ANN ARBOR— From helping to create online neighborhood
photo directories to organizing archives of the Pan
Africanist Congress in South Africa, University of Michigan
School of Information graduate students are good at finding
ways to merge their techno know-how with community service.
Prospective graduate students with similar ambitions are
invited to apply for travel stipends to attend a special
Visiting Day, Jan. 22. Thirty stipends of up to $500 each
will be awarded to qualified students to help cover
expenses of traveling to and staying in Ann Arbor.
During Visiting Day, prospective students will learn
about the Community Information Corps, an interdisciplinary
group dedicated to using new technology to help build
communities and achieve social change. With the support of
the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the School of Information
recently established the Corps to work with nonprofit
organizations. Students from all School of Information
master’s degree specializations?Information Economics,
Management and Policy; Human-Computer Interaction; Archives
and Records Management; and Library and Information
Services?can participate in the Corps.

“A growing number of our students engage in projects
and explore careers that put information to work for public
purposes,” says Prof. Paul Resnick, who coordinates the
Community Information Corps. “We welcome students with a
proven commitment to community service and activism.”
TIn the past two years alone, School of nformation
students have conducted cultural heritage preservation
workshops on Native American reservations, developed
software to aid data sharing among human service
organizations, created digital collections of cultural
heritage materials and prototyped software for electronic
grocery ordering in low-income neighborhoods.
Resnick envisions students, upon graduation, taking
jobs with community technology and media centers, nonprofit
technology assistance providers, public libraries, museums,
commercial and nonprofit local information providers,
government agencies, international development
organizations, foundations, and entrepreneurial social
ventures.

An online application for the travel stipends is
available at www.si.umich.edu/cic. The application
deadline is Dec. 15. For additional information on
Visiting Day, call Jay Jackson, (734) 763-0074, or Kara
Goldhamer (734) 615-3152.

More information about the Community Infrmation Corps
can be obtained by writing to [email protected] or
calling (734) 763-2285.

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