National and international studies have repeatedly demonstrated that significant numbers of American children are not acquiring the literacy, numeracy, and other important skills needed for success in school and later life.

In this talk, Professor Fred Morrison will review what we know about the most important child, parenting, schooling, and larger sociocultural factors that impact achievement in school and beyond. The discussion will also point to how we can begin to improve literacy in America.

Dr. Morrison is currently Professor of Psychology, Professor in the Combined Program in Education and Psychology and Research Professor in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. In recent years, his research has focused on understanding the nature and sources of children’s cognitive, literacy, and social development over the school transition period. He has been recognized for his contributions to development and education, being awarded the Dina Feitelson award for the best research article published in both 2005 and 2015.

This talk is part of the "Exploring the Mind" series and is cosponsored by the University of Michigan Department of Psychology.

Award-winning author Tom Stanton weaves a stunning tale of history, crime, and sports. Richly portraying 1930s America, "Terror in the City of Champions" features a pageant of colorful figures: iconic athletes, sanctimonious criminals, scheming industrial titans, a bigoted radio priest, a love-smitten celebrity couple, J. Edgar Hoover, and two future presidents, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. It is a rollicking true story set at the confluence of hard luck, hope, victory, and violence.

Detroit, mid-1930s: In a city abuzz over its unrivaled sports success, gun-loving baseball fan Dayton Dean became ensnared in the nefarious and deadly Black Legion. The secretive, Klan-like group was executing a wicked plan of terror, murdering enemies, flogging associates, and contemplating armed rebellion. The Legion boasted tens of thousands of members across the Midwest, among them politicians and prominent citizens—even, possibly, a beloved athlete.

The book opens with the arrival of Mickey Cochrane, a fiery baseball star who roused the Clutch Plague’s hardest-hit city by leading the Tigers to the 1934 pennant. A year later he guided the team to its first championship. Within seven months the Lions and Red Wings follow in football and hockey—all while Joe Louis chased boxing’s heavyweight crown.

Amidst such glory, the Legion’s dreadful toll grew unchecked: staged “suicides,” bodies dumped along roadsides, high-profile assassination plots. Talkative Dayton Dean’s involvement would deepen as heroic Mickey Cochrane’s reputation would rise. But the ballplayer had his own demons, including a close friendship with Harry Bennett, Henry Ford’s brutal union buster.

Tom Stanton’s other books include the critically acclaimed Tiger Stadium memoir "The Final Season" and the Quill Award finalist Ty and The Babe. A professor of journalism at the University of Detroit Mercy, he is a former Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan.

The U-M Center for the History of Medicine and AADL are pleased to host Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Oshinsky, Ph.D., as he discusses his new book, Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital, a riveting history of New York's iconic public hospital that charts the turbulent rise of American medicine.

Bellevue Hospital, on New York City's East Side, occupies a colorful and horrifying place in the public imagination: a den of mangled crime victims, vicious psychopaths, assorted derelicts, lunatics, and exotic-disease sufferers. In its two and a half centuries of service, there was hardly an epidemic or social catastrophe—or groundbreaking scientific advance—that did not touch Bellevue.

Oshinsky chronicles the history of America's oldest hospital and in so doing also charts the rise of New York to the nation's preeminent city, the path of American medicine from butchery and quackery to a professional and scientific endeavor, and the growth of a civic institution.

With its diverse, ailing, and unprotesting patient population, the hospital was a natural laboratory for the nation's first clinical research. It treated tens of thousands of Civil War soldiers, launched the first civilian ambulance corps and the first nursing school for women, pioneered medical photography and psychiatric treatment, and spurred New York City to establish the country's first official Board of Health.

The latter decades of the twentieth century brought rampant crime, drug addiction, and homelessness to the nation's struggling cities—problems that called a public hospital's very survival into question. It took the AIDS crisis to cement Bellevue's enduring place as New York's ultimate safety net, the iconic hospital of last resort. Lively, page-turning, and fascinating, Bellevue is essential American history.

David Oshinsky, Ph.D is a professor in the NYU Department of History and director of the Division of Medical Humanities at the NYU School of Medicine. In 2005, he won the Pulitzer Prize in History for Polio: An American Story. His articles and reviews appear regularly in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

The year that changed everything for the Beatles was 1966—the year of their last concert and their first album, Revolver, that was created to be listened to rather than performed. This was the year the Beatles risked their popularity by retiring from live performances, recording songs that explored alternative states of consciousness, experimenting with avant-garde ideas, and speaking their minds on issues of politics, war, and religion. It was the year their records were burned in America after John’s explosive claim that the group was "more popular than Jesus," the year they were hounded out of the Philippines for "snubbing" its First Lady, the year John met Yoko Ono, and the year Paul conceived the idea for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Music journalist and Beatles expert Steve Turner slows down the action to investigate in detail the enormous changes that took place in the Beatles’ lives and work during 1966. He looks at the historical events that had an impact on the group, the music they made that in turn profoundly affected the culture around them, and the vision that allowed four young men from Liverpool to transform popular music and serve as pioneers for artists from Coldplay to David Bowie, Jay-Z to U2.

By talking to those close to the group and by drawing on his past interviews with key figures such as George Martin, Timothy Leary, and Ravi Shankar—and the Beatles themselves—Turner gives us the compelling, definitive account of the twelve months that contained everything the Beatles had been and anticipated everything they would still become.

The interview was recorded on November 10, 2016.

Obesity rates have reached epidemic levels in the United States and across the globe. The availability of cheap, tasty, and heavily marketed foods is a major contributor to this public health crisis. Yet, we are only starting to understand how these foods "hook" us and what we can do to protect ourselves and our children from this toxic food environment.

In this talk, Professor Ashley Gearhardt, a leading researcher on food addiction, will discuss the impact of "junk" food on our brain and body across the lifespan. She'll also discuss empirically supported strategies to help you gain control over your own eating.

This program, part of the Fall "Exploring the Mind" series of talks, is cosponsored by The University of Michigan Department of Psychology.

“On our first day of school, Robert and I stood at the designated stop at Hevers Avenue with our mothers, and that's when we met for the very first time. We were five years old.”

So began a lifelong friendship that fourteen years later would result in the formation of The Cure, a quintessential post-punk band whose albums—such as Three Imaginary Boys, Pornography, and Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me—remain among the best-loved and most influential of all time.

As two of the first punks in the provincial English town of Crawley, Lol Tolhurst and Robert Smith didn't have it easy. Outsiders from the start, theirs was a friendship based initially on proximity and a shared love of music, from the punk that was raging in nearby London to the groundbreaking experimentation of David Bowie's “Berlin Trilogy.” First known as The Easy Cure, they began playing in pubs and soon developed their own unique style and approach to songwriting, resulting in timeless songs that sparked a deep sense of identification and empathy in listeners, songs like “Boys Don't Cry,” “Just Like Heaven,” and “Why Can't I Be You?,” spearheading a new subculture dubbed “Goth” by the press. The music of The Cure was not only accessible but also deeply subversive, challenging conventional notions of pop music and gender roles while inspiring a generation of devoted fans and a revolution in style.

Cured is not only the first insider account of the early days of the band, it is a revealing look at the artistic evolution of the enigmatic Robert Smith, the iconic lead singer, songwriter, and innovative guitarist at the heart of The Cure. A deeply rebellious, sensitive, tough, and often surprisingly “normal” young man, Smith was from the start destined for stardom, a fearless non-conformist and provocateur who soon found his own musical language through which to express his considerable and unique talent.

But there was also a dark side to The Cure's intense and bewildering success. Tolhurst, on drums and keyboards, was nursing a growing alcoholism that would destroy his place in The Cure and nearly end his life. Cured tells the harrowing and unforgettable story of his crash-and-burn, recovery, and rebirth.

Intensely lyrical and evocative, gripping and unforgettable, Cured is the definitive story of a singular band whose legacy endures many decades hence, told from the point of view of a participant and eyewitness who was there when it happened—and even before it all began.

The interview was recorded on October 13, 2016.

On September 9, 1971, nearly 1,300 prisoners took over the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York to protest years of mistreatment. Holding guards and civilian employees hostage, the prisoners negotiated with officials for improved conditions during the four long days and nights that followed.

On September 13, the state abruptly sent hundreds of heavily armed troopers and correction officers to retake the prison by force. Their gunfire killed thirty-nine men—hostages as well as prisoners—and severely wounded more than one hundred others. In the ensuing hours, weeks, and months, troopers and officers brutally retaliated against the prisoners. And, ultimately, New York State authorities prosecuted only the prisoners, never once bringing charges against the officials involved in the retaking and its aftermath and neglecting to provide support to the survivors and the families of the men who had been killed.

Drawing from more than a decade of extensive research, historian and University of Michigan professor Heather Ann Thompson sheds new light on every aspect of the uprising and its legacy, giving voice to all those who took part in this forty-five-year fight for justice: prisoners, former hostages, families of the victims, lawyers and judges, and state officials and members of law enforcement. Blood in the Water is the searing and indelible account of one of the most important civil rights stories of the last century.

The interview was recorded on September 14, 2016.

The success of podcasts like Serial and documentaries like Making of a Murderer has drawn attention to the issue of wrongful convictions, and to flaws in the criminal justice system that allow these problems to persist.

In 2007, Bill Proctor, a journalist and reporter with WXYZ-TV Channel 7 in Detroit, founded Proving Innocence to investigate wrongful conviction claims and educate the public about the need for reforms. Bill talks about the cases that inspired him to take action, and brings along guest speakers who have experienced wrongful conviction and exoneration to share their perspectives.

Proctor was an award-winning journalist, reporter, producer, and anchorperson whose career of nearly forty years spanned electronic media, radio, television, and documentaries. He concluded his career as senior staff reporter for WXYZ-TV in Southfield, MI, retiring in May 2013.

We live in an increasingly global world where people live, work, and study in countries other than their own. Even when living in our home countries, we interact with people from all over the world.

What are the skills that are needed to succeed in this global world? How do we develop and learn these skills? Recent research has shown that the answer to these questions are not as intuitive as one would suspect. Exposing yourself to other cultures does not always help and can sometimes backfire.

However, there are also many things you can do to develop your global competence skills, even if you have never left your home country!

In this talk, Professor Fiona Lee of the U-M Department of Psychology discusses some of this research, and provides concrete strategies you can use to increase your global competence. Professor Lee's research focuses on 3 main topics under the broad topic of social behaviors in organizational and work contexts: Identity Integration: How do people negotiate between their multiple identities? Power: How does having power (or not) affect the way people behave? Culture: When do cultural differences affect people and organizations?

This program was part of the Fall "Exploring the Mind" series of talks, and was co-sponsored by The University of Michigan Department of Psychology.

Join us for a conversation with refugee families about their reality and with representatives from those working with refugee communities in Washtenaw County. Panelists include members of Jewish Family Services and Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights.

This event is co-sponsored by the Interfaith Round Table of Washtenaw County, the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice, and the Ann Arbor District Library.

The panel discussion will be moderated by Emmaline Weinert, the co-founder of Washtenaw Refugee Welcome, a new organization whose mission is to identify and mobilize resources to support local agencies in resettling refugees in Washtenaw County. She is also on the board of directors of the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice.