Social Solutions - Research Periodical Volume 1

THE CENTER FOR SOCIAL SOLUTIONS FALL 2021 • VOLUME 1

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WE ENVISION WITHOUT INEQUITY AN DISENFRANC WHERE OP AND RESOU MORE EVENLY

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WORLD SOCIAL ND SYSTEMIC C H I S E M E N T, PPORTUNITIES URCES ARE DISTRIBUTED. 3

FROM OUR DIRECTOR I am delighted to share with you the first in a series of publications showcasing the work undertaken by the Center for Social Solutions.

Though the past year has been like no other as the ever-changing COVID-19 pandemic continued to suspend our lives and challenge our resilience, I was struck by the difficulty in selecting only four representative pieces of the Center’s work thus far. Modestly, and without in any way minimizing the pain and loss we all have endured, we have rededicated ourselves to cultivating collaboration, leadership, and scholarship to create a more equitable and just future.

The pages that follow illuminate the ongoing research conducted within the Center’s four founding initiatives–diversity and democracy, the future of work, slavery and its aftermath, and water equity and security—over the course of 2021. These initiatives, though ostensibly disparate in disciplines, share the common cause of identifying contemporary problems rooted in historical inequities.

Many of the people and communities implicated in one research area are indeed bound to appear in others.

Our researchers are exploring how policies in disaster response at the national level and a lack of accurate data affect those in our own backyard; how diversity in higher education has been largely driven by student efforts; how many elite universities’ direct ties to slavery are more prevalent than most know; and how higher education can—must—play a role in protecting our nation’s most fragile workers.

Notwithstanding obvious challenges, I am grateful we were able to continue our work, double our staff, and to do so safely and productively. You are invited to visit our website to gain a fuller sense of the work we have undertaken. As we reflect on the year and look to the future, I am continually inspired by our collective strength and optimistic that we will continue to advance the goal of offering solutions to some of our age’s most pressing problems.

Earl Lewis, Ph.D Founding Director, Center for Social Solutions Thomas C. Holt Distinguished University Professor of History, Afroamerican and African Studies, and Public Policy Center for Social Solutions Fall 2021 • Vol 1

TABLE of CONTENTS

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Systemic Disenfranchisement During Major Floods

The History Slavery and of Diversity in American Higher Education Universities

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Future of Work: Back to the Future

Sources

About the Center

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SYSTEMIC DISENFRANCH DURING

A LOOK AT SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN

Center for Social Solutions Fall 2021 • Vol 1

MAJOR

HISEMENT

R FLOODS Adapted from a presentation given by Julie Arbit and Abha Panda Edited for publication by Victoria Fisher

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The notion that floods are events that need to be dealt with retroactively has permeated American infrastructure and development. Current investments in levees and floodwalls focus more on combating flood surges as they occur, rather than preventing flooding from occurring in the first place. Yet, as climate change catalyzes the effects of floods further, it is possible–and monetarily feasible –to preemptively mitigate flooding through neighborhood development and reduction of socioeconomic disparities instead of bearing the brunt of it in our current, aging built environment.

The association between race and flood vulnerability, in particular, remains a pressing issue as we look at changing infrastructure and development patterns. Lowincome and minority communities are disproportionately affected by extreme flood events every year, an inequality that is predicted to Center for Social Solutions Fall 2021 • Vol 1

grow worse as the frequency and magnitude of floods increase. In the last decade, 20% of flood insurance dollars were paid in ZIP codes where at least one-quarter of residents are African American, even though these ZIP codes account for only 13% of the U.S. population.

Lapses in government aid and infrastructure are often the main drivers of these kinds of socioeconomic disparities.

Socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods are frequently built in low-lying areas with high amounts of impervious surface - roads, parking lots, pavement - and limited green space, which makes it difficult to withstand rising water levels.

Yet, flood mitigation infrastructure such as levees and floodwalls are usually allocated to protect areas with higher property values, leaving low-income neighborhoods still more vulnerable to flooding. Even in flooded areas, key disaster relief aid continues to be distributed based

on economic damage thresholds.

Because low-income households often claim property and belongings that are worth less on the market, damage thresholds prevent lowincome households from receiving critical aid. During Hurricane Harvey, two thirds of low-income households that were affected by floods were identified as not meeting the standards necessary to qualify for government funding through the Housing and Urban Development Department.

For those who don’t own homes, the effects of flooding can be even worse. Typical renter’s insurance doesn’t cover expenses incurred by floods, and while most homeowners must be legally informed about their flood risk and required to purchase flood insurance, the same is not true for tenants. Many congressional efforts to mandate flood risk disclosure and improve flood insurance for tenants have failed because of a fear that such

measures would reduce property values for cities and states. Georgia is currently the only state that requires landlords to inform tenants of flood risk in cases of extreme flooding. Those unable to prove ownership of their land can have an even more difficult time receiving help. Heirs’ Property, for example, is a land ownership system where land is informally passed down between generations. This practice is more common for minority communities in the U.S. with 41% of Blackowned land in the SE United States informally owned in this way. Yet, land owned through Heirs’ Property is often not recognized by the government, resulting in key lapses in government aid during natural disasters. During Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, 20,000 property owners were denied federal assistance because they couldn’t show clear titles to their property, despite owning the land through an Heirs’ Property system.

Floods in Southeast Michigan Systemic disenfranchisement during major floods has raised many concerns for Southeast Michigan, a region which experiences stark racial and economic disparities.

Major floods in this area are usually “pluvial” in nature, occurring because of large precipitation events that overwhelm stormwater infrastructure and cause surface and flash floods. Several key factors position Southeast Michigan as particularly susceptible to flood related disparities. Firstly, many neighborhoods in the region remain severely socioeconomically disadvantaged. The poverty level in Detroit is 33.4%, according to the latest census, three times higher than the national average of 11.8%.

Disadvantaged neighborhoods also have high levels of imperviousness which can increase the likelihood

of flash flooding. In Detroit, 42% of land cover is made up of impervious surfaces even though water quality degradation has been noted in areas that have as little as 10% imperviousness.

Subsidized housing locations and low-income households are often concentrated in these areas, making these neighborhoods particularly vulnerable to floods (Map 1).

These disparities in infrastructure and land use have long reaching historical roots, which may make them even more difficult to overcome. Land use patterns dating as far back as the 1800s highlight how richer neighborhoods have been traditionally built in more floodadverse locations. In the Clinton River watershed, for instance, wealthier communities enjoy much more well-drained soils than lower income communities like Pontiac, which was built on primarily savanna and swamp habitat (Map 2).

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With climate change projected to make urban flooding worse in the coming decades in Southeast Michigan, it is imperative to acknowledge and address these disparities in infrastructure and development.

What can we do?

Meaningful mitigation strategies would help combat socioeconomic inequalities in the long run if they gain the necessary public and governmental support. While we’re still in the midst of aggregating and exploring data, we’ve identified some intermediary key opportunities in regions like Metro Detroit, where inequitable water management is plaguing countless households.

The first key is in the approach. As we’ve explored, communities in

Center for Social Solutions Fall 2021 • Vol 1

Southeast Michigan and across the country are highly varied down to the household level in terms of risk, resources, and access. In fact, even census tract data is often too broad to assess where neighborhood level investment is needed most.

Large scale water management is not suitable for cities with high socioeconomic disparity, especially when considering the historical and climate change factors that tend to widen those gaps even further.

Once key areas of need are identified, investing in more flood resistant infrastructure and providing stable housing in lowincome neighborhoods can have beneficial effects in the long-run.

Green stormwater infrastructure includes green or blue roofs, permeable or porous materials, and

the use of bioswales or rain gardens for infiltration. Some of these technologies are relatively cheap to install and maintain, and will certainly save money in the long-run in terms of flood prevention and mitigation.

A “sponge city” is a method of flood management and ecological restoration already gaining popularity and traction in urban design and landscape architecture.

Increased access to loans, aid, and national flood insurance policy in areas of need can also help reduce socioeconomic disparities in lowincome communities which often face barriers to these forms of support. ■

▲ Map 1. Impervious surfaces near Detroit overlaid with census tract poverty data and subsidized housing locations. A overlap of high imperviousness and subsidized housing locations can be seen.

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Map 2. A depiction of 1800 Land Cover in the Clinton River Watershed overlaid with census tract poverty data (red lines) and subsidized housing (red circles).

Wealthy communities to the South and West - West Bloomfield, Commerce, Waterford - enjoy much more well-drained soil than Pontiac, which overlaps a fair amount of savanna and swamp, without the resources to accommodate the influxes of water.

Julie Arbit is a graduate research assistant for the Center for Social Solutions.

A graduate student in the School of Environmental and Sustainability, her work focuses on water access and equity and the future of work.

Abha Panda is an undergraduate research and communications assistant at the Center for Social Solutions. A senior in the College of LSA, she is majoring in English as well as environmental studies, contributing to the Center’s water research.

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HI D

ED Center for Social Solutions Fall 2021 • Vol 1

THE ISTORY OF DIVERSITY IN HIGHER DUCATION ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE SERIES

By Abha Panda 13

From the presidents who led them

to the students who studied there, American universities began as exclusively white, male institutions.

For more than 200 years after the first American universities were founded, African Americans were forbidden to study at colleges across the country; only in special cases could women attend but, even then, were not permitted to receive degrees.

Today, a record number of African American presidents and provosts preside over American universities.

Women and other minoritized groups are breaking ground every year, holding more degrees and leadership positions than ever before. Yet, these numbers still fall strikingly short of true representation in higher education as universities continue to struggle to uphold the ideals of diversity that they champion.

These shortcomings of American institutions reflect the shortcomings of national infrastructure as a whole.

From the civil rights movements of the 1960s to the 2020 pledges for equity and inclusion that began after a summer of racial justice protests,

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the history of diversity in higher education has been inevitably interlaced with America’s own struggles towards becoming a more diverse and democratic nation.

Student activism has galvanized civil rights movements for decades and, in turn, universities have often served as a ground zero for the formation of new democratic leaders and ideas. As the nation continues to push forward on creating the diverse communities that are necessary for a successful democracy, higher education continues to struggle. In today’s case study we take a look at this intertwined story that is still very much alive and continues to shape our nation today.

Student Protests in the 1970s The notion of diversity in higher education didn’t truly come about in America until the 1960s. Spurred by the civil rights movements, students and teachers alike began to demand a curriculum that better reflected the ideals of democracy and diversity that the nation was beginning to champion. From student protests to sit-ins, they utilized many of the

student protests demanded an end to racial discrimination on campus during the height of student activism in the 1960s

Center for Social Solutions Fall 2021 • Vol 1

same techniques that were used in the civil rights era to voice their demands for universities to no longer whitewash their history, but rather create departments and teach material that champion them.

At the height of student activism in the 1960s, one in five student protests demanded an end to racial discrimination on campus. As a result of these numerous demonstrations (including a campus shutdown at the University of Michigan in the 1970s) some of the first African American studies departments began to be established. The first Black studies department was started at San Francisco State College in 1968 after the longest strike in U.S. history to occur on a college campus. After 5 months of strikes and protests that were met with violence and legal pushback, San Francisco State College made a novel commitment to admit more than twice as many students of color the following year, and created departments and classes that focused on the stories of minority communities.

The strike had a resounding effect on the nation. By 1971, more than 500 African American studies programs,

500+

African American studies programs, departments, and institutes had been founded at four-year colleges by 1971

~45

off undergr

50 colleges and universities

ffer graduate programs, raduate programs, or both in African American studies today

departments, and institutes had been founded. However, many of these programs remained tokenized as universities shied away from what they viewed as extreme Black nationalism. Although more multicultural content became integrated into the curriculum in the 1980’s, programs that were deemed too radical lost much of their funding and Black studies programs suffered a steep decline overall as a result. Many of these programs were only reestablished later in the 21st century as a result of continued student activism and a new cultural awareness that the remaining Black studies programs had been collectively providing for the nation.

Today, around 450 of these departments and programs remain, along with a legacy of multicultural education that continues to shape

and inspire younger generations of scholars and thinkers.1,2

Affirmative Action As educational content began to diversify in the 1960s, student bodies did too. Many colleges and universities began considering race as a factor when admitting students starting in the 1960s as an effect of the civil rights movement. By 1969, elite universities across the country were admitting twice as many Black students than they had in previous years.

But changes in policy came with backlash as white students went to court to fight for their own admission into college—just two years after affirmative action came into the picture. Notably, in the landmark case of Regents of the 15

18.9% of public four-year colleges consider race in admissions

Over the past three decades, 10 states have banned affirmative action

Arizona California Florida Michigan Nebraska New Hampshire Oklahoma Washington Idaho Georgia

61% of Americans favor affirmative action programs for racial minorities4

qualified students of color are 23% less likely to get admitted to public colleges without affirmative action5 Center for Social Solutions Fall 2021 • Vol 1

University of California v. Bakke, the Supreme Court ruled against having a quota system for choosing the demographics of students to admit, forcing many schools to change their affirmative action policies. Even in colleges where more diverse students were admitted, retention remained low. Although twice as many Black students were admitted to Columbia in 1969, for instance, only half ended up receiving their degrees.

Despite controversies, affirmative action has had a strong historical impact. In 1976, white students made up over 80% of all U.S. college students, but that percentage dropped to 57% by 2016.3 As the nation continues to diversify, higher education has begun to acknowledge the ways in which language and education barriers can misrepresent a student’s learning and intelligence.

Although the majority of Americans favor affirmative action, the use of race in higher education admission still remains highly controversial.

Over the last three decades, 10 states have banned affirmative action and currently only 18.9% of public colleges and universities use race as a factor of admission.

Higher Education Diversity in the Last Decade While higher education today is arguably the most diverse that it ever has been, the rate of change has been slow. Even as America’s demographics shift and new diversity initiatives continue to emerge, higher education practices remain largely unchanged.

Today less than one-third of college presidents are women and minorities make up only 16% of leadership positions in higher

education - percentages which have barely changed in the last decade.

Students pursuing higher education degrees continue to face socioeconomic roadblocks; in 2019, many fields graduated only a single Black doctorate holder.5 2020 has brought a newfound awareness of the racial tensions in the country following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and racial justice protests throughout the summer. Many organizations across the nation, including those in higher education, participated in racial reckonings and mea culpas, and have pledged newfound support for diversity and equity initiatives as a result. But even in places where diversity initiatives are implemented, many students and faculty of color continue to feel unsupported.

According to a 2020 study by Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, only 58% of Black faculty members felt that their colleges were doing enough to promote diversity and inclusion, in contrast to 78% of their white colleagues.6

Looking Forward As we push forward to a new decade, higher education continues to grapple with many of the same questions that arose from the 1960s.

Is diversity necessary for a thriving democracy?

Will universities continue to serve as a breaking ground for the formation of new democratic leaders and ideas? How can leadership in higher education continue to change and better reflect the shifting demographics of the nation and a newfound cultural awareness? Perhaps new solutions lie even beyond the Western academic and leadership tradition itself. ■

The share of Black recipients of doctorates increased

Less than 1/3

Less than 1%

of college presidents were women in 2016

between 2010 and 2019

“At the same time that we are embracing leadership change, one of the struggles of higher ed is it’s conservatism, the rate of our change. And the mistake that higher ed can make is that ‘We have Black presidents, so there is no longer racial inequity.’”

Anna Branch, SVP for Equity, Rutgers University

Percentage of university presidencies by race from 2011 to 20167

2011

N ative American

2016

Asian American

H ispanic

African American

W hite 0

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SLAVER AMER UNIVER Center for Social Solutions Fall 2021 • Vol 1

RY AND RICAN RSITIES A Case Study

By Abha Panda Originally published July, 2020 Updated July 2021 19

Slavery is inseparable from the

history of American universities.

For many years, students at college campuses across America attended lectures in buildings built by slaves.

The beds they slept in and the floors they walked on were maintained by slaves. They were taught by professors who were slaveholders themselves.

This troubling connection between American universities and slavery has been overlooked for centuries despite the lasting effects that this brutal oppression has had on millions of lives. Only recently have universities begun trying to acknowledge their pasts and address these wrongs with new research initiatives, public awareness campaigns, and plans for reparations.

Yet, even as many strive to atone for the past, others still struggle to reconcile such realities. In 2015, the University of Georgia came under criticism for secretly reburying the remains of former slaves in a nearby cemetery when the remains were discovered during a building expansion project. Although the university eventually constructed a memorial in honor of those who had died and dedicated a research fund towards understanding their history, many claim these steps were too late and hypocritical.

For every step forward on the path of racial justice, there are many such instances in which the legacy of

slavery in America continues to be buried and hidden from sight. We examine some of the ways in which universities are trying to bring these dark pasts to light and address the long history of slavery on American campuses.

Internal Research In 2003, Brown University became the first university to publish an official document detailing their historic ties with slavery, paving the way for others to do the same.

The report found that the university was extensively connected to the enterprise of slavery through its leaders and endowers who often participated in the slave trade themselves and funded the university through their endeavors.

The College of William and Mary similarly created The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation in 2009.

The project includes symposiums and courses dedicated to the history of slavery at the College of William and Mary that were developed after internal research brought to light the college’s historic reliance on slave labor and the slave trade. The Project is named for Lemon, a man who was once enslaved by founders William and Mary.

Princeton University, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania are among several other institutions that have established research teams and initiatives since these initial reports

dedicated solely to uncovering their university’s ties to slavery as well.

Sharing research and scholarship Many universities have begun sharing their research and scholarship in an effort to bring greater awareness about these issues and connect resources for finding solutions.

Most notably, the University of Virginia established a consortium of universities studying slavery at their institutions in 2014. While originally, only universities in Virginia were included, the consortium quickly gathered national interest. Currently, several dozen private and public universities across the country are involved in Universities Studying Slavery (USS) which hosts a national symposium on enslavement in universities among other projects to address these injustices.

After establishing the Harvard and Slavery initiative, Harvard has also similarly hosted a national conference on slavery at American colleges and universities in 2017.

Public Awareness While many institutions have been aware of their historic ties to slavery internally, the public remains vastly unaware of this issue. Some universities have tried using public

DID YOU KNOW? 10 of the first 12 United States presidents were, or had been, enslavers; only John Adams (2) and his son John Quincy Adams (6) were not.

Center for Social Solutions Fall 2021 • Vol 1

PRINCETON’S FIRST NINE PRESIDENTS OWNED SLAVES. YALE’S FIRST GRADUATE-LEVEL COURSES AND SCHOLARSHIPS WERE FUNDED BY RENT FROM A SLAVE PLANTATION. HARVARD’S STUDENTS AND LEADERS ATE MEALS AND SLEPT IN ROOMS PREPARED BY SLAVES. COLUMBIA SUBSIDIZED SLAVE TRADERS WITH BELOW-MARKET LOANS. GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY SOLD 272 SLAVES IN 1838 TO PAY ITS WAY OUT OF DEBT.

displays to more fully acknowledge the history of their campuses.

Rutgers University, for example, renamed several of its prominent buildings in 2017 to acknowledge former slaves who helped build and maintain the campus. Georgetown similarly changed the name of buildings named after slave trading presidents and replaced them with the names of former slaves.

In 2014, Brown University used artwork to spread awareness by creating a Slavery Memorial sculpture. The partially buried ball and chain sculpture sits outside of University Hall, the oldest building on campus which was built with slave labor. In 2017 Princeton University similarly unveiled a new sculpture

at a historic slave auction site on campus. Impressions of Liberty (2017), created by African American artist Titus Kaphar attempts to bring visibility to the slaves that once lived at the university.

Reparations One of the most concrete ways in which universities have addressed their ties to the slave trade is by providing reparations to the descendants of the enslaved.

Georgetown University students recently created a fund for paying reparations to the descendants of the slaves that the university sold in 1838. The students established the fund by agreeing to tax themselves $27.20 per semester, in tribute to

the 272 slaves who were sold.

The Virginia Theology Seminary also announced in 2019 a $1.7 million reparation funds to be given to the descendants of slaves who worked at the seminary or lived in the community during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation. The Princeton Theological Seminary has similarly set aside $28 million dollars to be used in reparations.

In 2021, The Center for Social Solutions was awarded a $5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop communitybased reparations solutions at nine sites around the country. ■

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THE FUTURE OF WORK Center for Social Solutions Fall 2021 • Vol 1

“Back to the Future”

By Dr. Earl Lewis, Dr. Alford A. Young, Jr., Justin Schaffner, and Julie Arbit

Estimates suggest as many as 800 million jobs will disappear across the globe by 2030, and up to 54 million workers in the United States, which is one-third of its contemporary workforce, will require retraining in order to maintain employment given the anticipated effects of automation on the world of work (McKinsey Global Institute 2017).

Some observers might surmise, for example, that working-class jobs in the transportation field might be the first to be transformed—the idea being that self-driving vehicles would rapidly erase the need for drivers in long distance trucking and cab, livery and limousine services, including those employed for the new gig-economy companies such as Lyft or Uber. While those jobs are vulnerable, white collar jobs are also susceptible to being transformed by such forces as machinereading, artificial intelligence, and automation.

Today, advances in science, technology, engineering and math or medicine (STEM and STEMM) has spearheaded a call for more technical education. But where does that leave fragile workers?

Some will need access to technical skills, and pathways to continuous reskilling. Others may want to

move from two-year to four-year institutions, knowing that—as Joseph Aoun argues in RobotProof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (MIT Press, 2017)—the most successful workers in the future will have deep domain knowledge as well as a set of skills and experiences that enable them to work effectively in teams on complex problems not easily automated.

That trend underscores the need for a new educational framework that links access to just-in-time training, perhaps leading to certificates and badges, and perhaps ultimately to undergraduate and graduate degrees. This in turn implies that institutions of higher learning need to rethink their relationship to their communities and what it means to educate and serve.

What is needed for fragile workers to become robot-proof and robotready in the world of future work is a renewed version of the liberal arts in the nation’s service. That vision must be inclusive of fragile workers and non-traditional students across the social spectrum. Many institutions previously endorsed the “Liberal Education and America’s Promise” (LEAP) framework developed by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), which called for educators and employers to engage in new partnerships that advance “the importance of liberal education in a global economy and in our diverse democracy.” The original framework could not have fully anticipated the rate, scale, and far-reaching impact of automation of the fourth industrial revolution.

Opportunities for Higher Education

Many have tried to answer the question of why the liberal arts remain an effective educational option but are only beginning to address what is durable and adaptable about the liberal arts in the face of automation. Liberal arts education must be modular, emphasize horizontal learning, offer stackable credentials and options for part-time, online, and nonresidential programs, and be more accessible to non-traditional students.

As the United States continues to evolve toward a post-industrial economy, a new approach to higher education must shrink the social distance between colleges and universities and fragile workers.

It requires a new emphasis on continuing education and learning.

It requires a kind of whiteboard exercise that leverages the traditional disciplines and modes of analysis in a manner to foster creativity as well as subject-matter expertise.

Excerpt from The Great Skills Gap: Optimizing Talent for the Future of Work, edited by Jason Wingard and Christine Farrugia.

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REFERENCES “The History of Diversity in Higher Education” 1. Rooks, Noliwe (2006). “The Beginnings of Black Studies.” The Chronicle of Higher Education.

2. Carlton, Genevieve (2020). Student Activism in College. Best Colleges.

3. National Center for Education Statistics (2020). Bar Chart Race: Changing Demographics in Postsecondary Enrollment 4. Newport, Frank (2020). Affirmative Action and Public Opinion. Gallup.

5. Blume, Grant and Mark Long (2014). “Changes in Levels of Affirmative Action in College Admissions in Response to Statewide Bans and Judicial Rulings.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 228-252 6. Kang, Kell. (2019) “Survey of Earned Doctorates.” NCES. 7. Mathews, K. R., Benson, R. T., Trower, C. A., Azubuike, N. O., & Kumar, A. (2017). The Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education: Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey, 2012-2017 (Research version) [data file and codebook]. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.

8. Gagliardi, Jonathan et al. (2017). “American College President Study.”

Council on Education

IMAGE SOURCES

Cover Image

Featured image: Jon Tyson / Unsplash

“Systemic Disenfranchisement” Featured image: Ål Nik / Unsplash

“The History of Diversity in Higher Education”

Featured image: Copyright 2018, © Michigan Photography. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Page 10: 1970 Poster 12, Columbia College, Columbia Collective

“Slavery and American Universities” Featured image: Christian Lambert / Unsplash Page 18: Wei Zeng / Unsplash Page 19: Clay Bnaks / Unsplash

“Future of Work”

Featured image: Birmingham Museums Trust / Unsplash

Center for Social Solutions Fall 2021 • Vol 1

ABOUT The Center for Social Solutions (CSS) at the University of Michigan fosters research and collaborations that diagnose and solve critical social problems. We believe these solutions rely on diverse perspectives that account for the multi-faceted root causes of these issues. Our four founding initiatives—diversity, slavery, water access, and the future of work—approach different aspects of the equality that we believe is necessary to advance as a prosperous democratic society.

This periodical highlights the work we do to effect a more just future.

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505 S. State Street 6500 Haven Hall Ann Arbor, MI 48109 socialsolutions@umich.edu lsa.umich.edu/social-solutions Twitter - @UMichSocSolutions YouTube - Center for Social Solutions Medium - socialsolutions

© 2022 Regents of the University of Michigan A Nondiscriminatory, Affirmative Action Employer Jordan B. Acker, Michael J. Behm, Mark J. Bernstein, Paul W. Brown, Sarah Hubbard, Denise Ilitch, Ron Weiser, Katherine E. White, Mary Sue Coleman (ex officio) Center for Social Solutions Fall 2021 • Vol 1