The schedule for the workshop is as follows:

• 5:30 PM — Majora Carter Keynote Address: Home(town) Security
• 6:30 PM — Community Panel Discussion on Challenges and Opportunities for Green Jobs and Entrepreneurship in Champaign-Urbana

Details:

Champaign-Urbana is home to a world-reknowned university, outstanding regional health-care facilities, a community college with strong community programs, and a thriving agricultural economy. Champaign County is the most highly educated county in the state and, in the past 10 years, the number of people earning salaries over $100,000 per year has grown 90% . Despite this perceived wealth, more than 12,500 of our neighbors experience significant food insecurity due to poverty, more than 55% of school children in Champaign and 60% in Urbana qualify for free or reduced lunches based on household income, and the county has the third highest extreme poverty rate in Illinois1. These statistics have serious implications for the long-term health and wellbeing of the entire community.

We propose to open a constructive university-community dialogue to brainstorm creative new approaches to improving the health and wellbeing of our community, including the environment and ecosystems that support us. How can Champaign-Urbana become a model learning laboratory for sustainability and resilience, with the goal of creating green entrepreneurial and job opportunities for all of its citizens?

To begin this dialogue, we have scheduled a one-day workshop with Majora Carter, eco-entrepreneur and MacArthur Fellow, to identify new opportunities for university-community partnership. Carter has brought over $34 million to the South Bronx to create green jobs and infrastructure. She founded a non-profit organization, Sustainable South Bronx, that provides green jobs training and placement to restore local waste sites, create urban farms, and install green spaces and roofs. Carter’s firm, Majora Carter Group, is now engaged in helping other communities around the country to learn from South Bronx successes and adapt to local needs.

Contacts and Sponsors:

The Office of Sustainability (sustainability@illinois.edu) is providing logistical support. Valerie McWilliams, Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation Inc. (vmcwilliams@lollaf.org), and Barbara Minsker, Civil and Environmental Engineering, U. of Illinois (minsker@illinois.ed), are co-organizing the workshop. Our generous sponsors are: University of Illinois Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership, College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences, School of Architecture, College of Business, Center for Advanced Study, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Institute for Computing in the Humanities, Arts, and Sciences, School of Earth Science and the Environment, College of Engineering, Office of Equal Opportunity and Advancement, I-TOPP project, Department of Geography, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, Prairie Research Institute, Office of the Provost, Social Dimension of Environmental Policy Initiative in the Beckman Institute, Students for Environmental Concerns, Student Organization Resource Fee, Office of Sustainability, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research; Action Research Illinois; Center for the Advancement of Sustainability Innovations, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

View workshop brochure