Around NMU

Two Northern Michigan University student-athletes, along with a recent transfer student, will represent their home countries at the 2023 FISU Winter World University Games, which opened Jan. 12 in Lake Placid, N.Y. The 11-day festival is the largest international multi-sport collegiate event. It combines high-level competition with educational and cultural activities.

NMU senior Andie Balenger of Gladstone writes a weekly column on college life for the Daily Press newspaper in Escanaba. In her most recent entry, "Finding comfort in fellowship," she talks about how other political science majors at Northern—particularly those in an international studies and human rights course her junior year—have provided fellowship through the discussion-based nature of the discipline.

Northern Michigan University will honor the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. with a Day of Service on Monday, Jan. 16, at The Woods residence hall complex. All activities are open to the public. The day will kick off with a noon program and free lunch, followed by four service projects and a workshop on volunteerism.

Seventeen Northern Michigan University students who attended during the fall semester, along with NMU alumni, are among the 150 soldiers from the Michigan Army National Guard's 107th Engineer Battalion deployed Jan. 7. The unit is based in Marquette and Ishpeming. Soldiers gathered with their families and invited guests on campus before departing for southwest Asia for up to a year of duty. 

The Northern Michigan University Board of Trustees approved two capital and long-term maintenance projects: a $550,000 budget for the design phase of a science complex research and teaching lab addition budgeted for $11.7 million; and $2.5 million in renovations to Vandament Arena to accommodate both NMU volleyball and basketball.

Wika Nadera from the Philippines completed a semester at NMU through the Global Undergraduate Exchange Program, which provides scholarships to outstanding undergraduate students from around the world for non-degree full-time study combined with community service, professional development and cultural enrichment. He focused on art and design classes at NMU; in his home country, he is a fourth-year student in visual communication.

One of Northern Michigan University's charter schools, Walton Charter Academy in Pontiac, is among five 2022 Building the Hope Schools in Michigan recognized by the Education Trust-Midwest for outstanding pre-pandemic academic progress and growth among underserved student groups. All offer strategies that can be leveraged to help students recover from learning loss attributed to COVID-19.

Northern Michigan University's Julie Rochester received the prestigious David Knight Award at the 2022 NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative Association (FARA) Annual Meeting in Indianapolis. The award is presented yearly to an individual who has provided outstanding service to the organization. Rochester spent six years on the FARA Executive Committee, in capacities including D2 representative, vice president and president. 

Northern Michigan University students enrolled in a new course this semester had to interview for a spot on the limited roster, undergo a background check and sign a non-disclosure agreement. They also lock up their cell phones and laptop computers before they enter the associated classroom/lab, and pore over materials retrieved from a storage room that was re-keyed for restricted access. Such precautions are necessary because the students are tasked with re-examining and digitizing the entire file for an actual Upper Peninsula cold case that began as a missing person's report and shifted to a homicide.

For the first time in Northern Michigan University history, the student commencement speaker will be an NMU Global Campus graduate. Jeff Ferrington has completed a bachelor's in Applied Workplace Leadership entirely online from his home base in Macomb Township, but he will bridge the distance and deliver his speech in person at the Superior Dome on Saturday, Dec. 17. Ferrington calls himself a “second chancer” for getting the opportunity to finish the NMU degree he first started as an on-campus student in 1996.