Clinical Assistant Professor Vanessa Louis is named a 2025 Research & Community Impact Faculty Fellow
The fellowship is intended to provide instrumental support to early-career faculty to advance their anti-racism scholarship.
Clinical Assistant Professor Vanessa Louis has been granted a 2025 Anti-Racism Research & Community Impact Faculty Fellowship for her project, “Empowering Change: Youth Leadership and Antiracist Pedagogies in Transforming Urban Education for Black Students.” The fellowship is provided by the National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID), which is home to a provost-funded initiative that ends in 2025 named the Anti-Racism Collaborative (ARC).
The fellowship is intended to provide instrumental support to early-career faculty to advance their anti-racism scholarship. Informed by ongoing discussions with anti-racism scholars at the University of Michigan, the fellowship aims to address a critical need — to successfully advance in the tenure and promotion process while concurrently supporting their efforts to utilize their expertise to fight systemic racism through policy advocacy, practice, teaching, and/or community partnerships. The fellowship provides funding to support research and public engagement that align with the aims of the initiative.
Louis’ study proposes to transform the Youth Leadership Council (YLC) within the Detroit River Story Lab (DRSL) project into a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) model. This initiative aims to empower young leaders through intentional programming, leadership development, and community engagement. Guided by research questions investigating the role of YLC in community initiatives and curriculum development, the study aligns with antiracist pedagogies, specifically Freire’s (1970) concept of conscientization, to foster critical consciousness among participants. Employing YPAR methodology, the study involves youth co-researchers in collecting and analyzing narrative and qualitative data, and conducting focus group interviews. By amplifying the voices and experiences of Detroit’s youth, the project seeks to transform educational programs and challenge the inequitable systems that hinder their success.
