Dr. Lisa Martin receives the Susan B. Anthony Campus Award

DEARBORN, MI - University of Michigan-Dearborn’s Commission for Women honored Lisa Martin and Beth Morrison during the organization’s annual Susan B. Anthony Awards Dinner on April 7, 2016 at Park Place in Dearborn. The awards recognize a member of the campus family and a member of the local community whose work exemplify the dedication of Susan B. Anthony on behalf of women. During the event that included Congresswoman Debbie Dingell as the keynote speaker, Dr. Martin received the Campus Award and Beth Morrison, president and CEO of HAVEN, recieved the community award. 

Lisa Martin, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell and Beth Morrison

"It's such an honor to receive this year's Susan B. Anthony Campus Award" - Dr. Martin said. "I am grateful to the Commission for Women for their recognition and I look forward to a long future career where I plan to continue working on issues of gender equity on campus.  It was a wonderful night, with inspiring speeches by Rep. Debbie Dingell and Provost Davy, and Geri Barrons."

 
Lisa Martin, holds a joint appointment in the College of Education, Health, and Human Services (CEHHS) as professor of Health and Policy Studies; and the College of Arts, Science and Letters (CASL) as professor of Womens' and Gender Studies. She has revitalized the curriculum of both Health Policy Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies.
 

 

Congresswoman Debbie Dingell participated as keynote
speaker at the 2016 Susan B. Anthony Awards dinner

Dr. Martin is a member of the SOAR Advisory Board and also serves on the Center for the Education of Women Scholarship Committee, both of which provide financial support to socioeconomically disadvantaged students. Through her directorship of the Women in Learning and Leadership (WILL) program, she has been able to connect students to numerous campus and community opportunities that are transforming students’ career paths and lives and developing their skill as leaders for social change.

As a result of these efforts, WILL students now lead the campus effort to end gender-based violence in organizing the successful “Take Back the Night” events, as well as their work on the current campus climate survey and “Abuse Hurts” campaign. Under Lisa’s leadership, WILL has put together a mentoring program for at-risk girls at Vista Maria as a way to encourage these girls to see college as an option.

Lisa has demonstrated leadership in the development of a series of site visits that connect students with local leaders such as the CEO of the Coalition on Temporary Shelter, the CEO of Walbridge Industries, and the President and CEO of HAVEN. These site visits give students the opportunity to learn from successful women leaders and strengthen our connections with community organizations. These connections have led to internships, mentorships, and employment for students.

As a result of these and other initiatives, Dr. Lisa Martin is positively impacting life at UM-Dearborn, improving our community, and changing lives of our students.

About Susan B. Anthony Campus and Community Awards
The Commission for Women (CFW) present Susan B. Anthony Campus and Community Awards annually to recognize a member of our campus family and a member of the local community, whose lives and deeds exemplify the dedication, fortitude, political agitation and involvement of Susan B. Anthony on behalf of women.  Anthony forced a nation to recognize human rights, challenged gross inequities endured by women in our society.

The first Susan B. Anthony Campus Award was presented at a Luncheon in 1979.  The Susan B. Anthony Community Award was established in 2004.  Today, both awards are presented at an awards dinner program which includes a silent auction fundraiser.

‘Ride the Tiger:’ CEHHS faculty develop resources for PBS documentary about bipolar disease

DEARBORN, MI - College of Education, Health, and Human Services Associate Dean Laura Reynolds and Professor Kim Killu have developed educational resources to complement Ride the Tiger: A Guide through the Bipolar Brain, a new documentary from Detroit Public Television (DPTV) that will air on PBS stations nationwide.

Professor Kim Killu and Associate Dean Laura Reynolds

“There are so many health concerns surrounding bipolar disease and health—individual health, community health and relational health,” Reynolds said. “Because of these concerns, there’s an educational need as well—a need to approach the broader population in terms of how we talk about and address mental health in this country.”

Ed Moore, executive producer of DPTV’s national documentary unit, said about this cooperation, "We are thankful for all the experts and individuals who shared their stories to make this film so valuable. We are also thankful to all our partners, especially University of Michigan-Dearborn for writing the curriculum for this film to provide students and educators with the tools necessary to talk about the film and the issue of bipolar disorder.”

The developed resources by Killu and Reynolds will be mailed to community, educational and religious organizations throughout the country along with a copy of the documentary. They also will be available to the general public on the Ride the Tiger website.

Reynolds and Killu also helped create short, online video clips, combing through hours of interview transcripts and organizing the materials by theme. They said the creative process—which began for them last year with a viewing of an early cut of the documentary—provided an opportunity to both learn from experts in a variety of fields and strengthen their enthusiasm for their own work.

All members of the UM-Dearborn community are invited to a special Ride the Tiger screening and discussion panel on campus on April 22. The College of Education, Health, and Human Services will host the event, which will focus on community resources and the collaborative relationships among community organizations.

Ride the Tiger premiered on PBS on Wednesday, April 13, 2016. The special UM-Dearborn screening and discussion panel will take place Thursday, April 22, at 9 a.m., in Fairlane Center South’s Michigan Room. To register for the event, visit CEHHS website.

Read full story in The Reporter.

Power in Community: MLK Day of Service 2016

DEARBORN, MI - For the 23rd year, UM-Dearborn celebrated the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by hosting the MLK Day of Service on January 18, 2016.

UM-Dearborn Chancellor Daniel Little; Jonathan Larson,
Chair of Committee and Cassandra Fluker, Director
of Student Activities at Henry Ford College welcome
volunteers to MLK Day of Service.

This is one of the biggest and more cherished campus traditions in which faculty, staff, students and alumni from UM-Dearborn in partnership with Henry Ford College, get together to spend a morning of work to lend a helping hand to more than 20 community service organizations throughout Metro Detroit.

Jonathan Larson, Academic Advisor of the College of Education, Health, and Human Services (CEHHS) has been part of the MLK Day of Service Committee since 2008, serving as Chair of the Committee for the last four years. He lead the planning of this day that usually begins in April and continues through the Day of Service in January.

Larson mentioned that "This year we worked with 20 different community agencies including Fish and Loaves, Cass Community Services, Michigan Urban Farming Initiative and Priest Elementary School".

Donation from CEHHS community and MLK
volunteers to Priest Elementary School

CEHHS community and MLK volunteers donated socks to Priest Elementary School in Detroit as part of the planning for this event.

"I'm proud to honor Dr. King's legacy by coordinating a large scale service event which impacts the entire region and highlights the service culture of UM-Dearborn", Larson said.

Jonathan Larson,
Chair of MLK Day of
Service Committee

Chancellor Daniel Little welcomed volunteers to campus before they embarked on their service activities such as packing food for Kids Against Hunger; cleaning areas at Blight Busters; working with Michigan Urban Farming Initiative; organize donations at South Oakland Shelter; painting buildings at Franklin Wright Settlement or sorting food at Fish & Loaves.

"It fills my heart with pride every time I see young people… give a day of service to contribute to the betterment of our region", Little said.

There were nearly 500 volunteers this year who despite the frigid temperatures decided to honor Dr. King's words: "If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way."

Volunteers helping at Blight Busters

Professors awarded grant to promote history and geography education in local schools

CEHHS faculty members Karen Thomas-Brown, associate professor of social studies, and LaShorage Shaffer, assistant professor of child education, created the Wayne County Global Geography Project, an 18-month program designed to give local 6th, 7th and 9th grade teachers professional development training.

Associate Professor Karen Thomas-Brown, center, talks with
participant teachers on ways to use technology.

The program focuses on global geography content, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and pedagogy on the Eastern and Western Hemisphere, Contemporary Global Issues and Era 7-Global Crisis and Achievement from 1900-1945. The professors were awarded a $220,000 Improving Teacher Quality grant from the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) to implement it.

A group of 42 Wayne County educators form Detroit, Dearborn, Taylor, Garden City, Livonia, Allen Park, Riverview and more were recruited to participate through Wayne County Regional Educational Service Agency (RESA).

Thomas-Brown, who is an urban geographer, and Shaffer saw a need for the program after looking at state test scores in social studies and geography and hearing from teachers about content areas they wanted to improve upon.

“We’ve designed a dynamic program,” Thomas-Brown said. “And by we, I mean all of us. It’s not me going out and finding experts. It’s learning what the teachers need. It’s a collaboration. It’s organic.”

Read full article in The Reporter

CEHHS creates Center for Disparity Solutions and Equity

More Info Click here

The College of Education, Health, and Human Services (CEHHS) has a plan to create a change in reducing inequalities. The Center for Disparity Solutions and Equity, which started in fall 2015, is a focused center for studying, researching, disseminating and implementing promising evidence-based solutions to reduce inequalities. The goal of the Center for Disparity Solutions and Equity is to bridge the gap in education, health and human services by making connections for those with a need and those looking to assist in the movement toward equity.

Terri Laws, assistant professor of health and human services and African and African American studies, said she’s seen firsthand the inequities in healthcare. Laws said she’s been looking forward to see the center open because it is “the right project for Detroit and its metro region right now.”
“No matter what we look like and where we’ve come from, we are all in need of healthcare and education. Having access to these is a human right,” said Laws.

View full article in The Reporter

CEHHS students help with public health needs in Detroit

Several College of Education, Health, and Human Services students spent their summer helping Detroit citizens lead healthier lives by doing internships at public health organizations—including Karly Koos at Healthy Detroit and Gadah Sharif at Authority Health, which was formerly known as Detroit Wayne County Health Authority.

Julie Roddy, chair of UM-Dearborn’s Department of Health and Human Services, said internships are important because they connect students to work experience—and, even more importantly, to the people.

Sharif, a junior majoring in health policy studies, got interested in the health field at a young age. Now works at a doctor's office and her desire to be by the side of those in need made her spent her summer as an intern at Authority Health.

“I love my job, but I felt a need to find out what’s going on in a patient’s life beyond the office setting", Sharif said.

During her internship, Sharif did a comparative community health needs assessment of Detroit-area hospitals and analyzed transportation and food needs of the people being served by Wayne County public health offices, local nonprofit organizations and more.

Koos, a senior majoring in public health, wants to improve health outcomes for Detroit residents too.

Through her internship with Healthy Detroit, she helped implement the Detroit Health Park initiative, did outreach to let residents know about Healthy Detroit Days and worked on the Healthy Detroit Passport app, which allows residents to track their participation in these events and gave them incentives to stay active.

“Interning with Healthy Detroit gave me a better idea of the big picture of public health than I would have gotten anywhere else in the country.", Koos said. 

View the full article in The Reporter

How Does Climate Change Affect Public Health? Check Out CEHHS Professor Natalie Sampson's Work In Detroit To Find Out

How does a city grappling with how to thrive in the present day begin to think about what it will look like 50 years down the road?

Check out full article HERE

That was a question the Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice (DWEJ) wanted answered when it assembled the Detroit Climate Action Collaborative (DCAC) in 2011, a largely volunteer initiative to bring government, industry, academia, and the community together to address the effects of climate change on the city.

Natalie Sampson

“Understandably, a lot of people don’t have the time and the resources to be thinking about climate change, but, as a society, I don’t think we have a choice in the matter,” said Natalie Sampson, University of Michigan-Dearborn assistant professor of health and human services. “It’s exciting to see [DWEJ Policy Director] Kimberly Hill Knot and the environmental justice community pick up this topic and run with it.”

Sampson sits on the DCAC steering committee and chairs the public health work group. She hopes to get decision-makers to think about how public health and climate change are connected. With climate change, southeast Michigan will likely experience increased temperatures and more heavy precipitation events. This has implications for health—think of how heat waves can trigger respiratory issues or how flooded basements can expose people to waterborne diseases.

“The core mission of public health fits in with getting ready for these events,” she said. “If we have these extreme weather events, what does that mean for some of the city’s most vulnerable residents? If we’re behind on this issue, we’re going to further amplify disparities.”

DCAC has led focus groups and community outreach activities to make sure their work reflects the needs, resources, and knowledge of Detroiters and the DCAC’s partners. Across the city, many related community development and environmental initiatives have been underway for years.

To address climate change, Sampson said, “We have to think about how we can put systems in place to support citywide efforts, as well as the good work that is already happening in Detroit’s neighborhoods.”

The DCAC is working on a climate action plan that will begin to address those needs in ways that reflect existing research. The plan—similar to plans developed in more than 600 cities nationwide—will document the city’s current greenhouse gas emissions levels and detail strategies on how to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

DCAC published initial accomplishments in the Michigan Journal of Sustainability and will release the climate action plan this spring. The group also plans to continue to work with its many partners and Detroit residents to raise awareness of climate change and its impact on the city.