• Projects Table (Word)
• Projects Table (PDF)


• Current and Future Projects
• Students on Site
• Underground Railroad History Project
• Detroit Connections
• Telling It
• Heritage Battle Creek Project
• Altar of Democracy
• Children of Abraham
• Motown Play
• Planned for 2006: "Hastings Street"
• Past Projects
• Broadway Park Design Project
• The Homelands Project
• The Hallelujah Project
• The Poetry of Everyday Life
• Environmental Legacies
• "2001 Hastings Street"
• Radio Documentaries
• "Listening to Youth"
• Black Media

Current Projects of the Arts of Citizenship Program

Students on Site

The Students on Site Local History Teaching Partnership, the first project that Arts of Citizenship launched in 1998, brings together University of Michigan faculty, archivists, and students with local K-12 teachers. They use the history and landscape of a historic riverfront district as the site for an innovative interdisciplinary, multi-week curriculum for third- and fourth-grade classrooms in the public schools. This curriculum has now reached hundreds of students. Offshoots have included an MLK Day Celebration coordinated by UM students, featuring a play and historical slides. In 2003, Students on Site expanded from Ann Arbor to nearby Ypsilanti, another city along the Huron River. The Local History Teaching Partnership has been funded in part by the Michigan Humanities Council and the Community Foundation for Southeastern Michigan. View the curriculum materials here: www.artsofcitizenship.umich.edu/sos/edu/

In the Students on Site website, an adjunct to the local history curriculum above, Arts of Citizenship offers an online teaching archive of documents about the history of Ann Arbor, created by University of Michigan students for K-12 students. The website is at www.artsofcitizenship.umich.edu/sos. Housed with UM's Digital Library Initiative and produced in collaboration with UM's Bentley Historical Library, the website now has over 250 documents--including maps, photographs, audio recordings, newspaper articles, and personal letters--under 30 topics and subtopics, and continues to develop. A virtual bus tour takes viewers to historic Ann Arbor sites, with complementary documents. The Students on Site Website has been funded in part by the Community Foundation for Southeastern Michigan. In 2003 a companion website about neighboring Ypsilanti got underway, with funding from the Michigan Humanities Council. In October 2001, the Students on Site project of Arts of Citizenship won an Award of Merit in Education from the Historical Society of Michigan.

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Underground Railroad History Project

• historical research by AACHM and by University of Michigan undergraduate and graduate students using primary documents in UM's Bentley Historical Library, local township archives, and other archival repositories around the American midwest and in Ontario, Canada.
• creation of a database of census and other materials, in consultation with researchers around the country, especially in conjunction with the White House National Freedom Trails Initiative (in preparation for a website).
• presentations at UM's Matthaei Botanical Gardens' Out of Africa Month programming on how fugitive slaves used their knowledge of nature to aid escape.
• research projects with local high school students.
• a traveling public exhibit, Midnight Journey, on the Underground Railroad. This exhibit debuted in February 2001 in conjunction with the Ann Arbor Wild Swan Children's Theater (see www.wildswantheater.org) production of “Along the Tracks,” a dramatization of slave escape by Jeff Chastang. "Midnight Journey" has since been displayed at Rentschler Farm Museum in Saline (fall 2001); the Ann Arbor District Library, with a series of related events (November 2001); Matthaei Botanical Gardens (winter 2002); schools in Ann Arbor (spring 2002); the Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site in Ontario, Canada, (summer 2002); schools in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor (2003 and 2004); the Port Huron Museum of Arts and History, in Port Huron, Michigan (summer 2003); the Alfred P. Sloan Museum in Flint, Michigan (fall 2003); the Ypsilanti District Library (fall 2003); the Franklin, Michigan, Historical Museum (spring 2004); and in Jackson, Michigan (summer 2004). The exhibit is now in retirement, awaiting new funding.
• educational materials to accompany “Along the Tracks Part 2.” For this Underground Railroad play about an African Canadian family (sequel to “Along the Tracks” from 2001), Arts of Citizenship will be producing study guides for the performances by Wild Swan Theater of Ann Arbor, for a February/March 2005 debut.

Funding for the Underground Railroad Project has come from the Ford Motor Company, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the UM Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, and the UM Diversity and Democracy Fund.

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Detroit Connections

University of Michigan School of Art and Design faculty member Janie Paul, assisted by UM student mentors, has collaborated with staff and students in two resource-poor Detroit schools to establish art workshops (see www.umich.edu/~janiep). At Harms Elementary School, Detroit Connections has developed afterschool workshop modules to teach science (2000-01), math (2001-02, 2002-03), and writing (2003-04) through art projects. At Greenfield Union Elementary, the focus has been on the creation of murals and other large-scale art works to enhance the school's physical environment. The goal at both schools is to improve educational outcomes by integrating art across the curriculum. The UM team has produced resource handbooks detailing their approach, so that others can replicate the workshops. The Arts of Citizenship Program has supported Detroit Connections since 2000, as has UM's School of Art and Design. For more information, see this article from the University Record.

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Telling It

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Heritage Battle Creek Project

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Altar of Democracy

Arts of Citizenship hosted local DebateWatch sessions for voters and pre-voters in fall 2004, with viewing of the presidential debates followed by dialogue sessions centering on arts and culture. This was carried out in cooperation with the national nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates. The Altar of Democracy was born shortly after the conclusion of our DebateWatch 2004: Doing Politics, Making Culture project. The Altar of Democracy website illustrates our journeys and experiences throughout both the DebateWatch and Community High projects.

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Children of Abraham

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Motown Play

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Planned for 2006: “Hastings Street”

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Past Projects of the Arts of Citizenship Program

A team of community arts leaders, design professionals, and University of Michigan faculty and students in art, architecture, natural resources, and history has developed proposals for public art, historical exhibits, and outdoor educational opportunities as part of the major reconstruction of Ann Arbor's Broadway Bridges (completed in 2004). Arts of Citizenship has spearheaded the effort, bringing the various constituencies together, including the local residents, the City of Ann Arbor, and the design and construction firms contracted for the reconstruction. Related activities have included such ventures as "If This Were My Park," in which UM landscape architecture master's students partnered with first- and second-graders to propose redesigns of the underused Broadway Park (1999). In 2002, a graduate seminar at the University of Michigan (Landscape, History, and Public Culture, Architecture 653), taught by David Scobey, worked on further design prototypes for this historic area of the city. In 2003, a website describing the history and current condition of the Broadway Park area was launched at www.artsofcitizenship.umich.edu/broadway. The Broadway Park Design project has been funded in part by the McKinley Foundation of Ann Arbor and UM's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.

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The Homelands Project

Arts of Citizenship worked with the University of Michigan's Residential College, the Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning, and Detroit's Matrix Theatre Company (see www.matrixtheatre.org) to produce dramatic materials from oral histories in the diverse neighborhood of southwest Detroit. In 2000-2001, UM students researched the history of the neighborhood and did writing workshops in senior centers and community centers in the area to generate stories. During the 2001-2002 academic year, UM students worked further on the play with playwright Wes Nethercott and assembled a lobby exhibit of historic photographs of southwest Detroit. Matrix Theatre debuted "Homelands," set in southwest Detroit's Michigan Central Railroad depot, in May 2002. Arts of Citizenship is following up on the play with a multimedia sourcebook to guide other community groups producing theater from oral histories. The Homelands Project has been funded in part by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the UM Whitaker Fund for the Improvement of Teaching, and the UM Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program.

The Homelands Project received the 2004 Imagining Michigan Award from the Michigan Department of History, Arts, and Libraries and from Imagining America. This award recognized the project as the best university-community collaboration in the state.

Matrix Theatre Company was also honored by the UM Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning as best community partner of 2004.

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The Hallelujah Project

This collaboration with the internationally acclaimed Liz Lerman Dance Exchange (see www.danceexchange.org), the University Musical Society, and several Detroit arts organizations linked Detroit history, life-story narrative, and dance performance. Around the nation, Hallelujah Projects initiated by the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange sought out what communities had "to be in praise of." Numerous University of Michigan faculty members were involved in the southeastern Michigan partnerships, which included

• A performance piece on the role of dance in Detroit's history, researched by students from UM and Marygrove College in Detroit.
• Several afterschool programs, led by UM students, that combined dance workshops and storytelling.
• A video autobiography project with the Detroit dance troupe All City Men's Group.

The Hallelujah Project culminated in a four-week residency in southeastern Michigan in fall 2001, with performances of community work in both Ann Arbor and Detroit. The theme of these dance pieces was "In Praise of Paradise Lost and Found" in the history of the African American neighborhoods of Detroit. In 2002, a student team compiled an anthology of this two-year residency, to document the process of integrating dance with social history and local issues. The teaching component of the Hallelujah Project was funded in part by Michigan Road Scholars 1999. Liz Lerman was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2002.

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The Poetry of Everyday Life

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Environmental Legacies

View the Environmental Legacies elementary curriculum materials here (PDF): www.artsofcitizenship.umich.edu/whatwedo/el_complete_lesson_plans_fall_2000.pdf

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“2001 Hastings Street”

This partnership with Detroit's internationally acclaimed Mosaic Youth Theater (see www.mosaicdetroit.org) and the Residential College at the University of Michigan explored what it was like to come of age in Detroit over the past several generations. Using oral histories from interviews with senior citizens, as well as more traditional historical research, UM students worked with Detroit teens to create a new musical drama, "2001 Hastings Street," written and directed by Rick Sperling. "2001 Hastings Street," which recalls the rich African American community life and music scene in mid-1940s Detroit, was presented in 2001 as part of Detroit 300, the tercentenary celebration of the founding of the city, and as part of the UM Detroit Theme Semester in Fall Term 2001. It toured nationally in 2002. Arts of Citizenship assembled a traveling historical exhibit on 1940s Detroit as a lobby display to accompany the play. "2001 Hastings Street" was funded in part by the UM Whitaker Fund for the Improvement of Teaching and the UM Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program.

View a Detroit History Primer here: www.artsofcitizenship.umich.edu/whatwedo/mosaicprimer.pdf

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Radio Documentaries

Arts of Citizenship has worked on a number of documentaries with Michigan Radio (see www.michiganradio.org), public radio in Michigan for Ann Arbor (WUOM 91.7), Flint (WFUM 91.1), and Grand Rapids (WVGR 104.1). Arts of Citizenship has coordinated research, interviews, and scripts for these documentaries, which have often been spinoffs from other Arts of Citizenship projects. “The Riot Diaries: Coming of Age During the Riot Years”

University of Michigan students created "The Riot Diaries," based on personal interviews about the 1967 Detroit riots, with music from the period. Tamar Charney at Michigan Radio was the producer for this two-part documentary series that aired July 23 and 24, 2001, on Michigan Radio. In January 2002, "The Riot Diaries" won a Merit Award from the Michigan Association of Broadcasters in the Mini-Documentary/Series category. "The Riot Diaries" was funded in part by the UM Whitaker Fund for the Improvement of Teaching. “Jazz in the Motor City”

This radio documentary on the teaching of jazz in the Motor City, 1950s to 1970s, aired on Michigan Radio in April 2002. Musicologist Michal Rahfaldt served as coordinator for this piece, which included representative music tracks.

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“Listening to Youth”

The Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS, Dearborn, Michigan) joined Arts of Citizenship on a radio documentary project exploring the effects of the September 11 attacks on Arab American youth. Teenagers from the Dearborn area shared their stories on audiotape with Rola Neshef of ACCESS and Tamar Charney of Michigan Radio; two of these pieces aired in September 2002 as part of National Public Radio's "Understanding America After 9/11." These teens talked not only about the effects of September 11 but also about their experiences in navigating the immigrant experience for their families, bridging two worlds. In March 2003, the broadcasts won an honorable mention from the Michigan Associated Press awards in the News Documentary category. A companion website provides further background: www.artsofcitizenship.umich.edu/listen. Listening to Youth was partially funded by UM's Office of the President and UM's Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs.

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Black Media

Arts of Citizenship assisted with a University of Michigan course in Winter Term 2004 that was part of the theme semester celebrating the 50th anniversary of the landmark court decision in Brown v. the Board of Education. In "Black Media II: Broadcasting, African Americans, and Civil Rights," students collaboratively produced interactive websites plus audio documentaries that are being considered for broadcast on Michigan Radio. Prof. Catherine Squires and doctoral student Michal Rahfaldt taught this joint offering of the UM Center for AfroAmerican and African Studies and the Communications Studies Department. The websites created in this course are at http://www.umich.edu/~urel/brown50/lsa.html

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