Friday, November 21, 2008

Paul Adams recipient of campus award

Paul Adams, ESLARP Campus Advisory Committee member, is the recipient of the 2008-9 Campus Award for Excellence in Public Engagement from the University of Illinois. Congratulations Paul!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

FAA 199 students flyer neighborhood businesses for upcoming ceremony

On Saturday, November 15 eight students from the FAA 199 class worked with Project H.E.A.V.E.N.’S director, Carole Mayhall to raise awareness for an upcoming ceremony. The students distributed flyers to businesses and patrons along State Street in East St. Louis. Students also worked to address invitations for the upcoming ceremony recognizing victims, survivors and their family members

Later in the afternoon the students worked in Project H.E.A.V.E.N.’S office to sort supplies and assemble emergency bags for people in transition. The bags are part of Saint Clair County’s Project Homeless Connect which helps support the needs of homeless individuals and families.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Urban Affairs Association March 4-7, 2009

Janni Sorensen, Assistant Professor of Geography at UNC Charlotte and former ESLARP Assistant Director, will be presenting on ESLARP at the upcoming Urban Affairs Association's Annual Meeting in Chicago (March 4-7). Her presentation on March 6th is entitled "Neighborhood Planning in a Community-University Partnership" and is part of "Community Institutions: New Roles, New Challenges" session. Registration is open till January 12, 2009.

FAA 199 students preserve, clean-up, and provide support

This past Outreach Weekend, over twenty FAA 199 worked at several work sites over the weekend. Students worked in the City of Centerville with their city planner to transfer police reports into electronic format. This information will be used by the planner to create GIS maps that will allow the City of Centerville to visually see the locations of crime, and the types of calls their police department receive.















Other students helped Catholic Urban Programs preserve historic gravestones at one of the oldest cemeteries in East St. Louis.















Eight students worked at 41st Street Pullman Porter Park to shovel 20 tons of gravel into a walkway in the park. And a few students helped Christina Fisher, Director of Village Theatre, to organize supply closets in the theatre and their tool shed.















Due to the chilly weather on Saturday, most of the students worked indoors with the Katherine Dunham Museum to catalog their library, decorate the museum for the holidays, and clean and sort historic materials at two of Katherine Dunham's homes.

As usual, all the hard work was capped off by a stop at Pirtle's, for the world's best ice cream, before we headed home

Monday, November 17, 2008

November Outreach Weekend

Nearly 140 University of Illinois students and faculty participated in our November Outreach Weekend from November 14-15. Thank you to all the classes that participated-FAA 199, FAA 391, LIS 451, UP 474, and all the volunteers!

Friday, November 7, 2008

Project H.E.A.V.E.N.


ESLARP is partnering with Project H.E.A.V.E.N. (Helping to Empower All Victims Everywhere Now) – to help remember victims and survivors of crime this holiday season.

Crime victims and survivors will be honored with a tree of HOPE in the rotunda of city hall in East St. Louis. During the ceremony, survivors and family members will place an ornament on the tree to remember their loved ones.

ESLARP is helping to publicize the event by flyering local businesses and community centers. Project HEAVEN - Crime Victim Services works to assist victims of crime and collaborate with local service agencies to improve referral and direct services for victims in the greater East St. Louis area.

For more information on Project HEAVEN see: http://projectheaven-cvs.com/

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Engaging scholars and practitioners

Last month, ESLARP had a presence at two conferences: Imagining America and the American Planning Association's 2008 Illinois State Conference.

In early October, Imagining America drew together a group of scholars, activists, community organizers, and all shades in between, to mutually engage one overarching question: what does it mean to do "public" scholarship? Abbilyn Harmon, an ESLARP graduate assistant, had the opportunity to reflect on this question many times over in the panels and activities organized for the conference, and found herself challenged by those from inside and outside the walls of academia.

Abby also had the opportunity to take part in the Publicly Active Graduate Education (PAGE) program, which brought together a group of 20 graduate students to aggressively take on this question as part of a daylong PAGE summit. At this summit, Abby presented her ESLARP-based Participatory Action Research course as a model of engaged critical pedagogy. Laura Lawson, ESLARP director, also presented at the conference about ESLARP's engagement in public scholarship.

The American Planning Association's 2008 Illinois State Conference was held here in Champaign from October 29-31. Planning students and practitioners from all across the state attended workshops and sessions exploring creating greener cities, better transportation, and the changing demographics of cities in Illinois. Sang Lee, an ESLARP visiting lecturer, presented on planning education, community organizing, and East St. Louis. She was part of a session exploring equity planning in practice. Ken Salo, an ESLARP Campus Advisory Committee member, was also part of the session, presenting on his work in north Champaign around environmental justice issues. Earlier in the conference, another ESLARP CAC member, Elizabeth Sweet, presented her work on gender and immigrants in Illinois.