The Zube Lecture Series is hosted by the UMass Amherst Department of Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning. Guest speakers lead weekly talks on major topics in landscape architecture, planning, and community development.

About the Talk

Many institutions and organizations struggle to engage authentically with neighborhood leaders and residents. Often, these organizations lack transparency, accountability, and thoughtful intentionality. What does it look like when the neighborhood voices are amplified and recognized as experts of their own experiences? How do you center the community's skills, gifts, and talents to help shift the power dynamic, create solutions, and build strong connections that will contribute to transformational outcomes and better policies?

About the Speakers

With over 25 years of community engagement experience, business management, and project-based development, Dina Newman is the Director of the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s (UMKC) Center for Neighborhoods. Hired in 2016 as the Center’s first director, Dina oversees the organization’s daily operations and strategies – which include the development and implementation of a neighborhood leadership training curriculum, cultivating cross-sector partnerships, project and program administration; budget development; grant writing and fund development; staff and student intern supervision; and asset-based community development (ABCD) neighborhood outreach. With a focus on “communities of concern” (those communities that experience social vulnerabilities, low wealth, poor health, and concentrated poverty), Dina works to promote a neighborhood culture of health through new forms of urban innovation, project implementation, and university-community collaboration. She is also the founder of Kansas City Black Urban Growers, Inc. (KCBUGs), and her favorite vegetables are cucumbers and snow peas.