Interested in developing a more meaningful connection with the public? Following is a list of training opportunities, government relations guidelines, media outlets and other useful resources available through the university. If you can’t find what you need here and/or have additional questions, contact publicengagement@umich.edu. Your input and involvement in this important effort is valued.
Academic Innovation
The Office of Academic Innovation can help you create new programs, experiment with digital tools and platforms, explore media production capabilities and discover new pedagogical techniques to advance teaching and learning in the digital age.
Contact: 734-764-2010
Center for Research on Teaching and Learning
The Center for Research on Teaching and Learning (CRLT) is part of the Provost’s Office, and works to support and enhance learning and teaching at U-M. CRLT offers a comprehensive array of curricular and instructional development activities that can be customized to your needs.
Contact: crlt@umich.edu or 734-764-0505
Graham Sustainability Institute
The Graham Sustainability Institute is part of the Provost’s Office, and works to Mobilize the expertise and passion of scholars, partners, and decision-makers to work together and bring world-class research to real-world sustainability challenges. Graham helps faculty increase their impact by seeding new research, providing engagement expertise, and improving communication products to extend the reach of research findings and their real-world applications.
Contact: graham-institute@umich.edu or 734-615-8230
MICHR
The Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research offers a broad range of services to U-M researchers and community partners who want to pursue health-related research with the public’s help. From consultations and seed funding grants to an interactive online registry for community members that offers information about clinical and health research studies that need their help, MICHR fosters and facilitates community engagement in research.
Contact: UM-MICHR@UMICH.EDU | 734-998-7474
National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID)
The National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID) supports diversity public scholars by providing one-on-one editorial support for the Diversity Scholarship Blog or other platforms such as the American Council on Education’s Higher Education Today and The Conversation. Pop-Up Writing Opportunities and Pop-Up Grants are announced throughout the year for scholars to actively engage in diversity scholarship around emerging or re-emerging social issues and disseminate findings quickly to the public.
Contact:
Laura Sánchez-Parkinson, lasanche@umich.edu
Open Michigan
This platform for all things “open” at Michigan makes it easy for faculty to share their educational and research materials, data and publications openly with the public. Operated by the University Library and the Health Information Technology Services division of Michigan Medicine, its staff offers assistance to faculty seeking to share materials.
Contact: https://open.umich.edu/contact
Rackham Program in Public Scholarship
Through programming which supports research and teaching, as well as projects co-created with community partners and organizations, the Rackham Program in Public Scholarship provides training and mentorship to your students who are interested in pursuing public engagement as part of their graduate training.
Contact: rackpublicscholarship@apiazza
U-M Office of Research
With almost $1.4 billion in research expenditures annually, Michigan is one of the world’s leading research universities. The U-M Office of Research supports this enterprise by cultivating interdisciplinary research on campus and facilitating faculty partnerships with industry, government and academia.
Research also maintains Michigan Experts, a searchable database of research expertise across disciplines from several schools/colleges or institutes at the University of Michigan. It has been developed to foster intramural and extramural collaborations, and interdisciplinary research to expand knowledge.
Contact: 734-764-1185
U-M Museum of Natural History
The U-M Museum of Natural History provides research outreach support, whether you need to fulfill National Science Foundation Broader Impacts requirements or just want to share what you do with the public. The staff has experience to help you reach campus, community, and K-12 audiences.
Contact:
Amy Harris, Director
aharris@umich.edu
(734) 763-4191
Kira Berman, Assistant Director for Education
kiberman@umich.edu
(734) 647-8574
The university’s brand management team promotes a common visual style and voice across all media. To that end, they have developed a brand guide (including logo guidelines) and editorial standards as well a series of downloadable templates to help you help them present an integrated image of U-M.
Contact: idstandards@umich.edu | 734-764-9270
Michigan Medicine
Michigan Medicine has its own branding guidelines, which apply to all areas of the university’s academic medical center, including the Medical School and the entire clinical care enterprise. Logos, templates, and color/typography guidelines are available online with the brand guidelines.
Contact: identity-questions@med.umich.edu | 734-764-2220
Interviews
Michigan News promotes U-M research, major events, expertise and programs to audiences around the world. It also offers training to help prepare faculty for interviews and other media events.
Michigan News also has a database of experts available to the media.
Contact: MNewsMediaTraining@umich.edu | 734-764-7260
Crisis Communications
When a crisis arises, U-M’s Public Affairs staff acts as front-line communicators with the media. Staff is also available to help you think through appropriate actions in response to an emergency.
Contact: public.affairs@umich.edu | 734-936-5190
Michigan Medicine
Michigan Medicine’s Department of Communication promotes research, clinical care, medical innovation and education from the entire academic medical center, including the Medical School. The Media Relations team works with faculty to create multimedia news and feature stories, as well as preparing faculty for media interviews and conducting faculty training. The team must be involved in all news media visits to the medical campus and satellite locations, and in any publicly facing communications involving patients, clinical research participants or research animals.
Contact: MichMedmedia@med.umich.edu | 734-764-2220
U-M Museum of Natural History
The Museum of Natural History offers the Science Communication Fellows program. This program uses the National Science Foundation-supported Portal to the Public framework to bring scientists and public audiences together in face-to-face interactions that promote appreciation and understanding of current scientific research.
Contact:
Alicia Comer, lisha@umich.edu
The Days of Opportunity program was developed to proactively explore faculty research and expertise to be highlighted and curated in anticipation of emerging topics of significance. This approach not only increases the volume of faculty experts we are able to feature but also assists in illustrating the diversity of thought and variety of unique perspectives across our university, enhancing awareness of imperative research projects and promoting the breadth and depth of our academic excellence. Additionally, this collaborative effort serves as a mechanism to promote the wide array of resources offered through the Office of the Vice President for Communications and the Public Engagement and Impact Initiative.
Our digital and social teams are the people to contact to discuss disseminating news through the university’s official channels. Visit the the Communications site to learn how to pitch a story for consideration there. Additionally, UMSocial provides a series of one-page prompts to facilitate your own engagement with audiences who are active on Facebook, Twitter and other popular platforms. Downloadable visual assets ensure that your efforts align with those of your colleagues.
Contact: umdigital@umich.edu | 734-764-9270
Contact: umsocial@umich.edu | 734-764-9270
Social Integrity
Concerned about fake news and protecting your privacy? Sick of trolls and negativity?
The best defense is to be informed, to know (and protect) your rights as a digital citizen and to proactively create a more positive and civil online environment. The U-M Social Integrity site provides you with the information and resources you need to be social.
Visit: http://socialintegrity.umich.edu/
Michigan Medicine
There are special considerations around social media and other public-facing communications involving patients, clinical research participants or animals in research; the Michigan Medicine Department of Communication can assist with navigating these. The team can also assist with strategic use of paid social media posts to achieve communication and outreach goals.
Contact: MichMedmedia@med.umich.edu | 734-764-2220
The Center for Educational Outreach (CEO) offers outreach consulting by partnering with faculty, staff, and students to develop and implement outreach programs.
Contact: umceo@umich.edu
The CEO’s Wolverine Express is another way for faculty to engage with high school students and promote higher education.
Contact:
Sheri Samaha, Outreach Program Manager
734-615-5241
The university’s Government Relations Office as well as the Office of Federal Relations for Research offer advice and support for faculty engaged in Congressional testimony and policymaker briefings.
To stay up to date on U-M governmental activities, accomplishments and advocacy efforts, you can access two digital newsletters. Michigan Impact, published by the State Relations Office, covers state news on a region-by-region basis. Washington Update, from U-M’s Office of Federal Relations, is focused on issues under discussion in the nation’s capital. (Contact mnykaza@umich.edu to sign up for the latter.)
Contact the State Relations Office: 517-372-7801
Contact the Federal Relations Office: 202-554-0578
Michigan Medicine
The Michigan Medicine Government Relations team works with Medical School faculty to engage on the local, state and federal level regarding clinically relevant issues.
The Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation provides government and external stakeholder relations services to the 500+ faculty who are IHPI members, to enhance their impact on health policy and health care practice.
Contact:
Michigan Medicine Government Relations: 734-647-3251
IHPI Government & External Relations: ihpifeedback@umich.edu | 734-763-5880
Story ideas may be pitched to the editorial staffs of several university-sanctioned publications. The University Record, published online daily and in print weekly, serves as U-M’s official internal news source, highlighting the work of faculty and staff on the Ann Arbor campus as well as the campuses in Flint and Dearborn. Michigan Today is produced 10 times a year and emailed to about 300,000 alumni around the world. Michigan Research, published monthly, summarizes key research activity from across campus.
Another possibility is The Conversation, an independent publisher of news and views from the academic and research community. U-M is a contributing institution to this website.
Contact: urecord@umich.edu | 734-764-0105
Contact: mtoday@umich.edu | 734-764-7260
Contact Michigan Research: 734-764-1185
Contact: us-editorial@theconversation.com
Michigan Medicine
Michigan Medicine publishes daily news stories about research and education achievements on the Michigan Health Lab site, and daily news from the clinical world on the Michigan Health Blog. The daily Headlines publication reaches all Michigan Medicine faculty and staff, who represent about half the University community. Medicine at Michigan magazine publishes print and online editions multiple times a year through the Development Communications office.
Contact:
Department of Communication: MichMedmedia@med.umich.edu | 734-764-2220
Development Communications: 734-998-7705
Michigan Photography is the office to contact for headshots and formal portraits as well as event and location shoots. Also available is a copy service for capturing images found in books, periodicals, maps, documents, drawings and artwork as well as three-dimensional objects.
Contact: umphotography@umich.edu | 734-764-9217
The team at Michigan Media can craft creative video productions, develop instructional and training videos and provide taping services to cover events.
Contact: michigan.media@umich.edu | 734-615-8000
Michigan Medicine
All visits to Michigan Medicine facilities by video crews and photographers must be approved in advance by, and in most cases accompanied by, the Michigan Medicine Department of Communication. The department offers a free Media Bank of images from the research, education and clinical missions, as well as faculty portraits and building exteriors and aerials, which may be downloaded and used by all. The Health Information Technology Services multimedia team provides services that allow faculty to record audio and video presentations about their work for education and outreach purposes.
Contact:
Department of Communication: MichMedmedia@med.umich.edu | 734-764-2220
HITS Multimedia: 734-936-8000
The Office of the President awards funds to support faculty travel for public engagement activities conducted on a national level. Such activities might include expert testimony to Congress, leadership service on national boards of professional societies or involvement in other national leadership and advisory positions.
Contact: dc.travel.2017@umich.edu or 734-764-1185
