[Michiganweek-l] 25 Easy Ways for Colleges and Universities to Celebrate Michigan Week

[Cindy Krueger]

Reply to this message to share your suggestions.

25 Easy Ways for Colleges and Universities to Celebrate Michigan Week 
1.  Issue a resolution or proclamation celebrating Michigan Week.

2.  Send representatives to the Imagining Michigan Conference in early
May 2005. For more information, contact Imagining America: Artists and
Scholars in Public Life <http://www.ia.umich.edu/>; at the University of
Michigan.

3.  Take out an ad in your local newspaper or radio station thanking a
community partner faculty, a student or a staff member doing important
work in your community.

4.  Use commencement creatively! Invite everyone in your community who
is "commencing" to join you in a commencement parade, carrying signs
declaring their new beginnings. The signs should be works of art saying
things like, "I am commencing sixth grade"; "I am commencing a new
business"; "I am commencing life as a new resident of this community";
"I am commencing retirement": "I am commencing my garden"; "I am
commencing a new job as a teacher." Then plant the signs in a public
place as a commencement garden.

5.  Give honorary degrees to Michigan artists and humanists and
celebrate them during Michigan Week.

6.  When Michigan artists, performers and scholars are featured in
events on your campus during Michigan Week, use your campus media
outlets, your news and information office, and your office of public
affairs to broadcast this fact.

7.  Challenge each department to develop a "Friends" group with strong
Michigan connections (Friends of Women's Studies, Friends of
Architecture, Friends of Philosophy). Invite that group to take on a
substantive project, such as creating an archive of local women's
organizations and women leaders, or hosting a panel of black architects.

8.  Web site suggestions: Post a list of faculty at your institution
currently doing research on and in Michigan-related topics. Post a list
of campus-community collaborations in your area. Post a profile of a
faculty member, a student, a staff member or a resident who is doing
particularly important work in your community. Link all of these to a
"Michigan Resources" button on your institution's home page.

9.  Hold a Michigan film festival.  Click here for more information on
features filmed in Michigan
<http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-17445_19275_34149-51916--,00.html>;.

10. Work with Native American communities in your area to explore and
understand their historical connection with your college or university.

11. Work with your alumni association to identify graduates who are
doing outstanding work in the arts, humanities and design in Michigan
institutions and communities. Ask these alums to share their strategies
at reunion events.

12. Host a speaker series of your faculty in a local public library.
Host a speaker series on campus inviting local community experts to
speak.

13. Give an award to an outstanding campus-community collaboration in
your area.

14. Create a bus tour of the state for your faculty. Announce this new
program during Michigan Week.

15. Commission Michigan architects, landscape architects and designers
for new design and construction projects.

16. Bring community and campus poets together for an open-mike night at
a local bookstore.

17. Form a cultural engagement council for your campus, bringing
together the directors of museums, libraries, botanical gardens,
performing arts series, humanities institutes and other cultural
programs that serve both campus and community interests.

18. Develop a community-service learning project for the fourth-grade
Michigan history curriculum.

19. Check out the resources at the Center for Great Lakes Culture
<http://www.greatlakes.msu.edu/>;.

20. Plan an election-day festival on your campus, and invite town and
gown. Price of admission: one "I voted" sticker. Announce this during
Michigan Week.

21. Create college courses on Michigan history and literature, working
with local and regional partners.

22. Connect faculty, staff and students on your campus with the Michigan
Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs
<http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-17445_19272---,00.html>; and
the Michigan Humanities Council <http://michiganhumanities.org/>;.

23. Plan an art or historical exhibit with a Michigan theme. Could the
exhibit be shared between campus and community exhibit spaces?

24. Co-sponsor a town meeting on the question, "What does civic
engagement mean for Michigan?"

25. Contact Michigan Campus Compact <http://www.micampuscompact.org/>to
learn about its community-service learning initiatives that benefit
students and the state.
Celebrate Michigan Week
<http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-17447_18630---,00.html>; your
own unique way, May 21-27, 2005!