Fellowships

There are several types of fellowships we are planning to launch at the Urban Renewal Lab.

Teaching Fellows

Teaching Fellows are university-based instructors who want to teach concepts and align student projects along themes of urban renewal and resilience. We encourage teachers of architecture, engineering, the social sciences, and the natural sciences to apply. Teaching Fellows are expected to:

  • devote at least 20 lecture or project hours per semester to on topics of Urban Renewal, resilience, or sustainability
  • Advise at least three student projects per semester that tackle local issues of urban renewal and share their project outputs through a 5-minute video plus publish their report on the Urban Renewal Lab website and social media channels
  • Produce at least three 6-minute mini-lecture videos on any theme of urban renewal for sharing at the Urban Renewal Lab's Youtube channel. Click here for various themes you may want to discuss in your video
  • contribute at least one post per month on the Urban Renewal Lab's Facebook page, and cultivate the social network around the local Urban Renewal Lab FB page and community
  • mentor promising students on leadership and change-making through urban renewal

A good teaching fellow is an advocate and innovator, and believes in the capacity of teachers and students to make a change in the world. Click here for an example of a model teaching fellow (though this example is not quite the urban renewal sphere).

Teaching fellows are also encouraged to work with at least one small unit at the city government and actively co-design and prototype projects with that unit over a period of two or more semesters.

Bridge Teaching Fellow

A Bridge Teaching Fellow actively explores the intersection of two or more disciplines as expressed through urban renewal. For example, a Bridge Teaching Fellow may actively co-teach a course with a physician to explore the dynamics between health and the physical spaces, or with a sociologist to delve into issues of the mall or club culture in relation to urban congestion.

Innovation Fellows

Innovation Fellows are practitioners who are engaged in planning, governance, program implementation, or policy work related to urban renewal. As fellows, they are expected to advance local urban renewal through dialogue, rapid prototyping, and resource mobilization. They are network-builders, and engage constituencies to co-own and co-create urban renewal.

It is modeled partially after the Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Detroit Revitalization Fellowship.

Research Fellows

Research Fellows are undergraduate or graduate students who commit to align at least 4 academic papers or projects along the themes of urban renewal over a period of one academic year. These project may be done individually or in teams.

Micro-project Volunteers