lot of choice in which assignments they do. My goal always is to have the whole course set from soup to nuts by the first day of class. In my experience, students hate when things change mid-stream.

The other big task this time of year is to set up my teaching team.  SI110 has me, three lecturers, 5 GSIs, 6 Course Assistants and 8 instructional aides. Many of those folks are new to the course and require training and support.  I have a guidebook for folks on my teaching team where I try to make everything clear.

So, that's the basics. I'm reading a ton to update the reading list, setting up systems and tweaking assignments all over the place. It's a ton of work - but hopefully leads to a very smooth and effective course.

August 8, 2024

What do you teach? What’s the top line learning goal for that class?

1) SI 311: Concept to Market: Foundations in Product Management

The goal is to prepare students with the strategic and practical skills necessary for digital product management by focusing on user-centric design, innovation, and business acumen to successfully plan, launch, and manage digital products across various platforms.

2) SI 311 155 Special Topics: CXD in the Automotive Industry:

The goal is to equip students with the skills necessary to design, evaluate, and propose innovative customer experience solutions in the automotive industry while creating value for businesses and consumers.

How and when did you start teaching at UMSI?

In the winter of 2022, an automotive colleague (Jim Rampton) and I were having a conversation about what the next decade of automotive and mobility needs to look like from a connected vehicle perspective and how the industry will require a much more advanced talent bast to achieve the progression. Our conversation drove us to craft a proposal for UMSI with 3 automotive courses focused on the new automotive digital ecosystems. With guidance, coaching, and support from UMSI’s leadership, we crafted and shaped our programs.

I began the first Customer Experience course in Winter 2023 but more importantly than when is why. We are on a mission to establish a top-tier, University of Michigan-based talent pipeline invigorated about the future of the mobility industry and make U of M’s students, graduates, and our institution itself the home for thought leadership and product design across the mobility space with an unwavering commitment to transformation.

What’s your favorite thing about working with UMSI students?

Watching the transformation / maturation of thought and work that progresses throughout the semester and invigorating the next generation of automotive thinkers.

What’s your deal? (Where are you from, what do you do?)

A Detroit native born and raised, I have been intertwined professionally in the automotive industry for generations. I have built teams and launched digital / physical products on a global scale, and I hold a profound belief in the power that people + passion = great products. I aim to inspire, guide, and help build the future of mobility and digital experiences.

What is something you want folks at UMSI to know about you? 

I believe in the power of human connection, the imminence of change, and the strength we gain from our family, friends, and colleagues to build a brighter future. I'm passionate about cultivating environments where people can connect, collaborate, and create meaningful solutions that drive progress. Whether it's through professional endeavors or personal interactions, my goal is to make a positive impact and encourage others to do the same. Thank you for taking the time to read. It is truly appreciated.

Cliff Note: One of the things I love about Bill is he is enthusiastic about the mission of UMSI and is a fierce advocate for the students. He's also a natural networker and great at connecting with people.

August 4, 2024

What do you teach? What’s the top line learning goal for that class?

I teach Games & UX and UX-Driven Entrepreneurship. In Games & UX, we explore ways to be a better player advocate by being critical about games, coming out of the course with a few portfolio pieces including game design documentation that you'll pitch to real local stakeholders - including a publisher. For the entrepreneurship course, we study how UX methods support startup success by putting customer problems & needs at the forefront while working with a startup client and creating a pitch deck by the end of the course.

How and when did you start teaching at UMSI?

I was introduced to the UMSI curriculum through the game dev community in Ann Arbor but had also been exposed to brilliant MSI students in the past through interesting client projects! I started teaching at UMSI in 2023.

What’s your favorite thing about working with UMSI students?

UMSI students are so multi-talented! I love chatting with students and seeing all the brilliant projects they're working on - whether they're professional ones like an interesting case study, or really cool personal projects like wood crafting.

What’s your deal? (Where are you from, what do you do?)

I'm originally from Ohio but have been bouncing around the Midwest for various endeavors - from product development to investment fund experience. I'm a Founder/CEO of a gaming startup based out of downtown Ann Arbor and we're part of the University's tech startup portfolio through the Desai Accelerator. If you'd like to chat about the University's or A2's entrepreneurial ecosystem, happy to connect over a nice cup of coffee at RoosRoast 🙌

What is something you want folks at UMSI to know about you?

I'm an entrepreneur & gamer at heart. Outside of planning social activities for my startup team, I love to spend my free time debating in a heated co-op board game session (Pandemic Legacy, anyone?) or pulling an all-nighter for an addictive video game!

CLIFF NOTE: Natalie teaches with me in SI110 too! She's very good at creating online experiences for that class. She also supports SI422 and Gabi threatened to end me if I tried to move her out of that class.

I'm the 3rd person to teach the world's 1st (and longest-running) graduate school course on information architecture: SI658 at UMSI, the top line learning goal for which is acquisition of tools for seeing, understanding, and recommending changes to the architecture of complex digital products and services.  

Amy Warner created the course while on the School of Information and Library Studies faculty in the late 90s. I got my start as a substitute lecturer for Peter Morville in 2003, and was brought-on to replace him (ahem!) in 2005.  

My favorite thing about working with UMSI students is the richness of difference among their points of view and life experiences.  So many of them are already "leaders and best" in some part of the technology industry, and the mindsets they bring with them to Ann Arbor are somehow simultaneously highly sophisticated and yet open and pliant and curious. 

My deal is that I work as an IA consultant, co-founded an Ann Arbor -based consultancy called The Understanding Group aka "TUG", and for the last 10 years or so have been in more or less constant conversation with IA pioneer Richard Saul Wurman, collecting his stories, getting his archives in order and will eventually write his biography.

Something that's good for UMSI folks to know about me is that I have an unlimited re-dos and audits policy for SI658 alums, and any time you see me teaching a workshop at a conference or class over ZOOM that you'd like to enroll in, I'll find a way for you to do that at no charge or at a reduced cost.

CLIFF NOTE: I know Dan from way back! When we were in high school we were in debate tournaments together and crossed each other's paths in the alternative music dance club scene. He's always been a very cool guy.

August 1, 2024

As I was working on lecturer reviews, I was reflecting on what a privilege it is to get to know so many of them - and that I was soemtimes the only person who had that opportunity. I thought it would be fun to start highlighting some of the lecturers who have been working with us. So, check out the upcomping posts to me the lecturers!

I sent a bunch of lecturers the following questions. I'm looking forward to seeing their answers.

What do you teach? What’s the top line learning goal for that class?

How and when did you start teaching at UMSI?

What’s your favorite thing about working with UMSI students?

What’s your deal?

What is something you want folks at UMSI to know about you?

July 30, 2024

Today's topic is something that doesn't affect a ton of folks at the school, but I thought it would be interesting to hear about - It's lecturer review time!

Everyone who teaches for the school gets an annual review of some type. Earlier this summer, the dean and associate deans did that for the tenure track faculty. Right now, me and Erin are in the middle of Lecturer reviews. The school has a total of 97 people people working in some type of lecturer role, all the way from adjuncts and intermittents who teach a class a year through Colleen, our sole Professor of Teaching. 26 of those lecturers received a fuller review from the Lecturer Review Committee earlier this year as they were up for promotions or regular reviews of some type. The other 71 people Erin and I each look at and provide feedback to. Some of these folks taught for us for the first time this past year, sometimes teaching for the first time overall. Others have been teaching for us for years and years.

What do we look for to assess how well everyone is teaching? Most everyone fills out an assessment of their own teaching, which we review. We look over syllabi, teaching evaluations, student comments, assignments, and any other evidence we have. The goal is to recognize good things where they are happening and to offer help where improvements can be made. It's a lot of work, but it's also a really good opportunity to see the remarkable effort so many people put into our students in this capacity.

The good news is that we are really doing well in teaching at the school. Students have problems with courses here and there, and we should always keep an eye on curricular improvements - but there's a remarkable dedication to teaching in our lecturer pool. They are reflective on how to improve. They work outside of class to support students. They seek outside opportunities for professional development. One takeaway I have from the exercise is that we can do more to onboard new lecturers, and help them get off the ground more efficiently. We'll think about how to do that and adjust to meet that goal. Overall, it is a pleasure to work with such a dedicated body of instructors.

Shout out to the HR team who help structure this process and have really improved the overall way we do this in the past year. They do an incredible amount of work to get the materials in shape for review.

July 25, 2024

President Ono has announced that this coming year the University of Michigan will have an emphasis on democracy and civic engagement. Across campus, different schools and units are gearing up for what that will mean in terms of programming, and we are no different.

We are still developing our plans for this emphasis year at the university, so if you have ideas let me know. We have some broad strokes plans, many of which are starting to come together as we race towards the new semester.

One thing I'm working on is a plan for Banned Books Week, which is the last week of September and which I at least see as deeply connected to the Year of Democracy. One idea I had was for us to drop temporary little libraries filled with banned books around campus. I ordered a sample model that might work for that purpose and put it out in front of my office if you want to take a look. I was thinking we could decorate them up (maybe each office gets one to decorate?) and then we have a school party to inscribe books to put in them.

I'm open to other ideas, and would love to hear what you all would want to have happen either for that week or more broadly for our students. Sometime soon I'll be sending out a list of currently planned activities. If you have something planned that would fit into that theme and think I may not know about it, please share it with me.

July 24, 2024

As hopefully everyone is aware, we are launching the new three-year BSI starting in Fall 2025. Of course, if we want students that Fall, we need to work a year ahead of time to get them, so plans are actively underway and many people are doing hard work to get us where we need to be in FS25.

Abigail McFee has recently published a nice article describing the program if you haven't seen it. A lot of work has had to happen to get us here. I want to particularly recognize Josh Lee and Tanya Rosenblat you really led the charge on this. Of course, many, many people also made this happen, and I hope we all get a chance to celebrate in the near future.

I wanted to use this post to talk a little more about the overall strategy and goal for the BSI, and where it might head in the future. I believe now more than ever that the future will require people who have both the technical and social skills to address thorny problems that the world will face. What we are doing well right now is teaching the social side of the equation, but my belief is we need to up the technical side. Our students can't just be those who describe the technology, they need to be able to make it. 

In my dream, our HCI students are better developers than CS students because they can code and they know how to apply it to maximum effect. Our data science students are better than the statisticians because they know which data really matters. In other words, they don't just know they context they know what to do to change the context.

With a two year degree, we just didn't have enough time to teach them everything they need to know to be the people we are trying to create. It could be that three years isn't enough either, but we'll see how we do and cross that bridge when we come to it. Now that we have more time with our students, we can work on the curriculum that we are going to need to be able to create students who will shape the future of information.

July 22, 2024

Something I've been working on for a while, and have described here and there, is my effort to enrich teaching teams in classrooms to provide better learning outcomes for our students. What does that mean though?

For a long time, the model we've had for a teaching team in the classroom is one Professor and one GSI (maybe), with the occasional support from instructional aides. This works in a lot of situations, but it doesn't fit every model of instruction we have. We've also for a long time thought about all of the tasks that go into teaching as one bundle, most of which was handled by the professor. The bundle includes preparing lectures, writing assignments, grading work, mentoring students, deadling with discipline, creating class activities, etc. When you start to unbundle the set of things that go into teaching a class, there's a wide range of different activities of different types to be supported.

So the new model I've been working on is to unbundle the tasks of teaching in a classroom, and to reassign those tasks to a wider group of "teachers" in the classroom. Professors, Lec 1s, GSIs, instructional aides, and a new category we've taken to calling "course aides". These are folks we hire hourly who are not students and don't already work for the university.

So I teach SI110, which is about 300 students this fall. I've divided up the tasks of delivering that class to a range of folks described above. Myself, the instructors, the GSIs, the IAs and the CAs all have different roles and tasks in delivering a top notch educational experience to students in the class. Some are grading, some run office hours, some manage online experiences, etc etc. 

The goal of all of this is to leverage the team approach to deliver better educational experiences to the students in the classroom - at a sustainable cost. Sure, I could put a dozen professors in 110 to get this same job done, but that wouldn't be good for the overall health of the school. The plan we have is maximum "juice/squeeze" ratio, though tweaking is always needed.

One potential downfall of this plan is that some of the people fulfilling these roles may be fairly temporary by their nature. GSIs and IAs roll through the program, and don't always have time to build the skills someone else has. By using Lec 1s and CAs (who are typically consistently tied to specific classes) we reduce the burden to deliver the course for the whole team and ensure more consistent quality semester to semester.

Another effort we have been taking is to train folks more. When I was a new professor, they just slapped me on the back and pushed me into the pool. As a Gen X kid, I was used to that. But, we can do better these days. Thankfully, Blaie Beuche has been working with me to set up a great set of professional development activities for people in our teaching galaxy. Working with Melissa Chalmers and Anthea Josias, she's really transformed how we train our GSIs. Paul Conway has been kind enough to spend some of his retirement working with Blair on a really excellent training program the CAs are doing this summer. 

I'm constantly checking financial models to make sure these diverse teams work out on the budget side. Next steps will be to see how they work in terms of learning outcomes and teaching team satisfaction as well.

July 19, 2024

One of the things we are exploring right now is new ways we can bring the excellent content we have at UMSI to a broader range of people. For the past ten years or so, we've pursued that goal largely through online education - MOOCs and MADS. Online education will continue to be an important area for us (check out a future blog post about some new plans for MOOCs), but there are other opportunities we can pursue.

A portion of this story lies with the UM Center for Innovation. As you may know, this is UMs big center they are placing in Detroit to, among other things, "bring together the best of the University of Michigan to catalyze economic development in the city of Detroit." In terms of academic programs, they are looking at Masters Programs and "workforce development programs" - which is something that is still emerging in meaning as far as I can tell. 

Most other programs are looking at Masters program so far. We can do that too. BUT ... the most interesting thing to me is this other layer of education. As I thought what might be interesting there, I keep coming back to "micro-credentialing". How can we create new forms of education that bring our content to a much wider, more diverse audience?

Micro-credentialing is sort of the wild west at the moment. I like to think of it as Bartertown if you are a Mad Max II fan. Lots of chaos, but also opportunity. Amy Homkes-Hayes shared this great article with me highlighting some of the issues. But as my personal hero Littlefinger says "Chaos is a ladder."

Kidding aside, I love the idea of offering short term educational opportunities to a range of people. Entrepreneurs, alumni, people working in our related industries, non-profit organizers, K-12 students, doctors, teachers ... in my head, the ceiling here is VERY high.  In my initial thinking, I'm imagining a wide range of opportunities from a day to a week. A mix of in-person and online. We can really get our pedagogical groove on.

Another evolution of this was that Jim Rampton ran into me at La Casa in Ann Arbor. We were chatting school stuff and from the conversation emerged the question: if we are developing these opportunities to host in Detroit, what's stopping us from offering them in other cities? Why not have these courses in LA, Chicago, NYC - or Shanghai? We have alums and friends in all of those cities, and the set up is not hard. In my day dreams,  we started to call this "UMSI on the Road". 

This is all still VERY early days. Happy to hear if you think this is a bad idea, or a good idea, or if you have a variation that you would like to have everyone consider. Personally, I think this could be an important evolution of UMSI.

July 18, 2024

As folks know (maybe), we are in the middle of the ALA accreditation process and in the spirit of "what is the ADAA up to?!" - it's ALA Weekend for me. Alissa Talley-Pixley, who has been doing champion work as the project lead for ALA has a great deck explaining the overall ALA process, so I won't replicate that. Instead, I'll share about where we are at the moment...

Over the Winter semester, the task force backed up by many, many people in the School created rough drafts of the ALA report, chapter by chapter. The overall chapters they want to know about are students, curriculum, and faculty. Within that, there is a ton of detail that folks here had to pull together and synthesize. As a reminder, this is only about the MSI. That's what is being accredited, not any of our other programs. ALA always asks us what our overall theme for our work with the MSI is, and this iteration we went with DEI, Engaged Learning, and Academic Success. 

About a month ago, we sent those draft chapters off to an editor. Why this is "what is the ADAA doing this week?" material is that the editor turned over the commented drafts today - and now is time to go through literally thousands of suggested edits, synthesize them, rewrite sections where indicated, and then write a synthesis chapter. To keep our timeline what it needs to be, I'm going to try and have that done by Monday.

The reason the timeline is important here is that the next step is to send the document out to a broader group for high level feedback. Alumni, advisory board members, faculty, friends, - shoot, I might be standing in Comet with copies to hand out. Once we collect all of that feedback, we'll do another round of edits with the plan to turn this all over to the ALA by October so they can read it and be ready for our onsite evaluation in February.

It's a satisfying exercise to reflect on the MSI program and the things we have done since our last ALA report seven years ago. It is flabbergasting to see how much the school has changed in those seven years. It's overwhelming to see in one place all of the work that goes into finding, supporting, teaching, and sometimes rescuing our students. 

July 17, 2024

One of the consistent challenges I've seen in my couple of years in this role is the difficulty in communicating strategy, vision, challenges and etc that I see flowing through the ADAA office. Being physically distributed makes this more of a challenge.

So, like this is 1999 and I just discovered LiveJournal - I'm going to try and blog and see if I can make some of the things that occur in the ADAA office more visible. I want to emphasize anyone at UMSI is welcome to talk to me about any of this stuff whenever. I honestly do enjoy thinking through these things and am happy to consider the idea that I'm doing the wrong thing or have the wrong idea about something. Odin knows it has happened in the past.

I'm also (as you've likely seen) a pretty informal person, so I'm going to share some just life stuff for giggles.