Happy Fall!
The mushrooms are popping and leaves are starting to transform colors in the forests at the beautiful U-M Biological Station.
We’ve entered the annual season of deep change to our natural world — a reliable comfort amidst the daily whirlwind.
Many alumni leaned into the warm feeling of revisiting something treasured and deeply familiar down into your bones when they returned to UMBS for a weekend of nostalgia. It was a joy to meet so many enthusiastic alumni, hear their stories and watch them create new connections during Alumni Weekend. It didn’t matter if someone was Gen Z or a Baby Boomer, when they met and talked about their time at UMBS, you could hear animation in their voices and see their eyes brim with excitement over shared experiences that could seemingly only happen here. Read the Alumni Weekend story to hear from people like Seeta Goyal (UMBS 2018), an assistant attorney general in Illinois: “Coming back to the Biostation felt like returning to a self that I hadn’t had the freedom to be in a really long time.”
If you live in the Midwest and want to support a UMBS/U-M alumna, consider taking a trip to Grand Rapids this week. Zoi Crampton, an Anishinabek artist who took 10 courses in three years at UMBS starting in 2021, has a 2D entry titled “In Our Bodies” on display as part of ArtPrize. “In Our Bodies” features plastic trash from Great Lakes beaches. Read the UMBS news story to learn the inspiration behind Crampton’s piece and how to vote in the international competition. I also loved hearing tales of her adventures at UMBS, especially connecting with this statement: “Being at UMBS is a sort of master class in being observant.”
We created a new Alumni Success page on our website. Check it out! It’s fascinating to see the ways that the UMBS experience changed the lives of alumni who pursued careers in a wide variety of fields — everything from medicine and law to teaching and documentary filmmaking.
We’re grateful for our strong connections with partners across the University of Michigan who are sharing the incredible work being done at UMBS with new, far-reaching audiences. For example, a crew from Michigan News in the Office of the Vice President for Communications drove up to the Pellston campus this summer to feature the Piping Plover Captive Rearing Center as part of the Michigan Stories series that highlights U-M’s impact in the state. Watch the Michigan News video and read the story.
Planning for our 2026 courses is underway. Let students in your networks know they can help secure their spot in the spring and summer terms by signing up now to receive notification when our 2026 course list and application go live. We accept students of all majors from universities around the world. Thanks to generous donors, scholarships are available to both U-M and guest students.
I have a personal update for you. I’m happy to share that I’ve been reappointed as director of the University of Michigan Biological Station for an additional five years. I’m proud of the hard work and dedication of the UMBS staff, the curious energy and determination of UMBS researchers, and our shared mission to learn from the natural world, advance research and education, and inspire action. We have so much more to do together. It is my honor to lead Michigan’s field research station in its second century of operations. To learn more about where we’ve been these last five years and where we’re going to ensure many more generations have the opportunity to live, learn and work here, read the UMBS news story.
Read the full September 2025 newsletter.
Sincerely,
Dr. Aimee Classen
UMBS Director
