After a unanimous vote by the Board of Regents today, the Division of Kinesiology has been officially renamed the School of Kinesiology. The change will take effect Dec. 1.
- Sam Wolson / Daily
In proposing the name change to the regents, University Provost Teresa Sullivan said that the division has changed significantly since it began as the Department of Physical Education, a unit housed within the School of Education in the late 1800s.
Due to the achievements of the program, Sullivan said the name change needed to be made.
“The Division of Kinesiology functions in every way like one of our schools and renaming the division will align it with the reality of its actual structure and performance, internally and externally,” she said.
She also noted the “steady improvement in the quality of faculty, staff and students” in the program.
According to a press release distributed at yesterday’s meeting, Kinesiology enrollment has grown to 800 in recent years, the fourth highest among the 12 schools and colleges at the University.
Student ousted in ‘Red Scare’ awarded posthumous degree
During winter commencement in December, an honorary degree will be conferred upon Milo Radulovich, a former University student who was a victim of the Red Scares in the 1950s.
The University Board of Regents voted unanimously at its meeting yesterday to give a Bachelor of Science degree with a concentration in physics to Radulovich, who died last November.
In introducing the proposal for the honorary degree to the regents, Provost Teresa Sullivan called Radulovich “a staunch supporter of civil liberties and freedom of the press during his life.”
At the height of the Red Scare, Radulovich was caught in the middle of a national crackdown on Communists. He studied physics and served in the Air Force Reserves.
When Sen. Joe McCarthy started to stoke an anti-communist sentiment throughout the country, Radulovich was targeted because his father, an immigrant from Serbia, subscribed to a Serbian newsletter and his sister was a civil rights activist.
Regent McGowan’s piano teacher named U-M Flint Interim Director of the Department of Music
In a lighter moment at the meeting, Regent McGowan commended UM-Flint chancellor Ruth Person for her choice for the interim director of the department of music for the Flint campus, because he also happens to be McGowan’s piano teacher.
Talking to Chancellor Person, McGowan said, “I was flipping through my book last night and you have just appointed as your interim director of the department of music, my piano teacher,” to a large roar of laughs from the crowd.
Brian DiBlassio, who Chancellor Person called a “fellow jazz-lover,” had previously been an adjunct lecturer in jazz.
McGowan said that though she has been taking lessons from DiBlassio for 15 years, she can’t play much. But, she did commend DiBlassio for being “fabulous,” saying they had many good talks.