Around NMU

Northern Michigan University will hold a virtual commencement at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 1. Nearly 900 graduates will be honored at the ceremony, which will be broadcast via the internet and on WNMU-TV13. Bryan Terrell Clark, the Broadway star who played George Washington in Hamilton, will be the commencement speaker.

The Northern Michigan University Board of Trustees today approved two new scholarship initiatives. The Transfer UP-Winter Awards will support students who wish to enroll at NMU for the Winter 2021 semester, which begins Jan. 19. A new $1 million U.P. scholarship fund is also being developed to assist new first-year transfer students from the Upper Peninsula entering NMU in Fall 2021.

Northern Michigan University is using a strategic combination of investments, university and federal aid, and cost-saving efforts to address tuition rates, coronavirus safety concerns and uncertain fiscal year 2021 state funding. The strategy could amount to a zero net increase for many students for the fall semester. It also keeps NMU's tuition and fees second most affordable in the state for the 17th consecutive year.

Northern Michigan University has adjusted its fall semester schedule. Classes will begin one week earlier than usual—Monday, Aug. 17—and the semester will end shortly before Thanksgiving on Tuesday, Nov. 24. The decision follows the university's previously announced plan to return to face-to-face instruction.

Northern Michigan University will launch a new, multidisciplinary indoor agriculture associate degree this fall. The program will prepare students for careers in medicinal plant and agricultural food production, as well as the indoor growing system industry. It will also empower them to grow plants year-round in northern climates, addressing potential food insecurity issues.

Northern Michigan University held a dedication earlier this afternoon for its new Shimadzu Analytical Core Laboratory for Medicinal Plant Sciences, which opened this fall. Undergraduate students in the rigorous chemistry program have rare access to cutting-edge instrumentation and technology applicable to numerous career options in and beyond the burgeoning cannabis industry.

English graduate students and faculty members from Northern Michigan University delved into environmental fiction and ecocriticism during a stay on Granite Island Oct. 18-20, surrounded by the grandeur and moods of Lake Superior. NMU is the only public university in the nation to offer a course held in a lighthouse. 

Northern Michigan University's overall headcount for undergraduate and graduate students has increased by 137 compared with fall 2018, according to its 10th day enrollment report.

The newly released film Yesterday imagines a world in which the Beatles never existed, except to a struggling singer-songwriter who becomes an overnight sensation performing the band's back catalog. The premise demonstrates the enduring legacy of what many consider the most influential group of all time for its impact on culture and recording techniques. 

The Upper Peninsula Manufacturing Consortium, convened by Northern Michigan University to meet industry workforce demands by facilitating multiple career pathways, has received a grant worth nearly $1.3 million.