CCED Lansing Initiatives
Lansing Community Engagement Specialist
CCED’s community engagement specialist, Dr. Kevin Brooks, will be at the forefront of MSU’s proactive strategy in the Greater Lansing region (Ingham, Clinton, and Eaton counties), focusing on neighborhood, community, and economic development. Brooks joined CCED in the spring of 2025 and will engage non-profit organizations, community and neighborhood organizations, government agencies, preK-12 school districts, and private for-profit organizations to facilitate community-university partnerships connecting MSU units, faculty, staff, and students for engaged research, education, and services that build and enact community-engaged scholarship, learning, and partnerships. Dr. Brooks will strengthen connections with community groups to cultivate respectful, mutually beneficial projects and initiatives that will support innovation, generate new knowledge, further community goals and learning objectives, and provide pathways to educational and career advancement for MSU faculty and students.
Urban Community Engagement Fellows Program
The Urban Community Engagement Fellows (UCEF) Program is a joint initiative of Michigan State University’s Graduate School and the Office of University Outreach and Engagement. UCEF pairs a multidisciplinary team of MSU graduate students with Lansing-area community partners to envision and sustain collaborative community-identified projects focusing on land storytelling, youth entrepreneurship, and food security. Currently, UCEF works with communities in Southwest Lansing.
University and community advisory committees provide fellows with professional expertise, strategic guidance, and institutional resources to support research and community engagement projects designed to develop community assets, strengths, and capacity. In addition, fellows receive community connections, career development opportunities, and coordinated services to support outreach and engagement activities.
Learn more about the Urban Community Engagement Fellows Program
Lansing Thinkers and Doers
The bi-annual CCED Thinkers and Doers event is a time for practitioners and engaged citizens in the Eastside Lansing community to come together with MSU faculty and community and economic development practitioners to discuss issues of concern to Lansing’s Eastside. These informal forums provide an opportunity for scholars and practitioners to share their perspectives on contemporary challenges and opportunities of interest to residents and businesses. In the past, topics ranged from electronic Lime scooters to urban agriculture, school safety, commercial corridor development, health and wellness and so much more.