FS2021 MC 498: 16 students taught in person. I have been teaching my course on Lansing since 2015, though I allow students to do projects on Flint and Detroit if students want to do a project based on these cities. The course focuses on theories and applications of organizational capacities, including mobilization of resources and institutional efficacy, including local governments and institutions and partnerships, such as non-profits, community groups, business and philanthropy. I use Lansing as a case study to model how a social researcher or community resident might navigate and contribute to local civic participation. Students learn and apply skills such as social science multi-method study, such as ethnography, coding, archival analysis, web-based research, content analysis, etc. Senior students DON’T KNOW Lansing. I try to get them into the city as much as possible. Luckily, this year we were able to get to ReoTown for class to learn both the industrial and labor history of RE Olds and GM, as well as to understand post-industrial revitalization. With help from the college, I offered a contribution to rent the Robin Theatre to discuss Lisa Fine’s book, ReoJoe, and we had take-out dinner (students pay) at Saddleback as we discuss the erasure of this industrial history and how to reconstruct it. I also bring in lots of speakers – including two former members of the class. Alexis Farrell works for Co.Act in Detroit – a non-profit resource group for other nonprofits, and Emma Bostwick, who now works for Lansing Economic Area Partnership (LEAP). I show some documentaries made about Lansing (Ken Waltzer’s view of immigration in Lansing) and Michael Rodriguez’s film on the auto history of the city. He came to class to discuss the making of the film. One student in the class brought in a former mayor’s aid to talk about city government. (JMC students don’t really take any course on local politics and governance, so this topic is built into the class!). The projects this semester were interesting -though not all were complete. The highlights included black leadership in Detroit, a 3 person group study of the contributions of Capital Area District Library (CADL) and the various ways it contributes to the city (this deserves wider dissemination). All students were required to gain knowledge of a variety of community-based methods, including IRB tutorial and certification, the US Census, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Government Website navigation, SWOT analysis, ethnographic methods, visual analysis, - all culminating in a 20-25 page paper and a recorded video presentation. Students presented their project orally to their classmates.