groups and public and private entities that supports the economic and social development in the University District. Faculty from every college, senior staff from Business & Finance and Student Affairs, as well as representatives from the city of Memphis and Shelby County have joined with neighborhood organizations to comprehensively address social, health, urban design and safety issues in neighborhoods surrounding the University of Memphis. The most recent success was the receipt by the City of Memphis of a Tennessee Department of Transportation grant to revitalize nearby Walker Avenue. • The University’s School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy has partnered with the Community Foundation of Memphis and United Way of the Mid-South to create a Strengthening Communities Program designed to build capacity in neighborhoods and community organizations while furthering the engaged scholarship activities of the university faculty. In the five years since its inception, 32 capacity-building and small grants have been awarded to improve neighborhoods and spur economic growth. Thirty community-partner organizations have hosted projects with 23 faculty/student research partners funded. Nearly $350,000 in total combined dollars has been invested in community-based projects and research. Two examples of the process and outcomes of the Strengthening Communities initiative are the South Memphis project and the Memphis Music Magnet. • The U of M Ground Water Institute has teamed with researchers from the University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to find undiscovered fault lines under the Mississippi River, to see if fault lines running under the river shape the lowest points and to determine the flow of the river and how the Mississippi River and the aquifer interact with each other. • The FedEx Institute of Technology is an epicenter for interdisciplinary research and has partnered with local venture capitalists, business advisors and area industry to launch a robust Technology Transfer program designed to identify and rapidly move university-developed technologies to the marketplace. Centers and Institutes are producing discoveries in logistics, biomedical engineering, technology and education, matching the industrial clusters in the area. To support innovation within the community, the FedEx Institute and the Fogelman College of Business and Economics are collaborating with experienced innovation practitioners to launch the Memphis Innovation Bootcamp, an intensive, hands-on introduction to the latest concepts in design thinking.
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