By Chris Curtis Chris Curtis is an award‑winning professor of psychology and former president of the faculty association at Delta College in the Great Lakes Bay Region. Like most professors, I’ve accumulated small gifts from students over my career: a Sigmund Freud pencil sketch, copies of Psychology for Dummies and The Journal of Irreproducible Results, [...]
By Brenda Ortega MEA Voice Editor Nearly 30 years from the start of his labor activism as a graduate student organizer, MEA member Alec Thomson returned to his union origins on the campus of Wayne State University on Tuesday to protest the Trump administration’s draconian cuts to higher education and medical research. Now a union […]
In addition to positive budget proposals for PreK-12 schools, state budget proposals for community colleges and universities are strong as well for 2024-25. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s budget plan, that came out the beginning of February, calls for a 2.5% increase in funding for the state’s 15 public universities and 28 community colleges. Both the House […]
MEA member Amy French disrupts students’ expectations in the history classes she leads at Delta College in Bay County’s University Center by asking at the outset: “So what am I teaching this semester?” French isn’t joking or trying to catch anyone napping with her day-one question. As head of Delta’s history department, French is acknowledging […]
Deb Rickert joined the support staff association when she began working at Saginaw Valley State University three decades ago, but she wasn’t active in the union for the first 15 years of her career as an administrative assistant – not until she testified at an arbitration hearing. “It was then I realized that labor has […]
By Brenda Ortega MEA Voice Editor Artificial Intelligence (AI) is unlike any technological tool that has come along in the history of higher education, and educators and institutions must immediately begin the ongoing work of adopting it and adapting to the rapid change it will bring. That was the striking thesis laid out in the […]
Phillip Hanson had “a bit of an existential crisis” when a new AI image generator emerged 18 months ago. An accomplished painter and digital artist, he realized artificial intelligence could achieve visual effects like his – only much faster. Having undertaken an art project using the system, called Midjourney, Hanson then made another discovery: leveraging […]
Gabrielle Likavec keeps up with research to guide her instruction as a teaching and learning consultant working with aspiring educators at Central Michigan University. The MEA member notes a few key points from early data emerging on AI. > Within five months of ChatGPT’s release, 79% of surveyed C-suite executives reported at least occasional use […]
MEA staff and members are advancing racial and social justice in education as part of the MEA Strategic Plan. For future events, watch your email inbox for the Center for Leadership & Learning’s new monthly newsletter: AT THE CENTER. GOAL: HELP RECRUIT, ENGAGE, AND RETAIN A DIVERSE POPULATION OF EDUCATORS THAT ARE REFLECTIVE OF THE […]
In March of 2018, the rural community of Paw Paw west of Kalamazoo was shaken by terrifying news of tragedy narrowly averted: a 15-year-old student had been arrested just hours before he planned to commit a mass shooting at the local high school the next day. The teen was found to have a hit list […]
