Month: November 2019

UConn Hartford Joins the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities

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As recently announced by the UConn Hartford Director’s Office, UConn Hartford is now one of the newest institutional members of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU), the longest-running and largest organization committed to serving and connecting the nation’s urban and metropolitan universities and their partners.

CUMU’s press release reflects the optimism and dedication to community felt by many of the higher ed professionals who call the campus home: “The Hartford campus serves as a model of community engagement and success for urban schools and will attract many new community partnerships with the city—as well as boosting the local economy and resurgence of their home community.”

Membership in CUMU includes access to several benefits and resources designed to help colleges and universities embrace their role as anchor institutions and better serve the urban communities in which they are located.  Members of the UConn Hartford community (faculty, staff, and administrators) can subscribe to CUMU’s online mailing list in order to receive updates about CUMU’s annual conference, their peer-reviewed journal Metropolitan Universities, their “Because Place Matters” newsletter, and other announcements and opportunities.

The full press release announcing UConn Hartford’s new role as a member of CUMU can be read on CUMU’s website.

 

SGCI Launch Reception at UConn Hartford

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The SGCI held a reception on October 29 at UConn Hartford to formally commemorate its “launch” to the greater UConn community (consisting of faculty, researchers, and staff), marking an important milestone in its first year of operation.  The primary goal of the reception was to increase visibility, gather feedback from UConn community members, and cultivate university-wide support for the SGCI’s goal of becoming formally incorporated as a permanent university research institute.

Several dozen attendees filled the SGCI suite, located on the 5th floor of the Hartford Times Building.  Brief remarks were shared by Mark Overmyer-Velazquez (UConn Hartford Campus Director), Daniel Weiner (Vice President for Global Affairs), and Bob Wilson (Interim Director, SGCI) while a looping slideshow presented information about the SGCI and its recently-launched Faculty Affiliates program. As of October 29, the Faculty Affiliates program already has over 70 registered UConn faculty members – an encouraging sign of university-wide excitement about a new unit focused on cities-related research!

This particular launch event was attended exclusively by UConn affiliates; talks are already in the works about having a more public and outward-facing launch event sometime in the Spring 2020 semester to introduce the SGCI to potential community (government, nonprofit, and corporate) partners.

The slideshow presented at the event, seen below, contains several interesting facts about the SGCI and the diversity of its first 70 Faculty Affiliates.  The slideshow can also be downloaded in its entirety from the SGCI Reference Materials page.

 

SGCI Launch Reception Slideshow, October 2019