Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is adding another line to her post-City Hall resume.
Lightfoot will join the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy as a visiting professor in the fall, the school wrote in a news release.
The former mayor will teach a class on strategic public policy consulting alongside public policy and sociology professor Jeffrey Morenoff. Lightfoot graduated from the university as an undergraduate in 1984.
Lightfoot has had a host of positions since she left office last May. She taught at Harvard University last fall and the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics in the spring.
Another new job for Lightfoot sparked headlines last week when Dolton trustees overrode the veto of embattled Mayor Tiffany Henyard to hire Lightfoot as a special investigator into Henyard’s alleged corruption.
In January, Lightfoot announced another new effort as she launched a nonprofit called the Chicago Vibrant Neighborhoods Collective. The organization seeks to connect community-based organizations working in disinvested neighborhoods with “back office” resources like data analytics, fundraising, budgeting and marketing.
She cited the nonprofit’s vision in a statement about her new professorship.
“We need a large cadre of consultants who share this view about the importance of community-based organizations, and are willing to work at tables set by community to share their time and talents in furtherance of building capacity and solving problems,” Lightfoot wrote.
At Michigan, Lightfoot will be joined by another former big city mayor: New York City’s Bill De Blasio, who will return to the school to continue teaching.
jsheridan@chicagotribune.com
