Back to school brings several challenges, from student learning, expectations of academic success and mental health concerns among children to questioning technology replacing educators and AI and the ongoing shortage of teachers, school staff and supplies. University of Michigan experts can address these and other issues as students return to school.

Quan Neloms, a veteran Detroit educator who’s been a lecturer at UM-Dearborn since 2021, likes to joke that his early studio experience made him the first member of Lyricist Society, the after-school group he started in 2009.

A team of doctoral students working to improve home energy efficiency and to lower monthly utility bills for low- and moderate-income households in Detroit have been recognized with a Michigan Difference Student Leadership Award.

Community Action to Promote Healthy Environments at the University of Michigan School of Public Health is a research partnership that includes community-based and health organizations, representatives from governmental organizations along with academic partners working to develop and implement components of a public health action plan to improve air quality and health in Detroit.

The Detroit Food Commons, located at the corner of Woodward and Euclid, is scheduled to open in February 2024. The 31,000-square-foot facility is built in partnership by the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network and Develop Detroit. The co-op is committed to offering as much locally grown produce as possible – and particularly produce that is grown within the city of Detroit.

As Detroit children prepare to return to school, widespread and chronic housing instability among city residents poses a threat to students’ ability to perform well academically. All of the parents interviewed said the lack of quality affordable housing is a barrier to housing stability.

Students who participated in the six-week pilot “Saturdays in the D” Summer Camp and Adult Skills Enrichment Experience graduated Saturday with a course certificate. Of the 109 who registered, 38 made it to the finish line.

Between 11-16% of Detroit K-12 students faced homelessness or housing instability in 2021-22, according to a new study from Wayne State University College of Education’s Detroit Partnership for Education Equity & Research in partnership with University of Michigan’s Poverty Solutions.

Lauren Williams will join Taubman College as an assistant professor of architecture and digital studies in the fall of 2023. Williams is a Detroit-based designer, researcher, writer, and educator working with visual and interactive media to understand, critique, and reimagine how social and economic systems distribute and exercise power.