Westside Communities Alliance

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

Google’s Community Leaders Program

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Are you a current college student (junior or senior) in Atlanta interested in helping local community organizations and non-profits with their digital presence? Then, check out Google’s Community Leaders Program!  At a high level, CLP is focused on creating a sustainable web ecosystem and increasing digital literacy by connecting communities, businesses, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits with local student talent. We’d like to partner with Georgia Tech to select potential students for participation in the 2016 – 2017 CLP year. Below is an overview of the program, but I’d love to set up more time to discuss the opportunity further.

 

Program Overview


CLP started four years ago in New Orleans, LA, and has since expanded to several cities, including Kansas City, MO, Harlem, NY, and Provo, UT.

The program divides students from local universities into small groups of three or four. Each small group is then paired with a local nonprofit, small business, or community organization.

The program is one year long (beginning in spring 2016), and students are expected to devote 10 hours per week to it, the majority of which are spent working on a project with their peers and partner organization. Traditionally, these partner organizations have evaluated the students’ work performance extremely positively, thereby strengthening their relationships with and perceptions of the students’ schools.

Outside the project mentioned above, a key objective of the program is to provide students with opportunities for professional development, including resume workshops, job application assistance, and mentoring from Google employees. Students develop real-world skills they might not acquire in the classroom—they network with community and business leaders, create portfolios of their projects, and learn to work in teams.

Upon completion of the program, students are highly encouraged to apply for full-time or internship positions at Google. (Please note: While CLP itself is not considered a Google internship, we highly encourage universities to offer course credit for participation.)

 

WCA Launches Data Dashboard

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The Westside Communities Alliance introduced a comprehensive interactive Data Dashboard for Atlanta on February 11th.

The WCA Data Dashboard serves as a one-stop shop for key data that is accessible to community stakeholders, researchers, local government agencies, and relevant foundations interested in sustainable Westside community development.

“We believe that this tool has the potential to encourage greater data-driven decision-making at the neighborhood and Neighborhood Planning Unit (NPU) level in addition to supporting research and policymaking that addresses significant challenges in areas of education, economic development, transit and mobility, and public safety,” said WCA Associate Director Mackenzie Madden.

In its current form, the dashboard offers resources in seven categories:  1) Community Profiles, 2) Economic Development, 3) Education, 4) Public Safety, 5) All Data, 6) Historical Data, and 7) Resource Library.

Presently, the dashboard displays information for NPU’s K, L, and T – the three NPUs connected to the WCA – as compared to the City of Atlanta.

The dashboard is a user-friendly tool that:  1) draws upon available quantitative and qualitative data, 2) stores data collected for current and future research initiatives, 3) provides metrics for assessing the success of diverse engagement and intervention models, and 4) develops comprehensive reports to identify the impact of “anchor institutions” such as Georgia Tech on neighboring communities to highlight knowledge gaps.

The Data Dashboard project began in 2011 as a static Westside neighborhoods asset map created in conjunction with faculty in the Georgia Tech College of Architecture. Under the leadership of Dean Royster and her WCA leadership team, the first virtual tool was created in Fall 2013 by a group of graduate students in Dr. John Stasko’s Data Visualization class. That iteration mapped transit and walkability in the city. The platform also provided a heat map of census data that has since been transformed into the Big Data tool available today. Graduate Research Assistants in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts continued building the dashboard into its present form.

Katie O’Connell, MCRP 2015, was hired as the Project Manager for the Data Dashboard in Summer 2014. She began by researching similar platforms across the country and collecting relevant data for the city of Atlanta. During an Online Tools session of the WCA’s 2014 Community Studio, O’Connell was able to determine the basic pros and cons of existing resources such as the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Neighborhood Nexus, the U.S. EPA’s Enviromapper, and the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Several focus groups with Westside residents and stakeholders were held as various portals were designed to garner feedback on the usability of the dashboard.

The WCA staff has presented the dashboard at various conferences and symposia including The Center for Community Progress’ Vacant Properties Conference in 2015, Atlanta Studies Symposium, TEDx Atlanta, and the Georgia Tech Center for Urban Innovation.

The WCA Data Dashboard has been made possible through various stages of development in collaboration with entities at Georgia Tech including College of Architecture, College of Computing, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, the Center for Geographic Information Systems, and with funding from the Ford Foundation.

Please visit wcadatadashboard.iac.gatech.edu to explore the platform. Please use the hashtag #WCADataDashboard in social media settings, when referencing the tool.

Drug Market Initiative

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The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia has implemented a Drug Market Intervention (DMI) for the English Avenue Neighborhood. To date, DMIs have been successfully implemented in 36 other neighborhoods nationwide. With technical assistance from Michigan State University (via funding from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs’ Bureau of Justice Assistance), the first steps of the process have already been completed. On June 3rd at Westside Works, the technical assistance team presented to a group of community stakeholders about the DMI and how to move further along in the process.

Upcoming Meetings:

Tuesday June 16th

The Phoenix Partnership: English Avenue Drug Market Initiative

Time: 6:00pm

Location: Lindsay Street Baptist Church – 550 Lindsay Street NW, Atlanta GA 30314

Monday June 22nd

The Phoenix Partnership: English Avenue Drug Market Initiative

Time: 6:00pm

Location: Pilgrim Baptist Church – 498 English Ave NW, Atlanta GA 30318

 

The official Call-In is scheduled for Tuesday June 30th at a location TBA.

See more resources at: http://www.dmimsu.com/PhoenixPartnership

WCA Director gives talk at TEDx Atlanta

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On April 28th, Sheri Davis-Faulkner gave a talk on the TEDx Atlanta stage at Georgia Tech’s Ferst Center on “Connecting communities to progress and prosperity”. She spoke about being a native Atlantan and the love she has for her city as well as her desire to see Atlanta grow in a positive and meaningful way. She tied in lots of work that we are doing here at WCA regarding advocacy, data-driven decision-making, and overall development. Check out her video!

 

 

Chancellor Award IAC and COA

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PRESS RELEASE: Westside Communities Alliance Receives Chancellor’s Service Excellence Team of the Year Gold Award

Release Date: 10/16/2014
Contact Information: Mackenzie Madden, mmadden@gatech.edu

The Westside Communities Alliance, a signature initiative of Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Dean Jacqueline Royster, received the USG Chancellor’s Service Excellence Team of the Year Gold Award for 2014.  The awards ceremony was held Friday, October 10th, at Kennesaw State University.

[su_quote cite=”Dean Jacquline Royster”]“We look forward to ever-evolving opportunities for action and success, both on the campus and in the Westside communities,” Royster said.  “This award affirms our commitment and inspires our ongoing pursuit of excellence.”[/su_quote]

The WCA Executive Team led by Dean Royster includes Chris Burke, Georgia Tech Director of Community Relations, Sheri Davis-Faulkner, WCA Director, and Mackenzie Madden, WCA Associate Director.  The Alliance is a collaboration among Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, College of Architecture, and Office of Government and Community Relations and partners in neighboring Westside communities. 

 

As a collaborative network, the WCA functions as a nexus for inter-communication, action and advocacy, by bringing communities, academic institutions, and stakeholders from various arenas together to tackle local challenges and find points of synergy for positive action.  A primary goal for the WCA is to operationalize a dynamic model of multi-institutional civic engagement, research, and action. The WCA provides a platform to spotlight economic and educational anchors, as well as cultural and historic assets, in addition to highlighting the significant investments made by community leaders and residents throughout Atlanta’s Westside. 

 

Ongoing Ivan Allen College faculty and student work with westside community groups include:  Westside Soul, Chris LeDantec; Westside Food Oasis, Carl DiSalvo; Community Think Tank, Micheal Hoffman; and Westside Atlanta Land Trust, Erica Louise Richards. The College of Architecture has been instrumental in supporting the WCA since its inception in 2011, continuously funding graduate research assistants. Ongoing CoA work includes projects from the Social Justice committee and various studios particularly those of Michael Dobbins and Herman Howard. During the WCA’s Spring 2014 Community Studio Professors Michael Dobbins, Herman Howard, Nisha Botchwey, and Daniel Immergluck all volunteered their time to work with community members to facilitate discussion on their particular research interests. Additionally current student Katie O’Connell and alumni Brian Thomas also volunteered their expertise with the Community Studio.

 

In the 2014-2015 school year, the WCA will finish developing a westside data dashboard, provide additional capacity-building for community-based organizations, and coordinate Institute support for four Atlanta public schools within the Booker T. Washington High School cluster.  Visit our website, get on our listserv, take a service-learning course, volunteer to engage with westside communities, and join the Westside GT Taskforce. The WCA depends on the academic expertise and the volunteer spirit of our GT community.  Their motto is “Together, we can do better.”