“To maximize our impact, each team is focusing on one specific area of need so we can address that same problem in multiple companies and develop expertise in that area. As a result, we have eight teams: four focusing on marketing problems and four focusing on operations.”
~ Michael Willard

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.

Architecture graduate student Torri Smith is a Detroit native with a passion to elevate the diverse narratives of minority students in the design field.

Jeni Olney, mentor and associate director for Social Innovation at optiMize, said: “For our Detroit-Track teams, there is a deep-rooted and often relentless commitment they have to themselves and their communities to share knowledge and resources and create impact together.” 

As director of U-M’s Ginsberg Center, Mary Jo Callan helps make connections on a daily basis, pairing community partners addressing social concerns, such as nonprofit organizations, schools, and local governments, across Southeast Michigan and Metro Detroit with students and faculty at U-M to support their work.

“Perhaps more importantly, health and housing work in Detroit is ultimately racial justice work. I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, and what I do is motivated by the overt and disturbing inequities that exist in the Detroit metropolitan region… I hope that my work can bring some material benefit to the people of Detroit.”
~ Alexa Eisenberg

Jolly is interested in the intersection of the personal and political in the lives of black women.  Her dissertation, for example, explores the sexual lives and grassroots politics of young Jamaican women living with HIV/AIDS and their impact on transnational feminist activism and public health. Her work in Detroit complemented this research.

“A number of people in the area are also reporting that the shaking from rumbling trucks is cracking foundations and plaster. They are literally watching their homes fall apart as a result of the construction where they live,” said Amy Schulz, a professor of health behavior and health education at U-M School of Public Health.

It’s below freezing outside on a gray November morning in Detroit, but the heat is turned up in the Southwest Solutions Housing Resource Center’s reception area. A toddler plays on a colorful alphabet rug in the corner while a half-dozen women wait to learn more about their options for finding a place to stay.