Growing the farming movement in Detroit
UM-Dearborn student Tepfirah "Tee" Rushdan, Detroit's first director of urban agriculture, is working to grow community efforts toward food sustainability....
That was the message heard again and again during University of Michigan-Dearborn’s Inaugural Community Engagement Day last Friday. The event highlighted the university’s partnerships with community organizations and the impact those partnerships have in southeast Michigan—with programs focused on everything from prisoner reentry and restorative justice to family literacy and Rouge River conservation.
“Our campus can play a role in addressing all of problems . We can do it as individuals, as groups. We can do it as a university,” said UM-Dearborn Chancellor Daniel E. Little. “That’s what is so profoundly exciting to me about today’s new tradition of a day of engagement.”
More than 200 university and community representatives attended the event, including U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, State Senator David Knezek, State Rep. Julie Plawecki and U-M Regent Mark Bernstein.
The event ended with a celebration of the university’s recent reception of the 2015 Community Engagement Classification by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The distinction recognizes the university’s commitment to being deeply engaged with its larger community through teaching, learning, research and service.
