(Page updated 1/26/12)

All students accepted into Semester in Detroit Spring 2012 Program are required to fulfill the following prerequisite experiences during the fall semester:

SID Group Meetings (2-3 during March/April 2012)

After students are accepted into the program in mid-March, 2012, there will be 2-3 group meetings to get to know one another and to develop our community.  Stay tuned for more information on these important gatherings.   

Detroit Immersion Weekend – March 23-25, 2012

The agenda for the weekend will include presentations by Detroit community members, a service project, a SID community dinner, a bus tour of the city, and social/cultural events. Costs for transportation and housing will be covered by the Semester in Detroit program; students may be required to contribute to some of the costs for food. The complete agenda for this weekend immersion experience will be made available to SID students in mid-March.  Students should be prepared to leave Ann Arbor for Detroit around 6pm on Friday, March 23rd and will return to Ann Arbor by 5pm on Sunday, March 25th.  

If you have any questions about the information included here, please contact Semester in Detroit Associate Director, Craig Regester by email, or by phone at 313.505.5185.

(Note: Page Updated on 9/13/11)

"Planning Detroit:  Past, Present, Future."

This course will offer an overview of planning in improving central cities, with a focus on Detroit.  It will allow students to review the history of planning in Detroit, through both written material and guided visits to various redevelopment sites, in order to gain a sense of the vision of past city boosters and the challenges facing planning today.  Time periods will include the early postwar years, dating from just after World War II until the early 1990s; the “present,” covering the 2000s thus far; and the “future,” discussing both existing proposed projects and apparent strategies for improving Detroit and cities and metropolitan areas like Detroit.  Course readings will draw on both specific books and articles about planning and redevelopment in Detroit and on other materials concerning the improvement of central cities and their metropolitan regions.    Topics covered will include:

• The role of the automobile industry in Detroit’s evolution
• Political, social, and economic contributions to the fragmentation of the Detroit metropolitan area and isolation of the city
• Master plans for Detroit, from 1951 to 2009:  what worked, what didn’t
• The role of Hart Plaza, Lafayette Park, the Detroit Medical Center, Art Center, Campus Martius, and other planner-driven projects in  Detroit’s development
• Other strategies for improving the central business district, riverfront, and New Center areas, past, present, future
• The light rail concept for Woodward Avenue:  pros and cons
• Envisioning a smaller Detroit as planned action

Urban planning, an interdisciplinary approach to improving human society, has particularly close ties with the social sciences but connects as well with disciplines such as architecture, landscape architecture, and resource development.  A number of professional urban planners work in the city of Detroit and we  plan to offer an opportunity to speak with a few of these, either in their offices or as guest lecturers.

Instructor:  June Manning Thomas, Centennial Professor, Urban and Regional Planning Program

Each Semester in Detroit student interns for 16 hours per week with a Detroit-based community or cultural arts organization based on their academic and career interests. In previous years, students have chosen from among dozens of different internship opportunities with organizations including: Focus Hope, New Detroit, Clark Park Coalition, Alternatives for Girls, Arts and Scraps, Detroit Eastside Community Collaborative, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, WDET-FM Public Radio, Data Driven Detroit, and many more.  For the winter and spring 2012 programs, we expect to have additional internship opportunities with small business development organizations, public health clinics, and schools.  

Click here for a longer description of the community-based internship, including a list of all previous internship opportunities in the program.  

4 credits, credit/no-credit - SID Faculty Director, Stephan Ward, and SID Associate Director, Craig Regester

(Note: page updated 9/13/11)

The Semester in Detroit Internship Reflection Seminar is designed to help students reflect -- individually and collectively -- on their internship experience.  Through organized discussions and student presentations, short writing prompts, a class blog, work-planning, and the development of a grant proposal for their respective organizations, students develop a much more sophisticated understanding of their internship experience, and of the city of Detroit at-large.  

2 credits, graded - SID Associate Director, Craig Regester

Craig has lived in the Hubbard Farms neighborhood of Southwest Detroit since 1995.  He has worked over the years as a youth counselor, high school teacher, community/labor organizer, and writer.  He has worked for Detroit-based community organizations, including: La Sed Youth Center, Alternative For Girls, SEMCOSH, and the Sugar Law Center.  In addition, Craig has been a freelance grant writer for over 10 years for more than a dozen different Detroit-based organizations.  

(Note: page updated 9/13/11)

Semester in Detroit students gather every two weeks to hear from, and dialogue with, a wide range of Detroiters, including educators, business owners, organizers, activists, city officials, and many more.  Previous presentations have focused on topics, including: public education reform, challenges of public transit, urban agriculture, independent media, "rightsizing" Detroit, poetry and the arts, and more.  

1 credit, graded - Stephen Ward, SID Faculty Director, RC/DAAS Assistant Professor

(Note: Page Updated 9/13/11)

RCHUMS 334, Section 007: Detroit - Real or Fiction

This humanities class is taught by native Detroiter, Lolita Hernandez, currently a lecturer in the Creative Writing program in the Residential College. She is a well-known poet and writer who spent over twenty years working in GM’s Cadillac Plant on Clark St. in SW Detroit until the plant closed. She is the author of Autopsy of an Engine and Other Stories from the Cadillac Plant. The course will take a close look at the contemporary writing scene in Detroit, as well as provide students with ample opportunities to explore and develop their own creative writing abilities. Note: this course will be applicable toward the Humanities distribution requirement for LSA students. 3 credits - Lolita Hernandez, RC Creative Writing Department

RCSSCI 360 (Section 002)/HIST 329 -- Hands-On History at Detroit's Historic Fort Wayne

This course will use the example of Historic Fort Wayne to explore the ways in which historic places can be used to enrich the teaching and learning of history, and historic preservation can be used as a tool of community revitalization. Built in the 1840s to defend against possible British attack, the fort has served many functions over the years, including military induction center, prisoner of war camp, social center, and refuge for homeless families during the Great Depression. As such, it is an ideal venue to explore important aspects of Detroit’s history and of Detroit’s role in American and world history. Today, preservationists and community activists hope to restore Historic Fort Wayne for its historic and architectural significance and for its value as a public space crucial to community identity. In cooperation with the Randolph Career and Technical Center in Detroit, students in the course will learn about an innovative curriculum, adopted as a national model by the National Park Service, that teaches preservation skills and techniques. Students will consider how doing hands-on history can add to our understanding of the past and build community. Readings include James Conway and David F. Jamroz, Detroit’s Historic Fort Wayne (Arcadia Images of America, 2007); Dolores Hayden, The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History (MIT Press, 1997); Cathy Stanton, The Lowell Experiment: Public History in a Post-Industrial City (UMass Press, 2006) and Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work (Penguin, 2009).
3 credits - Michelle McLellan, Assistant Professor, RC/History Department

Optional Elective Courses:

Thanks to an agreement with Wayne State University’s Honors College and the Department of Geography and Urban Planning, Semester in Detroit students will be able to select from among a list of courses in addition to the UM electives described above. More detailed course descriptions will be made available later this semester. Note: by choosing any of the available WSU classes, you would receive UM independent study credit (not WSU credit). Registration for these courses will be handled by Associate Director, Craig Regester.