Public Engagement News

Professor Trina Shanks discusses how public engagement connects U-M, Detroit and local communities. Shanks research focuses on creating solutions, including childhood saving accounts and neighborhood investment programs.  After initially researching the “why” in racial income disparity, Shanks learned “I’d really prefer to be part of the conversation about concrete changes that can make a difference in helping people to thrive and improve life chances for all people, particularly those facing economic hardship.”

PhD student and Reverend Charles Williams of Detroit’s King Solomon Baptist Church is featured in a HuffPost article about closing the COVID-19 vaccine race gap. Citing accessibility and hesitancy, Williams thinks it could be a year or more before citywide vaccination rates in Detroit catch up to the rest of the country. “There’s a sincere concern about the care that many of us get when we go to the doctor’s office, end up in the hospital,” Williams said. “You talk to any Black family, we all have the same strategy ― somebody is going to have to be there around the clock, in the room, to stay on top of these nurses and to make sure the doctor comes by, because if we don’t practice that strategy, the system will let our loved one down.”

PhD student Garrett Pace, Associate Professor Shawna Lee, and Professor Andrew Grogan-Kaylor's research was cited in public policy discussions in Colombia, leading to a ban on corporal punishment of children in that country.  Colombian legislator Julián Peinado Ramírez shared his memo on Twitter, which references Grogan-Kaylor, Lee and Pace’s 2019 work. The research and ban were also featured on Radio Santa Fe 1070 AM Bogotá.

Lecturer Ayesha Ghazi Edwin’s letter to the editor “Race and ethnicity shouldn’t determine women’s pay” was published in the Detroit News. Edwin discusses Asian American/Pacific Islander women’s Equal Pay Day writing “If we are to close the pay gap, we need to strengthen equal pay laws to allow women to discover and fight against pay discrimination.”

Joe Ryan is a member of a new task force created by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) charged with preventing and eliminating systemic racism in the state's child protection system. He will chair the data subcommittee.

Associate Professor Karen Staller, Joint PhD Social Work and Sociology Student Briana Starks and Visiting Scholar Håvard Aaslund co-edited the recent special double issue of Qualitative Social Work: Research and Practice, “Reflections on a Pandemic: Disruptions, Distractions, and Discoveries.” The double issue contains 86 reflexive essays submitted by authors from 35 different countries (and every continent except Antarctica).  Taken together, the essays paint a portrait of the breadth and depth of social work during the earliest months of the historic pandemic from every corner of the globe. Other U-M contributors to the issue include Assistant Professor Odessa Gonzalez Benson, and current doctoral students in Joint PhD Social Work and Sociology Finn Bell and Angela Perone.

ENGAGE Program Manager Fatima Salman, MSW ‘15, is one of five alumni named as Racial Equity Fellows by Detroit Equity Action Lab. The Racial Equity Fellowship develops leaders who work to end structural racism in Detroit. Other alumni fellows include Michelle Anderson, MSW ‘01, Margo Dalal, MSW ‘18, Sibohan O’Laoire, MSW ‘13, and Robert Siporin, MSW ‘14.

PhD student Charles Williams has been appointed chair of the Bipartisan Protect Michigan Commission African American workgroup by Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Housed within the Department of Health and Human Services, the commission will help raise awareness of the safety and effectiveness of an approved COVID-19 vaccine, educate the people of the state, and help protect the health and safety of all Michigan residents.