A new UM-Dearborn campuswide initiative, called Talent Gateway, is prompting students to reflect on their daily activities — academic, work, co-curricular and personal — and explore how they can apply those experiences to other parts of their lives. Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Kate Davy was inspired to create the Talent Gateway after reading “The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life,” a best-selling book by artist/choreographer Twyla Tharp. “Students need to be fleet of foot to be successful in an ever-changing environment. This can be accomplished through a creative mindset,” said Davy. “The Talent Gateway — through challenges and reflection — will help students develop discipline, skills and habits so they are able to reinvent themselves in the face of changing economic conditions.”

The Talent Gateway is a voluntary, self-directed program. Students who choose to participate complete a series of challenges, which can range from reading a New York Times article to volunteering in the community. Students then post their reflections on those challenges and receive feedback from a mentor. Each challenge completed translates into points in an online game-like system and each unlocks a series of ever more complex challenges. Students who earn 50,000 points will graduate with a special MTalent distinction.

In addition to its virtual presence, the Talent Gateway also has a physical presence: an office where students can find staff dedicated to assisting them with finding campus resources, obtaining a mentor, and identifying and landing co-op and internship opportunities, career development and job placements.

To help focus on giving all students on campus cultural experience opportunities, the University of Michigan-Dearborn has officially added global citizenship to its Vision 2020 campuswide strategic goals and priorities.

The new priority reads, “Diversity, Inclusion and Global Citizenship: Establish a national reputation as a campus community that prepares students to thrive in a diverse world, able to appreciate, navigate and cross boundaries.”

Associate Provost Ilir Miteza said transformative experiences that come from global learning opportunities are essential. A couple years ago he noticed that, despite the rich diversity on campus, some of UM-Dearborn’s cross-cultural experience opportunities, such as study abroad, lagged behind other universities.

“When looking at campuses that had a healthy and vibrant study abroad program, we saw that they also had a healthy global learning tree with many different options — study abroad was only one branch. Healthy trees have healthy branches,” he said. “That’s when I realized that we needed to make a far bigger investment to global learning as a whole.”

Miteza, along with Special Counsel to the Chancellor for Inclusion and Strategic Projects Ann Lampkin-Williams, created the Global Learning Advisory Council (GLAC), a group comprised of faculty and staff with experience and passion for global education.

GLAC has also focused on researching the best ways to connect students with, provide resources to, and promote additional closer-to-home opportunities — like Alternative Spring Break, Talent Gateway opportunities, student organization volunteer work, global-focused courses and learning from fellow students — for the campus community.

In September 2016, UM-Dearborn’s science building was officially transformed into the Natural Sciences Building as the result of a $51 million renovation project. The building now has nearly 100,000 square feet of space dedicated to instruction and research in the fields of biology, chemistry, geology and environmental biology.

At the building’s rededication, Chancellor Daniel Little noted that the original structure built in 1959 had served UM-D well, but needed important technical updates to ensure that the school would continue to attract students looking for a great education in science and pre-health-related fields. Those updates included other changes as well. “This building reflects very careful thinking on the part of the faculty in the natural sciences about the most effective teaching and learning strategies that exist in the field,” Little said. “It is student-centered; it encourages student-to-student collaboration; and it facilitates hands-on, engaged learning. This approach will help our students gain the creativity and imagination that good work in the natural sciences requires.”

Student Profile:

• 9,131 total student enrollment
• 7,141 undergraduate students
• 1,990 graduate students
• 100 countries represented by the student population
• 24% students of color
• 48% of undergraduate students are the first in their families to attend college
• 96% of undergraduate students are Michigan residents

Awards:

• 6th in rankings of public regional universities (U.S. News & World Report)
• College of Business recognized as a “Best Business School” for 8th consecutive year (Princeton Review)
• #1 online MBA program in the state; online graduate program ranked 2nd in Michigan (U.S. News & World Report)
• #1 Midwest public university in serving low-income students and families (Washington Monthly)