Dear Friends and Colleagues,

As part of our Contested Cities Consortium, this month we are very pleased to host five colleagues from Belfast, Northern Ireland: Frank Gaffikin and Mike Morrissey, Co-directors of the Urban Center at the University of Ulster, Hazel Bell, Senior Officer, Greater Shankhill Partnership, Geraldine McAteer, Chief Executive Officer, West Belfast Partnership and John McCorry, Executive Director, North Belfast Partnership. We are committed to working together to learn from each other. More details on our collaboration can be found below.

Best wishes for peace and prosperity this holiday season.

David Perry Professor and Director	Lauri Alpern Associate Director

Report Released on Information Technology Workforce
GCI is pleased to announce publication of the report, "Building a World-Class Information Technology Workforce for the Chicago Region: A Framework for Action." The report represents findings and recommendations from a study funded by the MacArthur Foundation and conducted by Davis Jenkins of the Great Cities Institute and Judith Kossy of the Center for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL). It is available on line at http://www.uic.edu/cuppa/gci/ or by contacting the Institute.

Contact: Davis Jenkins, Fellow, Great Cities Institute, 312-996-8059, davis@uic.edu.


Belfast Visitors at GCI and Partner Organizations
Two academics and three community leaders from Belfast will visit and exchange information with GCI scholars and community partners the week of November 26 - December 3. The visit is part of GCI's Contested Cities Consortium. The group will spend the week learning about GCI's university-community partnerships, sharing knowledge about their community development work in contested neighborhoods in Belfast and planning future activities for the consortium that in addition to Belfast and Chicago includes Jerusalem, Berlin and Belgrade. GCI will host a reception honoring the guests on Wednesday, November 28, from 4:30-6:30 p.m.

Contact: Lauri Alpern, Associate Director, Great Cities Institute, 312-413-3377, lauri@uic.edu.

Near West Side Welcomes New Walgreens to the Community
On November 17, Chicago's Near West Side community members welcomed a new Walgreens drugstore to the neighborhood. The Walgreens is located at Madison Street and Western Avenue and includes space for two to three small businesses. The Near West Side Community Development Corporation collaborated with the UIC Neighborhoods Initiative for partial funding for the project and revitalization of Madison Street through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Joint Community Development program (JCD). The JCD grant was one of only five awarded nationwide to support university-community partnerships.

Contact: Nacho Gonzalez, Coordinator, UIC Neighborhoods Initiative, 312-996-7194, nacho@uic.edu.

Online Certificate in Nonprofit Management Featured in Chicago Sun-Times
A Chicago Sun-Times article on Tuesday, November 13, featured GCI's Online Certificate in Nonprofit Management (CNM). The article titled, "Distance Education Soars," highlights the growth of online learning throughout the U.S. The article quoted CNM student, Angiela Derkacz, who spoke about the convenience of online learning and was pictured in the article. To learn more about CNM Online, go to http://cnm.cuppa.uic.edu.

People
UIC Neighborhoods Initiative Director, Cynthia Barnes-Boyd, was among the Outstanding Community Commitment Award Honorees at the 1st annual fundraiser for Renacer Westside Community Network and Chicago Communicator Newspaper. The event took place Saturday, November 10. Renacer Westside Community Network is a community based organization serving Chicago's Near West Side Community with programs ranging from job placement, to housing assistance. Chicago Communicator Newspaper is a volunteer-based operation committed to the economic prosperity of the Near West Side community and communities throughout the world.

GCI Fellow, Louise Cainkar, was a panel member at a conference on Sunday, November 11, at North Park University titled, Israel and Palestine: Toward a Just Peace - Exploring the U.S. Role. The panel was titled, New Threats to Civil Liberties.

Matthew Glesne, Voorhees Neighborhood Center staff member, presented the results of a study of the low-income Housing Tax Credit Program in Illinois at the Statewide Housing Action Coalition (SHAC) annual convention in Springfield, Illinois on November 14. The study was sponsored by SHAC and Latinos United as part of the on-going collaboration to develop an assisted housing database for the state of Illinois.

Chirag Mehta and Nik Theodore of the Center for Urban Economic Development presented a paper entitled, "Day Labor, Low-Wage Work and Immigrant Employment Opportunities in Chicago" at the Illinois Immigrant Policy Project sponsored by the Illinois Department of Human Services. The paper examines the influence of day labor temp agencies on the immigrant employment opportunities and offers recommendations for strengthening state employment policy.

David Perry, Director of the Great Cities Institute, participated in a roundtable on Urban Research Centers at the annual Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning meeting held November 7-10 in Cleveland Ohio.

UIC College of Business Dean and GCI Fellow Wim Wiewel was installed as president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning and delivered the Presidential Address to the association on November 9.

Pat Wright, Associate Director of the Voorhees Neighborhood Center, was part of a panel discussion on Lincoln Park demographics sponsored by the Lincoln Park Community Research Initiative on November 8 at DePaul University.

GCI Faculty Scholar Spotlight - Sharon Collins
Each month we are pleased to introduce you to one of GCI's faculty scholars spending the year with us. Dr. Sharon M. Collins, an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the author of Black Corporate Executives: The Making and Breaking of a Black Middle Class. Dr. Collins' research on the black middle class and career paths has been featured by the British Broadcasting Corporation, on WGN-TV's Minority Business Report, in Newsweek and the Chicago Tribune, among other media outlets. Her research focuses on systems of stratification and workplace inequality, racial attitudes and the impact of affirmative action on labor markets. Currently, Dr. Collins is researching the impact of diversity initiatives on corporate culture and careers, with a goal of identifying components of diversity training that make for success or failure. She frequently consults on matters related to race and gender discrimination in employment. Dr. Collins holds a Ph.D. from Northwestern University.