Fr. Hendry and film to discuss New Orleans, Katrina

UDM's Director of Catholic Studies Simon Hendry, S.J., will share his experiences in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and in its aftermath, tomorrow, April 4 at 6 p.m. in the Ford Life Sciences Building, Room 115.  Fr. Hendry's comments will be accompanied by the second part of the Spike Lee documentary, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.  The film is presented by the Phi Alpha Theta History Honors Society.

Pictured: Fr. Hendry, right, with students during last month's Alternative Spring Break service trip to New Orleans.

Brush up your social skills at Etiquette Dinner

The Career Education Center and Sodexho will present "Dining for Success: An Etiquette Dinner" on Thursday, April 12 from 5:45 to 8 p.m. in the President's Dining Room.  Faculty, staff and students are invited to this year's dinner, which will feature a presentation by Protocol Consulting Group.

The dinner is a good opportunity to polish social skills and interact with students outside of the classroom.  The cost is $10.50 and pre-registration is required by Friday, April 6.  For more information, contact Elissa Clemons at 313-993-1449 or clemonel@udmercy.edu. The CEC web site provides details on the presentation.

MVC volunteer with children

Mercy Volunteer Corps accepting applications

Mercy Volunteer Corps, a lay volunteer program sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, is accepting applications for its 2007-2008 service year.  The Corps offers men and women over the age of 21 the opportunity to give a year of service to those in need.  According to volunteer coordinator Sister Mary Jo Holmes, RSM, volunteers range from young adults who have just finished college to retirees and married couples.

While most sites are in the United States, the program also offers two-year international placements.  Placements start in May for service beginning in August. For more information, call Mercy Volunteer Corps at (215) 641-5535 or visit their web site, www.mercyvolunteers.org.

SAA final exam gift kits available

The UDM Student Alumni Association (SAA) is raising funds by selling "Final Exam Kits."  The gift kits, which contain snacks and study supplies, will be delivered by the SAA to the student of your choice with a personalized message.  Order forms are due Friday, April 13.  Download the order form.

Sharing research at UDM

• Faculty/Student Research Exhibit - April 17
  UDM faculty and students will present their research to the public Tuesday, April 17 from noon to 6 p.m. in the Student Center Fountain Lounge.  This is an excellent opportunity to discover the research going on at University of Detroit Mercy. In addition, an award for best presentation will be given to one presenter within each college or school.
• Research Matters conversation - April 20
  Faculty are also invited to participate in a "Research Matters" conversation with colleagues, Friday, April 20 from 2-4 p.m. in the Lansing-Reilly Parlor.  Novice and experienced researchers alike are encouraged to join the informal conversation about current UDM research, successes and challenges, and balancing teaching and research.  Refreshments will be provided.

UDM Counseling programs receive national recognition

UDM's Counseling/Addiction Studies department received national recognition for its Addictions Counseling program. Assistant Professor Nancy Calley accepted the Outstanding Program Award from the International Association of Addictions and Offenders Counselors at the annual American Counseling Association convention held March 23-26 in Detroit.

Also at the convention, Lahaska Press (an imprint of Houghton-Mifflin) presented the UDM Counseling Clinic with its 2007 Lahaska Cares Campaign award.  The award recognizes the clinic's social justice mission of providing no-cost mental health counseling services to individuals without the means or access to services in the Detroit area.

UDM coordinates ESL courses for Yemeni-Americans

Located just seven miles from UDM, Hamtramck is home to a growing number of Yemeni-Americans.  In response to the increased need for English language instruction, UDM's Language and Cultural Training department will run evening English as a Second Language (ESL) courses twice per week, starting April 3, for Yemeni-Americans. 

Lara Wasner, UDM's director of Language and Cultural Training, says, "Given the ESL program's portability through UDM, and given the location of our campus, this is a terrific opportunity for us to reach out and serve this growing population."

Did you know: UDM web mail tips

The following tips from Human Resources may help you when using your UDM e-mail account on the web ( mail.udmercy.edu ).

Did you know...

...using the address book can make your attachments disappear?  If you use the "address book" feature to find recipient e-mail addresses, you need to do this before attaching any files you wish to send.  If you attach your files first and then use the address book, your files will no longer be attached. (See, you really did attach that document after all!)

...you can attach more than three files to an e-mail message?  To do so, attach your first three files, and then save the e-mail as a draft with the "Save in Drafts" button (located next to the "Send" button).  Then, reopen the message from your "Drafts" mailbox and click the "Edit Draft" button.  You will be able to attach three more files. This can be repeated as many times as needed. (Be warned, though: overly large e-mail messages are sometimes blocked by recipient mailbox size limits, and there is a size limit of 10 MB per any single e-mail message.)

...stray spaces can collapse your paragraphs?  You may have copied multiple paragraphs of text from an application and pasted them into an e-mail message, only to find that the paragraphs merged together into one long paragraph after the e-mail is sent.  It's been discovered that if a space exists after the last period in a paragraph, that paragraph will run together with the paragraph that follows it when they are sent as part of an email message.