News From U-M
URC reports energy gains, announces three joint symposia
Michigan's University Research Corridor reported at the Mackinaw Policy Conference on June 3, 2010 steady progress on recent energy research grants, and also unveiled three new URC-supported collaborations. One such URC-supported collaboration between researchers at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University began with a $523,282 seed grant that helped the researchers win a $12.5 million federal grant less than a year later, leading to scientific progress and several new partnerships and publications, said URC Executive Director Jeff Mason. "The University Research Corridor support for our work on nanocomposites played an instrumental role in MSU landing a U.S. Department of Energy-funded Energy Frontier Research Center," said MSU's Donald Morelli and colleagues from U-M and WSU in a report issued by the three-university team. [Read more...]
Winners in Mobile Apps Innovation Challenge announced
Mobile-device applications that help people manage their frequent-shopper cards, build their playlist while listening to music, and find their friends through location-based social networking are among the winners in the 2010 Mobile Apps Innovation Challenge. Information and Technology Services (ITS) and the Office of Technology Transfer sponsored the contest. “We’ve been hosting this competition for two years now, and the growth and energy is exciting,” says Doug Hockstad, associate director of software and copyright licensing at Tech Transfer. [Read more...]
URC presidents testify before House subcommittee about group’s value
The House Higher Ed Appropriations Subcommittee in Lansing heard from the Presidents of the member University Research Corridor partners U-M, Michigan State University and Wayne State University, as well as from others who presented success stories that show valuable linkages between higher education and economic development. “The URC is like that triple helix (partnerships of universities, business and government),” said Rep. Lee Gonzalez, D-Flint. “Without that helix, things happen by chance, but the University Research Corridor becomes central to fueling growth. That’s how far you’ve come since you first organized three years ago.” [Read more...]
Rosa appointed new director of U-M Museum of Art
Joseph Rosa, the Art Institute of Chicago's chief curator of architecture and design, will become the new director of the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the university has announced today. The appointment, pending approval by the U-M Board of Regents, is effective July 1, 2010. "We are so pleased that Joe Rosa has agreed to lead the University of Michigan Museum of Art at this particularly auspicious and exciting moment in its history," said U-M President Mary Sue Coleman. "A year after its landmark expansion and restoration reopened to the public, UMMA has more than lived up to its promise of becoming a dynamic meeting place for the arts, offering a diverse range of lively exhibitions, performances, and programs and boasting record attendance. [Read more...]
Competition for creative mobile phone apps sought
The U-M Information Technology and Services unit, Office of Technology Transfer, Apple and the iPhone Developers student group have announced a Mobile Application Innovation Competition. The challenge posed is to current U-M students and employees is to create an innovative iPhone/iPod Touch or web application. The top winners, selected by a panel of judges, will receive either an iPad, a 32GB iPod Touch, or iTunes Gift Certificates. The submission deadline is April 9, 2010. [Read more...]
Teach-In puts focus on complex environmental problems
Environmental problems facing the planet today are as urgent as those that existed 40 years ago, when the first Earth Day took place in March, 1970. But today’s challenges are much more complex, and solving them will require unprecedented levels of global cooperation between scientists, politicians and policymakers, as well as widespread public support, said Donald Scavia, special counsel to the U-M president on sustainability, at the 40th Anniversary Teach-In about environmental issues on March 25, 2010. [Read more...]
U-M announces plan to transform campus information technology organization
NextGen Michigan, a multi-year strategy for employing state-of-the-art technology to advance the U-M mission, kicks off this month. Provost Teresa Sullivan and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Tim Slottow are leading the effort. Over the past six months, Sullivan and Slottow set the groundwork for the strategy with Dan Atkins, associate vice president for research cyberinfrastructure; Paul Courant, university librarian and dean of libraries; Jocelyn DeWitt, chief information officer for U-M Hospitals and Health Centers; John King, vice provost for academic information; and Laura Patterson associate vice president for Information and Technology Services and chief information officer. “We believe that NextGen Michigan will foster a similar level of innovative thinking. Technology’s pervasive influence in all we do is critical to maintaining our leadership in research, teaching and learning,” Sullivan says. [Read more...]
“Energy for the Future” Conference
This one-day event features discussions by industry leaders on the Future of Electric Power, Alternative Energy Sources, and Electrification of the Automobile and a preview of the Public Television program "The Future of Electricity." It will be held on Tuesday, March 16, 2010, 7:00 a.m. – 3:45 p.m., in the BorgWarner Auditorium, Institute for Advanced Vehicle Systems Building on the University of Michigan-Dearborn campus. The conference is free of charge and open to the public. [Read more...]
UMMA hosting three exhibits featuring works from its collection
The U-M Museum of Art has an outstanding collection of the graphic work of early 20th-century art, particularly the work of the German Expressionists. In "The Eye of the Beholder: European Drawings and Prints from the Pulgram-McSparran Collection," drawings and prints are displayed by artists such as George Grosz, Ernst Kirchner, and Oskar Kokoschka. It runs through March 14, 2010.
The exhibition, "Tradition Transformed: Chang Ku-nien, Master Painter of the 20th Century," explores the development of Ku-nien (1906–1987) throughout his life. He was a versatile and proficient practitioner of the ancient tradition of Chinese painting. The exhibition continues until April 18, 2010.
"An Economy of Means: The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection," presents works drawn from the Vogels’ recent gift of fifty works to the Museum of Art. The Vogels began collecting in the early 1960s, with a focus on minimal and conceptual art, though they also embraced a wide range of post-minimal practices as well as new figurative directions that emerged in the 1980s. The exhibition runs until May 2, 2010.
FY2011 budget proposal increases funding for science, education
Even as President Obama announced plans to freeze most non-defense discretionary spending for the next three years, he proposed a fiscal year 2011 budget Monday that increases funding for scientific research agencies, economic development activities, and several education programs of interest to U-M and the higher education community. Overall, the budget would increase funding for basic research by nearly 6 percent. [Read more...]