At Ginsberg: Our Blog

Learn more about our exciting plans for our new, environmentally sustainable building on U-M’s Central Campus that will enhance our focus on community engagement and student learning. We'll be ready to move back in Spring of 2025--and you can watch the progress on the webcam!

Learn more about the experiences of three Ginsberg Center students: Eda Bozkurt, Raphael Onuku, and Emma Berger. Through their work with the Center, these students have been able to transform their interests and passions into action in our local communities. Get involved with the Ginsberg Center.

The Ginsberg Center is now accepting proposals for nomination to The Davis Projects for Peace summer grants program. The University of Michigan is one of 90 universities invited to nominate proposals. On behalf of the University, the Ginsberg Center will submit one main proposal and one alternate proposal for consideration by the Davis Foundation. If selected, proposed projects will receive $10,000 in summer funding. Applications are open until December 2.

In collaboration with MHAction, Ginsberg's Community Technical Assistance Collaborative (CTAC) developed an innovative web-based mapping application that visualizes manufactured housing communities (MHCs) across Michigan. The project's aim was to create an accessible tool that could assist in the organization’s advocacy for affordable and quality manufactured housing, and to bolster their broader campaigns for racial and economic justice.

The University of Michigan is home to many engineering-focused student organizations, but one in particular stands out. BLUElab is the largest sustainably-focused engineering project team on campus. As a multidisciplinary design team that focuses on developing sustainable solutions alongside community partners, BLUElab emulates the Ginsberg Center’s principles of Centering on Equity and Starting with Community.

Among the Ginsberg Center's central principles is the goal to foster long-term partnerships. The Center aims to establish enduring relationships with community partners that extend beyond the scope of a single project or engagement. The Center's partnership with the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts' Language Resource Center is an embodiment of the commitment to that principle.

Over the weekend, the Ginsberg Center's America Reads Tutoring Corps program began another year at its Fall Kick-Off event. This year, we hosted 78 student tutors at the event.

The Ginsberg Center recently partook in the So Cool, So Just Fair, a recruitment opportunity for campus organizations to connect and be in community with students and organizations that are actively working on campus to create change. This event was hosted by the University of Michigan's Community Action and Social Change Undergraduate Minor with support from Ginsberg.

Earlier this week, the Ginsberg Center’s 2024-2025 Student Advisory Board held its first meeting. The Student Advisory Board provides guidance, support, and feedback that advances the work of the Ginsberg Center and community engagement in the broader University of Michigan community. During monthly meetings, board members provide input on programs, initiatives, and the direction of the Ginsberg Center, and provide feedback for other University community engagement efforts. Student Advisory Board members represent Ginsberg Center programs and initiatives, student organizations (particularly those who focus on service, social justice, advocacy, and/or activism), and the campus at large.

As the 2024 presidential election approaches, explore our student, faculty, and staff resources as you engage, make meaning, and prepare to vote. Democratic engagement—including non-partisan voter engagement, civics and media literacy, and dialogue across difference—are crucial components within the full scope of our civic engagement work.

Wolverines turned out for voting in 2022—the data is in and student voter turnout was over 52% for the 2022 midterm election! With an average of about 30% turnout for other national institutions, U-M continues to lead in voting. Let's make sure this energy continues through this election season (Nov. 5, 2024, is your LAST day to cast your 2024 general election ballot).

The Ginsberg Center recently welcomed three new Graduate Consultants to our team. Graduate Consultants are PhD students who help broaden the Center’s capacity to support our academic and community partners, allowing us to sustain invaluable partnerships across U-M’s campus and in Washtenaw County. These students also learn and apply best practices, cultivate their leadership skills, and form relationships with other students, academic, and community partners.

The Ginsberg Center is proud to announce the winners of our Graduate Impact Awards. These awards recognize graduate student employees whose work makes a substantial impact in advancing the Center’s mission and for their dedication to community-engaged work.

On April 4, the Ginsberg Center hosted its winter Student Grant Showcase which featured the work of several community-engaged student organizations. The Center awarded over $15,000 of grant funds this academic year across 21 student organization initiatives. These grants include both alternative break grants and community engagement grants supported by donor funds from Bill & Inger Ginsberg, as well as Delta Delta Delta Ann Arbor Area Alumnae Chapter which supports our grants for fraternities and sororities.

The Detroit Partnership, a student organization sponsored by the Ginsberg Center, is gearing up for its annual DP Day, a single day of service that hosts hundreds of student volunteers across various spaces on campus and allocates them across community partner sites throughout the city of Detroit. Detroit Partnership is approaching almost 25 years of celebrating DP Day and is looking to get more students involved.

The Ginsberg Center recently matched University of Michigan students with a service opportunity at Cranbrook Tower Apartments, an affordable senior housing complex in Ann Arbor.

Turn Up Turnout (TUT), a student organization sponsored by the Ginsberg Center, recently broke their in-person event attendance record at their recurring event series Dinners for Democracy. Dinners for Democracy are nonpartisan presentations and small group discussions on topics that are important and relevant to students. TUT broke their attendance record on Jan. 16 during their "How to Be a Good Follower of Local Politics" event, which saw over 30 attendants.

After coming to the University of Michigan in 2020 to teach, Lisa DuRussel quickly found a community and a home with the Ginsberg Center. A landscape architect by trade, DuRussel, Assistant Professor of Practice in U-M’s School for Environment & Sustainability, teaches courses and seminars that cover topics including ecological design, planting design and community engagement.

Fighting Mental Health Stigma, Expanding Driver’s License Access for Immigrants, and More

Learn more about how Ginsberg Center’s Community Technical Assistance Collaborative (CTAC) helps social sector partners build capacity around data & evaluation while supporting graduate students in winter 2023 semester apply their skills in real-world contexts and make a meaningful impact.

The Ginsberg Center team is thrilled to congratulate our graduating students, and wish them the very best on the next leg of their journeys. The dedicated engagement of undergraduate and graduate students shapes the way we build partnerships, educate the campus community, and live our mission every day.

The 2023 Dewey Dialogues, hosted by the Edward Ginsberg Center in partnership with Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum with the University of Michigan Museum of Art, was held on April 8th, 2023.

In recognition of exemplary contributions through research on service-learning and community engagement, IARSLCE honors those whose research contributes significantly to understanding and advancing community engagement, across all approaches and all educational sectors. The Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, published by the Edward Ginsberg Center, received IARSLCE's 2022 Publication of the Year Award. 

The Michigan Center for Youth Justice (MCYJ) works to advance equitable youth justice policies and practices that protect young people. MCYJ contacted Ginsberg with the goal of gathering and analyzing data on how a new policy related to restraint use has has impacted juvenile centers. Ginsberg’s Community Technical Assistance Collaborative and STATCOM supported this request.

From 2021 Annual Report: The Ginsberg Center provides multiple forms of financial resources for student groups and organizations to engage in positive change through social justice education, leadership development, and meaningful service experiences with the community. In particular, our Community Engagement Grants allow us to deepen partnerships between student organizations and community organizations or agencies who are working together to address a community-identified need.