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tion to the educational programs provided to Detroit
youth, houses a Small Business Institute for a client group
of small local minority businesses. The college, working
under contract to the Small Business Administration,
provides counseling and technical assistance. Generally a
team of one faculty member and two students assists the
business for one to two terms or until performance
improvement has verifiably occurred.
Another Business and Administration outreach pro-
gram is the recently established Institute for Business and
Community Services. This in-house institution provides
comprehensive counselling services to businesses,
government agencies, and non-profit organizations. A
second service offered is special certificate programs such
as classes preparing professionals for the Certified Finan-
cial Planner Examination. The Institute also presents
executive management development programs and pub-
lishes a monthly research journal to showcase the work
of local business people and professors. A spinoff of the
Small Business Institute, the Entrepreneurial Institute,
has recently established developmental seminars for
minority small business owners. This publicly and pri-
vately funded endeavor will consist of 5 five-week mini-
courses directed by the faculty with the aid of business
professionals. Participants will earn college credit, en-
trepreneurial certification, and most importantly, the
knowledge, skills and success they need to achieve. The
classes are designed for those with established businesses
and those planning on forming them in the near future.
The College of Liberal Arts is most involved in com-
munity service ventures through its Theater Department.
In addition to the cultural contribution made by a com-
pany that received awards in the 1984-85 season as the
best theater company in Metro Detroit and the producers
of the best play of the year (Detroit Free Press), the com-
pany has offered as a service to Metro schools a touring
play illustrating the dangers of child sex abuse and pre-
cautions to be taken, in an entertaining but pointed way.
Another repertory production aimed at Metro churches
hit the boards this year in the form of A Sleep Of Princes,
a Christopher Fry play with a religious theme produced
for in-church staging. Detroit City Councilman and
Lutheran pastor David Eberhardt saw this endeavor as
the beginning of an effort to make central city churches
cultural as well as religious centers and recognized the
University’s unique ability to spearhead such a move-
ment. Another community service performed by the Col-
lege of Liberal Arts emanates from the Communication
Studies Department. The Department rents many of its
production services to city businesses and agencies. It
also produces programs such as faculty panel shows for
cable consumption. A weekly radio show produced by
the University, Ask the Professor, has been a staple of the
Detroit airwaves for over twenty years. The Social Work
Department also has a significant interweave with central
city service agencies. Students are placed in a variety of
community services settings. The department chairman
has been a long-time member of many non-profit organ-
izations and has an extensive contact network that the
students take advantage of.
Community Service is not just programs and institutes
but individual efforts. The faculty of 217 full-time and
about an equal number part-time has a rather extensive
personal investment. A 1984 study found that the aver-
age faculty member at the University of Detroit belonged
to at least one community organization, has consulted
for one non-profit organization during the past five
years, and has consulted for .5 for-profit organizations
and .4 government organizations during the same time
period. The average faculty member also belongs to at
least three professional societies.
Conclusion: A very different article than this might have
been written. The problems of delivering an education in
the urban environment deserve a telling. So too does the
issue of limits—how much can an educational institution
do, whom can it reasonably be expected to serve as a stu-
dent population, when does it move from being urban to
suburban? Finally the linkages between the original goals
of the socialization of the urban student of 1877 and his
urban counterpart of 1985 were only hinted at. But what
has been presented should help one in understanding the
vast possibilities of a University that while singular is not
unique, of how one University struggles amidst adversity
to contribute a distinctively private, Catholic contribu-
tion to the city and its inhabitants.