Some University of Michigan students spent the summer honing their social engagement skills. Three dozen student-led start-ups that received funding from optiMize, a  program that provides grants to students who want to build self-directed projects for social change, spanned out. One, Building Successful Bridges, worked with the incoming ninth grade class of Marygrove High School in Detroit. 

The middle and high school students who are part of the University of Michigan’s Wolverine Pathways program have the smarts to get to college. They have the desire. They see themselves as college students.

Yes, she will drive across two mountain ranges and eight states in a car “held together by duct tape and rust and prayers” to erase the effects of procrastination and get to grad school on time. But no, she will not leave Detroit for the suburbs.

Dexter Mason says: “To be honored by the Detroit Center is one of the greatest honors of my life. The room I received the award in was actually the same room where I had orientation for U-M’s Summer Bridge program almost 10 years before. So it was just full circle. I couldn’t have imagined where I’d be 10 years later, and I give all the credit to U-M for that.”

A new University of Michigan and Harvard University study shows an 11% drop in homicides and serious injuries caused by firearms in the areas where more than a few demolitions took place. The study does not find that such incidents went up in nearby neighborhoods.

Interested in urban issues? Here’s a list of courses offered at the University of Michigan this fall through the College of Literature, Sciences and the Arts, the Law School, the Ford School of Public Policy, the School for Environment and Sustainability, the Ross School of Business, and the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.

The University of Michigan Detroit Center has relocated within the Orchestra Place Building on Woodward Ave. The Block M now graces Woodward at the corner of Parsons in Detroit.

“We’re lifelong, seventh-generation Detroiters. We came to retail from an unexpected direction, as a way to combine our seemingly disparate backgrounds in urban planning and fine art, our mutual love for design, and our desire to contribute to the vitality of our city and neighborhood,” said Andy Linn.

As a student at Cass Technical High School in Detroit, Rico Ozuna-Harrison discovered how he could have a future in medicine. Every month, students from Cass Tech visit the University of Michigan to be mentored by medical students.