Macalester Partnership Background

In September 2004, Benjamin Filene, the Senior Exhibit Developer at the Minnesota Historical Society, met with Community Service Office staff and George Latimer of the Urban Studies department to consider ways that the Minnesota Historical Society might collaborate with Macalester on civic engagement projects that might benefit both institutions and the wider public. Over the winter of 2004-2005, Benjamin Filene and Macalester’s Civic Engagement Center continued to meet to learn about one another’s civic engagement efforts. The Minnesota Historical Society proposed working with individual classes at Macalester on projects that could be completed in one semester, exhibited in the community, and later assembled into a larger exhibit at the Minnesota History Center.

The Minnesota Historical Society and Macalester decided that Lake Street as a global borderland would be an ideal focus for the project. The Lake Street Corridor, which stretches from the Mississippi River between St. Paul and Minneapolis to the Lakes District, has a rich history as a major transit route for the city. Currently, Lake Street is a borderland of diverse cultures and the neighborhoods along Lake Street are home to recent immigrant and refugee communities. Examples of global diversity in the Lake Street area include Mercado Central, a nationally-recognized Mexican and Central-American Marketplace; Resource Center of the Americas, a nonprofit that connects North America with Central and South American issues; Intermedia Arts, a fine arts organization that regularly engages immigrant and refugee issues; and numerous businesses, restaurants, schools, and cultural organizations that serve African, Latino, and Asian communities. The on-going redevelopment of the corridor and the conversion of the Sears Building on Lake Street into condominiums and a global marketplace spurred a renewed public focus on the importance of Lake Street as a meeting place of cultures.

Over the Spring and Summer of 2005, The Civic Engagement Center and the Minnesota Historical Society met with community organizations, faculty at Macalester, and Historical Society staff to test ideas and develop a project that would draw on the strengths of each member of the partnership and that could benefit each member as well as the larger public. Benjamin Filene met with faculty members at the Bush Grant’s Urban Faculty Seminar and in departmental meetings and helped develop project ideas that could be integrated into classes at Macalester. Many of the classes have developed through this dialogue with Benjamin Filene over the course of the summer and fall.

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