I’m not even sure how I stumbled across this, but here it is: from the site Oddly Specific, “The strangely particular website about peculiarly exacting signs,” “Why MSU is better than U of M.”
Actually, the comments on the site make it pretty clear that this is not really real/it’s a joke, etc. But I still thought it was funny.
From Annarbor.com last night, “Fire in residence hall room displaces 8 University of Michigan students.” Basically, a microwave incident went bad:
Eight University of Michigan students were displaced for at least the night after a fire that started in a microwave in the Baits housing complex spread to a resident’s room, university officials said.
No one was injured in the 3 p.m. fire in the Cross House of Baits on North Campus.
Diane Brown, a spokeswoman for the University of Michigan Department of Public Safety, said a resident was reheating food in a microwave, and it appears aluminum foil caught fire.
Two things I meant to post here earlier, but that pesky day-job kept getting in the way:
First, from several different sources (including an alert EMUTalk.org reader and EMU media wonk) comes news that EMU and several other Michigan universities are participating in a program funded by the Kellogg foundation to encourage and attract math and science teachers. Here’s the Michigan Public Radio story; I heard a similar story on WEMU that included a snippet of an interview with Susan Martin, but I couldn’t find the link.
Second, there’s this story from NPR’s All Things Considered from about a week ago, “Michigan Teaching School Tries Something New.” The “teaching school” in question is the University of Michigan, and basically, the premise is that they are revisiting and revamping the requirements for their teaching certification program by talking with recent graduates and current students. I don’t know if this means they will end up with a program that looks more like EMU’s or not, but it does make a lot of sense to me to rethink programs like this based on feedback from students.
As someone who teaches students who are wanting to be English teachers or graduate students who already are in classrooms, I think these programs make some sense: we do need more science and math teachers and probably fewer Literature and Language Arts teachers, to be honest. Although to be really REALLY honest, I don’t think going into secondary or elementary education is necessarily the greatest career move nowadays. I know that’s probably blasphemy to say this at a “teachers college” like EMU, but there you have it.
There’s a lively conversation on Mark Maynard’s blog, “Will public universities begin going private?” Mark is referencing a NYTimes article, but most of the discussion here is about the highly hypothetical case of the University of Michigan “going private.”
Personally, I don’t U of M could afford to give up on state funding entirely, and I also have a hard time wrapping my head around just how logistically this happens. I mean, does Mary Sue Coleman make a phone call to Jennifer Granholm and say “Hey, we’re done with the state. Can we just erase all the various laws that govern stuff that goes on at the University of Michigan, and can you just send me the keys? Okay, great!”
But okay, as a thought experiment: I think that if U of M were to go private, it’d probably be good for the likes of EMU and the other regional Michigan universities– not to mention MSU and Wayne State– because there would be at least slightly more money to go around, and it might also clarify our mission as an institution versus U of M’s mission.
Posted in Blogosphere, In the media..., University of Michigan
I was kind of surprised to stumble across the CMU and EMU football game on television Saturday afternoon, though I have to say I didn’t stay for all of it. I mean, they were down 35-0 at half and lost the game 56-8. Here’s a link to the Eastern Echo’s collection of links about the game.
Anyway, while I didn’t enjoy the EMU game much Saturday afternoon, I very much enjoyed the Michigan game Saturday evening since my alma mater, the University of Iowa, won. It’s funny; annarbor.com had one (and, as far as I can tell, only one) story about the EMU-CMU game, and about 30 (over the last week) about the Iowa-Michigan game. I expect U of M to get more coverage, but that kind of lopsidedness makes the old Ann Arbor News look positively fair and balanced.
Oh well; it’s too bad that Central isn’t playing Michigan this year.
Posted in College Fun, In the media..., Sports, University of Michigan
This might be more Ann Arbor/U of M than Ypsi/EMU, and it might be more interesting to me as a book fan/reader/English major type, but I thought I’d post it here anyway: according to Mark Maynard, Shaman Drum is closing up at the end of this month. But I guess the good news is that Shaman Drum owner Karl Pohrt is trying to transform the store into a non-profit called the Great Lakes Literary Arts Center.
Thanks a bunch to Shaman Drum; I know I’ll be making a couple trips there yet this month.
Posted in Academics, Ann Arbor, Blogosphere, University of Michigan
From the AA News: U-M graduation moves back to the Big House. The story revisits the outcry that would have caused U-M students to cross over into the dangerous territory of Ypsilanti:
U-M officials initially said commencement would move to Eastern Michigan University’s football stadium, but that prompted an outcry from seniors and their families so U-M reversed course and set up graduation on the Diag. Setting up thousands of chairs, installing giant video screens and other requirements cost $1.8 million.
$1.8 million just to have a graduation ceremony. Pretty amazing, if you ask me.
By the way, this year’s speaker at U-M commencement will be Google co-founder Larry Page. I’d go and see him talk.
Quite the busy couple of days on campus here at EMU: First, for Martin Luther King day today, EMU has a bunch of stuff going on, as listed in the EMU MLK Day web site: basically, there are speakers, “learning beyond the classroom” opportunities for students, the whole nine yards. Though I have to say that if I had the time, I’d probably try to go see Larry Wilmore from The Daily Show talk over at the U of M Ballroom. Here’s a link to a AANews article about local events.
And then on Tuesday, you might have heard we get a new president. There is a list of activities at EMU on the EMU homepage here (it’s a PDF). One highlight for me they’ll be showing a televised version of the proceedings in the EMU Student Center Ballroom from 11 am to 1 pm.
I found this via this post at Mark Maynard’s blog: “Ypsi: the other college bar scene” ran in the Michigan Daily almost a month ago, but since I’m far from a regular reader of the Michigan Daily (while I do read Mark’s blog often enough), I am just coming across it now.
As I’ve said before and I am sure I will say again, I like and live in Ypsilanti, and I like and often visit Ann Arbor, and I don’t really have the “us versus them” thing I have seen in some in these parts, especially among folks who have lived here their whole lives. Having said that, Kristen Steagall’s opening paragraph kind of set a tone that found her take on her visit to Ypsi a little dubious to say the least:
I’m not from Michigan. But like many University students, my views on Ypsilanti were shaped before I had ever visited it. Degenerate, dirty and scary are just a few of the adjectives my peers have used to describe it. But I figured the home of Eastern Michigan University must have its own college nightlife. I decided to check Ypsi out for myself. So last Saturday, a few of my friends (emphasis on few seeing as many of my friends scoffed at the idea of going to Ypsilanti) set out to experience the city’s bar scene first hand.
Oh, good lord, U of M kids. Use some of that fine education you get over there to buy yourselves a clue.
Anyway, I think Mark’s take on the rest of the piece is pretty good so go and read that.
Oh, and the subject line for Mark’s post is about the upcoming Mittenfest III, a rock and/or roll show at The Elbow Room December 26, 27, and 28. Sounds like fun and it is a fund-raiser for 826 Michigan, but I am a bit too old and a bit too opposed to smoking to make it.
And that’s not just a catchy post title that is likely to drive a lot of search engine users who were looking for web sites on, um, “another topic.” No, I learned this afternoon both about EMU’s online sexual harassment prevention training and a rather titillating story of sex and professors at U of M.
First, there’s this from our academic neighbor to the west: “University of Michigan investigates professor’s involvement in prostitution case with law student.”
Yaron Eliav, 44, an associate professor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, awaits sentencing Dec. 30 after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor charge of using a computer to commit a crime. The 22-year-old student also pleaded no contest to the same charge.
But it is actually a little more, um, “interesting” than that:
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