Getting Involved

The PACS team leads the work of community engagement and service-learning primarily through direct service with community partners, social justice education, and deep reflection, while fostering mutuality and deeper understanding of structural inequalities. The PACS team organizes its work of community engagement and service-learning with community partners around three pillars:

Sustainability and Food Security – We explore the intersection between sustainability, environmental justice, healthy communities, and food security. 

Women, Children, and Education – We look to promote equity and justice as we support women and children.

Civil Rights, Borders, and Immigration – We seek justice for refugees, immigrants, and marginalized communities through our community partnerships. We also promote voter engagement.

The IRC organizes dialogue-style conversations on a range of topics, educates students about and supports students from various social identity groups, and works to build a strong positive climate for diversity and learning. The IRC fosters intercultural understanding through its dialogues, cultural events, and immersion experiences in the community and on campus helping students to effectively communicate across differences.

Our Programming Board & You (PB&U) cultivates and strengthens our community through social events and gatherings and supports students’ mental health and wellbeing with wellness programs. All first-year students are encouraged to participate in and contribute to the development of PB&U events in order to develop a sense of belonging and connection and to cultivate their own leadership skills.

WolveReaders was founded in 2015. The group works to improve literacy and build relationships by connecting MCSP students and fifth-graders at Ypsilanti International Elementary School in Ypsilanti Michigan through a pen-pal relationship. A small group of MCSP students visit the classroom twice a month to work with the students and the classroom teacher.

MCSP students often take part in the annual Alternative Spring Break (ASB), projects revolving around service and volunteer work across the country at different locations. During their spring break, MCSP students have participated in Alternative Spring Break experiences in Texas, Kentucky, Illinois, Wisconsin, New York, Florida and California, among others. At these locations, students help local nonprofits and community organizations to achieve their missions of bettering their communities. When they return to campus, ASB participants have reflected deeply with each other about their experience, and with the greater MCSP and campus community about their new knowledge and skills. MCSP continues to foster experiential learning opportunities like ASB to help students connect service learning and social justice.

MCSP partners with the Ann Arbor District Library to show films each fall at the public library highlighting social issues. Film directors, faculty, students, and community activists lead discussions following the films. Past films have included Bilal’s Stand, Fremont USA, The Waterfront, Of Civil Rights and Wrongs, Prom Night in Mississippi, Grown in Detroit, Philosopher Kings, An Untold Triumph, Finding the Gold Within, The Human Experiment, Warrior Lawyers, Cooked: Survival by Zip Code, Braver Angels, Suppressed and Sabotaged: The Fight to Vote, and The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales.

Hosted with our cross-campus partners, MCSP's MLK Day Circle of Unity is an annual event where students, staff, and faculty of MCSP and the wider university community gather on the Diag on MLK Day to participate in performances, speakers, and other activities to remind us of Dr. King's dream, where society has come since the Civil Rights Movement, and the work that remains to be done. Through song, dance, art, and spoken word, this event celebrates the life and legacy of Dr. King.