Schul Forum Series
Real data. Real Conversations. A Better region.
The Marianne M. & Norman W. Schul Urban Institute Forum Series was established in 2018 with a generous gift from the institute’s first director, Dr. Norm Schul, and his wife, Marianne ‘73. The Series is an annual event and includes conversations, lunch time webinars that precede and set the table for the Schul Forum, an in-person convening that creates space for learning, dialogue, and action around economic and quality of life issues that matter to the Charlotte region.
The annual Schul Forum Series features the work of the Charlotte Urban Institute and faculty researchers in the Gambrell Faculty Fellowship Program, a program funded by The Gambrell Foundation. To date, the fellowship now includes more than 45 Gambrell Fellows whose research focuses on economic mobility in the Charlotte region.
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Previous Schul Forums
2025 Schul Forum: Community Data Day
We are often swimming upstream in river of data. We contend not only with the complexities of the challenges we face, but also with forces of misinformation and disinformation on the topics that matter most to our communities. Much of the data and information flowing around us isn’t immediately applicable to our organizational or community contexts; the raw data needs interpretation and application, and the information needs fact-checked. Despite being immersed in data, we often ask so what?! or seek a guide as we navigate crowded and unfamiliar waterways.
Schul Forum 2025: Community Data Day allowed us to explore how local data and research can be used to make a difference in our lives and our communities.
2023-24 Schul Forum: Our Connecting Spaces
Across our Charlotte region, we are shaped by the places we connect and the relationships we develop in those spaces. Our neighborhoods, our schools, our houses of worship, where we work, where we play, where we create – we shape them and they shape us. Beyond being a simple backdrop of our daily lives, recent research by the Opportunity Insights team, led by Raj Chetty of Harvard University, suggests that the places that enable cross-class friendships may have a role to play in improving economic mobility.
Schul Forum 2024: Our Connecting Spaces explored the spaces where we connect in the Charlotte region, asking how those spaces enable connection or create barriers to economic connectedness.
2024 Schul Forum Opening Session
2024 Schul Forum Keynote Panel: Our Connecting Spaces
The Schul Forum series partnered with the Chancellor’s Speakers Series, which welcomed Raj Chetty to Charlotte on November 14. Together, these events extend our regional conversation on economic mobility and the ongoing work to ensure opportunity and a good quality of life for all in the Charlotte region.
2022 Schul Forum: Does Development Mean Displacement?
More than 150 people attended the 2022 Schul Forum where we examined development and displacement with the help of our keynote speaker, Dr. Karen Chapple, and a local panel. We also got a brief overview of data tools in our community that help us understand displacement risk and our challenges and progress around economic mobility in the city and region. The Forum was followed by a reception sponsored by The Gambrell Foundation to honor the Gambrell Faculty Fellows.
Introduction and Local Panel – Data Tools For Economic Mobility
The panel of local experts included: Dr. Christina Danis, Centralina Regional Council; Akofa Dossou, Charlotte Regional Business Alliance; A.J. Calhoun, Leading On Opportunity; Andrew Bowen, City of Charlotte; and Dr. Lori Thomas, UNC Charlotte Urban Institute | Charlotte Regional Data Trust.
Keynote Address: Dr. Karen Chapple and Local Panel – Targeted Local Anti-Displacement Solutions
Dr. Karen Chapple is the Director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto and Professor Emerita of City and Regional Planning at University of California at Berkeley, where she was a founder and continues to co-lead the Urban Displacement Project. Chapple examines inequalities in planning and development, with a focus on economic development and housing. Her recent books include Planning Sustainable Cities and Regions: Towards More Equitable Development (2015), which won the John Friedmann Book Award from the American Collegiate Schools of Planning; Fragile Governance and Local Economic Development: Theory and Evidence from Peripheral Regions in Latin America with Sergio Montero (2018); and, Transit-Oriented Displacement or Community Dividends? Understanding the Effects of Smarter Growth on Communities with Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris (2019).
[Read Dr. Chapple’s open access book: Transit-Oriented Displacement or Community Dividends? Understanding the Effects of Smarter Growth on Communities]
The panel of local experts joining Dr. Chapple to discuss targeted local anti-displacement solutions included: Charis Blackmon, West Side Community Land Trust; Mark Ethridge, Ascent Real Estate Capital: Ely Portillo, WFAE; and Dr. Byron P. White, UNC Charlotte urbanCORE.
2021 Schul Forum: Moving the Needle in Charlotte and Beyond
Fiftieth out of 50. Worst large metro region for economic mobility. Housing is too expensive. Homelessness numbers are growing. The racial wealth gap is really a chasm. The gaps between students who have and students who make do without are growing. And the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the divides in our society when it comes to jobs, economic opportunity, prosperity and security more vividly than any crisis in generations.
We’ve been talking about economic mobility in Charlotte for a long time, but have we really moved the needle? And what steps can we take that will make a concrete difference for people in our community, enabling better access to jobs, education, health and the opportunity to improve their quality of life?
That was the focus of the 2021 Schul Forum: Moving the Needle in Charlotte and Beyond. We talked about the challenges facing us and the solutions that we can implement to help our community. The 2021 Schul Forum was held virtually with more than 200 attendees (the 2020 event was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic).
Introduction
Local panel: Where are we now and how are we moving the needle on economic mobility?
The panel of local experts included: Dr. Sharon Gaber, UNC Charlotte Chancellor; Dr. Byron P. White, UNC Charlotte Office of Urban Research and Community Engagement; Laura Clark, United Way of Central Carolinas; Tonya Jameson, Leading on Opportunity; Kacey Grantham, Road to Hire; W. Teddy McDaniel, III, Urban League of Central Carolinas, Inc.
Keynote Address: Dr. Andre Perry
A nationally known scholar, Andre Perry is a senior fellow with the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, an author and a scholar-in-residence at American University. Perry recently published a new book, “Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities.”
From Brookings: “Perry’s recent scholarship at Brookings has analyzed Black-majority cities and institutions in America, focusing on valuable assets worthy of increased investment.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Perry has documented the underlying causes for the outsized number of coronavirus-related deaths in Black communities. Perry’s Brookings research has illuminated how certain forms of social distancing historically accelerated economic and social disparities between Black people and the rest of the country. Perry also mapped racial inequities in housing, income, and health to underscore how policy discrimination makes Black Americans more vulnerable to COVID-19.
2019 Schul Forum: The Carolinas Urban-Rural Connection project
