NMU public relations professor and alumna Jes Thompson co-edited the recently published America's Largest Classroom: What We Learn From Our National Parks, which has been nominated for the National Nonfiction Book Award. Thompson recruited NMU art and design alumna Abigail Cook to create graphics and help with the final layout and photo rendering for the book's publisher, University of California Press.

NMU's English Department has compiled a list of dozens of suggested readings related to African American culture, including titles that help provide a context for the Black Lives Matter movement, along with some materials addressing Native American history and culture. 

Northern Michigan University has received a highly competitive National Endowment for the Humanities grant worth $170,000 to support a Native American studies sustainable online programming project. Only 14% of the 2,300 eligible applications were funded through a new round of NEH Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act grants, according to a press release.

The Two Books Two Communities program, a partnership between Northern Michigan University and the Marquette and Alger County communities, has chosen The Women of the Copper Country and To the Copper Country as the books for the 2020 community read.

NMU geography alumnus Nick Spittlemeister is one of three experts from Lake County Forest Preserves in Illinois who will participate in a free GPS World webinar on how the district uses HD aerial imagery to protect and maintain natural resources. He has worked there since 2016 and has more than 15 years' experience in GIS.