Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Thank you for reading the October issue of GCI MONTHLY. We are pleased to share with you a range of noteworthy events that involve our partners, faculty, staff and students.

Of course, we would like to hear from you and include your information in subsequent issues. Please drop us a line at gcities@uic.edu or 312.996.8700. All the best to you.

David Perry Professor and Director	Lauri Alpern Associate Director

New Community-Based Dental Care Program Launched
The new UIC program, headed by 2002-2003 GCI Faculty Scholar and Director of Pre-doctoral Dental Public Health Linda Kaste, is intended to bring dental care and prevention services to underserved urban and rural populations and increase the diversity of the dental workforce in the state by recruiting more minority and low-income students into the profession. The new program is supported by a five-year grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

"We hope to create a healthcare workforce committed to treating oral diseases in vulnerable populations," said Linda Kaste. "Future practitioners will start thinking not just about who is in the chair, but who is not in the chair - who needs dental care and disease prevention and how those services can be delivered."

Linda Kaste, Faculty Scholar and Director of Pre-doctoral Dental Public Health, College of Dentistry, 312.996.5724, kaste@uic.edu.

The Changing Face of Illinois - Report Now Available
Under the auspices of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), GCI Fellow Louise Cainkar co-authored a new report, The Changing Face of Illinois. The report chronicles the diversity of Illinois immigration and the issues and themes that cut across different immigrant communities. The full text of the report is available in pdf format from ICIRR's website at:
http://www.icirr.org/publications/Changing%20Face%20of%20Illinois%20-FINAL.pdf.

Louise Cainkar, Faculty Fellow, 312.355.1224, cainkar@uic.edu.

UIC Neighborhoods Initiative Expands Partnership with New West Side Federation
The Illinois Department of Human Services has provided support to expand the UICNI Division of Community Health's Teen REACH Program. Teen REACH is an after school faith-based collaborative between the UIC Neighborhood Initiatives-Division of Community Health and the New West Side Federation of Churches. This collaboration provides developmentally appropriate and culturally competent programs to children ages 5-18. The program has the following components: academic achievement, life skills, parent involvement, mentoring, sports and recreation. The program is located at First Baptist Congregational Church, 1613 West Washington. It begins October 16, 2002 and runs Monday-Friday from 3:00pm to 5:00pm.

Glenda Morris Burnett, Project Director, 312.996.7780, gburnett@uic.edu.

Urban Affairs Review Online
The Great Cities Institute is home to the Urban Affairs Review, a leading scholarly journal on urban issues and themes. Please visit the following website for links to current articles: http://www.uic.edu/cuppa/gci/uar/index.htm.

Calendar
Ninth Annual Great Cities Winter Forum
T H E O P E N C I T Y
Friday, December 6
The theme of the Ninth Annual Great Cities Winter Forum is T h e O p e n C i t y. The forum will be held on Friday, December 6 at the Chicago Circle Center from 9:00am to 4:00pm. The morning plenary, The Open City - Defining Where We Stand Today, will be moderated by Steve Edwards, Host, Eight Forty-Eight, Chicago Public Radio and will be broadcast live on WBEZ, Chicago Public Radio, 91.5 FM at 9:30am. For more information and to register, please go to:
http://www.uic.edu/cuppa/gci/events/gci_winterforum_site/index.html.

GCI Fellow Paul Goldstein will be a speaker at the first Chicago Public Health and Corrections Institute: Public Health Goes Straight to Jail, November 6-8, 2002 at the Hyatt at University Village, 625 South Ashland, Chicago, Illinois 60607. The Institute's topics will focus on a variety of corrections-based STD/HIV related intervention activities that are taking place in Chicago. Susan Scrimshaw, Dean of the School of Public Health, will give the welcome address. Dr. Goldstein will discuss the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health's History/Overview of Public Health and Corrections Academic Program on Wednesday, November 6, 2002 from 1:00pm to 5:00pm.

People
Marty Jaffe, GCI Faculty Fellow and Director for the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant College Program, will be visiting the State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference in Cleveland from October 16-18. For more information on the conference, please visit the EPA website at http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/solec/.

Faculty Scholar Ralph Cintron just returned from a short visit to Kosova where he conducted ethnographic work at the Ministry of Health, attempting to follow social, political and economic contexts in which mental health policy is being formulated. The immediate goal from the work is to create a jointly authored article with colleagues including Stevan Weine from Psychiatry at UIC and Elissa Dresden. The research will contribute to a long-term goal of developing a multidisciplinary International Center for the Study of Human Responses to Social Catastrophes.

Faculty Scholar Spotlight
Each month we are pleased to introduce you to one of the GCI faculty scholars spending the year with us.

Janise Hurtig is a Research Specialist in the Humanities, Center for Research on Women and Gender, UIC. Since 1994, Janise has worked as a research associate at UIC doing literacy and educational programming and research on gender, education, literacy and culture in Chicago's Latino communities. Since 1998, Janise has integrated community activism and research through her participation in the Community Writing Project, and as associate editor of the project's magazine Real Conditions. She is particularly interested in applying anthropological theories and methodologies to participatory action research. Currently, Janise is a research specialist for the Center for Research on Women and Gender where she conducts community based research and coordinates the center's evaluation program. She has published and edited on issues of literacy, education, gender, cultural production and social change in the United States and Venezuela.