News + Stories

  1. Student mental health needs assessment underscores the importance of Detroit schools’ whole-child commitment

    Informed by survey findings, TRAILS is now collaborating with the district to implement responsive programming, and already nearly 4,000 DPSCD staff have attended districtwide TRAILS trainings on understanding and supporting student mental health needs and effective self-care strategies.

  2. Distinctly Detroit Podcast: Tracy S. Hall

    A Podcast on what makes one want to be in the city of Detroit. Join our host Katie Benjamin as she interviews students, scholars, innovators, and leaders from across the city to learn how they came to live, work, and love in Detroit.

  3. Historic King Solomon Baptist Church: responding to a community in crisis

    As a new pastor Charles Williams III made sure to connect Historic King Solomon Baptist Church to its social service roots. He established a food pantry at the church, clothing giveaways, Thanksgiving meals and youth mentoring services. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Michigan in March 2020, Williams was ready to do more.

  4. Taubman College’s 2021 Dow Sustainability Fellows: from water conservation to horses

    The Dow Sustainability Fellows program supports U-M graduate students and scholars in their efforts to create sustainable solutions to pressing issues in various areas of study. The fellows engage in interdisciplinary, actionable, and meaningful work, tackling problems on a local, national, and global scale. Each fellow receives a $20,000 stipend and participates in collaborative activities and a team project.

  5. Faculty Q&A: Trina Shanks on how to improve family well-being in Detroit

    “There are at least opportunities to meet one another, collaborate with one another, advise larger groups of people who are doing engagement, and who are working in Detroit, and who are thinking about working in Detroit. It doesn’t have to be everybody starting from scratch completely every time. It’s not perfect yet but it’s better than it was, and I think people are communicating.”
    ~ Trina Shanks, social work professor

  6. Janell O’Keefe says a safe neighborhood shouldn’t be a privilege

    O’Keefe recognizes that addressing racial inequity is a big and complex problem and says that the planning field as a whole “still has a lot to grapple with when it comes to equity.”

  7. Creating lasting impact through the Detroit Revitalization & Business Initiative

    I learned how to motivate my team as a leader, how to ask the right questions to ensure I’m developing the best deliverables for my client, and how to celebrate small wins in order to move toward larger goals. 

  8. Distinctly Detroit Podcast: Feodies Shipp III

    A Podcast on what makes one want to be in the city of Detroit. Join our host Katie Lehman as she interviews students, scholars, innovators, and leaders from across the city to learn how they came to live, work, and love in Detroit.

  9. Wilkins: lifting voices and designing “urban acupunctures”

    Hip-hop architecture has garnered more attention in recent years, with a major exhibition at the Center for Architecture in New York, TED Talks, and a feature in Architect magazine. But while it’s a useful concept, Craig Wilkins refuses to let the label limit a set of practices and ideals that, he argues, ought to infuse the entire profession.