Westside Communities Alliance

A partnership between Atlanta's westside communities and institutions of higher education.

Archives for May 2013

Northside Drive Transit Corridor

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Professor Mike Dobbins, former Commissioner of Planning and Community Development for the City of Atlanta, led a studio through Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture creating a corridor plan for Northside Drive. Dobbins talks about Northside Drive as a major thoroughfare for the city with the ability to reconnect historic neighborhoods, the business district, as well as the east and west sides of town. 17 civil engineering and planning students spent Fall semester researching the sites in the area, attending community meetings, drafting potential plans, and presenting them to city and civic representatives. Visit the studio’s website for more information.

View the:

Executive Summary

Dobbins Fall 2013 Studio Description

Dobbins Spring 2014 Studio Description

GT Professor talks about Stadium Deal

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Associate Professor in the School of Architecture at Georgia Tech, Benjamin Flowers, sits down with WABE’s Denis O’Hayer. With his expertise in major projects such as skyscrapers and stadiums, he provides insight on things such as revenue, retractable roofs, and traffic issues that could affect the new Falcons stadium.

http://wabe.org/post/some-stadium-deal-questions-remain-talk-georgia-tech-assoc-prof-benjamin-flowers

Credit: Georgia Tech

Netter Center 20th Anniversary Conference

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“The Role of University-Community-School Partnerships in Creating Democratic Communities Locally, Nationally, and Globally: An International Celebration of the 20th Anniversary of Penn’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships, 1992 to 2012”

The conference drew over 500 participants from nearly 80 colleges and universities and 110 local, national, and global organizations (including colleagues from across the United States and from Australia, Canada, Chile, France, Northern Ireland, Lebanon, and Spain).

 

Six Georgia Tech affiliates attended the conference in November 2012 in Philadelphia, PA, pictured below and listed from left to right: Christopher Burke, Director of Community Relations; Dr. Sheri Davis-Faulkner, WCA Community Liaison;Dr.  Ellen Zegura, Professor in School of Computer Science; Sarah Perkins, Community Services Coordinator; Dr. Gregory Nobles, Director of GT Honors Program; Mackenzie Madden, WCA Activities Coordinator.

The Netter Center takes Penn students and faculty beyond volunteerism to a deeper level of engagement. They’ve helped faculty members develop a number of Academically-Based Community Service classes and have established an ongoing relationship with West Philadelphia schools.

Read more about Georgia Tech’s presence at the conference here.

Read more about the Netter Center here.

WCA Netter Photo

Northwest Community Alliance Meeting

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Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation

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We want to thank Mike Koblentz, Chairman of the Northwest Community Alliance for organizing a forum on Wednesday March 20th to discuss the new Falcons stadium project (the fourth meeting the group has had in the past 2 years on this topic). Koblentz was able to give a warm welcome to all attendees as a well as a very honest synopsis of the fast-tracked City Council vote. The forum allowed Penelope McPhee and John Bare, President and Vice President of the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation to share a bit about the Foundation’s background and role in the new stadium and the community members to ask questions. The first to ask were representatives from the communities in closest physical proximity to the possible sites: Vincent Jones, President of English Avenue Neighborhood Association; Yvonne Jones chair of NPU-L; Suzanne Bair, President of Marietta St Artery Association; Jim of Castleberry Hill;

InGirls Visit to Georgia Tech

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On Friday February 22, 2013 46 female eighth-grade students interested in math and science from Joseph Emerson Brown and John F. Kennedy middle schools, from West End and Vine City respectively in the Westside, visited Georgia Tech to get a taste of college life. The event took place as a partnership between Westside Communities Alliance, a joint venture with Georgia Tech’s IAC and College of Architecture led by Dr. Sheri Davis-Faulkner and Mackenzie Madden in the Office of the Dean, and InGirls, an organization focused on increasing college acceptance among underserved female students.

WCA Staff Sheri Davis-Faulkner with InGirls from Brown Middle School.

Undergraduate students Danielle Sharpe and Cecili Reid and PhD candidate Nettrice Gaskins welcomed them to campus in the morning. We sent them off in small groups for various activities. Some attended classes in the School of Economics and School of Literature, Media, and Culture. Others attended robotics, public participation, and augmented reality demonstrations in the GVU (Graphics, Visualization, and Usability) Center, while others visited the EarSketch recording studio in the School of Music. We had lunch in the Presidential Suite of the Bill Moore Student Success Center overlooking the football stadium while Chris Briggs, from the Office of Admissions discussed why Georgia Tech is such a wonderful school and how to prepare for admittance.

Student volunteers from IAC Ambassadors, IAC Student Advisory Board, Delta Sigma Theta, FirstGen, JumpStart, OMED, and the courses NearPeer and Science, Technology & Race then took them on informal tours of campus and provided the girls an opportunity to ask questions in a smaller setting. Some highlights of their tours were Tech Rec and the Campus Recreation Center. Several of the volunteers also gave the girls their contact information to continue serving as a college liaison. The girls left excited about the prospect of attending Georgia Tech, something that may have seemed unattainable before this visit, short term goal of the program. We look forward to an ongoing relationship with the InGirls program to ultimately increase acceptance and admittance from our neighboring communities.

PhD Student Nettrice Gaskins demonstrates Augmented Reality.