Release date: Jan. 19, 2005

Emory Forms Partnership With Northwest Atlanta Neighborhoods

The Northwest Atlanta neighborhoods of Riverside and Hollywood Court may be 10 miles away from Emory University's tree-lined campus, but they are now the institution's close partners, thanks to a three-year, $400,000 Community Outreach Partnerships Center (COPC) grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Awarded to Emory's Office of University Community Partnerships (OUCP), the grant leverages an additional $1 million in resources from Emory and its community partners, including office space, faculty time and resources, mini-grants, workshop supplies, pro bono leadership training and more. Because of these resources, dozens of Emory's brightest undergraduate and graduate students can work alongside faculty, local agencies and neighborhood leaders on affordable housing, preserving community assets, strengthening families, and supporting excellence in local public schools.

"We are grateful for and excited about this opportunity to nurture a deeper relationship with some of our Atlanta neighbors in ways that will benefit both the community and the university," says Emory President James W. Wagner. "The Northwest Atlanta COPC is a clear example of Emory's vision at work in the world----the ethically engaged, inquiry driven university collaboratively engaging its resources for the good of the larger community."

The grant was made possible because of work done by Emory students in the OUCP's Community Building Fellowship, particularly projects last summer in Northwest Atlanta. Launched in 2001 with a seed gift from alumnus and fashion designer Kenneth Cole, the program blends academics with activism to prepare Emory undergraduates for careers that improve the community. The COPC enables expansion of efforts by the Community Building Fellows to preserve and attract community assets and to plan for the future development of the partner neighborhoods.

The COPC office will be based at Benjamin Carson Honors Preparatory School, an Atlanta Public Schools middle school, where Emory alumnus Nash Alexander III is principal. (Alexander recently was honored with a 2004 MetLife Foundation Ambassadors in Education Award by the MetLife Foundation and National Civic League. http://www.ncl.org/about/press/2004/0525.htm)

Examples of the wide-ranging efforts that will fall under the COPC umbrella include:

• Emory psychology students and faculty will work to boost parents' skills in parenting teenagers and strengthening family bonds through a series of family activity nights, and workshops.

• Ginger Wickline, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology, is designing an extensive network of opportunities to strengthen families and bolster teacher efficacy.

• Emory master's in teaching students will complete student teaching rotations at Carson Prep.

• Carson teachers will participate in workshops to build their capacity to collaborate with parents for the good of students.

• Emory students also will mentor youth at Carson Prep and help them work toward college.

• Emory's debate program, the Barkley Forum, has established a branch of the Atlanta Urban Debate League at Carson, including summer workshops and after-school programs three days a week. This is a partnership with the Atlanta Housing Authority, TechBridge, and Boys & Girls Clubs.

• Law professor Frank Alexander, a nationally recognized expert in affordable housing and urban redevelopment policy, will teach a graduate course on affordable housing open to all graduate students, including law, business and public health. Alexander authored Georgia's laws creating and empowering land bank authorities to aid affordable housing efforts. He also co-chaired the Atlanta City Council Task Force on Gentrification and currently serves as a technical advisor to the National Vacant Properties Campaign, a project of Smart Growth America, the International City/County Management Association, and the Local Initiatives Support Commission to help revitalize communities.

"What makes Emory's partnership with Northwest Atlanta special is that we, the community, are in charge of determining which issues matter most and just how Emory students and our faculty can best help us resolve those issues," says Felicia Moore, District 9 Atlanta City councilwoman and a member of the COPC Advisory Committee. "We said we needed help protecting affordable housing, that we wanted to take charge of how our community develops, and Emory has stepped up to help us."

"The Atlanta Housing Authority is thrilled to partner with Emory in a community re-building partnership to strengthen two important neighborhoods in Northwest Atlanta. The valued and much needed resources gained from the partnership will help to establish an affordable housing inventory database. We know that great communities are anchored by great schools, and with Emory providing master's level student educators at Ben Carson Honors Preparatory School, we are sure to see improvements in test scores and parental involvement," says Renee Lewis Glover, president and CEO of the housing authority.

Hollywood Court Residents Association President Diane Wright and Riverside Neighborhood Association President Scott Foerst will co-chair the COPC Advisory Committee, which includes, in addition to Councilwoman Moore, Nicole Taylor, NPU J arts and community resources chairwoman; Ritchie Bishop, NPU G chairman; Cindy Dennis, NPU D chairwoman; Riverside Residents Association President Jerald Walker; Atlanta Board of Education member Emmett Walker (District 5); Robert Haley, chairman of the 100 Black Men of Atlanta; Cynthia Nash, resource development director of the Atlanta Housing Authority; Dorothy Williams, director of Perry Library; Bettye Wright, principal of Boyd Elementary School; Martha Neill, director of Agape Community Center; Marilyn Taylor, principal of Bolton Academy; Pat Evans, West Highlands Project coordinator; and Phyllis Turner, Spanish teacher and outreach coordinator for Carson Prep.

Established in 1994, HUD's Office of University Partnerships is a catalyst for joining colleges and universities with their communities in a shared search for answers to pressing urban problems. The COPC is one of nine grant programs administered by the office.

Emory's OUCP was established in 2000 to foster more effective partnerships between the university and community groups, government agencies, nonprofit organizations and businesses in the greater Atlanta area. The OUCP works to strengthen the connections among the university's three primary areas of activity--teaching, research and service--to directly benefit metro communities. The office is directed by Michael J. Rich, associate professor of political science and a national evaluator of several HUD programs, including the Community Development Block Grant Program and the Empowerment Zone and Enterprise Communities initiatives. Rich, along with Michael Leo Owens, assistant professor of political science, designed the Community Building Fellows Program curriculum and both teach the program's three courses.

For more information about Emory's COPC grant or the OUCP, please visit http://oucp.emory.edu or contact Sam Marie Engle, director of the Community Building Fellows Program and coordinator of the COPC launch, at 404-712-9692 or sengle@emory.edu.

Emory University is known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate college of arts and sciences, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities. For nearly two decades Emory has been named one of the country's top 25 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, the state's largest and most comprehensive health care system.

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