ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a brief historical background of Marygrove College and the city of Detroit. It describes Marygrove’s model of urban leadership development. The chapter offers the bulk of Marygrove’s story that follows on organizational transformation, and sets out the stages of Building Our Leadership in Detroit's mobilization, implementation, and institutionalization. Marygrove’s story offers new insights into how organizational transformation, centered on urban leadership development, occurred in a relatively small private college affected by the same challenges that engulfed its community. Marygrove’s evolution continued in the tumultuous decades leading up to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. When Marygrove was first established in Detroit, the city was enjoying a period of great prosperity. Marygrove’s organizational strategy to transform institutional capacity at curricular, faculty, and programmatic levels to create an informed, dedicated cadre of student and community leaders was unavoidably messy.
