Center for the Study of Economic Mobility (CSEM): News Archive

RIGGED examines how the long prevailing value system in U.S. higher education erodes individual opportunity and undermines U.S. democracy. The Center for the Study of Economic Mobility at WSSU is featured as one of the innovators that will reverse this trend and that will ultimately transform colleges and universities into pathways for student engagement and social mobility. Interviews with staff members, faculty and top administrators at WSSU each provide perspective on how the University creates success for its students.

Can you imagine being in college and having a great business idea or an individual who has been working for over 20 years in a job unfulfilled because it did not align with your passion? If you said yes, there is a program designed to help you achieve your goals. In February, the Center for the Study of Economic Mobility (CSEM) and Tate Consulting began the Playbook for Entrepreneurial Excellence, an eight-week program designed to arm individuals with CEO leadership competencies and skills to give you the confidence to be your boss.

Three WSSU faculty members have been selected as the 2019-20 Center for the Study of Economic Mobility Faculty Research Fellows.

Dr. Charity Griffin, a 2018-2019 CSEM fellow, puts a thought-provoking context on the principal reassignments in our local school system

There is a needed symmetry developing in the local push to reduce poverty, and Winston-Salem State and Wake Forest universities continued that alignment with a panel discussion this week at Wake Forest: “Transportation and Inequity in Winston-Salem." Professors Russ Smith and Craig Richardson presented the challenges posed by both the geography and the growing concentration of poverty.

Winston-Salem State University geography professor Russell Smith and economics professor Craig Richardson were recently interviewed by WFDD's David Ford. The WSSU professors discussed transportation and inequity in Forsyth County and its special challenges.

The Center for the Study of Economic Mobility gains national prominence for its innovative platform in solving economic mobility. Its profile in Rigged, a new documentary, will feature WSSU faculty, staff, and students aligned with CSEM's mission.

Gentrification in the D.C. area phase been found to push people from homes and away from transit.
The Center for the Study of Economic Mobility in Winston-Salem, N.C. found that city bus commuters spent on average 8.6 extra hours per week riding the bus compared with how much time it would take to drive to work, making life even more difficult for those located in "transportation deserts."

CSEM is working in an advisory capacity with New America based in Washington, DC. The goal is to map home and land loss across the country and conduct on-the-ground research in Arizona, Indiana and North Carolina. CSEM will be playing a special role in Forsyth County along with Wake Forest Law School.

Several years of planning and community conversation led to a plan to help invigorate the East End area, also known as the East End Master Plan. Now, it seems those plans are up for debate. As some city council members are mulling over whether to allow those funds to be spread across the entire East Ward to spread the wealth.

A recent article in the New York Times, Why Midsize Cities Struggle to Catch Up to Superstar Cities, has put Winston-Salem in the national spotlight. But based on the reaction it’s received thus far from local residents and an increasingly vocal group of public officials, some are wondering whether the story got it right.

Since our founding in September 2017, the Center for the Study of Economic Mobility (CSEM) has generated academic research with the aim of spurring beneficial public debate. Housed at Winston-Salem State University, CSEM has been at the vanguard of empirical research around our local public transportation system, along with a host of other research initiatives.