News and Events

CURE Seminar Series: “Employee Ownership and Urban Economic Development” with Christopher Michael, J.D.

Thursday, March 22
Armitage Hall, Faculty Lounge
12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.

Presented by Christopher Michael, J.D.
Director of Employee Ownership, Newark Community Economic Development Corporation

To date, cities have not fully utilized employee ownership as an economic development strategy––as a means to retain businesses, improve the quality of jobs, and expand the local tax base. In this short lecture, Chris Michael will share personal experiences with initiatives in New York City and Newark, NJ that aim to increase the number and size of employee-owned businesses in the local region. As context, he will also relate findings from dissertation research on the history of employee ownership in the United States.
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CURE Seminar Series: “Running the Rails: A History of Capital and Labor in the Philadelphia Transit Industry” with James Wolfinger

Friday, February 16
Armitage Hall, Faculty Lounge
11:15 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Presented by James Wolfinger
Associate Dean & Professor Secondary History at DePaul College of Education

Philadelphia exploded in violence in 1910. The general strike that year claimed the lives of some two dozen people and made Philadelphia a prominent point in the tumultuous national conflict over workers’ rights. That strike was a notable point, but not a unique one, in the history of Philadelphia’s transit system. My paper, “Running the Rails: A History of Capital and Labor in the Philadelphia Transit Industry,” outlines the chief arguments that I make in my recent book, Running the Rails (Cornell University Press, 2016), which details a generations-long history of conflict between the workers and management at one of the nation’s largest privately owned transit systems. In particular, I focus on how labor relations shifted from the 1880s to the 1960s as transit workers adapted to fast-paced technological innovation to keep the city’s people and commerce on the move while management sought to limit its employees’ rights. I argue that it is remarkable to see how much Philadelphia’s transit workers achieved. (more…)

CURE Seminar Series: “The Price of Race in New Brooklyn’s Real Estate” with Zaire Z. Dinzey-Flores

Thursday, January 25
Armitage Hall, Faculty Lounge
12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.

Presented by Zaire Z. Dinzey-Flores
Associate Professor of Sociology and Latino and Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University

“Location, location, location…” so goes the trope for how real estate properties derive their value. But how does race figure in the attribution of value for a property and a neighborhood? Based on ethnographic and mixed-method research in two demographically-transitioning neighborhoods in 21st Century Brooklyn, Dinzey-Flores considers how neighborhood spaces and property interiors are aesthetically, discursively, and materially produced and crafted by real estate actors in ways that render previously socially de-valued neighborhoods “valuable” and “worthy” of investment. Of particular focus, is the way in which racial conceptualizations—of “blackness,” “Latino-ness”, or “whiteness”—are codified and “built in” in the social desirability and economic valuation process of properties and neighborhoods. (more…)

CURE affiliated scholar Stephen Danley receives national ENACT civic engagement faculty fellowship!

Congrats to our colleague Stephen Danley, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Urban Studies at Rutgers University–Camden, for receiving this competitive, national fellowship! According to Steve,

“my application is focused on the creation of a new course in our Urban Studies program titled: Community Organizing and Advocacy. I’m honored to be selected as the statewide representative in the program — I will be working closely with ENACT to create a class that builds community organizing skills in our students, then takes those skills to Trenton for real-life application and experience. It’s an opportunity for students considering careers in public service to put their ideals into action, to rub shoulders with key stakeholders, and to widen their views of potential jobs in the field of Urban Studies.”

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