Architectural Boat Tour

 Last day at CP for Spring 2012! We ended the day with an architectural tour down the Chicago River and out onto Lake Michigan.

 Our tour guide was entertaining, the weather was beautiful, and you were a great group. Even the tour guide commented that the ACM CP group probably knew more about Chicago than he did!  We will miss you students of Spring semester 2012!

Miguel del Valle visits Chicago Program

This semester CP students were honored to meet with Miguel del Valle.   del Valle was City Clerk of Chicago until 2011, the first Latino elected to the Chicago City Clerk’s office.  Prior to his City Clerk position, del Valle was the first Hispanic Senator elected in the Illinois General Assembly where he served for 20 years.   In 2011, del Valle ran for the office of Mayor of Chicago. In the election he came in third in a field of six, with about nine percent of the vote.

del Valle spoke to CP students about an issue he is passionate about:  education.  He is currently chair of the Illinois P-20 Council.  The Council is working to improve birth to adulthood education in Illinois.  The goal of the P-20 Council is to increase the proportion of adults in Illinois with high-quality degrees and credentials to 60% by the year 2025.  del Valle talked about a curriculum designed to take students through all of their educational years, from pre-K through grad school.   

 

del Valle has been working for many years on issues facing Chicago Public Schools, including inequities in funding, and a lack of commitment to fully support neighborhood schools.  His first speech was to fight off an amendment to strip bilingual funding.  He ran for office to work on education issues; attempting to improve life for his constituents.

His first experience with the school system in Chicago was when he failed in the third grade.  He was born in Puerto Rico, and, at the time, he spoke only Spanish, and no one in the school could communicate with him.  He spoke of the importance of teachers, and the importance of supporting them.  “Effective teachers connect with students,” he said.  He remembers a particular teacher who saw potential in him, and inspired him.

He is passionate about making career options available to students.  He tells students there are many other roads available to them; if one doesn’t work out, “take another [road]; don’t stop, don’t go backwards.”

Cubs win!

CP students visited the friendly confines of Wrigley Field on Monday.  The weather was a little chilly, and an eerie fog began rolling in over the field in the last few innings.  But the Cubs beat the Braves, 5-1, and we all had a great time!

CP Pitch Presentations

Chicago Program Entrepreneurship students have been working hard to craft an innovative start-up business concept to present to an external review panel.  Each team came up with an idea for a new business startup,  a mission for the venture, market, a business model, industry analysis, a plan for testing the new business, and a positioning strategy. 

This week the business plans were presented to an external review panel.  The panel provided feedback for the student entrepreneurs.   

On the review panel were CP Director Robyne Hart, John Geis, COO of Dabble, Inc. a community marketplace offering classes across a range of topics; Candi Carter, former Senior Producer of the Oprah Winfrey Show, and CEO of her new production company, New Chapter Entertainment; Tyler Spaulding, co-founder of StyleSeek.com, a mass-personalization e-commerce platform; Lori Edwards, founder of Impact Challenge, offering business consulting; and Tom Cassell, adjunct faculty member of the Chicago Program.

Faculty from Beloit, Colorado College and St. Olaf visit Chicago Program

Chicago Program welcomed three faculty from ACM colleges April 18-20. Corina McKendry (Colorado College), Carol Wickersham (Beloit College); and Ted Thornhill (St. Olaf College) became Chicago Program students, as they toured Chicago’s neighborhoods, including visits to LVEJO (Little Village Environmental Justice Organization)  and Growing Power’s Iron Street Farm, an urban farm growing produce on the bank of the Chicago River in the Bridgeport neighborhood.  

The faculty joined Chicago Program seminar groups in a tour of The Plant , a vertical farm and food-business incubator housed in a former meat packing plant in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.  The goal of business residents in The Plant is not to waste anything.  Small businesses are raising fish and growing organic produce in such a way that waste from one operation is recycled into another. An anaerobic digester is in the works, which will use food scraps to provide heat and electricity for the building. 

The visiting faculty shared their expertise with the students as well.   Carol Wickersham led a workshop with Chicago Program students on learning experiences and how to transfer skills and knowledge between campus and community.   Professor McKendry led a discussion on sustainability with students participating in Chicago Program’s  Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Human Rights and Social Justice seminars.   And, Professor Thornhill lectured on "New Racism in the Post Civil Rights Era:  Interpersonal vs. Institutional Racism.:"

Toxic Tour in Little Village

Probably the most memorable field visit this semester was our “Toxic Tour” of the Little Village neighborhood conducted by Kim Wasserman, executive director of LVEJO (Little Village Environmental Justice Organization).  LVEJO started the tours seven years ago as a way to educate the community and others about the toxic presence of several industries right in their backyards. 

The injustices seem insurmountable.  Factories run their businesses with no regard for the pollutants they release into the environment, the citizens that live next door, or the employees that suffer burns while they work.  According to a report compiled by the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago, Chicago ranks 2^nd among all cities in the country adversely affected by power plant pollution, leading to 855 premature deaths, 848 hospitalizations, 1,519 heart attacks and 23,650 asthma attacks.   

In addition to toxic pollutants, the community has to deal with overcrowded schools, and schools built on toxic sights.  There is one park to serve 95,000 residents.   Bus service has been halted for three miles in the middle of the community, leaving residents unable to access the lakefront, colleges, or to simply move around the city.

Yet there are successes.  Toxins were removed from school sites.   Factories have become more accountable.  OSHA came in to protect workers.  There are plans for a large park to be built.  And the biggest success is that after more than 10 years of grassroots campaigning, the Crawford Generating Station, a coal power plant owned by Midwest Generation, an Edison International Company, will be closing in 2014. 

The 95,000 people that live in Little Village need LVEJO to help fight threats to their environment.   As Kim states, “The reality is we deserve to live in a safe community.  We have every right to speak out.”

Here are some photos from our visit to the Garfield Park Conservatory  this semester.  We were able to enjoy azaleas and hydrangeas long before they are blooming outside in Chicago!

Photos courtesy of Emily N. Summers

 
 
 

Cancel Lollapalooza? Casinos opening in the loop? Taxpayer $ for bike lanes? Don’t panic (yet) … it’s only a debate!

Chicago Program students debated the pros and cons of adding more dedicated bike lanes to Chicago streets, legalizing gambling/casinos in Chicago and hosting the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago.

Teams incorporated their research of the environmental, economic and social impact of the issues on the community.   I learned a lot about both sides of the issues, and am a much more informed citizen. It made me realize you really have to do your research before you can formulate an opinion.  For more about the issues, read on…

Lollapalooza

Pro.  Lollapalooza is one of the top 5 tourist attractions in Chicago, and brings in $80 million revenue; mainly for hotel/retail industries; recycles waste from festival, plants trees and restores Grant Park grounds to it’s original condition and brings people together with music.  

Con.  Organizers need to be more transparent; skipped out on paying taxes and there is an antitrust suit against C3, the festival promoters.  They also need to be more sustainable; last year they  destroyed Grant Park, leaving the grounds a mud pit for two months before restoring it.  The festival insists bands have a radius clause in their contract, so local bands can’t perform at other venues in the area for 9 months out of the year.

Gambling—Casinos in Chicago

Pro.  Casinos would bring in a source of revenue badly needed by the city.  The city is losing potential revenue to casinos in northwest Indiana, as most of the gamblers in Northwest Indiana are from Illinois.  Casinos would bring jobs to help city unemployment rate of 9.3%.  Casinos would bring more tourists, more customer spending into the area, generating more revenue for the city. 

Con.  Bringing casinos to Chicago would bring crime and corruption into an area where there is already corruption. Legalizing gambling brings with it social problems of bankruptcy, domestic abuse, suicide, robbery.  In other cities where casinos have been built, crime rates have increased, requiring increased law enforcement, lowering housing values. Surveys show citizens don’t want casinos in Chicago.  Casinos would take away from other attractions and restaurants Chicago has to offer.  

 

 

Dedicated bike lanes in Chicago

Pro.  Dedicating more bike lanes would be good for Chicago economically, socially and environmentally. Economically, bikers can make more stops at shops and restaurants along the route, since they don’t have to worry about parking. Socially, citizens would get more physical activity, be more social out among other riders. Environmentally, less cars means less pollution, no emissions, and less gas  consumption.  Less cars on the road means less road rage, less accidents.

Con.  Chicago has an extensive public transportation system, which makes it easy for folks to get around; there is no need to add more bike lanes. Taxpayer dollars would be better spent on badly needed CTA renovations. Spending money on bike lanes in already privileged areas increases economic disparity in the city; less advantaged neighborhoods wouldn’t get the rewards; in fact, some neighborhoods don’t have essential bus service. There are dangers of bikers merging into traffic and, unfortunately, numerous serious traffic accidents occur.

 

 

 

Great job, everyone!

 

Growing Power

Growing Power began with a farmer, a plot of land, and a core group of dedicated young people.  The idea is to develop healthy food systems locally to provide high quality, safe, healthy, affordable food for all residents in the community.

ACM students visited one of Growing Power's six farms in Chicago, Iron Street Farm, an urban farm growing produce on the bank of the Chicago River in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago.  Built on an abandoned industrial site, the farm has numerous gardens and a warehouse that grow food year round.  It was ACM day at the farm, as Erica Hougland, who gave us the tour, is a graduate of Grinnell College, and Gillian Knight who also works there and helped arrange our tour, is a Lake Forest College graduate. 



Photos courtesy of Emily N. Summers



Will Allen started the nonprofit organization in Milwaukee, and his daughter Erika runs six farms in Chicago including Iron Street Urban Farm, Altgeld Gardens Urban Farm, Chicago Lights Urban Farm, Grant Park “Art on the Farm” Urban Agriculture Potager and the Jackson Park Urban Farm and Community Allotment Garden.

Local restaurants provide food scraps the organization uses for compost, which are housed in wooden boxes.  The farm uses aguaponics, where the water from fish tanks is used to fertilize soil, and then cleansed and circulated back to the fish tank.  There’s a vertical mushroom-growing station, greenhouses for planting, and six beehives on the roof. 

Growing power hires 200 young people in the summer, and youth programs reconnect folks to what is healthy food, where does it come from, and how to get involved. 

Change & Gentrification in Bronzeville and Humboldt Park

Students created a storyboard masterpiece on our chalkboard wall to illustrate change and gentrification in two neighborhoods:  Bronzeville and Humboldt Park.  They did a great job.  We have some very creative and artistic students!

Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s

CP students visited two interesting exhibits at the Museum of Contemporary Art this semester.  “This will have been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s”    touches on major developments of the period, including the politicization of the AIDS crisis and the increased visibility of women and gay artists and artists of color. 

“The Language of Less (Then and Now)” is inspired by the MCA’s holdings from the 1960s and 70s  of Minimal art – art that a) rejects imagery, b) reveals little, if any, evidence of the artist’s hand, and c) embraces industrial materials.    Minimalist art creates a presence, and elicits a response more so than representative art.  

In addition to the work of traditional minimalists such as Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt and Richard Serra, the “Then” exhibit includes work of artists such as Martin Puryear, an African American artist who was not accepted as a minimalist of the time.    The “Now” exhibit of contemporary artists has pieces by Leonor Antunes, Carol Bove, Jason Dodge, Gedi Sibony, and Oscar Tuazon.

Tricycle races... at work?

Where would you find a climbing wall and a huge indoor treehouse, complete with slide?  A children’s museum, you might say.  Guess again!  This is the working office of Red Frog Events, an event production company based in Chicago.  CP students were treated to a tour of the space, designed by Torchia, the same designers who worked on Google's Chicago office. You have to see this place to believe it!  There’s a tree in the center of the office, conference table made of legos, foosball and pool tables, tricycles (for tricycle races) and a wall of hands, just waiting for your high five!   My favorite is the conference room with swings instead of chairs!

Owner Joe Reynolds wanted to create the type of work environment that would attract lots of employment interest. In an interview with EntrepreneursUnplugged.com, Reynolds explained how he has always been "incredibly focused on having a company that's the best place to work in the world. When you have a great place to work, great people want to work there."  And it seems to be working!  Every employee I met was smiling, enthusiastic, and their eyes glowed whenever they talked about the company.  

Red Frog  won the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Dream Big Small Business of the Year Award in 2011 and was also a Chicago Innovation Awards 2011 winner.  In 2010, Red Frog was voted one of the top workplaces by Chicago Tribune.  

Redfroggers explained to CP students how Reynolds started the company, Great Urban Race, with a competitive scavenger race in Chicago in 2007.  By 2008, Great Urban Race expanded to 20 cities nationwide.  Great Urban Race became Red Frog Events in 2009, when they added Warrior Dash, a 5K obstacle running race.  They have also added Beach Palooza, a beach themed 5K obstacle course, and Red Frog Bar Crawls.

In response to CP students questions about how a project comes together from ascertaining the market to marketing, securing permits, etc., Redfroggers and  “tadpoles” (interns) were happy to respond.  If there is sponsor/participant/city interest in a race, Red Frog sends a marketing team out to ascertain the market, local media, find location, meet with city government to secure permits, etc.  They work with 65 venues across the country, and have traveling obstacle courses they bring and construct on site.   They use digital, print, broadcast, and social media and are huge on Pandora.  They have 800,000 facebook followers.   They also value participant feedback, and so send out a survey to all participants after the event with questions about area, course, obstacles, food, camping.

Internships here are very competitive; they’re paid and you can learn so much!  Departments are referred to as teams, and interns are assigned to five teams, and can join others.  It’s hard work, but they have the world’s best benefits package.  Deadline for summer 2012 internship:  April 6.