LEADERSHIP
2024–2025
Co-chair, Grievance Committee
Graduate Employees’ Organization (AFT Local 3550)
I served for a year as elected the co-chair of the grievance committee for GEO, the union representing >2000 graduate workers at the University of Michigan. I believe strongly in the importance ensuring that all graduate students have the support and resources they need to advocate for their rights as workers, students, and members of the university community. As grievance chair, I supported graduate workers across the university through the grievance process, from department-level meetings and emails to hearings with University of Michigan Academic HR. I also organized and participated in both mediation and arbitration proceedings with the University.
2022–2023
DEI Coordinator, GeoClub
As DEI Coordinator for the student organization within the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, I provided resources for linking GeoClub to other DEI groups within the department (primarily URGE and the department DEI Committee), as well as assisting in ensuring inclusivity in events
OUTREACH
I have regularly participated in panels about graduate school for current undergraduate students in my department. I also volunteered for four years to assist with my department’s ForALL Preview (previously Fall Preview) program for prospective graduate students from diverse backgrounds, a program that I myself participated in as a senior undergrad. I prepared a sample from one of my field sites for the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History exhibit “Meet Me in the Mountains,” which highlights work being done around the Camp Davis Field Station in Wyoming.
I have also been interviewed by local news alongside my labmate Diana Velazquez on two occasions about our work in Middle Island Sinkhole, offshore of Alpena, MI:
Lake Huron sinkhole resembles Earth two billion years ago; WCMU Public Media; August 8, 2023. Interview by Zipporah Abarca.
Sinkhole science in the Sanctuary; The Alpena News; June 8, 2024. Article by Darby Hinkley.
Cecilia M. Howard 