Arts & Culture

  1. Greg Harden looks at smiling Desmond Howard with bemusement as they stand on the sidelines at Michigan Stadium.

    ‘Do not be distracted by the insanity of the world’

    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.

  2. Still from "Beetlejuice" featuring lass of 2011 graduates Will Burton and Britney Coleman (center and left) as Adam and Barbara Maitland (Image: Matthew Murphy.)

    A match made on Broadway: From roommates to castmates

    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.

  3. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor portrait; African American man in formal wear in black & white image.

    Reviving the lost work of a groundbreaking Black composer

    Doctor of Musical Arts candidate Bryan Ijames followed his ear, his heart, and some scholarly detective work to resurrect a forgotten piece by composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

  4. A music therapist sits at a keyboard beside a boy dressed in yellow shirt. They are playing they keyboard together and smiling.

    Music therapy is a calming, soothing connector

    Sophie’s Place is a bright comfortable music studio, tucked away in a corner at U-M’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. Named for young singer-songwriter Sophie Rose Barton, the studio brings its own kind of healing to patients, families, and therapists.

  5. Colorful mural reads: Pollution has no boundaries. Features Black characters and sunflowers on a blue background.

    48217: The Stamps Pollution Mural Project

    ‘48217’ is known as Michigan’s most polluted zip code. Community activists in this community near Detroit teamed up with Stamps Professor Joe Trumpey and his students in Fall 2022 to draw attention to the poor air quality in this industrial area — to stunning effect.

  6. Students sitting on the Diag lawn in the 1930s. Mostly women on the lawn.

    ‘A place that respected one’s confusion’

    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.  

  7. Alumnus Manuel Martinez at the Michigan Central Station renovation project in Detroit. He is dressed in construction gear.

    The ‘breathtaking’ job of reviving an icon

    As a kid growing up in southwest Detroit, Manuel “Manny” Martinez played paintball in the hulking, long-abandoned Michigan Central Station. Today, he’s a construction superintendent helping Ford Motor Co. drive the $1 billion transformation of this historic landmark.

  8. An artist's rendering of Michigan Marching Band on a branded field with goal posts and campus buildings in the background.

    Marching Band’s Elbel Field poised for major makeover

    U-M’s iconic Elbel Field will be transformed into a marching band practice facility now that the Regents have approved project design plans and authorized construction to proceed.

  9. U-M’s Campus Farm has been dubbed “The Freedom Garden”—a space where refugee clients can grow their own food through community gardening. Image courtesy: U-M’s Campus Farm

    Refugee-focused community garden celebrates its first year

    The garrden, a collaboration between Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County and Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum, has turned a previously unused, grass-covered space into a fertile, productive plot.

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