Much like the multi-talented scholars and artists who arose during the Renaissance era, the Renaissance Fellows are expected to develop creative new approaches to dealing with today's problems. They will work with inner-city public housing authorities throughout the United States for two years to transform the way in which the nation addresses the needs and improves the prospects of low-income populations in cities, according to H.U.D. officials.
"The program seeks to fill a need H.U.D. has long recognized to create a new generation of professionals to undertake large-scale, complex urban community building projects," says Michael Stegman, H.U.D. assistant secretary for policy development and research. "Today's urban revitalization projects have, in many cases, outpaced the skills necessary to undertake them. Graduate education does not prepare students with the expertise they need in planning, law, real estate and human service delivery to assume this role. The Renaissance Fellows program seeks to nurture those skills."
Individuals selected for the unique program will be mid-level professionals with graduate degrees in fields broadly related to urban planning and development, and will have at least three years of practical experience in neighborhood revitalization activities, according to H.U.D. officials.
Yale, which in recent years has significantly expanded its partnerships with New Haven inner-city communities and its commitment of intellectual resources to urban issues, was selected in a national competition.
President Richard C. Levin says: "The honor of being selected as the university to run this national program is due in large part, we believe, to our creative, interdisciplinary and practical approach to helping H.U.D. and the future leaders of an urban renaissance rethink the urban agenda. We will be structuring the Fellows' program as a continuation of our ongoing effort to make the University's intellectual as well as other resources available to its home city.
"The curriculum will be organized around specific case studies, with a particular emphasis on New Haven," President Levin explains. "We will invite our partners here -- city officials, neighborhood leaders and entrepreneurs in the private sector-- to participate as faculty. We will all have an opportunity to talk with and learn from visiting faculty and the fellows about what we are trying to do here in New Haven."
Douglas Rae, the Richard Ely Professor of Management in the School of Management SOM, will codirect the program with Cynthia Farrar of Yale's Office of New Haven Affairs, who is leading the University's revitalization partnership with New Haven's Dwight, Edgewood and West River neighborhoods under a recent $2.4 million H.U.D. Joint Community Development Program grant.
While the program will be based in SOM, core faculty will be drawn from across the University -- from management, law, architecture, political science and the Yale Child Study Center. The faculty also will include two distinguished and experienced professionals with long-standing ties to Yale: Harry Wexler of Holt, Wexler and Farnam in New Haven; and Alexander Garvin, an adjunct professor of architecture and author of the recent book "The American City, What Works, What Doesn't."
"Through this grant, the Yale School of Management will have an opportunity to bring to bear modern business strategy to solve one of the toughest social issues facing our country," says Jeffrey Garten, SOM dean.
The fellows will be selected in a national competition and will be placed in public housing developments that are being transformed into mixed-income, mixed-use projects -- ideal settings in which to learn about community building, according to H.U.D. officials. In New Haven, the Elm Haven HOPE VI public housing project will be eligible to apply for a fellow, Ms. Farrar says.
Fellows may work with private developers who are working in partnership with local Public Housing Authorities. They will be paid a stipend of up to $50,000 a year, plus an allowance for fringe benefits.
"Fellows must be skilled in the difficult art of community organizing as well as in arranging financing and building trust," says Ms. Farrar, "because mobilizing the ambitions and energies of inner-city residents is every bit as essential to successful neighborhood revitalization as harnessing the forces of the market. That is the philosophy that guides our work with our neighbors in New Haven, and it is the premise of the curriculum for the fellows program."
"The Renaissance Fellows program is designed to create a cadre of professionals who are equipped and motivated to take on the challenge of community-building in American cities," notes Professor Rae, adding that training will combine practical experience derived from working with public housing authorities with community case studies, goal-setting exercises and a two-year applied research project designed and conducted by each fellow.
"The education the fellows will receive at Yale will include the highest quality seminars, tailored to the challenges they will face as future leaders, taught by an experienced and inventive faculty that will include successful urban professionals from throughout the country," says Mr. Stegman of H.U.D.