“When I talk about leadership with my students, we’ve talked a lot about social identities. We interrogate the history of leadership studies and we complicate that picture to be more inclusive of the people who actually make up our institutions today.”

~ Fatema Haque, U-M lecturer and program manager

The symposium, hosted by the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning and the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, is the culmination of the Michigan-Mellon Project on the Egalitarian Metropolis. Sessions are open to the entire University of Michigan community and beyond.

Malika Pryor grew up taking part in Detroit-based arts advocacy programs led by women family members and Black community leaders. She’s highlighting these women in a new exhibition, which runs through December at the Charles H. Wright Museum in Detroit.

Co-owner J.P. Jerome has been friends with his seven business partners since early childhood and credits that strong bond as a large part of the success of the distillery. Each partner brings unique strengths to the table, and a lifetime of cooperation and collaboration has led to the continued growth of the business.

As a commercial artery, the Detroit River built and bankrolled U-M; as the site of major engineering projects, it inspired the university’s pioneering naval architecture program; as an international border, it drew university alumni into the Underground Railroad’s anti-slavery networks; and as a damaged but recovering ecosystem, it continues to inspire the university’s ecology and sustainability research.

Students are encouraged to be mindful of their identities when entering a space they’re not from, and to always lead with a respect for the work that is already being done. 

“We hope it  is an experience of wonder and joy and delight. Just being out there on the water, enjoying the bounty, the beauty of the river, can have a lastingly powerful effect in itself on people’s sense of connection with their place in the world.”

~ David Porter, U-M English professor

Jamon Jordan founded the Black Scroll Network, which gives walking history tours to people looking to learn more about the history of Detroit.

For people of color, integrating into white culture is often essential, but moving between identities is also absolutely exhausting.