April 2020

Northern Michigan University has not let COVID-19 disrupt its French Camp for Young Learners, a 15-year collaboration with a local elementary school that provides students with basic knowledge of French language and culture. The silver lining of this year's modified, virtual format is that the efforts of NMU students have the potential to reach a much larger audience.

The NMU School of Art & Design's Winter 2020 Senior Exhibition had to migrate to a virtual gallery because of COVID-19. This year's event showcases the work of 44 graduating artists.

NMU Professor Gary Brunswick was surprised to learn this week that an extra set of ears had been periodically listening in on his Introduction to Marketing class since it transitioned online in March. It only became obvious when a student asked if her Dad—within earshot in an adjacent room at their Marquette home—could ask a question during Tuesday's lecture. The two men engaged in a complimentary email exchange afterward.

Northern Michigan University has announced two changes potentially impacting students: suspending the $50 per credit online fee for all distance learning classes for summer 2020 sessions I and II; and revising the grading scale alternative for the winter 2020 semester to a Credit/No Credit (CR/NC) option. 

A Native American community engagement class at NMU closed out the semester learning how to create interactive online content such as moccasin games, craft workshops and a "Digital Resilience Webinar Series" to engage audiences in the context of COVID-19.

NMU music department faculty members are using YouTube to expand their educational and entertainment outreach. Erin Colwitz began a "Women in Music" video lecture series and Mark Flaherty launched an NMU Jazz "Tune of the Week" performance series. 

NMU's History Department has implemented “Reacting to the Past,” an active learning pedagogy of role-playing games designed for higher education. Students are assigned character roles with specific goals and must communicate, collaborate and compete effectively to advance their objectives. Professor Kathryn Johnson had the challenge of converting RTTP to a virtual platform in response to COVID-19.

Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, Northern Michigan University's Food Pantry has remained busy, but had to adjust how food is distributed to students who remained on campus during the pandemic. 

As part of its community outreach, the Upper Peninsula Cybersecurity Institute at NMU has partnered with Cisco Networking Academy to offer free online, self-paced courses. May topics include introduction to cybersecurity, cybersecurity essentials and entrepreneurship, and introductory programming with Linux and Python.

NMU professor Scott Drum had a bold idea for engaging students online in his upper-level Physiology of Training for Sport class. He invited award-winning journalist and author Christie Aschwanden to field questions about her bestseller used by the class, titled "Good To Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn from the Strange Science of Recovery." She accepted.