Past Events › GCI Events

Part of a full week of activities on the 50th anniversary of the release of the Kerner Report from February 26 through March 2, see the full list here. Eugene “Gus” Newport is a civil rights activist and the former mayor of Berkeley, California. Mr. Newport began his political career in his hometown of Rochester, New York in the 1960’s as chairman of the Monroe County Non-Partisan Political League, which focused on issues surrounding police brutality, workplace discrimination, and voter registration.…

Hear remarks from Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs, other major regional leaders, and new research presented by The Century Foundation and the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) that examines the untapped potential of skills training programs and strong manufacturing jobs to expand economic opportunities for diverse communities. Industry 4.0 envisions a fourth industrial revolution that harnesses the power of technology and aims to place diverse communities at the heart of this transformation. To register,…

This talk will be about Professor Garza’s work with formerly incarcerated women in both the academic and community arenas. She will speak about a new organization of formerly incarcerated students at the CSUN campus along with her work in the Watts neighborhood of south Los Angeles with A New Way of Life and Susan Burton, a group of formerly incarcerated women activists who are not only committed to changing their lives but also, most importantly, changing the regressive policies at the…

On the night of August 28, 1968, thousands of young, primarily white, activists headed for the Democratic National Convention in downtown Chicago, intent on protesting the Vietnam War. Mayor Richard J. Daley dispatched an army of police officers and called upon the National Guard and U.S. Secret Service. Activists appealing for peace were greeted by nightsticks and tear gas, as were reporters and Eugene McCarthy convention delegates, as they tried to exercise their First Amendment rights. The debacle was televised and triggered outrage around the nation. The protestors chanted: “The Whole World is Watching.” On August 28, 2018, exactly 50 years later, UIC’s Great Cities Institute hosted a provocative and urgent program exploring why “The Whole World is Still Watching.”

This visiting scholars' lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of Urban Planning & Policy. The Policies of “Post-Truth” Politics "Post-truth” is an adjective defined by the  Oxford Dictionary as ‘denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’. I decided to use this expression as the title of my lecture since it is my impression that this reflects more or less (rather more than less) satisfactorily our current political…

The event will feature first person accounts, practitioners’ reports, and existing research that document the traumatic impacts of deportation and detention upon migrant youth, families and communities. It brings together migrants, practitioners, advocates, and researchers to share knowledge and strategies on preventing and ameliorating these impacts. Loading... If the above RSVP form is not working, please email gcities@uic.edu to RSVP.   Keynote Speaker Luis H. Zayas, Ph.D., is Dean of the Steve Hicks School of Social Work and the Robert…

Author and urbanist Douglas Farr’s bestselling first book, Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature, helped shift the focus of urban sustainability from the stand-alone building to the high-performance neighborhood. Now, Farr returns with Sustainable Nation: Urban Design Patterns for the Future, in which he seeks to move the conversation even further—and faster—forward. Farr proposes more than 70 specific, aspirational urban design patterns, each of which provides guidance on a key aspect of a neighborhood, and all of which can be immediately applied. Join Farr as he provides a hopeful…