Student Stories

BLUElab Thailand unites students from multiple disciplines at the University of Michigan in pursuit of creating sustainable solutions for flood mitigation in our partner district of Mae Chan, Thailand with the collaboration of Chiang Mai University students and faculty in the PURPLElab organization as well as Michigan-based supporters such as BLUElab, the Center for Socially-Engaged Design and University of Michigan faculty.

Our ultimate goal is to create viable, sustainable solutions that satisfies two specific flood-related needs of the Mae Chan community. Currently, we are in the process of creating and selecting designs. We are translating these designs into physical concepts and prototypes, testing them with our newly built pipe-simulation test rig.

When did you first learn about the function of a library? What did you learn was the role of a library? Library Communication and Marketing Intern Meggie Brody surveyed undergraduates in her search for the cause of library anxiety.

My experience as a Michigan Library Scholar during the summer of 2018. The project entitled "Asian Studies Centers Publication Program" had the goal of making backlist publications in Asian Studies from the University of Michigan Press more widely available. Through this program, I was able to gain new experiences and learning opportunities through the library, Michigan Publishing, and the Michigan Press.

My experience with Michigan Library Scholars Internship program was one of professional growth, acquiring knowledge, and refining critical thinking skills. From May until the end of July, I worked on creating and promoting my project: a library research guide for the international performing arts.

This past summer, I was a part of the Michigan Library Scholars program, where I worked a librarian mentor to complete a capstone project with a global or international focus. My project was the International News Resources Assessment Project, whose goal was to explore the kinds of news content the library is able to provide, more effectively document the process of acquiring international news resources, and have a better of understanding of the news landscape internationally.

Meghan Brody reflects on her internship for the Living Library program as a Michigan Library Scholar. She discusses progressive librarianship, social justice, and fostering a more compassionate library community through conversation about identity.

As much as being a Student Engagement Ambassador is about having fun and creating new and exciting ways for students to interact with our Library, it is also about developing professionally and learning more about yourself. Some of our Student Engagement Ambassador staff take a look back on this academic year to share what they’ve learned about the Library and themselves while serving in this position.

The Library Student Engagement Ambassadors were back this semester with new events and some tried and true favorites. Always striving to show that the Library is more than just a place to study and check out books, this group of seven undergraduate students worked hard during the Winter semester to bring the U-M community fun and exciting events from the UGLi and beyond. Check out what we were up to this semester and be on the lookout for more Engagement Ambassador events in the Fall term.

Project Alivio is a multidisciplinary global health project team that is a part of Michigan Health Engineered for All Lives (M-HEAL). Our goal is to reduce the incidence rate of pressure ulcers in San Juan de Dios hospital. What makes us unique as a project team is that our 19 students work as a co-design team with the Students Association of International Medical Research (SAIMER), a medical student organization from the Universidad de San Carlos in Guatemala City. As we design our solution, we are constantly receiving input from peers our age with more medical experience at our target location.

Pressure ulcers, or bedsores, form when a patient is exposed to pressure for a prolonged period of time. This pressure restricts proper blood flow to a certain area on the body, usually the coccyx, heels, back of head, or elbows, causing skin and tissue damage. To prevent pressure ulcers, nurses turn patients to offload the pressure exerted on the body. Pressure ulcers have high incidence rates in Guatemala City for many reasons, but the factor we are targeting is the understaffing of nurses.

Our team meets for several hours a week to design, build, discuss progress, and plan next steps. With the input of professors, physicians, and nurses from both universities, we hope to design a sustainable solution for our end-users. We also value offering our members a meaningful and educational project experience.

This spring, from April 29th to May 10th, seven of our members will be traveling to Antigua, Guatemala. In past, we have made two trips to Guatemala to conduct a needs assessment, which is how we narrowed the need to pressure ulcer prevention. This will be the first trip that is focused on the design itself. We will bring some sketches and prototypes of different concepts to show to our stakeholders to receive feedback. Besides the project itself, the trip will be a great opportunity for some of our newer members to learn more about the global health scene and feel connected to this project.

The Student Rights Project (SRP) is an interdisciplinary consortium of Law, Social Work, and Education graduate students specially trained to advocate for the educational rights of K-12 students across Southeast Michigan. Through our unique community-university partnership with the Student Advocacy Center of Michigan, SRP trains volunteers to advocate for students facing suspension and expulsion to ensure that every student’s right to an education is protected.

Dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline is at the core of our mission. We recognize that zero tolerance policies, often codified in school disciplinary codes of conduct, subject students to severe and punitive discipline, criminalizing typical behavior and resulting in academic disengagement, failure, push-out, and delinquency. Moreover, schools and administrators must adapt their disciplinary processes, including their codes of conduct, to reflect changing local, state, and federal educational laws.

Thus, as a part of our advocacy work, SRP launched the School Code Project to work with public schools across Michigan to review and revise school codes of conduct. The purpose of this project is to challenge institutional threats to students’ educational rights and encourage schools to align their codes of conduct with evidence-based, nationally recognized best practices for responding to student misbehavior.