Equity Initiative Grants 2021

Two projects were awarded Equity Initiative funding for work in May-August 2021

Culture Corps

The University of Michigan’s Arts Initiative is undertaking research that will engage organizations and students in the exploration and design of a “culture corps” for SE Michigan — a paid internship program to place U-M undergraduate and local community college students in arts and culture organizations in the region. The Culture Corps project investigates whether a sustained, well-designed program can address both the under-representation of BIPOC staff in arts and cultural organizations, and the tenacity of racism and white privilege within those organizations.

Team members include PI Clare Croft (Associate Professor Department of Music/Department of American Culture); Hannah Smotrich (Associate Professor, Stamps School of Art and Design); Christina Olsen (Director, UMMA and co-chair, Arts Initiative);  and Alison Rivett (Associate Director, Arts Initiative).

Image: Engaging with “On Top of the World” by Kehinde Wiley (Photographer: Mark Gjukich)


Racializing Space: Housing and Inequality in Detroit, 1930-2020

Racializing Space maps data from multiple censuses and surveys from 1939 to the present to show how policies and processes of predatory exclusion and inclusion have shaped the residential geography of Detroit and Southeast Michigan, manipulating the housing market and contributing to regional segregation and racial wealth gaps. This project tells the story of how Detroit’s decline was produced by focusing on transitions in housing and housing struggles, and how a city previously of homeowners became a majority renter city by 2015.

Team members include PI Jonathan Massey (Professor of Architecture and Dean of the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning); Co-PI Larissa Larsen (Director of the URP Doctoral Program and Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning); Josh Akers (Associate Professor of Geography and Urban and Regional Studies, University of Michigan-Dearborn); and Robert Fishman (Professor of Architecture and Urban and Regional Planning, and Co-Director of the Architecture Doctoral Program).