Friday, March 26, 2010

Welcome to CURL Perspectives

In its 15th year, the Loyola University Chicago Center for Urban Research and Learning (CURL) is an innovative, non-traditional, interdisciplinary research center that engages community partners in all aspects of our research from conceptualization of research projects to research design, data gathering, report writing, dissemination.


CURL seeks to promote equality and to improve people's lives in communities throughout the Chicago metropolitan region. We pursue this goal by building and supporting collaborative research and education efforts. These partnerships connect Loyola faculty and students with community and nonprofit organizations, civic groups, and government agencies. Such collaborations link the skills and wisdom present within every community with the specialized knowledge and academic discipline of a vital urban university. Working together, community needs are addressed and the academic experience is enriched.


At any one time more than 50 faculty, community partners, undergraduate students, graduate students, and CURL staff are engaged in research teams related to more than 15 collaborative university-community research projects. We are always developing new projects as a result of our ongoing partnerships with a variety of organizations throughout the city and suburbs. More information on CURL and its past and present projects is available at our main web site: www.luc.edu/curl.


The purpose of this blog is to provide a forum for CURL research team members and affiliated Loyola faculty to share emerging research outcomes with broader audiences, comment on the implications of past or present CURL research on developing policy debates, and invite comments on emerging community-based research ideas. We hope this will be an active and useful forum that complements our archive of research reports, our e-journal, Gateways, our Friday Morning Seminars, and other activities aimed at linking “university knowledge” with “community knowledge.”


-Phil Nyden

Professor of Sociology and

CURL Director

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