Nearly three-dozen U-M faculty experts and senior staff took to the road this spring for the 13th annual traveling seminar known as the Michigan Road Scholars. For five days, they traveled the highways and back roads of Michigan with stops in Benton Harbor, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Mackinaw City, Sault Ste. Marie and Traverse City.
Just a few of the highlights occurred In Traverse City, when the scholars visited the Father Fred Foundation/ STEP program for kids in transition, and talked with leaders of the Traverse City poverty reduction initiative. They also discussed arts and economic development with state theater/film festival folks. The group also toured Goodwill and had dinner with the Grand Rapids alumni club scholarship recipients and their families.
For more than a decade, the Michigan Road Scholars program has sparked numerous academic-community collaborations that continue to enhance local assets and solve local issues, everything from new research initiatives that expand the body of knowledge and help guide local initiatives to expert consultations with industry and direct interactions in schools and communities across the state. Long-standing collaborations with urban, rural and Native American communities around the state—in issues of the environment, K-12 education and higher education preparedness, public health, community and economic development and more—continue years later to contribute to the well-being of the state of Michigan and its citizens.
