Live Coal Gallery in Detroit is a safe place for young artists to create and express their artistry to the world — and has had an impact on more than a thousand students since its founding. Creator Yvette Rock, MFA ’99, says she takes children under her wing (like the young artist above) because she knows they’ll be steered away from the arts as they get older.

As a Michigan Daily reporter/editor who helped unseat Regent Eugene Power in 1966, Roger Rapoport, BA ’68, was persona non grata among the U-M administration till he graduated. How surprising then that in June 1967 he celebrated the modern-day “multiversity” in the pages of the Atlantic Monthly.

After a 30-year career in Michigan Athletics, Greg Harden (aka ‘Michigan’s secret weapon’) delivers ‘Stay Sane in An Insane World: How to Control the Controllables and Thrive,’ a book of life lessons culled from such champions as Tom Brady, Michael Phelps, Desmond Howard, and more.

Imagine an everyday brain-computer interface, where brain activity is translated into actionable insights. Two U-M alums behind the startup Neurable plan to make neurotechnology easily accessible to everyone, everywhere, so humans can participate in the world in a completely new way.

As a pair of married ghosts in the Broadway touring company of ‘Beetlejuice,’ college roommates and 2011 SMTD graduates Will Burton and Britney Coleman come to the stage with that ‘thing’ so essential to musical comedy: Chemistry.

Managing the financial well-being of some 2,000 Girl Scout troops in 34 Georgia counties is a challenging gig, but the job has a tasty fringe benefit, says Alantria Dixon, MBA ’09. ‘I do get free cookies.’

He may have dismissed his own commencement ceremonies as meaningless, but professor Mika LaVaque-Manty came to revere the academic ritual soon after he volunteered as U-M’s chief marshal in 2008. He will pass the torch following Spring 2023 commencement.

They say truth is stranger than fiction. But what about historical fiction? In researching her book Ward, Wife, Widow at the Bentley Historical Library, author Mary Crum Scholtens, BM ‘84/MM ’86 (aka A. Arbour), discovered the truth behind the bizarre relationship between former Michigan Governor Chase Osborn and his daughter/second wife, Stellanova Lee “Stella” Brunt Osborn. It’s a doozy.

In a book of essays marking U-M’s 150th year, playwright Arthur Miller and other distinguished alumni revisit the halcyon days of college. Set against today’s digital backdrop, ‘Our Michigan’ makes a cogent and contemporary case for the bricks-and-mortar learning experience.