CURL mural displayed in the learning center in Lewis Towers at Loyola. Called Vital Signs and Urban Symbols, the tile mural was completed by Kay Hauck, Angela Nelson, and Melvin Hamlin

Center for Urban Research and Learning

by Cristen Barsi

Citizens in Chicago have access to various services that can help them in times of need. But for those on the South Side of Chicago such services are limited and under-funded.

For example, the Roseland Christian Health Ministry has attempted to fight through bureaucratic red tape and local politics to bring desperately needed services, such as health care, physicals and dentistry to South Side citizens.

This organization is just one of many that collaborates with Center for Urban Research and Learning through Loyola University Chicago. CURL opened in 1996 with a $1.5 million grant from the McCormick Tribune Foundation.

In 2000, CURL was awarded an additional $2 million grant to continue its program at Loyola. Graduate fellows supervise undergraduate students in researching certain organizations such as Chicago’s domestic hotline, the McCormick Tribune Foundation and the Chicago Freedom Movement.

The undergraduates work with CURL to research, evaluate and assess community organizations.

“CURL uses a unique approach to community research by becoming involved and supportive of the community organization while evaluating in an unbiased fashion,” graduate fellow Grace Scrimgeour said.

Paul Proposon, a staff member at Roseland Health Ministries, said that CURL is “helping the organization fill a target, for a vital grant, of 47 entry level jobs and its effect on our surrounding areas such as Calumet City, Dixmoor and Phoenix”.

“This center is really nice because they provide all the things that my daughter and I need in one place and give me help to pay for it all,” local resident Monica Thompson said

CURL strongly advocates organizations like the Roseland Christian Health Ministries because it correlates with its own personal mission.

This mission is to promote equality and improve the lives of citizens within the city of Chicago. CURL takes its mission a step further by incorporating the drive of Loyola staff and students and by encouraging and involving them in the process of community research.