Past Events Archive

Hosted in the Ginsberg Center Commons on March 12th from 12pm-1pm. We will be talking with Washtenaw County Sheriff Alyshia M. Dyer. Be on the lookout for additional events throughout the year featuring other local elected officials!

Civic Learning Week seeks to unite our communities and highlight the importance of civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions that provide the foundation for informed and engaged communities.

Each session offers a space to pause, sort out what’s happening, and engage in thoughtful, civil discussion with peers. Bring your questions, your curiosity, and your perspective—no preparation required.

Each session offers a space to pause, sort out what’s happening, and engage in thoughtful, civil discussion with peers. Bring your questions, your curiosity, and your perspective—no preparation required.

Josh Pasek is Professor of Communication & Media and Political Science, Faculty Associate at the Center for Political Studies, Institute for Social Research, and Associate Director of the Michigan Institute for Data Science at the University of Michigan

Free dinner provided! This event's topic will be the U.S. Immigration System. Read about our featured panelists below!

Jessica Lefort, J.D.: Director of the Immigrant Justice Lab at the University of Michigan, and a clinical Assistant Professor at the Michigan Law School.

Becky Monroe, J.D.: Senior Director on the Education and Civil Rights Team at the National Center for Youth Law.

Amr Brown: Junior studying Public Policy, and Chairman of the Conflict-Affected and Refugee Education Scholarship taskforce in the Central Student Government.

Too often Detroit has been viewed as a site of social and economic problems, and not as a source of solutions or strategies for the future. With partners at Bridge Detroit, the University of Michigan Detroit Center is hosting a series of public panel discussions exploring the struggles and achievements of local grassroots movements who have confronted the challenges of the 21st century–from food deserts and environmental racism to gentrification and violence–with the grit and spirit of innovation that defines the spirit of the Motor City. Come join the conversation, and learn the lessons that Detroit has to teach the nation and the world

Each session offers a space to pause, sort out what’s happening, and engage in thoughtful, civil discussion with peers. Bring your questions, your curiosity, and your perspective—no preparation required.

Josh Pasek is Professor of Communication & Media and Political Science, Faculty Associate at the Center for Political Studies, Institute for Social Research, and Associate Director of the Michigan Institute for Data Science at the University of Michigan

In what ways do artists of all disciplines from around the world dare still to dream of different, alternative futures for humanity, to envision previously unimagined paths forward? How does art furnish humanity with the means to mourn, mitigate, overcome, and bring solace and healing to the world’s deep antagonisms and conflicts?

In this lecture, Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires Director Victoria Noorthoorn will describe the values-driven transformation of this vibrant museum of modern and contemporary art in Buenos Aires throughout her leadership over the past 12 years. Noorthoorn has persistently worked towards creating a new model for a public museum in Argentina – and in doing so, she has created a new museum model – that positions art and artists as drivers of educational, social, economic, and civic development.

Running for six sessions from the MLK holiday through the end of Black History Month, this series bridges the gap between leadership scholarship and the urgent understandings required to navigate our modern political landscape. Participants will gain the essential tools and theoretical foundations needed to challenge the status quo and lead with purpose in today's society. Don’t miss this opportunity to transform your influence into a powerful force for democratic progress and social equity—register today to help solve the equation for a more just world.

When and why coffee became part of North American daily life is at the center of the recently published book, Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States, by Michelle Craig McDonald. Using a wide range of archival, quantitative, and material evidence, McDonald follows coffee from the slavery-based plantations of the Caribbean and South America, through the balance sheets of Atlantic world merchants, into the coffeehouses, stores, and homes of colonial North Americans, and ultimately to the growing import/export businesses of the early nineteenth-century United States that rebranded this exotic good as an American staple. The result is a sweeping history that explores how coffee shaped the lives of enslaved laborers and farmers, merchants and retailers, consumers and advertisers.