Engaged Scholarship

EngagedScholarship Prof. Kerrissa Heffernan Swearer Center for Public Service, Brown University A CELT Faculty Workshop, Tulane University Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Engaged Scholarship • Engaged Scholarship is an initiative that recognizes the experiences of faculty and students who seek a purposeful integration of teaching, research and practice with a goal of advancing scholarship and producing a public benefit. This is achieved by a unique alignment of research, teaching and practice in an effort to address an identifiable need in a significant and sustainable way, and demonstrates rigorous scholarship and innovation in the discipline.

VOLUNTEERISM/COMMUNITY SERVICEare generally used to denote service work that occurs outside the curriculum.

SERVICE-LEARNING and COMMUNITY-BASED-LEARNING are terms many universities use to designate service or public work as a pedagogical initiative that facilitates the learning goals of a particular course.

COMMUNITY-BASED-RESEARCHimplies research that is based in the community or that utilizes communities as sites of investigation. Community Engagement: CE (IA)Community Based Participatory Action Research: CBPR (Campus Community Partnerships for Health)

Faculty should integrate public or community-based work into a course because such integration will facilitate specific course goals. • The experience will facilitate the development of specific cognitive skills (problem solving, synthesis, interpretation, analysis) • The experience will facilitate the development of reflective skills (recognizing context as critical to content). • The community experience offers an opportunity for the public to enter into dialogue with the students. • Students will experience the public use of disciplinary knowledge

Models for Engagement • PURE:- These are courses that send students out into the community to serve and have as their intellectual core the idea of service to communities by students. They are not typically lodged in any one discipline. • DISCIPLINE-BASED:– Students are expected to have a presence in the community throughout the semester and reflect on their experiences on a regular basis using course content as a basis for synthesis, interpretation, analysis and understanding (articulation). • PROBLEM-BASED SERVICE-LEARNING (PBSL)- Students (or teams of students) work with community members to understand a particular community problem or need. This model presumes that the students will have some knowledge they can draw upon to make recommendations to the community or develop solutions to the problem; architecture students might design a park; business students might develop a web site.

CAPSTONE COURSES- These courses are generally designed for majors and minors in a given discipline and are offered almost exclusively to students in their final year. Capstone courses ask students to draw upon the knowledge they have obtained throughout their course work and combine it with relevant service work in the community. The goal of capstone courses is usually either exploring a new topic or synthesizing students understanding of a body of knowledge. • SERVICE INTERNSHIPS - Like traditional internships, these experiences are more intense than typical service-learning courses, with students working as many as 10 to 20 hours a week in a community setting. Students are generally charged with producing a body of work that is of value to the community or site. Unlike traditional internships, service internship have regular and on-going reflective opportunities that help students analyze their new experiences using discipline-based theories. Service internships are further distinguished from traditional internships by their focus on reciprocity. • UNDERGRADUATE COMMUNITY-BASED ACTION RESEARCH– Students work closely with faculty members to learn research methodology while serving as advocates for communities (context). • SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP-A pedagogical model and field of study SE applies a business or management model to social concerns and impresses upon students the importance of valuing social impact above profit concerns.

Discipline-Based Northwestern University: Investigative Journalism and Special Topics in Journalism: The News Media and Capital Punishment SERVICE COMPONENT AND RELATED ASSIGNMENTS: Students create a historical profile of someone who appears to be wrongly convicted and condemned to die. Students create a case analysis of a prisoner, assessing his guilt or innocence and describing the reporting necessary to publish or broadcast a story about the case.

UPenn: Linguistics 470/English 260 Advanced Topics in Narrative SERVICE COMPONENT AND RELATED ASSIGNMENTS: After examining literary narratives, including Scandinavian, Greek and Hebrew epics, medieval romances, and modern novels, with attention to differences between vernacular, literary and academic style, students will write a narrative for the teaching of reading to African American children in 2nd to 4th grades. The narratives should motivate children to read, and are to be developed in four cultural frameworks: hip-hop, traditional Southern, African-centered and Inspirational Gospel. Linguistics 160/African American 160: Students investigate the use and structure of African American Vernacular English and apply this linguistic knowledge to the task of teaching African American children to read at the Wilson School. SERVICE COMPONENT: Students develop methods for teaching reading building on home language and interests of African-American children. Students gather information by either observing children on the playground or tutoring small groups of children in the classroom. RELATED ASSIGNMENTS: The class will also produce a “Dictionary of Every-Day Words,” which will define words found in daily speech and in hip-hop lyrics that the children believe the teacher does not know.

Brown University: Education 0081: Poetry in Service to Schools and the Community This course is a creative writing course that utilizes community-based poetry. Students will receive intensive workshop and teacher training, and spend 6-8 weeks visiting local elementary, middle and secondary schools as 'poets-in-the schools.'

Undergraduate Community-BasedAction Research Lehigh University: Economics 295 Regional Economic Development Practicum PURPOSE: This course will involve teams of students in community-oriented research projects. Students will participate in the design and execution of a specific research project identified by a Lehigh Valley development agency. The results of this research will be communicated both orally and in a written report to the agency. COMMUNITY-BASED COMPONENT: Students may choose one of seven research projects identified by development agencies. For example: • Transportation Barriers to Successful Welfare to Work Transitions: Community partner = Council of Hispanic Organizations Students will assist the council by researching and documenting the extent to which women living in the inner city of Allentown are limited in their search for employment by the current configuration of bus routes. Student teams will meet with LANTA planners to identify ways in which routes could be changed or new services developed to enhance the possibility of successful transitions from welfare to work. • RELATED ASSIGNMENTS: Large research paper and presentation.

University of Michigan UC 312: Community Projects in theArts and Humanities Students will chose to participate in one of eight projects organized and supported by the UM Arts of Citizenship Program. Examples of projects include: 1. The Underground Railroad in Washtenaw County: This project explores the history of the Underground, anti-slavery, activism and African-American community life in Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti area: Students will join a university-community research team, work in designated research archives and help to create a traveling exhibit. 2. Emerging Voices: Life Stories and Youth Theatre: This partnership with Detroit’s Mosaic Youth Theatre, the Charles Write Museum of African- American History and UM residential College explores what it has been like to come of age in Detroit over the past several generations. Students will do interviews and research to provide supporting materials, and write an accompanying curriculum guide.

Mount Holyoke College: Politics 348 Colloquium on CommunityDevelopment The purpose of the course is to engage students in the various ideas, debates and strategies regarding the development of inner city communities. SERVICE COMPONENT: Students may chose one of four community development projects: • Mobility Study: Using site visits and interviews, students will evaluate the housing satisfaction of low-income residents of Springfield for the Hampden-Hampshire Housing Project (HAPS). Creating a database of households who have received section 8 certificates from the Hampden-Hampshire Housing Partnership, students will evaluate how often residents move and the housing type and neighborhood conditions of their residences. • Credit Union Feasibility Study: Students will research the feasibility of a community-based credit union for South Holyoke. Students study regulations for creating a credit union. Once the research is complete, students will write a planning grant for implementation and identify potential funding sources. Students will organize educational workshops co-led by Holyoke residents and Mt Holyoke students on the benefits of a community-based union in South Holyoke. • Community Garden Output Study: Students will research the agricultural production of community gardeners in Holyoke and produce a report on the benefits of community gardens to be presented to the Mayor of Holyoke, the City Council and the Department of Community Development and Planning. Students will also survey supermarkets and bodegas that serve inner-city neighborhoods in order to assign a price value to the goods produced by the community gardens, as well as the cultural and social benefits derived by the residents from community gardens. • Mortgage Lending Discrimination Project: This project is not fully described on the syllabus because of the sensitive nature of the data and consequences of the research.

Problem-Based University of Utah: Civil Engineering 571: Traffic Flow Theory PURPOSE: Transportation studies encompass a wide range of disciplines. The Traffic Engineering Course has been designed to provide you with an insight into traffic control and management techniques. COMMUNITY-BASED COMPONENT: Students in this class provide a needed service: The Millcreek Lions' Club and the county of Salt Lake have approached me requesting that I work with them to address traffic control problems in the Millcreek neighborhood. Traffic routed improperly has become a safety issue and has greatly contributed to the deterioration in the neighborhood especially for seniors and children. Too much traffic on neighborhood streets has cut off access by foot and isolated parts of the neighborhood from what used to be a more cohesive unit. Students will work with the community residents to understand the problems, then to design traffic solutions. Students will present their findings and solutions to the community and the county in public meetings and will get feedback from both as to how to continuously improve the project. RELATED ASSIGNMENTS: In addition to collecting research and designing solutions (presented in a series of reports), students will write about how their designs have been influenced by community concerns.

Brown University: BC0032: Introduction to Public Health INTERVENTION PROJECT (30%): the purpose of this assignment is to give students an opportunity to experience being a member of a coalition, to write a proposal to develop and evaluate an intervention for members of the MET High School community in South Providence, Rhode Island. As part of this project, leaders of the MET High School have identified seven topics for which they would like to have proposals developed. Each student will choose to be a member of one of seven coalitions. Each coalition will address only one of the seven topics and consist of up to 12 to 14 students. In addition, the coalition will include a student from the MET community and a Workgroup TA. The topics are: • Decreasing the use of marijuana among MET students. • Reducing stigma associated with mental health services among students at the MET and their families. • Sexual health education for adolescent males at the MET. 4. Sexual health education for adolescent females at the MET. 5. Reducing community violence in South Providence. 6. Reducing childhood obesity in the MET community (students and families). 7. Improving access to healthy foods in South Providence.

Brown University: BC 32 Within each coalition, students will have one of four roles that will be determined based on their experience and expertise. Students with similar roles will work together in subcommittees of the coalition. The four roles are: 1. Background research using available published data. 2. Background research within the context of the MET community. 3. Intervention development within the context of the MET community. • Evaluation development using available published data and data within the context of the MET community.

Alignment • Student’s disciplinary socialization (course level) • Cognitive demands of the course • Reflective capacity of students

Reflection Reading: Sara Mosle, The Vanity of Volunteerism:Acknowledging conflicting perspectives 1. According to the author, why is it that volunteerism doesn’t work? 2. In what ways is the authors experience as a volunteer similar to or different from your own. • If we accept the authors argument. What would have to change to make volunteerism work? Reading: Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding Politics: Challenging first personal experience as authority Based on your experience in community service, in your home community and your educational training, address the following: 1. What is the author’s perspective? 2. In what ways is it consistent or inconsistent with your experience?

Teaching centered prompts …are often overly specific and resemble ‘checklists’. These are prompts that map out the required elements rather thoroughly – often so exhaustively that students are apt to attend to the requirements sequentially rather than coming up with an organizational framework for themselves. • Example: Describe the children, adults, or families (not necessarily each one, but collectively) with whom you are working in your service learning? With how many children, adults or families do you come in contact? What are their age ranges and school grade levels? What do you know about their lives and backgrounds (their Microsystems, mesosystems, exosystems and macrosystems)? How might the participants be similar to one another? How might they be different from one another? Are there any you might define as underserved or at risk for some reason? Why so? Why not?

Exhaustive • Example: What meant the most to you? How have you changed? What challenged you, stretched your mind? What aspect touched you emotionally? What elements will have a lasting impact? If we visit five or more years from now what will you still have as part of the class experience? Will your relationship with others be different? How? Is your feeling about yourself different? How? Are you different as a person 'in some way? How? Notice your gratitude for your own life and others who've been part of this learning experience, those who have made the journey with you. Express this thankfulness and other emotions which are present as we conclude the class.

Leading The most important part of this assignment is that you think critically about the research that you’re reading. Provide your own criticism about how this research was conducted. For instance if you are doing a study on AIDS in Africa, if the researcher doesn’t pay attention to the socio-economic factors that confound this epidemic, then you can criticize him about that.

OVERWHELMING What is a Good Society?

Modes of Rhetoric DESCRIPTION – Word painting through the use of significant details. Intended to convey sensory perception (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch). Faculty in art history might ask students to describe two paintings before analyzing or comparing them to one another. • Example: Describe your classroom in detail. How are desks arranged? Where is the teacher in proximity to the children? How do the children act upon arriving? NARRATION – Storytelling; reviewing a sequence of events. More intent on representing what happened than explaining why it happened. Many service learning papers include an element of narration to “set the stage.” • Example: How did Sojourner House come to be and how did its constituency evolve over time? EXAMPLE – Pointing to instances; using particulars to get at principles. In argumentative papers in any discipline, examples are used to support a thesis or main idea. • Example: Using current and projected neighborhood demographics, convince state lawmakers to increase ESL services.

MODES OF RHETORIC COMPARE/CONTRAST– The juxtaposition of two or more ideas/events/objects in hopes that by seeing one through the lens of the other, each may be explained and clarified, or alternatively one may prove better than the rest. Compare/contrast could be used with description in a service setting to discusses two separate events. • Example: After considering the position of parental rights groups sketch out and defend your own conception of parental rights. In other words, what do you think should be recognized as parent rights and why? PROCESS ANALYSIS– The separation of an action or series of actions into progressive parts. Process Analysis may be directive (tell the reader how to do something) or informative (explain how something works). The classic process analysis is a lab report or “how to” article. • Example: Create educational materials for the agency describing the steps of immigrating to the US post 9/11. ANALYSIS (DIVISION and CLASSIFICATION)– Unlike process analysis, this type of analysis can be applied to ideas, not just actions. Analysis occurs in two steps: 1. Dividing the subject into parts and 2. Classifying each part into an already existing category or into categories of the writer’s invention. Analysis is common to the social sciences and is often used to break up a social phenomenon, homelessness, into parts and to assign social meaning to each of these parts. • Example: Summarize what you have learned about the boundaries of the field of mental health from the point of view of parents. What suggestions can you make for modifying mental health services?

MODES OF RHETORIC ANALOGY – Drawing a parallel. Analogy is illustrative, not argumentative, in that its purpose is to help the reader understand one thing by likening it to another more familiar thing. • Example: Explain how the human eye works by likening it to the lens of a camera. CAUSE and EFFECT– Asking why; to analyze by dividing into reasons and results. Might be used in a history paper, for example, to deepen understanding of a certain event by discussing its precipitating factors. • Example: What led President Bush to champion the No Child Left Behind Act? Considering these factors, was this decision justified? EXTENDED DEFINITION– To establish a boundary; to determine what something is and what it is not. One paper can include definitions of many terms or ideas, but extended definition occurs when the goal of the paper is to define a larger concept. Example: Discuss how “romanticism” plays out in the two poems. I suggest you cogently define “romanticism” and which of its features are most important.

MODES OF RHETORIC ARGUMENT – To persuade by appealing to reason, emotion, or both. Many other modes are useful tools in accomplishing the overall goal of argument. Argumentative papers are common to nearly every discipline. • Example: Should family court in Rhode Island be open to the public? If possible draw on experiences with family court. Consider the pros and cons while deciding the appropriate policy. EXPOSITION – To explain or set forth. Answers the 5 W’s: who, what, where, when and why. An objective news story is a good example of exposition. • Example: Without presenting one argument as correct, explain which scholars make which arguments in the debate surrounding evolution and what these arguments are.

Engaged Scholarship