Dear GCI followers,
Welcome to the start of the Fall 2015 Semester. This is always a busy, though exciting time, as we prepare for the start of a new academic year. We send good wishes to all as we wind down summer and prepare for the fall season.
This summer was busy for us as we launched three new projects under our Neighborhoods Initiative. Two projects are aimed at the revitalization of commercial corridors in the Austin and South Chicago neighborhoods and the third project will be a soon-to-be-announced quality-of-life plan for Pilsen. We have also been busy conducting fiscal impact analyses and of course, we continue our work on participatory budgeting. In addition, we are also very excited to be promoting worker cooperatives through partnering with Women for Economic Justice (WEJ).
The 2015-2016 GCI Faculty Scholars represent an incredible array of talent and expertise, with a coincidental focus on social justice in Chicago. They are: David Stovall, Department of Educational Policy Studies and African-American Studies; Ronak Kapadia, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies; and Amy Bailey, Department of Sociology. We also welcome this year our first senior faculty scholar, David Perry, Department of Urban Planning and Policy.
As part of our collaboration across colleges within UIC, the UIC Center for Global Health and GCI will work together to bring forward the winners of the Chancellor’s Global Health Seed Grant competition. This is an important example of the international work by many UIC professors.
The evening of September 17, we will host a screening of the documentary Changing Face of Harlem with the director, Shawn Batey, on the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture lawn in the Humboldt Park community. A conversation will follow on the impacts of gentrification on the community and strategies for resisting the negative effects.
On November 3, we will join forces with the French Consulate to bring together scholars from both France and the U.S. to discuss pressing urban issues. We are also very excited to launch, with our partner, the National Public Housing Museum, our The Public Good Initiative, which will be a year long campaign beginning with events in November. Stay tuned. We will let you know when we fire back up our Real Time Chicago series. In the meantime, you can find videos from previous talks in the multimedia section of our website.
UIC’s new Chancellor, Dr. Michael Amiridis, has brought new energy to campus and through his leadership we look forward to more opportunities for UIC to continue its work as a great Chicago-serving institution.
We continue to be engaged with our many colleagues to develop analyses and solutions to today’s urban challenges and look forward to another productive year.
Sincerely,
Teresa Córdova
Director
