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Community: The University’s Partner
The Chicago Initiative will strengthen the University’s ties to its most immediate community by developing human capital in South Side neighborhoods through support for:
- The Urban Education Initiative
- Pre-collegiate programs
- The Chicago Public Schools Scholarship Program
- The Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture
A Partner in Urban Education
The University of Chicago constructively engages the community through educational leadership, economic development, and academic research. A primary institutional priority is improving urban public education through the University’s Urban Education Initiative (UEI). Comprised of interdisciplinary teams from virtually all of the University’s schools and units, UEI hones the skills of current and future teachers to better serve students in surrounding communities. The program is directly improving the quality of education offered to local students on Chicago’s South Side and generating models of success for other urban educators nationwide.
Under the auspices of UEI, the University, through the University of Chicago Center for Urban School Improvement, operates four campuses of the University of Chicago Charter School on the city’s South Side. The oldest school, North Kenwood Elementary Campus, opened in 1998 while the youngest, Woodlawn Middle and High School Campus, opened in 2006. Together the four public school campuses offer students a chance to stay in our rigorous and caring family of schools from pre-kindergarten through high school graduation.
All the campuses use an instructional approach based on research and share a single mission: to prepare students for success in four-year colleges. In the process, the schools also work to strengthen the community through programs offered to families beyond the regular school day and year, as well as through student research, leadership, and service. They also serve as dynamic sites for teacher training, research, and faculty development.
Chicago’s commitment to the community extends beyond primary education to college preparatory programs. Under the direction of the Office of Community and Government Affairs, the Collegiate Scholars Program provides a pre-collegiate curriculum—taught by some of Chicago’s most respected faculty—to talented high schools students in the Chicago Public Schools. This enrichment program exposes the community’s brightest students to the University’s intellectual culture and prepares them to attend and succeed at Chicago or other competitive universities.
The surrounding communities and other city neighborhoods are a rich resource that the University draws on, in part, for its exceptional student body. To attract the city’s most promising young minds and ensure their access to a Chicago education, the University launched the Chicago Public Schools Scholarship Program in 2003. Once fully funded, the program will offer full-tuition scholarships to the University of Chicago to twenty of the top Chicago Public Schools graduates each year—a $20 million commitment. By encouraging the brightest young minds from diverse backgrounds to attend, the University expands its commitment to human capital and encourages a diversity of perspective that enriches the academic environment for all students.
The Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture
The University’s academic environment is also enhanced by engaging community members as valuable partners through academic initiatives at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture. The Center operates an interdisciplinary program dedicated to promoting scholarship and debate on the topics of race and ethnicity, with a particular focus on how these ideas impact and shape people’s daily lives. Students and faculty affiliated with the Center pursue intellectually challenging and innovative scholarship that crosses traditional boundaries between academic work and community activism and serves as a significant force for community development on Chicago’s South Side.
Investing in the Community
In the remaining years of the Chicago Initiative, the University seeks to raise a minimum of $50 million in support of community initiatives, including $25 million in endowment funds for the Urban Education Initiative, $10 million to endow the Collegiate Scholars program, $10 million to support the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, and $5 million for additional improvements in surrounding neighborhoods. Gifts in support of these efforts have the power to shape lives across the nation and the world.
