Lecture: India Pierce Lee, “Cleveland’s Greater University Circle Initiative: Building a 21st Century City through the Power of Anchor Institution Collaboration” Greater University Circle Initiative (GUCI) is a unique multi-institutional anchor-based partnership with Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, the City of Cleveland, philanthropy and non-profit organizations engaged to address specific challenges in some of Cleveland’s most disinvested neighborhoods.
GUCI focuses on four strategy areas:
· Institutional Partnership: Creating opportunities for diverse institutions to work together.
· Physical Development: Catalyzing transportation and real estate projects to reconnect neighborhoods.
· Economic Inclusion: Encouraging institutions to buy local, hire local and empower new and existing residents to live local.
· Community Engagement: Ensuring residents have authorship in the revitalization of their neighborhoods.
India Pierce Lee, LF ’10, has held positions with Neighborhood Progress Inc. and the Northeast Ohio Local Initiatives Support Corporation; she was director of the Empowerment Zone for the City of Cleveland and executive director of Mt. Pleasant NOW Corporation; and in her early career she worked as an air traffic control specialist. As a Loeb Fellow at Harvard GSD in 2009–2010, Lee focused on urban revitalization and sustainability. In her current role as program director for neighborhoods, planning, and community development at the Cleveland Foundation, she oversees the Greater University Circle Initiative, which brings together multiple institutional partners to support community wealth, education, and safety; and to provide employer-assisted housing, transportation assistance, and other programs, as strategies for revitalizing the Greater University Circle area of Cleveland.
source
