2011 Cleveland Design Competition Sponsors

The Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative (CUDC) is the combined home of Kent State University’s graduate program in urban design and the public service activities of the Urban Design Center of Northeast Ohio (UDC). The CUDC provides real world learning opportunities for Kent State students and allows the UDC staff to provide design services to the entire region served by Kent State's eight campuses, with a particular emphasis on sustained relationships with Cleveland’s community development corporations and the network of non-profit organizations supporting them.

In addition to its resident academic and public service functions, the CUDC seeks to improve the quality of life in Northeast Ohio through a range of research and advocacy activities. Through design services, research, advocacy, and the professionals it trains, the CUDC works to build a sustainable and vibrant regional future based on ideas that work to: encourage ecological integrity, protect natural and cultural resources, stimulate economic prosperity, and enhance the public realm. Find out more at www.cudc.kent.edu.

Cleveland State is a metropolitan university that provides a rich environment for engaged learning in an exciting and dynamic location. Our students are fond of claiming that the entire city is their campus for study, practical experience, and recreation. And our pledge to each student is an engaged learning experience in the real world, for the real world, among a diverse student body.

The Cleveland State campus consists of more than 85 acres -- the largest footprint in downtown Cleveland -- with 40-plus buildings used for teaching, research, housing, administration, and recreation. “Building Blocks for the Future,” the University’s $500-plus million campus master plan, is changing the face of both campus and downtown Cleveland while creating a vibrant living and learning community in the heart of the city. New or renovated buildings include a recreation center; apartment-style student housing, a restaurant, an administration center, a College of Graduate Studies building, and more. Opening in 2010: a new student center, the first-ever home for the College of Education and Human Services, and additional student housing.

The primary goal of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District is to become a premier school district in the United States of America. The Cleveland Metropolitan School District envisions 21st Century Schools of Choice where students will be challenged with a rigorous curriculum that considers the individual learning styles, program preferences and academic capabilities of each student, while utilizing the highest quality professional educators, administrators and support staff available.

The Cleveland Metropolitan School District has recently implimented a "Transformation Plan" throughout the district. The Cleveland Metropolitan School District's Transformation Plan is a bold plan to transform the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. It is a plan driven by research and best practices in student achievement and in school reform initiatives calling for fundamental, system-wide changes in our schools.

The Plan is based on three foundation-funded assessments of CMDS's specialty programs, turn-around strategies and facilities. Community forums held at schools throughout the city were useful in gathering input for school-by-school recommendations. The final transformation plan is based not only on that collaborative effort, but also on objective, data-based research undertaken by the District's Strategic Development Initiative, funded by the Cleveland Foundation and the George Gund Foundation.

Cleveland State University is proud to offer an innovative new program to the children of its students and employees – the Campus International School, an on-campus alternative school program internationally recognized for high standards and academic rigor.

Part of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, the school will incorporate the International Baccalaureate curriculum that focuses on global perspectives and foreign languages, such as Mandarin. The Campus International School (CIS) currently has 120 students in kindergarten, first and second grades. In 2011- 2012 we will add a third grade with additional grades added each year until CIS is a K-12 school.

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, founded in 1974, is the nation’s premiere research institution on land use and taxation. Funding came from the Lincoln Foundation, which was created in 1946 by John C. Lincoln, a Cleveland industrialist who became intrigued with land use and tax policy as it relates to land through the writings of Henry George. Today the Lincoln Institute, located near Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass., serves as a non-partisan forum for scholars, policymakers, practitioners, citizens and journalists, integrating theory and practice through education, research, demonstration projects, publications and conferences. The mission is to promote discussion of the multidisciplinary forces that shape public policy related to land.

The Lincoln Institute is presently conducting an outreach program in Greater Cleveland related to their film Cleveland: Confronting Decline in an American City. This is the second documentary film in the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s “Making Sense of Place” series. Shot in Greater Cleveland during 2004 and 2005, it examines how policymakers, community groups and others have wrestled with urban decay, the erosion of inner suburbs and the growth of outer suburbs in what was once America’s fifth largest city – and what future solutions might be. Find out more at www.lincolninst.edu.