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
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).