Mindy Arbaugh, Content Specialist
As the University of Michigan Center for Academic Innovation expands opportunities for lifelong learning, collaboration and teamwork has become a pillar of its success. The center’s pursuit of creating and connecting life-changing education with learners everywhere relies heavily on the strength of its people. And woven into that foundation are the contributions of the center’s Student Fellows.
The students’ energy, innovation, and commitment were on display during the center’s 10th annual Student Fellowship Showcase on April 16. There are 53 Fellows participating in this year’s program, with many of them sharing their work at the event via lightning talks and poster presentations as staff and guests celebrated their work.
“Our student fellowship program is a high-impact, co-curricular experience where students are able to do work that is significant to the center, but also tie those things back into their classes, help them with their personal holistic development, and prepare them for their careers,” said Roderick Simmons, associate director of student experience and engagement at the center. Simmons said since the Student Fellows program was founded in 2015, more than 440 U-M students have worked at the center.
This year’s Student Fellows presented projects undertaken in collaboration with many center teams, highlighting their work on extended reality, business development, data security, product strategy, marketing and social media, learning experience design, research, and more.
Many of the projects looked at strengthening key elements of the center’s infrastructure to the benefit of all center teams. Jor-El Santos, a master’s student in the School of Information, explored ways to clean up technical debt, or unused digital data, using a Python tool of his design. Santos highlighted how the project could improve various systems used by the center.
“We noticed that there’s a lot of things that can be cleaned up for employees of CAI to have a better user experience as they go about their day-to-day,” said Santos.
Cross-team collaboration was a theme throughout the day. Kelly Nguyen, who will collect her master’s in health informatics next month, worked as a project manager supporting the Data and Business Intelligence team this semester. She learned new technology and data analysis tools, adding valuable skills to her resume.
“Working on support tasks at the center has allowed me to really grow and expand my experience professionally,” said Nguyen.
U-M sophomores Lea Gruen and Jazz Rathod partnered on some AI-supported investigative work for the Education Solutions team, identifying potential leadership contacts for workforce development opportunities. They agreed that the connective fabric of the center made an impression during their first semesters as Student Fellows.
“I realized that there are so many different people who need to be aligned for every single team to be successful,” said Gruen, a student in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. “Our team’s success relies on every other team’s success.”
While researching website usability and accessibility as a Program Operations Fellow, master’s student Brooke Bui from the School of Information also recognized the importance of collaboration and partnership at the center.
“I think my favorite thing working here has been seeing how all the different teams work together to help students experience online [learning] and how interconnected everything is,” Bui said.
The impact of that teamwork, and the benefits of that collaboration, flows in the other direction as well.
Amanda Cowell, experiential technologies project manager and one of 29 Student Fellow supervisors, kicked off the showcase by recognizing the ideas and perspective the Student Fellows bring to their work at the center.
“On any given week, we’re figuring out the best way to solve a problem, and the Fellows are absolutely at the heart of all of that,” Cowell said. “They bring creativity. They bring what they learn from their classrooms and teach us.”
Becky Matz, research scientist lead at the center, said her time working with the Student Fellows, connecting them to center colleagues and guiding their partnerships, has helped her grow as a manager. It’s a role she’s come to relish.
“Working with the Fellows is honestly one of the highlights of CAI,” Matz said. “It’s really a life-giving part of the center.”
