Crossing Boundaries Project

Crossing Boundaries is a 2007-2008 project of the University of Michigan Center for the Education of Women, the Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning, the Arts of Citizenship Program, Professor Emerita Patricia Gurin, and the National Center for Institutional Diversity.  It is designed to examine and encourage faculty-community collaborations in the Detroit area.  We have come to this project in many ways. In the context of Proposal 2, the Michigan constitutional amendment banning affirmative action, and the struggling Michigan economy, we believe that this is a particularly important time for universities and communities to come together to address difficult social problems.  

We have also noticed in many ways that women, or gender, appear often to be overlooked in considerations of social justice or community and economic development.
Conversely, programs designed to serve women may not adequately consider the impact of race and class.  Through a variety of conversations, we are exploring dynamics including race, gender (and their intersections), power, and negotiating mutual gain that are present in such collaborations.

The Crossing Boundaries program has a number of elements:

We have created comprehensive databases of University of Michigan faculty members involved in community collaborations and Detroit-area community organizations.

We have launched a periodic opportunity for networking and conversation among faculty members who are engaged or interested in community-based work.  University of Michigan faculty members who are interested in participating should contact Sue Kaufmann at kaufmann@umich.edu.

We are offering free programs at the Detroit Center for Detroit-area non-profit organizations using Michigan faculty and staff to provide training in fund raising, program evaluation, and other topics.

We are planning a mentoring event for junior faculty interested in doing community-based collaborative research.

We are hosting a conference to explore the intersection of race and gender in university-community collaborations.  Local and national experts are convening to address the complex issues that arise from campus-community collaborations, focusing on the following questions:

What makes successful university-community collaborations?

What is the impact of taking gender into account while addressing problems associated with race, poverty and urban development?

How can universities, community organizations and foundations best work together to       promote change in southeast Michigan?

Crossing Boundaries Conference Outcomes

We anticipate a number of outcomes from the Crossing Boundaries project:
conversations and programs that are of service to Detroit community organizations
increased likelihood that both race and gender will be taken into consideration in University-community collaborationsstrengthened relationships among faculty members on the Ann Arbor campus who do community-based participatory research and between the campus and Detroit-area community organizationsclearer understanding among faculty members, especially at the junior level, who have not engaged in community-based work, that it is possible to do so and have a successful career
partnerships with other campus initiatives highlighting the value of faculty contributions to communities, with the goal of ensuring that this work is supported and nurtured by the University.

The Crossing Boundaries project is supported by the National Center for Institutional Diversity, the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, the CEW Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund, the Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning, and Arts of Citizenship.