Current Students

Celebrate Spirit! is the official kickoff to the new academic year for our University community and is set for Thursday, Sept. 11 inside the Student Fitness Center. The Mass of the Holy Spirit begins at 11:30 a.m. 

The guest homilist for Celebrate Spirit! is Karl J. Kiser, S.J. The event is hosted by University Ministry, Mission Integration, University Libraries, the Student Success Center and the College for Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences.

Celebrate Spirit! is open to all members of the Detroit Mercy community no matter their religious affiliation. All are invited to wear red, orange or yellow as part of the event. Following Mass at 11:30 a.m., a free lunch and reception will be provided in the Fountain Lounge & Terrace of the Student Union at 1 p.m.

Click here to volunteer at Celebrate Spirit!

Celebrate Spirit! 2025 invites the Detroit Mercy community to reflect on “Sustaining a Spirit of Hope” as this academic year’s theme along with our new University core values. Amid global and personal challenges and uncertainty, we are reminded that hope is not just a feeling but a daily practice — nurtured through community and grounded in discernment.

Students, we’ve got something fresh launching this fall, and it’s built just for you. Get ready for a new Detroit Mercy app, powered by Raftr.

It will be an all-in-one place for:

• Campus events and updates
• Student organization news
• Chat groups and communities
• Classmate connections
• And way more

No more FOMO or digging through emails — just open the app and get what you need, fast.

The app goes live when you return to campus. Keep an eye out for further instructions.

Get ready for the ultimate campus kickoff event! RecFest 2025 is set for Tuesday, Aug. 26 from 3:30–5:30 p.m. at the Student Fitness Center.

This is your opportunity to discover the diverse recreational activities available through University Recreation.

This event features the following:

• Free food and drinks
• Giveaways and raffle prizes with live DJ
• Special guests and 20-plus vendors and campus/community partners
• Rockwall and obstacle course
• Shoot-N-Shower challenge
• 4-way volleyball, spikeball, cornhole and fowling

Interactive schedule for the day is as follows:

• 3:30 p.m. — Block party check-in
• 4-4:45 p.m. — Open badminton
• 4:45-5:30 p.m. — Open pickleball
• 4:30-5:30 p.m. — Interactive demos
• 4:30-5:30 p.m. — Fitness challenges

Whether you’re into fitness, sports, free stuff or just meeting people, mark your calendars for RecFest.

Follow University Recreation on Instagram: @DetroitMercyRec

The PGA Tour returns June 26-29 to Detroit and UDM students can take advantage of a discounted tickets rate to gain entry into the Rocket Classic at Detroit Golf Club, just a couple miles away from the McNichols Campus.

Current students will receive special pricing with 31.3% off Thursday, Friday, Saturday and/or Sunday grounds tickets purchased using their valid udmercy.edu email address at checkout. The percentage is in honor of Detroit’s 313 area code. No refunds or exchanges.

The tournament features major champion golfers Collin Morikawa and Keegan Bradley, past Rocket champions Rickie Fowler, Tony Finau, Cam Davis and other top players such as Patrick Cantlay, Max Homa, Tom Kim and Min Woo Lee, among others. 2025 U.S. Open champ J.J. Spaun is also in the field at the Rocket Classic.

Titans, we need YOU! The Titan Equity Nourish Network (TENN) deliveries take place all summer long, and volunteers are needed to help deliver fresh produce to our neighbors.

Please consider lending a hand with your muscles and cheerful personalities while bringing some smiles to the Detroit Mercy neighboring communities.

Tap on the links below to sign up for bi-weekly Friday and Wednesday deliveries. Your participation is greatly appreciated.

For questions please email Chelsea Manning at mannincp@udmercy.edu.

University Ministry is excited to launch a blog highlighting stories from student experiences of service immersion with UDM.

Titled “Act Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly,” after the biblical passage Micah 6:8, this blog serves as a record of students’ experiences, a way of sharing their thoughts with the larger UDM community and a place for students to learn from one another as people seeking justice.

Service immersions are key experiences of a transformative Mercy and Jesuit education, rooted in service and social justice. These experiences include serving in shelters, soup kitchens, after school projects, urban farms and many other important community-based projects. They integrate cultural learning, relationship building, presentations from local community leaders, prayer and reflection. They offer a life-long path for our students to become “men and women with and for others,” and we believe that these experiences form student leaders who have critical minds and compassionate hearts.

The first blog post comes from senior Tevon Conrad, reflecting on his spring break trip to Montgomery, Ala.—a historic hub for both slavery and the Civil Rights Movement.

Congratulations, Class of 2025!

Photos from University of Detroit Mercy’s Commencement ceremonies are still rolling in. Many of the 1,100 graduates that participated in the ceremonies were captured by our photographers in attendance. Click on the link below to check out a gallery of photos.

For full information on 2025 Commencement, visit udmercy.edu/commencement.

Do you need a tutor or a place to study this summer? Come visit the Student Success Center (SSC), located on the third floor of the McNichols Campus Library!

The SSC is open for students and faculty during the summer terms, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tutoring appointments can be made on TutorTrac by logging into your MyPortal account.

If you cannot find a tutor for your summer course, email or call the SSC at ssc@udmercy.edu or 313-993-1143.

Other services, including the Testing Center, College Life Coaching and Academic Advising, are also available.

For a full list of services, please visit the SSC website.

Each year, University of Detroit Mercy’s Marketing & Communications department profiles members of the graduating classes. Students chosen were nominated by staff and faculty for their contributions to the life of the University.

When Oriekaose Agholor ’25 was searching for his college destination in the United States, he wanted an Engineering education that encompassed everything.

Mechatronics — a multidisciplinary field that combines mechanics, electronics and computing — was at the top of his list; robotics was another targeted pathway. He also wanted an Engineering program that valued co-op internships.

University of Detroit Mercy had it all.

“I’m interested in the whole thing with Engineering,” said Agholor, a native of Delta State, Nigeria. “How can I have the necessary skills to make a product or technology to solve problems or help people? The Mechatronics program expands my knowledge and allows me to tap into these different Engineering fields.”

In fact, Detroit Mercy was one of just two schools in the country that allows students to combine Mechatronics and Robotics into a degree when Agholor was looking at colleges.

“Some schools have one or the other,” Agholor said. “Our school puts both of them together.”

Agholor had two internship co-ops while at the University, working locally as a controls engineering intern with Yanfeng in Highland Park, and with the electric vehicle company, Rivian, in summer 2024 in California.

“My experience here at Detroit Mercy was crucial in my success in both of those roles,” he said. “I feel absolutely prepared for the workforce. I’m really grateful for that.”

Agholor stepped off the plane from Nigeria before the start of the UDM’s winter 2022 semester, having never stepped foot in the United States.

For Agholor, it was completely new surroundings — country, city, school and the community of people at the University. And he began school a semester after most of his Class of 2025 classmates started.

First-year residence Shiple Hall quickly made him feel at home.

“It was amazing,” Agholor said. “It really helped smooth my journey from Nigeria to the United States. Most of the freshmen had started in the fall, so people already knew each other. People would just come up to you and start a conversation. Everyone was really nice and sweet, and after you see people over and over, you just kind of connect.

“The social community on campus definitely was one of the best things here.”

Agholor dove headfirst into the social aspect of the University, becoming involved in clubs and societies, and growing into a campus leader. He became an orientation leader for incoming Titans and also worked at the Student Success Center on the McNichols Campus.

He even started two clubs at UDM: the music club and badminton club. The music club was a fixture on campus and combined students across all majors; they even played at UDM President Donald Taylor’s inauguration dinner. 

The International Night that showcases the diverse population at Detroit Mercy was a favorite event of Agholor’s during his tenure as a student.

“I really liked that Detroit Mercy gave you the opportunity to kick-start your own endeavors,” he said.

In his Engineering studies, Agholor also gave his all, from projects with other students to immersing himself in his degree programs.

Among his opportunities, Agholor, along with other students, shared his designs with national leaders, such as U.S. Sen. Gary Peters ‘84 and former National Cyber Director Harry Coker Jr., when the pair visited the McNichols Campus and UDM’s Vehicle Cyber Engineering program in April 2024.

All of the projects, classes, internships and opportunities has given him a complete  education and was everything Agholor envisioned and more.

“It’s been awesome,” he said. “I’ve taken different mechanical classes, different electrical classes and I’ve taken a Mechatronics modeling and simulation class, which is really cool because you need the knowledge of mechanical and electrical classes to really understand what’s going on in this class and we’re learning really cool techniques on how to bridge those worlds together.”

Having attended a Jesuit secondary school in Nigeria, Agholor was versed in the traditions of St. Ignatius. Those Jesuit and Mercy values impacted him further as he grew at the University.

“That was prevalent when I was a campus leader, that we are here to serve, we aren’t doing this for ourselves or the money,” he said. “We are here to model the life of our founders.”

His faith drives him every day.

“My drive to work hard and the belief in myself, my capabilities and other people, it all comes from Jesus,” Agholor said. “It is the Holy Spirit that gives me constant guidance and the values guide me, lead my path. It keeps me on the right track.”

Agholor earned a Robotics and Mechatronic Systems Engineering Honors degree in just three-and-a-half years from the University and now hopes to be able to create technologies that will help others.

His first gig post-graduation takes him to a start-up space for SynaFox AI, located inside of the remodeled and updated Michigan Central Station in downtown Detroit. A networking event hosted by Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan put him in position for the post-graduate internship.

“I hope that in the near future I’m within the start-up space, because I want to develop relevant but powerful technology that can help positively transform the lives of other people in my immediate community in the United States and hopefully even the world,” he said.

“A lot of technology is being created today solely for profit, without having a true impact on the lives of people. I’d like to be in the start-up space to work with like-minded people, hopefully people who have the same drive as me to come up with user-centric products.”

Agholor can’t say enough about his UDM experience.

“My favorite part was getting to work on cool, interdisciplinary projects and working with the students,” he said. “I’ve gotten to work with so many different teams, so many faculty, organizations and clubs, so many different students.

“Being able to interact with people no matter their race, their color, their religion, has been really beautiful. Being able to learn from each and every one of these groups of people and communities has been really awesome.”

— By Adam Bouton. Follow Detroit Mercy on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Have a story idea? Let us know by submitting your idea.

Are you a Detroit Mercy student looking for a rewarding and enriching way to spend part of your summer? The Charlton Center for Responsible Investing is seeking motivated student volunteers to assist with its upcoming Beginners’ Investment Summer Camp 101, a dynamic educational experience for high school sophomores, juniors and seniors from the metro Detroit area.

• Dates: June 23-27
• Time: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., daily
• Location: Commerce & Finance Building

This week-long camp is designed to introduce local high school students to the fundamentals of investing, and your support can make a meaningful difference in their learning experience. As a student volunteer, you’ll have the opportunity to take on a variety of assigned roles and also have access to guest investment professionals.

• Flexible time slots to fit your schedule
• Hourly stipend provided
• Complimentary breakfast snacks and lunch
• A chance to build leadership experience and boost your résumé

Spots are limited, so interested students are encouraged to sign up soon.

To get involved or learn more, please contact Director of the Charlton Center Dawna Edwards-Rodgers at edwarddj1@udmercy.edu or 313-993-3259.

Take part in shaping the next generation of investors while gaining valuable experience this summer!