Dear Friends of GCI,

June is always a bitter-sweet time at the Great Cities Institute. The loss we feel with the end of the term appointments of Great Cities Faculty Scholars is always balanced by our meetings with new scholars. But this June brings significant change as the two people most influential in the creation and on-going success of GCI move on to new posts. Founding Great Cities Institute Director and College of Business Administration Dean Wim Wiewel is leaving UIC to become Provost and Executive Vice President of the University of Baltimore. His remarks are included in the News section below. Wim has not only been one of GCI's leading administrative leaders, but one of GCI's and the university's best known and most influential action researchers as well.

GCI Associate Director, Lauri Alpern, has been the administrative backbone and source of institutional history and best practice since the day GCI opened its doors. I dare say that few, if any academic professionals at UIC bring as much managerial skill, substantive direction, and humane leadership to their units as Lauri has brought to GCI. She has been our colleague and most of all she has been our friend. She leaves GCI to take on the post of Co-Executive Director of The Enterprising Kitchen.

As if such major changes at GCI were not enough, Pat Wright, the Director of the Nathalie P. Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement will be stepping down in August. Pat is one of Chicago's leading community action researchers, bringing uncompromising vision and spirit to community based research. She has had a profound impact on state, regional and neighborhood housing studies.

It goes without saying that UIC and GCI have been the beneficiary of the talents of three outstanding colleagues. On behalf of everyone at GCI and in the Chicago and greater urban communities, we wish them well. We at GCI will miss their contributions greatly.

David Perry Professor and Director

News

Online Certificate in Nonprofit Management Courses: July course Offerings include "Operations Management for Nonprofit organizations," and "Fundraising Management for Nonprofit Organizations," held from July 15-August 18. Registration deadline is July 6th, 2004. For more information on the program, please visit http://cnm.cuppa.uic.edu or contact Katie Kaminski at katiek@uic.edu, 312.355.0423.

A message from Wim Wiewel, who will be leaving this month to assume his new position as Provost and Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs at the University of Baltimore.

Having started the Great Cities Institute a decade ago, I am proud to see
how it has grown, and thrilled to leave it behind in such good shape and
good hands. I thank all my colleagues for the years of collaboration and
fellowship, and wish you all the very best. I can be reached at wim@ubalt.edu,
and hope to stay in touch with many of you on the urban issues that will continue
to provide exciting challenges to both Chicago and Baltimore!

The Great Cities Institute would like to extend its gratitude to Lauri Alpern, who will be stepping down as Associate Director of GCI to work full-time as the Co-Executive Director of The Enterprising Kitchen (TEK). The Enterprising Kitchen is a social enterprise located in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood that operates a manufacturing company in a effort to provide job training and support services to women. Lauri's work here at the Institute has been truly appreciated as she was here to help establish the original Great Cities Initiative as well as to open the doors to the Great Cities Institute in 1995. She has served as the Associate Director of GCI for the last nine years and will truly be missed.

This first issue of intimate portraits: a literary space for community voices journal, supported by the partnership between Suder Elementary School and the UIC Neighborhoods Initiative, has just been printed. This is a literacy initiative of the UIC Neighborhoods Initiative, based on the work of Hal Adams and his work with the UIC College of Education's Community Writing Project, where writing workshops were held for "people who do not ordinarily consider themselves to be writers, and publishes their reflections on everyday life in the magazine Real Conditions." In a similar vein, and in consultation with Hal Adams, intimate portraits seeks to provide a literary space for community residents to express their voices - thoughts, feelings, and experiences - in writing. Writing sessions, which began in January 2004, were held every Thursday from 11:30am-1:30pm at Suder Elementary School. During these sessions, parents of students at Suder School engaged in conversations and reflections that revolved around issues parents were facing in the community, personal experiences, and/or other topics as they were raised by the authors. As the parents were encouraged to put their thoughts on paper, workshops were held on learning writing strategies such as how to begin writing, writing letters, personal journaling, and literary devices to help the authors discover the various ways one can express one's thoughts.

A reading of this issue is scheduled to be held at Suder Elementary School (2022 W. Washington Blvd.) on Thursday, June 3, at 11:30am-1:30pm.

For further information, and if you would like a copy of the journal, please contact Chang Lee at 312.996.4617 or clee10@uic.edu.

People

Cynthia Barnes-Boyd, Director, UIC Neighborhoods Initiative, has accepted the co-PI position on the Chicago Department of Public Health REACH 2010 grant from CDC. She will continue to direct the multi-university evaluation of this project that focuses on eliminating disparities in cardiovascular disease and diabetes in the north and south Lawndale communities of Chicago.

Irma Olmedo, Faculty Scholar, will be giving a lecture at the Free University of Berlin in June. The title of the lecture is "Crossing Borders of Language and Culture in the United States" and it will be based on research she conducted in Chicago schools under the Great Cities Faculty Scholar award.

GCI would like to announce its new staff member, Wm. Dustin Cantrell, Visiting Research Specialist, for the "Health Care Needs of Addicted Criminal Offenders" research project that is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Dustin holds an MA in Anthropology from Ball State University. Before becoming involved with GCI, he spent several years working directly with adolescents struggling with mental health and substance abuse issues and teaching college courses in Indiana State Prisons. In addition to his work at GCI, he is currently an Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University Northwest in Gary, Indiana.

John Hagedorn, Faculty Fellow, and Brigid Rauch presented a paper, "Housing and Homicide" at the Chicago Conference on Research and Public Policy on May13th.