Walter and Leonore Annenberg Auditorium (Room 1120)
Joan and Sanford Weill Hall
The Ford School's Karl and Martha Kohn Professor of Social Policy, Christina Weiland, will deliver her Kohn lecture reflecting on her work on early childhood interventions and public policies on children’s development, especially on children from families with low incomes.
Explore actionable solutions to one of the most pressing issues of our time—homelessness—at a moment when our local community is reporting the fastest and highest rates of homelessness in its history. This event features a powerful new documentary, Beyond the Bridge: A Solution to Homelessness, which examines the root causes of homelessness and explores comprehensive solutions, followed by a panel discussion.
Join us for an event that’s more than just a celebration—it’s a call to action. In alignment with the University of Michigan’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium's 2025 theme of "Restless Dissatisfaction: An Urgent Call for the Pursuit of Justice and Equality," we invite students, staff, faculty and the greater community to a powerful and inspiring gathering.
Kahn Auditorium
Biomedical Science Research Building
The 35th Annual Health Science MLK Lecture, hosted by the University of Michigan School of Medicine / Michigan Medicine, will focus on the exploration of interdisciplinary approaches to achieve health equity. After the lecture, Ford School Dean Celeste Watkins-Hayes will participate in a panel discussion on health equity.
Jazz musician Etienne Charles explores the effects of climate change on vulnerable communities. We are excited about his appearance as the Ford School of Public Policy’s annual Martin Luther King Day speaker on January 17.
Real World Perspectives on Poverty Solutions introduces key issues regarding the causes and consequences of poverty through an in-person lecture series featuring experts in policy and practice from across the nation.
Despite the relative rarity of firearm-related violence and injury in U.S. schools, the salience of school shooting events can influence local-, state-, and even federal-level school safety policy. I discuss concerns related to such direction, including: 1) a lack of evidence-based strategies to prevent firearm injury in schools; 2) the disproportionate burden of students exposed to 'school hardening' strategies; and 3) student needs overshadowed by a focus on extreme violence.
Joan and Sanford Weill Hall
Annenberg Auditorium (1120)
This session will examine innovative policies that promote direct cash transfers and tax credits to low-income families, new mothers, and other sectors of society.
In this presentation, Drs. McCormick and Sachs will discuss how their experiences as a researcher and practitioner working in partnership have prepared them for their new roles at the Overdeck Family Foundation and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. They will also share opportunities they see to use research and evaluation to make a positive impact on education policy and how these opportunities vary across roles.
Join the Center for Racial Justice in welcoming Dr. Enobong (Anna) Branch, senior vice president for equity at Rutgers University, to discuss her latest publication, Work in Black & White: Striving for the American Dream.
Join the Center for Racial Justice in welcoming Airea D. Matthews, acclaimed poet, educator, and Ford School alumna, to discuss her latest work Bread and Circus, a memoir-in-verse that combines poetry, prose, and imagery to explore the realities of economic necessity, marginal poverty, and commodification, through a personal lens.
Join your fellow Ford Students for CommuniTea! A student-led series of informal, bi-weekly gatherings held in Weill Hall, focusing on key topics of interest to our community
The goal of the conference is to facilitate dialogue between policymakers, practitioners, and researchers around the changing nature of skill demand in the U.S. workforce and how postsecondary institutions can better respond to these changes. The conference is made possible through funding from the National Science Foundation.
Join us for CommuniTea! A student-led series of informal, bi-weekly gatherings held in Weill Hall, focusing on key topics of interest to our community.
Join the Center for Racial Justice in welcoming Dr. Kris Marsh, author and Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, to discuss her latest book The Love Jones Cohort: Single and Living Alone in the Black Middle Class.
Join the Center for Racial Justice on Tuesday, September 26 for our Open House! Get acquainted with the upcoming initiatives CRJ has prepared for the academic year, and join us in extending a warm welcome to our AY 23-24 Visiting and Postdoctoral Fellows!
Despite the growing interest in social and emotional learning (SEL) implementation in K-12 settings, few measures exist to assess teachers’ SEL practices. In this talk, we describe the interactive mixed-method approach we took in developing the Racial Equity-oriented Social and Emotional Learning (REQSEL) practices measure.
We're excited to introduce CommuniTea, a student-led series of informal, bi-weekly gatherings held in Weill Hall, focusing on key topics of interest to our community.
Ford School professor Catie Hausman will speak on teaching inclusive and policy-relevant statistical methods as part of the ISR Inclusive Research Matters Seminar Series.
On Thursday, March 30 at 4pm, the Center for Racial Justice invites you to attend our CRJ Visiting Fellows Spring Showcase featuring the work of our inaugural cohort of visiting fellows: sociologist and legal scholar, Dr. Atinuke (Tinu) Adediran; freelance journalist, Makeda Easter; and writer and filmmaker, Julian Brave NoiseCat. Fellows will present their racial justice catalyst projects to the U-M community, followed by remarks from U-M community members: Vikramaditya S. Khanna (U-M Law), Srimoyee Mitra (U-M Stamps), and Forrest Cox (BA '13 and U-M Ross). A post-event reception will be held in the Rebecca M. Blank Great Hall. Please register here!
Join us as we welcome Dr. Ruha Benjamin to campus to discuss her newest book, Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want. In this talk, Dr. Benjamin draws on the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic and introduces a micro-vision of change—a way of looking at the everyday ways people are working to combat unjust systems and build alternatives to the oppressive status quo.
Join the Center for Racial Justice for a workshop on creative practices for authentic community building with Holly Bass, part of our Racial Justice in Practice workshop series. Open to U-M students, faculty, staff, and community partners. In this workshop, we will explore the differences between activism, organizing, and culture shift work. We will explore how to build authentic relationships with those most affected by potential policy changes and those in the best position to bring about legal and social change. We will also explore how creativity and joy can guide our social justice work as individuals and collectives.
Join the Center for Racial Justice for a workshop on changemaking from the inside with Gabrielle Wyatt, part of our Racial Justice in Practice workshop series. Open to U-M students, faculty, staff, and community partners. In this virtual workshop, we will collectively visit frameworks and strategies for affecting change as institutional insiders. Specifically, we will discuss strategies for building and sustaining multi-generational change by exploring power, structural change, and leadership.
Join the Center for Racial Justice for a workshop on decolonizing development with Farah Mahesri, part of our Racial Justice in Practice workshop series. Open to U-M students, faculty, staff, and community partners. In this interactive 3-hour session, we will collectively explore what a decolonized space or a decolonized approach for global development actually look like. How can we structure our organizations and our programs to draw to center more liberatory practices and help us radically re-imagine global development?
Dr. Krystal Tsosie will describe community-engaged research and describe paths forward that center Indigenous people as the agents of access for their own genomic and health data. The future of Indigenous genomics is not mere inclusion but through recognition of Indigenous genomic and data sovereignty.
Join the Center for Racial Justice for a workshop on racial equity impact assessment with Niketa Brar (MPP '15), part of our Racial Justice in Practice workshop series. Open to U-M students, faculty, staff, and community partners.
Join the Center for Racial Justice for a workshop on racial equity impact assessment with Niketa Brar (MPP '15), part of our Racial Justice in Practice workshop series. Open to U-M students, faculty, staff, and community partners.
University of Michigan Martin Luther King, Jr. Symposium
Wallace House presents educator and writer for The New York Times Magazine, Linda Villarosa, as she examines racial health disparities in America and the toll racism takes on individuals and the health of our nation.
Policy Talks @ the Ford School,
Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation Lecture Series