Ernest A. Lynton Award Recipients
Previous Recipients
Michael Hemphill
Assistant professor of kinesiology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Cristina Santamaría Graff
Santamaría Graff has expertise in bilingual/multilingual special education and applies her skills in working with Latinx immigrant families of children with dis/abilities in community-engaged, family-centered projects. Her scholarship focuses on ways community-engaged partnerships can transform inequitable practices impacting youth with disabilities at the intersections of race, class, and other identity markers of difference. Her efforts are currently focused on “Family as Faculty” (FAF) approaches in special education programs that position community stakeholders’ knowledge and knowledge-making as central to the process of transforming systems. This work has contributed to deeper, reciprocal collaborations not only in her department and university, but also among families, practitioners, administrators, and policymakers statewide.
Santamaría Graff is one of the editors of the journal, Multiple Voices for Ethnically Diverse Exceptional Learners, and an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and many of her own publications have been co-authored with parents, students, or community stakeholders. In addition to receiving several campus teaching awards and IUPUI’s 2018 Charles R. Bantz Chancellor’s Community Scholar Award, her work has been recognized with Indiana Campus Compact’s 2019 Brian Douglas Hiltunen Award for Community-Engaged Research and the American Education Research Association’s 2019 Research Award for Practice-Engaged Research.
Brooke Lillehaugen
Dr. Brooke Lillehaugen studied linguistics at University of California, Los Angeles (Ph.d., M.A.) and University of California, Berkeley (B.A.). She specializes in Zapotec languages in their modern and historical forms and is interested in considering how academics can be effective allies to language activists. Currently, Dr. Lillehaugen offers courses in linguistics at Haverford, Bryn Mawr College and Swarthmore College. She is co-director Ticha, an online digital text explorer for Colonial Zapotec manuscripts and recently co-produced a documentary web series on Zapotec language and identity in one Valley Zapotec community, San Jerónimo Tlacochahuaya.
Laurie Walker
Dr. Laurie Walker is Assistant Professor of Social Work at the University of Montana. Her research diligently includes community members in research design, data collection, literature review and data analysis and often includes students as co-authors to have the greatest impact. The most recent scholarship focuses on understanding the causes of over-incarceration of Native American women in prison and their re-entry needs. Walker’s current research is in collaboration with UM interdisciplinary students, UM’s Margery Hunter Brown Indian Law Clinic and Montana Justice Initiative, the Salish Kootenai Tribal Defender’s Office, a newly formed local holistic defense nonprofit, the Montana Department of Corrections, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council.
Mara Tieken
Dr. Tieken is an associate professor of education at Bates College. A former third-grade and adult basic education teacher, her research focuses on racial and educational equity in rural schools and communities. Her book, Why Rural Schools Matter (UNC Press, 2014), is an ethnographic study of two rural Arkansas communities, examining the roles that rural schools play in rural towns—specifically how they shape a particular community and how they shape the racial landscapes of these towns. Her more recent project, funded by the Spencer Foundation, examines the factors shaping the college experiences—aspirations, transitions, and persistence—of rural, first-generation students.
Tieken also studies community organizing for education reform, publishing an essay in A Match on Dry Grass: Community Organizing as a Catalyst for School Reform (Oxford University Press, 2011). In addition, she co-authored Inside Urban Charter Schools: Promising Practices and Strategies in Five High-Performing Schools(Harvard Education Press, 2009), a study of five urban charter schools, and has an essay about teaching antiracist history in all-White classrooms included in Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real about Race in Schools (The New Press, 2008). Tieken received her Doctorate of Education from the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.
Eric DeMeulenaere
Dr. Eric DeMeulenaere is Assistant Professor of Urban Schooling in the Department of Education at Clark University. Dr. DeMeulenaere has been working to improve urban education for the past 25 years. He began his career as a middle school history teacher in Oakland, California. He has also taught social studies and English and coached soccer in high schools and middle schools in Oakland, San Francisco, and, more recently, Worcester, Massachusetts. In 2004, he co-founded and directed an innovative small public high school in East Oakland that focused on social justice and increased academic outcomes for youth of color. Before opening the school, Dr. DeMeulenaere earned his Ph.D. in the Social and Cultural Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education. Through research, teaching and community engagement, Dr. DeMeulenaere is committed to confronting inequalities and empowering urban youth to create change in their communities. As an educator, Dr. DeMeulenaere’s courses “nurture a generation of students to think about themselves as engaged scholars and agents of change” through a framework of community engagement, social justice and reciprocity.
Dr. DeMeulenaere has worked to merge his activism with his role in academia. His research is grounded in participatory action research and narrative inquiry and draws extensively from critical theory to examine how to create more effective and liberatory learning spaces for urban youth. His forthcoming book, The Activist Academic, co-authored with Colette Cann, details their journeys together toward tenure as academics while maintaining their commitment to activist work for racial and social justice. Throughout his journey as a junior academic, Dr. DeMeulenaere has situated his teaching, research, and service within the contexts of the poor urban communities where he has worked. While he has consulted with urban school leaders and teachers nationally and internationally to transform their pedagogical practices and organizational school cultures, he has always prioritized working with teachers and youth in the Main South Neighborhood in Worcester, where Clark University resides and one of the poorest neighborhoods in New England.
For instance, six years ago, Dr. DeMeulenaere began a project co-teaching a high school course with teachers in a critical inquiry group he created to develop critical pedagogies in urban classrooms. This was a site where he not only engaged teachers in enacting critical pedagogy, but engaged both high school and college students in participatory action research. He has presented this work with high school teachers and students as well as college students in multiple conferences and documented it in several journal articles and book chapters. In another project, he worked with teachers to produce his first book, “Reflections from the Field: How Coaching Made Us Better Teachers,” co-authored with Colette Cann. This book brought the voice and lessons from classroom teachers to the debates on educational policy and practice.
More recently, Dr. DeMeulenaere has worked with Worcester youth in a critical media literacy and youth film producers program, N-CITE Community Media. Through this program, Dr. DeMeulenaere engages youth in critical counter-storytelling through film to create “counterspaces” in which young people can foster radical healing, critical consciousness and civic agency. This work brings the voice and perspective of youth to challenge dominant narratives that maintain existing inequities. This past year the students’ documentary highlighted youth immigration, and was displayed to thousands across Massachusetts, including at the Massachusetts State House.
In addition to books and book chapters, Dr. DeMeulenaere’s writings have appeared in The Urban Review, Qualitative Inquiry, The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy and several others.
As described by his nominator, Dr. DeMeulenaere’s work in academia is so deeply embedded within his community work that it “blurs the lines between research, teaching, and service/activism.” Dr. DeMeulenaere writes, “My work with the community is not something extra or special that I do. It is who I am. I cannot do or be otherwise. There is too much at stake for me and the folks I am working with, and for society as a whole.”
Dr. DeMeulenaere’s teaching, scholarship and service deeply impacts his students, colleagues and surrounding community. He is the epitome of a community-engaged activist scholar who has and will continue to work tirelessly to empower people to create change in urban communities. The 2015 Lynton Award was presented at the 21st annual conference of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU), “A Love of Place: The Metropolitan Advantage,” held from October 11-13, 2015, in Omaha, Nebraska. CUMU co-sponsored the Award. In addition, Dr. DeMeulenaere delivered the keynote address at the 4th annual Lynton Colloquium on the Scholarship of Engagement, held on Saturday, November 14, 2015, at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
Jomella Watson-Thompson
Dr. Watson-Thompson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Behavioral Science, and Associate Director for the Work Group for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas. Through her collaborative research, teaching, and service she partners with communities to address community health and development issues through the application of community-based behavioral psychology. Her research has focused on neighborhood development, positive youth development, and adolescent substance abuse and violence prevention. Dr. Thompson supports community capacity-building efforts to address social determinants of health through community-based participatory research with populations and communities experiencing disparities, particularly in urban neighborhoods. Her research has focused on examining the effects of community-based processes and interventions to promote community mobilization and change in addressing the interrelated conditions affecting community health.
Dr. Thompson has extensive experience in providing training, technical support, and evaluation for community-based initiatives. Dr. Watson-Thompson attained her B.A. in Urban Studies from Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi, a Masters of Urban Planning, a M.A. in Applied Behavioral Science, and a Ph.D. in Behavioral Psychology all from the University of Kansas.
Farrah Jacquez
Farrah Jacquez, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cincinnati, is dedicated to reducing health disparities for underserved communities—with a particular focus on children. Dr. Jacquez’s approach to community-engaged scholarship underscores the value of reciprocity and collaboration, incorporating the expertise of community members most directly affected by health inequities, individuals from positions of power within community agencies and academic partners, including students. Her nuanced understanding of the role that individual motivations and interests of community and academic stakeholders play in the design and implementation of community-engaged projects greatly improves the chances for success.
Utilizing community-based participatory research (CBPR), Farrah Jacquez involves community residents directly in the design and facilitation of research projects and the implementation of interventions that may occur as a result of the research. Inherent in this process is the importance of local knowledge in understanding and addressing community health problems.
Central to the effectiveness of community-academic partnerships is the identification of clearly-stated goals by all partners. For instance, as part of the process for developing a successful joint grant application with the Adams County Health & Wellness Coalition (ACHWC)—a community organization comprising a diversity of key stakeholders dedicated to combating obesity—the team established a process for identifying individual member goals for projects involving nutrition education in grocery stores and public schools. This, in turn, allowed coalition members to choose projects with mutually beneficial objectives.
Most of Dr. Jacquez’s projects have been cross-disciplinary through the collaboration of academic and community colleagues with diverse backgrounds. In one example, Dr. Jacquez collaborated with a geographer and several community stakeholders in Covington, Kentucky, to conduct a participatory research study in which local youth mapped the benefits and challenges of accessing physical activity in their neighborhoods and then created a prioritized list of needs for enhancing such access. By merging the expertise of a geographer and a psychologist with the expertise of the youth living in the neighborhoods, the team produced meaningful information immediately useful and applicable in a real-world context. As a result, these youth-generated maps and needs-assessments have been submitted to the City of Covington to help inform future development plans.
At the University of Cincinnati, Dr. Jacquez teaches courses using service-learning pedagogy in which students serve as collaborators in identifying project priorities, designing the projects and evaluating project performance. For example, in 2011, students enrolled in her “Diversity & Health” course worked with elementary-school students to create funding proposals benefiting health and wellness at a partnering school. The undergraduates in the course made decisions about how best to work with the elementary-school students, the method by which to make presentations (e.g., songs, plays, testimonials) and the criteria by which they were graded on their performance in the class. Currently, a group of Jacquez’s students is spearheading participatory research efforts with youth in Latino-serving schools to identify unique stresses and coping strategies among Latino immigrant youth and to develop nutrition education media products.
Reflecting on her work, Dr. Jacquez writes, “My passion for addressing health inequities has led me to engage communities in every aspect of my professional life. My research focuses on working with community partners to develop child health interventions. Through service activities, I attempt to represent the interests of my partnering communities to promote policies and decision-making that will promote health. In my teaching, I have increasingly engaged community partners to provide context to the content we teach in higher education.”
Read Dr. Jacquez’s article, “Demonstrating Impact as a Community-Engaged Scholar within a Research University” (Metropolitan Universities Journal, Vol. 25, No. 2).
Jordan Karubian
Central to his work as a community-engaged scholar, Jordan Karubian, Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Tulane University, has developed a multifaceted community-based program to enhance stewardship of the environment and the welfare and conservation capacity of local residents in Northwest Ecuador, which has one of the highest concentrations of both species diversity and human populations, is considered a “conservation hotspot,” a focal point of the growing environmental crisis. The research at the heart of this effort is carried out by undergraduate and graduate students, Ph.D.-level biologists and community members—“hunters-turned-researchers”—who have a deep knowledge of the natural history and basic biology of the endangered species under study. Over the course of several years, the local researchers, or “Environmental Ambassadors,” have become proficient in experimental design, data collection, computer literacy and public speaking. The knowledge generated from the research is actively used by reserve managers, community members and the Ministry of the Environment and is fundamental to local and regional outreach and educational programs, as are the Ambassadors themselves. Karubian explains that, “[t]hese individuals are highly respected men and women [who] give back to their communities by changing local values and promoting sustainable practices. They make regular presentations on environmental themes to adults and children; host ‘hands-on’ events to educate about their research and provide opportunities to harmlessly interact with local flora and fauna; and make regular visits to schools. These approaches are more effective than efforts by outsiders and we have witnessed significant shifts in local attitudes and behaviors directly attributable to this program.” Dr. Karubian is currently replicating this model of engaged research, teaching and service in Papua New Guinea, where he is testing the efficacy of community-based knowledge generation through an analysis of descriptive data on patterns of participation and outcomes.
The project’s approach to research, teaching and service suggests a shift from “community-engaged” to “community-centered” faculty work and, in areas such as Northwest Ecuador that are under siege on multiple fronts, the continued success of the project requires the involvement of like-minded faculty from a range of disciplines. Even as community members realize that it is in their best interests to protect the environment, Karubian recognizes that “they face stark economic choices, which often force them to make sub-optimal decisions in the name of short term economic necessity…. In the future,” he explains, “I hope to collaborate with colleagues who have expertise in sustainable development, social science and environmental economics to expand the model of engaged scholarship we currently have up and running in the ecological sphere.” Karubian’s research has been recognized with a prestigious International Research Experience for Students (IRES) grant from the National Science Foundation, which provides funding for 21 students from under-represented groups to conduct independent research in Australia in interaction with local residents, students and researchers.
Katherine Lambert-Pennington
During the past four years, Katherine Lambert-Pennington, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Memphis, has integrated her teaching, research and service in unique ways that address issues of poverty, racism and social justice, particularly as they relate to neighborhood development. Through her engaged scholarship, she has helped establish civic partnerships that mobilize university and community members around critical social issues. She and her students, for instance, collaborated with local church leaders and other stakeholders in South Memphis—a once-thriving but now economically distressed neighborhood—to form a community development council, which in turn engaged local residents in developing a comprehensive revitalization plan. After the plan was unanimously approved by the City of Memphis, she and her students assisted residents and community advocates in establishing the South Memphis Farmers Market, now one of the region’s most successful urban food programs. The widely recognized success of the farmers market encouraged city officials to invest nearly one million dollars in local arts, community health and wellness initiatives and also attracted additional civic support from area foundations. Dr. Lambert-Pennington also co-directs the Vance Avenue Collaborative, a campus-community partnership working to address a wide range of economic and community development needs for one of the poorest residential areas within the Mid-South.
Reflecting on her engaged scholarship, Dr. Lambert-Pennington writes: “I believe that social justice can only be achieved through genuine and frequent civic participation by underrepresented communities. By conducting research in collaboration with community partners…and by providing opportunities for students to learn how to contribute to grassroots information gathering and action through active participation, I strive to contribute to building a more fair and democratic society.”
N. Eugene Walls
N. Eugene Walls, Assistant Professor of Social Work at the University of Denver, has established lasting partnerships with several agencies in Colorado, focusing on the needs of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) community. Viewing collaboration with community partners as indispensable in efforts to give a voice to historically marginalized groups, Dr. Walls has worked with the GLBT Community Center of Colorado to educate non-GLBT faculty on risk and resilience factors of sexual minority youth; with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment around HIV prevention for gay men in rural settings; and with Denver’s youth shelter, Urban Peak, to understand the psychosocial risks for GLBT and non-GLBT homeless youth. He assists grassroots agencies in improving their data collection methods and developing tools to enhance funding opportunities, while also relying upon the expertise of members of those communities.
Reflecting on his engaged scholarship, Dr. Walls writes: “In order to qualify as truly being community engaged research, practice and education, our endeavors must go beyond their applied nature to embody an approach that values the public good, trusts the wisdom of communities and commits to social justice…. It is only in the values that are reflected in how the work is done and the value of the outcomes of that work to the community that work can come to be called community-engaged work.”
Citation for Distinguished Engaged Scholarship:
John Begeny is Assistant Professor of School Psychology at North Carolina State University (NCSU). In collaboration with NCSU students and community partners (namely a large, rural elementary school and an after-school program), John has developed two internationally recognized programs: Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies (HELPS), a reading fluency program and Supporting Parental Activities for Reading with Kids (SPARKS), which aims to understand educational strategies parents can effectively use in the home. Additionally, he developed The HELPS Education Fund, a non-profit organization used to support teachers’ free access to all HELPS materials. In his teaching and community-based research, John has included countless students and community partners as co-facilitators, co-evaluators and co-publishers in courses and ongoing research projects. Recently nominated for an NCSU Outstanding Teaching Award, John grounds his undergraduate and graduate courses in issues of social justice, particularly with respect to educational equity, poverty and respect for diversity. Each of his courses includes one or more community partners with whom students work and learn directly as they collaboratively provide services intended to improve children’s literacy. These collaborators have included teachers, principals, school psychologists, parents of children with reading difficulties and directors of community-based organizations. John has also created a special topics course on community-engaged scholarship. As a member of the first cohort of NCSU’s faculty development program Education and Discovery Grounded in Engaged Scholarship (EDGES), John has become a campus leader in identifying new strategies to support community-engaged work on the NCSU campus. As John writes, “I believe that our most significant social challenges—such as equitable education and opportunity, poverty, racism, sexism and access to healthcare—can only be improved if colleges and universities substantially increase their commitment to and institutionalization of, scholarship that is driven by the needs of our community.”
Nick Tobier
Nick Tobier, Assistant Professor in the School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, has—through his scholarship, teaching and publicly-oriented art—demonstrated an impressive commitment to engagement both within the University of Michigan, in the communities in which he lives and works and in communities across the nation and the world.
Nick strives to unite engagement with the creative process in the courses he teaches. Since 2005, his course entitled “Detroit Connections,” involves undergraduate and graduate students from the School of Art and Design in teaching art to fourth-grade children in underserved Detroit public schools. In preparation for the teaching experience, Nick requires his students to spend considerable time becoming familiar and interacting with the neighborhoods and communities in which the school children live. This experience, as one colleague commends, “gives [the] students a much deeper understanding of the cultural, environmental, educational and economic environment that is shaping their [mentees’] lives.” In a recently developed summer course, he and a group of undergraduates lived with families in Detroit while constructing an outdoor classroom at an urban farm run by a local soup kitchen.
Nick also teaches a required course in which first-year Art and Design in which students are organized into “mini-communities” where they share resources and ideas within their groups and with other groups, generate collective artistic philosophies during the creative process and collaborate on the design and construction of each 14-foot tall puppets for Ann Arbor’s annual FestiFools Parade, a festival that Nick co-conceived and co-founded. As one Art and Design professor noted: “The institutional impact of this experience is enormous. Every student who is part of our Art & Design program by the end of their first year…will have experienced what it is like to work together on something larger than their private vision and desires. They come away with a concrete awareness that in every subsequent class they take, there is an expectation of developing a language that has larger resonance within ever expanding layers of community.”
Citations for Distinguished Engaged Scholarship:
Benjamin Kirshner, Assistant Professor in the School of Education at the University of Colorado, Boulder, uses innovative community-engagement approaches in his scholarship and teaching in the areas of youth engagement and activism, a focus that stems from his experience working as an educator in San Francisco’s Mission District. He has designed courses that incorporate community-based research to better understand the importance of “youth voice” and the formation of youth political identity and agency. These courses, such as his successful year-long “Action Research for Youth and Community Development” and “Youth Development, Citizenship and Social Justice,” have provided undergraduate students with the skills and knowledge to undertake collaborative research with community partners.
Currently, Ben is conducting a study of a community organization that mentors and supports young people who seek to become the first in their families to attend college. He has also been a lead participant in interdisciplinary scholarship of engagement projects with colleges and schools at UC-Boulder and he is an active member of the University’s Institute for Ethical and Civic Engagement. Emulating the work of Harry Boyte, Ben attempts “to conduct research as ‘public work’” that addresses “problems of public significance” and that is “pursued collectively and builds bridges among people from diverse walks of life.” This engaged approach, he writes, “has enabled me to…be a ‘soldier’ rather than a ‘missionary.’ A soldier puts himself in the trenches with the people with whom he works; he is part of the team rather than a detached observer.”
Michele Wakin, Assistant Professor of sociology at Bridgewater State College, writes: “My focus on inequality and social justice unites my research, teaching and service with the overall goal of drawing attention to and maximizing opportunities for social and educational growth and civic engagement.… Raising awareness…is not enough. In order to create social change, we must engage all stakeholders in the process of discovering what issues we are best equipped to handle and tackling them collaboratively.” Michele’s interest in social justice began when she was a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Barbara and her subsequent teaching and scholarship have highlighted and reinforced the connection between sustainability, social justice and community activism.
During her four years at Bridgewater State College (BSC), Michele has provided venues for her students to engage in service learning and community-focused research that require intensive collaboration with local homeless service organizations and meaningful community outreach through courses like “Sustainable Cities” and “Homelessness in US Society.” In addition to her faculty work, Michele is co-coordinator of the Center for Sustainability at BSC, where she strives to increase student awareness and engagement around social justice issues on campus. Among her many notable achievements in this position, is the development of the “Teaching Module Project,” a campus-based model that invites faculty and staff members to develop short lesson plans, videos, PowerPoint presentations, or classroom exercises to share with other faculty. Additionally, Michele chairs BSC’s Task Force to End Homelessness, which involves students and faculty in regional and community efforts to reduce homelessness and she initiated The Bridgewater Scholars Program, designed to offer scholarships, including tuition and fees, to qualified homeless applicants.
Michelle Dunlap
Michelle Dunlap, Associate Professor of human development at Connecticut College, understands that scholarship of integrity is grounded in formal obligations and long-term commitments met though fully engaged citizenship in the communities in which one lives and with which one works-neighborhood and college alike. Describing her theory of practice, she writes, “I believe that until opportunity and equity have been reached for all people-until social challenges such as poverty, racism, sexism and homophobia have been eliminated-until we all have equal access to education and some semblance of socioeconomic stability-until then, a scholar’s life, career, teaching, research and service is not their own. But rather, our life belongs to the community.”
In her work with the Southeastern Connecticut Mental Health System of Care (SEMHSOC), Michelle calls upon her own networks in underserved communities to arrange dialogues between SEMHSOC members and individuals from the most underserved communities in the area in order to help the agency improve services to children of color. Her approach to education does not draw value distinctions between academic and nonacademic expertise. A director from the Connecticut Department of Children and Families testified to Michelle’s skills at engaging “a community, the Department, a foster family and DCF children in a process that brought about a solution which decreased the animosity and poor relationships that had developed.” As part of this work, a research team made up of six undergraduate students, a Connecticut College alum and a community youth worked collaboratively to collect and analyze data in a study geared toward gaining a better understanding of the personality and demographic variables that are associated with favorable and unfavorable opinions of minority family communication and discipline among professionals who work with minority families. The research team also collaborated on conference presentations and scholarly publications emerging from this work.
Her most recent publication (forthcoming, spring 2009) is a book co-authored with S. Evans, C. Taylor and D. Miller, African Americans and Community Engagement in Higher Education: Perspectives of Race in Community Service, Service-Learning and Community Based Research (NY: SUNY Press).
Citations for Distinguished Engaged Scholarship:
Rose-Marie Chierici, Associate Professor of anthropology at SUNY-Geneseo, has undertaken long-term development work in Haiti that ranges from grassroots engagement with peasant organizations, village cooperatives and women’s groups, to a formal partnership with the Haitian Ministry of Health to organize, manage and fund a comprehensive health care system for the city of Borgne, in one of Haiti’s most impoverished regions—no small feat in such a volatile country. In her view, engaged scholarship involves “a commitment to social justice and a willingness to examine structures of inequality.” Much of Rose-Marie’s work is accomplished collaboratively with the resilient people in the villages of Haiti—her “partners and colleagues”—and with the involvement of students who work alongside community groups and function as academic partners in research and scholarly work. SUNY-Geneseo’s provost cites the growth and development of Rose-Marie’s students as evidence of her successful scholarship: “Some of these students are currently faculty members who have chosen the path illustrated by Dr. Chierici. Others are in various stages of their undergraduate or graduate programs, but they all speak to what it meant to have Rose-Marie as a mentor.” One wrote, “Dr. Cheirici taught me by example that only by listening to community members and valuing that knowledge and experience can one participate in positive changes and improvements, a lesson often forgotten in development circles.”
Ann Feldman, Associate Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has developed a four-course, community-based writing curriculum that has, in the words of the vice provost for undergraduate affairs, “literally built a culture of teaching writing through real-world writing experiences. That is, the writing in the program is the engaged activity—it is not simply and as commonly used—a means of communicating what you did during your engaged activity.” The Chicago Civic Leadership Certificate Program (CCLCP) is the embodiment of Ann’s goals as an engaged educator and scholar. She writes, “As I argue in my new book, Making Writing Matter: Composition in the Engaged University, my goal has been to make students better writers, which, to me, means situated writers. Such writers are motivated by the particular context in which a piece of writing is called for, conceptualized, produced and delivered.” The program, in which students design and produce writing projects that are beneficial to their community partners, is carried out through the collaborative efforts of faculty, graduate students and community members (who function as both co-teachers and co-planners) and is rigorously assessed each year. The institutional impact of the program has been significant. CCLCP “has permanently changed the shape of the teaching of writing throughout the entire university, enlivened contacts between the university and the city and cultivated a new ethos of intellectually intense community involvement,” writes her department head. “[I]n four years, Dr. Feldman has brought CCLCP from a relatively marginal to an absolutely central position among UIC’s respected and valued undergraduate programs.
Lorlene Hoyt
Lorlene Hoyt, Assistant Professor, Urban Studies and Planning at MIT, has developed broad and deep relationships with residents, non-profit organizations, city employees and private sector developers in the City of Lawrence in northernmost Massachusetts over the past four years. Through the multiple projects of MIT@Lawrence, Lorlene’s work involves generating affordable housing, asset building, youth development and sustainability in the poorest areas of an economically depressed and racially divided post-industrial city.
Data from letters of support from a faculty colleague with whom she co-teaches, community partners and one of her students, as well as evidence from her syllabi combined to create a powerful narrative of engaged scholarship. Her faculty colleague writes that “the engagement in Lawrence is not simply a drop-in drop-out class for students, but an enduring commitment to combine technology, planning, institutional and political analysis and strategy to rebuilding the physical and social fabric of Lawrence’s poorest neighborhood.” MIT@Lawrence has resulted in a wide range of institutional relationships in Lawrence as well as within MIT. Recently Lorlene was awarded a Community Outreach Partnerships Centers Program (COPC) grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that integrates faculty from the Sloan School of Management, the Center for Real Estate and the Media Lab and graduate and undergraduate students from across campus to work on projects in city administration, other nonprofits, schools and local businesses.
The letter signed by her community partners—staff of Lawrence Community Works, as well as residents of the neighborhood—attests to her skills as a facilitator, shepherding through “a multi-stakeholder and inclusive process unheard of in the city of Lawrence” which has resulted in a rezoning effort that mandated the inclusion of affordable housing, a “long-range anti-gentrification strategy of immense importance to the working families of Lawrence.” Further, they acknowledged the value of a sustained co-equal partnership to their community: “Those of us ‘in the trenches’ can count on students returning every year . . . This is a change in the way universities relate to communities insofar as we are less of a laboratory that benefits the students in their professional development and more of an equal partner in an ongoing practice and dialogue around effecting change in the city.” Her graduate student detailed how he experienced the cumulative process of students building on their predecessors’ work from year to year in the community: “It is a testament to Professor Hoyt’s persistent dedication to the city of Lawrence that these MIT@Lawrence projects build off the previous one in a sustained effort to engage the Lawrence community and offer a valuable learning experience to the students involved.” As a result of student work in required practicum for a Master’s in City Planning that is committed to work in Lawrence, he reported, the Lawrence City Council is debating an ordinance designed to improve the city’s public process disposition process.
The syllabus of that practicum clearly identifies the course’s engaged underpinnings: “Unlike the conventional model of academic research and the most prevalent types of applied research, LCW members will not function as passive subjects, nor do students act as experts whose principle responsibility is to deliver a final product. Rather the practicum follows a participatory action research model whereby students work hand-in-hand with LCW members.” This commitment to working “hand-in-hand” is evidenced in her scholarship as well, with the forthcoming publication Voices from Forgotten Cities: Innovative Revitalization Coalitions in American’s Older Small Cities, co-authored with Andre Leroux from Lawrence Community Works.
Citations for Distinguished Engaged Scholarship:
Pennie Foster-Fishman, Associate Professor and Chairperson, Community-Ecological Psychology Program at Michigan State University and University Outreach and Engagement Senior Fellow. Foster-Fishman’s engaged work on how organizational, inter-organizational and community systems can improve to better meet the needs of children, youth and families is exemplified in a seven year partnership with SILC (Michigan’s State Independent Living Council). Her internal institutional impact has also been significant: Michigan State University funded Foster-Fishman to develop its Faculty Learning Community on the Scholarship of Engagement for faculty from multiple disciplines, charged with understanding the implications of engagement and the engagement process for faculty work at a research-intensive university.
Irma Ramirez, Assistant Professor, Architecture Department of the School of Environmental Design, California State Polytechnic University. Ramirez’s work involves integrating community organizing into the design and construction process of sustainable communities in deeply impoverished “colonias” in Tijuana, Mexico. In the process, students revise their notions about the skills and abilities of local residents (typically women in the community) and the authority and power of residents is acknowledged as they use previously untapped assets necessary for local civic improvements. For Cal Poly Pomona students who are unable to participate in one of the university’s many international opportunities because of the cost or family responsibilities, work in Tijuana provides an international experience that is affordable and feasible.
Glynda Hull
Glynda Hull, Professor of Language, Literacy and Culture in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley, has deepened the development of the scholarship of engagement and helped to institutionalize academic service-learning on her campus. She incorporates challenging community-based experiences with in-class instruction as a means for students to explore important, complex social issues.
In 2001 she co-founded DUSTY (Digital Underground Storytelling for Youth), a community technology center developed using a multi-disciplinary approach. Her graduate and undergraduate students work closely with children and youth, parents and community members, in creating multi-media stories about their communities, their families and their lives. Participating K-12 students, most of whom began the program with poor literacy skills, become highly motivated to read and write. In the process Hull’s students translated in-class explorations of educational problems into productive pedagogical strategies for addressing those problems. The “cascading leadership model” for service-learning in which graduate students work with undergraduate students who work with K-12 students has become a model for other academic service-learning courses at Berkeley.
In collaboration with her graduate and undergraduate students and community members, Hull has published extensively on her work. She is recognized on her campus as having made substantial contributions to advance outreach and engaged scholarship at UC Berkeley, which now aims to have at least one academic service-learning course in every department.
Julia Lupton
Julia Lupton, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine, translates theoretical academic research in British Renaissance literature into terms and activities that make sense to teachers, students and community members outside the university. She is the founding director of Humanities Out There (HOT), an educational partnership involving students and faculty from the University of California, Irvine and K-12 students and teachers from the Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD), a low performing, largely Latino/a urban school district.
Now in its eighth year, HOT engages eight graduate students and more than 200 undergraduates a year, along with faculty and staff, in developing standards-based curricula in history and literature in Santa Ana classrooms. K-12 student improvement has been documented using pre- and post-writing samples and standardized test scores. The program combines educational and civic goals including boosting reading, writing and critical thinking skills through content-rich materials of historical, artistic and scholarly significance and building academic, professional and civic ties among universities and school districts through collaborative teaching and research. Through a partnership with GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness & Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) the program is being disseminated locally and nationally.
As a direct result of Lupton’s work, UCI created a new category of distinction in the academic personnel process: excellence in public scholarship.
Katherine O’Donnell
Katherine O’Donnell, Professor of Sociology at Hartwick College, is a faculty member whose collaborative community-based scholarship and integrative pedagogical approaches span three decades. Her work has had a strong institutional impact through the development of new courses, programs and centers.
O’Donnell’s approach to pedagogy involves identifying a social need, gathering concerned students and engaging them with community organizations to address the need. Throughout her project, she reflects about the experiences through scholarly writing and develops new courses that integrate the concepts and substance of community engagement. In the early 1980s, she focused on the integration of engaged students with communities to form community-action teams and praxis groups around the themes of social justice, reproductive freedom and peace. This early work resulted in the birth of a Women’s Center on campus, a Women’s Studies program and a number of new courses, including service-learning and interdisciplinary courses. Her work then expanded to include collaborations with local high schools, colleges, health organizations and multiple community partners in the region.
In the late 1990s O’Donnell replicated her integrative pedagogical model in Chiapas, Mexico in projects that included developing fundraising and service programs to assist school clinics, supporting the building of a natural dye production facility and building an organic garden as well as a training and meeting center. O’Donnell’s advocacy efforts at Hartwick have had an institutional impact that resulted in the President creating an advisory group to assess strategies encompassing service-learning.
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Honorable Mentions:
For more than two decades, Barbara Israel, Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education in School of Public Health at University of Michigan, has applied her public health expertise to the needs of under-resourced communities through community-based participatory research. Her students, drawn from a wide array of disciplines, work in teams with community members on projects that have often have a community organizing component. Nationally known for her scholarship of engagement, she organized and chaired a school-wide committee appointed by the Dean and which remains today as a standing committee to foster community-based teaching and scholarship throughout the school.
Elizabeth Paul, Associate Professor of Psychology at The College of New Jersey, involves undergraduates in providing program and evaluation services to enhance the lives of children living in poverty in the Trenton area. Through her projects and courses, students receive training in both applied social research and the skills necessary to produce a professional research report. Beyond this, the experience allows for intensive career exploration which interests many of her students in the fields of public health, public policy, social work and applied psychology and positions them to become the next generation of community leaders and activists to serve the public good.
Marybeth Lima
Marybeth Lima, Ph.D., an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at Louisiana State University, became an engineer because she wanted to make the world a better place. She found as a student and professional that engineering often boasts of serving society, but in reality it serves entities such as private commercial interests that often overlook societal concerns. Since coming to LSU, Dr. Lima has employed service learning in her classes, a pedagogy through which she cultivates in engineering students an understanding of the social and historical aspects of people, culture and society that are central to the design process and vital to success.Dr. Lima’s goal is to guarantee that every child in public elementary schools, beginning locally in Baton Rouge and aiming nationwide, has access to a playground. Just as she conceptualizes her teaching with an eye toward fostering democratic sensibilities, she frames her professional service in engineering problem solving from multiple perspectives with an emphasis on equality, dignity and respect for all partners involved in the design process and works in close collaboration with undergraduate students, teachers and community partners in all aspects of the process including design, fundraising and implementation. As LSU’s first Service-Learning Faculty Fellow, Dr. Lima is endeavoring to establish an infrastructure and policies to support service-learning campus-wide with particular attention to promotion and tenure issues. Through work that seamlessly combines the scholarship of teaching, research and professional service, Dr. Lima truly embodies the notion of the engaged scholar.
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Honorable Mentions:
Phil Brownis, Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at Brown University, has championed the causes of numerous community groups that have struggled against toxic waste contamination and breast cancer. Through his academic work and direct activism, he has advocated for, participated in and worked to create opportunities for community-based participatory research, merging his commitment to sociology with engaged research that seeks to catalyze social and environmental justice. Dr. Brown organized the NSF-funded Contested Illness Research Project at Brown, a multidisciplinary, inter-institutional team that includes faculty, graduate and undergraduate students from several Brown departments as well as faculty from other institutions. The team has produced a number of articles in peer-reviewed journals, many of which were co-authored by undergraduate and graduate students.
Greg Lindsey is Associate Dean of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the Duey- Murphy Professor of Rural Land Policy at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). He is an environmental planner who explores ways for the university to harness its assets to assist local, regional and state leaders in solving problems and improving the life of Indiana residents. He works with agencies at the state and local levels to increase their understanding of complex problems and to create new state legislation and policy. Dr. Lindsey’s approach to service-learning provides students with opportunities to learn through practice and to enter into the world of professional service by working on problems ranging from financing municipal stormwater programs to abatement of lead poisoning in inner city youth to establishing an immigrant welcome center for new migrants to Indianapolis. He has also co-authored publications, many of them accepted in peer-reviewed journals, with students. Dr. Lindsey was the inaugural recipient of the Chancellor’s Faculty Award for Excellence in Civic Engagement at IUPUI.
Clement Alexander Price is the Board of Governors’ Distinguished Service Professor of History, Director and Founder of the Rutgers Institute on Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience at Rutgers University, Newark Campus. Dr. Price’s career is marked by a blend of traditional and public intellectual work that brings scholarship and scholars to a cross section of citizens and communities in Greater Newark. He is among the first scholars in Newark to dramatize the role of the public intellectual in ameliorating racial discord, shedding light on historical memory, dignifying the bittersweet narratives of African Americans in modern history and leading public and private institutions toward a higher standard of public service. The work of the Rutgers Institute on Ethnicity, Culture and Modern Experience Rutgers-Newark brings faculty together with teachers in the K-12 system in the Teachers as Scholars initiative, brings community leaders into campus as part of the Newark Reads DuBois project and provides cultural awareness training for Newark State Police.
Richard Eberst
Richard Eberst, Ph.D., CHES, FASHA, is the Director of Community-University Partnerships (CUP) at California State University, San Bernardino and professor and former Chairperson of the Health Science and Human Ecology Department. As the founding Director of CUP, Dr. Eberst developed many community partnerships and advanced community engagement efforts across all five divisions of the university. Having earned his Ph.D. in Health Education from the University of Maryland, his M.S. in Physiology and Health Science from Ball State University and his B.S. in Biology and Chemistry from Park University, he is a true academician and scholar. Further, Dr. Eberst unites his disciplinary expertise with community needs to benefit students and the neighboring communities through a deep commitment to the scholarship of engagement. As a direct result of his efforts, there have been major increases in the number of CSUSB faculty and students who are engaged in the San Bernardino community and making a difference across the region. Dr. Eberst is passionate about bringing faculty scholarship into the community and was responsible for the addition of “Community Engagement” in CSUSB’s Strategic Plan. His “Focus 92411” initiative has involved community hospitals, public health departments and many local community organizations to improve the quality of life for residents. Yet, his work has not stopped there. He also started many other community partnerships such as: the Vital Communities Dialogue Partnership; the 40th Street Neighborhood Regeneration Partnership; the African-American Health Initiative, the Community Benefits Collaborative and the PAL Center Partnership.
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Honorable Mentions:
Bunyan Bryant, Ph.D. is the Director and Co-Founder of the Environmental Justice Initiative at the University of Michigan in the School of Natural Resources and Environment. Dr. Bryant has been involved in linking advocacy and activism with social justice on campus and within the community. He is often called upon to speak and teach as an expert on issues of environmental justice and organizational advocacy. Believing that no other concern threatens nations more than global climate change, he has merged his commitment to issues of social inequality with his passion for environmental justice. In this spirit, Dr. Bryant has worked with his students to plan international Environmental Justice Global Climate Change conferences and to encourage grassroots activism.
Marybeth Lima, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at Louisiana State University. Through her service-learning classes, Dr. Lima has worked alongside her undergraduate students to design, implement and raise funds for “dream playgrounds,” butterfly gardens and even an outside classroom for elementary school students. Working in collaboration with teachers and community partners, Dr. Lima’s goal is to build a safe playground for every public school in Baton Rouge, all of which will be accessible for physically challenged children and will incorporate the children’s own creativity. Dr. Lima widely disseminates what she has learned about engineering and community development through publications and presentations. Her commitment extends not only to the higher education community but also to primary and secondary science teachers through a statewide workshop called “Experience Science Saturday” and to various community organizations.
Shirley Tang, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston where she holds an unprecedented joint appointment in American Studies and Asian American Studies. Dr. Tang has rich experience working in and with immigrant and refugee communities; she has organized various advocacy efforts in Southeast Asian American communities and has led collaborative research projects in the Boston area. Her teaching and research interests include: Asian immigrant/refugee community research; women of color/youth expressive culture; and comparative race/ethnicity/culture. Dr. Tang is currently engaged in a number of research projects, including a manuscript based on her extensive fieldwork as a street outreach worker working with gang-involved youth.
Joseph A. Gardella
Joseph A. Gardella, Jr. is Professor of Chemistry and Associate Dean for External Affairs in the College of Arts and Sciences at SUNY Buffalo. As an undergraduate at Oakland University in Rochester, MI, he completed a dual degree program in chemistry (B.S.) and Philosophy (B.A.) He received a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh and spent a postdoctoral year at the University of Utah before coming to SUNY Buffalo (UB) in 1982. Dr. Gardella has received numerous awards for research and teaching including the SUNY Chancellor’s Medal for Excellence in Teaching in 1996.
At UB he juggles faculty and administrative roles. He is a full professor in the Chemistry Department and is also Associate Dean for External Affairs within the College of Arts and Sciences where he coordinates and leads the College’s outreach programs to industry, community organizations, government and the local schools. He directs the UB Materials Research Instrumentation Facility, serves as a visiting scientist and program officer at the National Science Foundation and chairs numerous campus committees including the university-wide general education curriculum committee. In all of these roles, Dr. Gardella strives to make the university more responsive and accessible to students, including non-science majors and to the community. He teaches and mentors young faculty, graduate and undergraduate students and community members to carry out and use scientific research in meaningful ways. He incorporates innovative pedagogies including case-study method, collaborative learning and service-learning and works with undergraduates, graduates and faculty across disciplines on solving community problems in environmental pollution. He and his students have developed new models of community participation and shared decision-making in environmental research that have impacted policy development and practice. His work reflects his philosophy, that “the best way to view education as a scientist is to consider that science education is liberal education and that it is a seamless enterprise.”
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Honorable Mentions:
Richard Eberst, Ph.D., Director, Community-University Partnerships, Professor and Past Chairs, Health Science and Human Ecology at California State University San Bernardino. Dr. Eberst is being recognized for his career spanning work in improving the over-all quality of life and health in the region. Projects have included the creation of Community-University Partnerships (CUP), a unit at the university that spans all five Divisions and works to serve a huge geographical area comprised of one of the most diverse populations in the United States; “Focus 92411,” a community outreach partnership among the residents of the 92411 zip code involving the community hospital, public health department, the university and many local community-based organizations to improve the overall quality of life for those who work and live in that zip code; and the “African-American Health Initiative” to address the health disparities that exist between African-Americans and other groups in the county. In addition to his own scholarship reflecting the learning of these partnerships, hundreds of colleagues, students and community partners have studied and developed policies and action agendas through them as well.
Ira Harkavy, Ph.D., Associate Vice President and Director, Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania. From the formation of the Office of Community-Oriented Policy Studies in the early 80’s, to the development of Penn Program for Public Service in the School of Arts and Sciences and the creation of the Center for Community Partnerships in the Office of the President, he has helped Penn shape an infrastructure to support the scholarship of engagement by faculty and students. He has written extensively on the issues of engaged scholarship for more than a decade, helping us all think more clearly on the “why” as well as the “how” of civic engagement. Dr. Harkavy’s writings are frequently cited in the literature on service-learning, democratic pedagogy, community-university-school partnerships, community-based action research and university civic engagement. Dr. Harkavy is being honored for his contributions to scholarship, the community and society through his creative integration of research, teaching and service.
Kathleen A. Staudt, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science and Director, Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) at the University of Texas at El Paso. We honor Dr. Staudt for her work with schools, families and numerous institutions in the El Paso area. Through her work at CCE, Dr. Staudt has aimed to create a model for the engaged university, providing opportunities for faculty members and students to partner with the community through community-based research and service-learning. Dr. Staudt has consistently invited graduate and undergraduate students to present with her at local state and national conferences. Out of her work with the community she has published numerous books and articles, frequently engaging in joint topics concerning human rights and social justice with students, colleagues and community partners. Dr. Staudt’s influence and impact are multiplied as like-minded faculty have been enabled to pursue their outreach interests with institutional support. Her mentoring and support has enabled junior faculty to undertake new challenges and projects and senior faculty to further develop some of their preexisting programs.
Francisco H. Vázques, Ph.D., Professor, Hutchins School of Liberal Studies and Director, Hutchins Institute for Public Policy and Community Action, Sonoma State University. Dr. Vázques is honored for his work on democratic citizen participation among Latinos. He created the Latino Student Congress, a program that gave Latino students a voice in expressing the issues that mattered most to them. The objective was for students to go beyond discussing the issues that they confronted and formulate policies that would address them. Dr. Vázques has received grants to improve the attrition rates of migrant students and to study the practice of and beliefs regarding civic engagement among Latino High School students in Sonoma County. He co-authored Latino/a Thought: Culture, Politics and Society (2003) which addresses issues of public citizenship and the rights of people regardless of their geographical or cultural locations. The book is designed for young people, with a special introduction on power, knowledge, language and every day life and with exercises and guidelines to become a community organizer and active citizen.
Patricia A. Keener
Patricia A. Keener, M.D., Director for the Social and Community Contexts of Health Care Competency, Associate Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics, Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Assistant Dean for Medical Service-Learning at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr. Keener’s various titles speak to the many areas that she has impacted over the past thirty years. The thousands of students, peers, community organizations and individuals that have been touched by the efforts that she has led or been involved with establishing, such as: the Indianapolis Campaign for Healthy Babies, the First Medical Director of the Wishard Memorial Hospital Community Health Centers, the Hispanic/Latino Health Access Initiative, the Hispanic Pediatric Clinic and Immunization Outreach, Safe Sitter, Inc., Laptop Kids and the Office of Medical Service-Learning. Dr. Keener created Safe Sitter, Inc in 1980 as a national community-based resource for child-care/parenting education that is available at over 800 sites with over 4,000 trained instructors. The fact that over 300,000 young adolescents have successfully completed the training is evidence of the impact of this program. Each of the programs cited above have similar stories to tell of the dramatic and long-lasting impacts that have occurred due to Dr. Keener putting her professional service to work in her community. As noted by her nominator “her career could serve as a template for connecting the medical school to the university at large, for connecting the university to the local community and in the process forging a vital connection between herself and the community.”
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Honorable Mentions:
Richard Cherwitz, Ph.D., Associate Dean of the Graduate College and Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Cherwitz is being recognized for the innovative program entitled the Intellectual Entrepreneurship Program. This program involves faculty and graduate students from across the campus in developing innovative, collaborative and sustainable ways for universities to work with their communities to solve complex problems. Each year hundreds of students and faculty are involved in their community and are putting the knowledge that is created to work to benefit the larger society.
Robert A. Findlay, Ph.D., FAIA, Professor of Architecture at Iowa State University. Dr. Findlay is being recognized for his thirty years of local to international work related to design education and disaster management for sustainable community design. He has engaged his students with a focus on the social purposes and impacts of designed environments. His use of an innovative methodology that enables egalitarian exchanges between community participants, design practitioners and students has transformed his courses and those of his peers.
Sherril B. Gelmon, Dr.P.H., F.A.C.H.E., Professor of Public Health, Division of Public Administration, Mark O. Hatfield School of Government and School of Community Health, College of Urban and Public Affairs at Portland State University . Dr. Gelmon is being recognized for her sustained commitment to teaching, scholarship, community development, consultation and volunteer activity that blends her professional service with service to the institution, the students and the community. Her efforts to put her disciplinary expertise to work have resulted in addressing many important social concerns such as community health improvement, breast cancer, rural access to health care for the elderly, homeless youth and community collaboration.
Joann Keyton, Ph.D., Faculty Ombudsperson in Academic Affairs and Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Memphis. Dr. Keyton is being recognized for her committed effort to put her professional service into action by providing analytical abilities and facilitated training workshops for nonprofit leaders and practitioners throughout the region. She has utilized her research to benefit the community for both area governmental and nonprofit organizations. Her students have been intricately involved with designing and conducting research projects that have identified ways in which the organizations could improve delivery of their service activities and determine the effectiveness of training programs.
Ram L. Chugh, Ph.D., Distinguished Service Professor of Economics, Director of the Merwin Rural Services Institute and Special Assistant to the President for Public Service at the State University of New York at Potsdam. Dr. Chugh is being recognized for his long-standing efforts to integrate his research, students and expertise with the regional social and economic development in upstate New York. His research has focused on the rural economy and the real world problems that are faced by the people who live and work in his region. The institution and SUNY system have been impacted by his ability to put things into practice through developing strategic partnerships that sustain the emerging products or services.
Kenneth Reardon is an Associate Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University (Ithaca, NY). Dr. Reardon is a leading practitioner in teaching, involving and leading his students in participatory action research methods to transform both the worlds of the university and the community with which they work. Dr. Reardon is constantly sharing his research and experiences through his invited lectures and publications that document the power of his efforts to empower residents and students alike. He shows what is possible through action research that builds racially diverse organizations capable of learning and acting on the world to improve local conditions of poverty, environmental and social decay and governmental inefficacy. Through his professional service and academic outreach he has worked with individuals and organizations from grass-root organizations in East St. Louis, to the Office of University Partnerships at HUD, to the United Nations.
Ching-chih Chen is a Professor of Library Science at Simmons College (Boston, Massachusetts). Dr. Chen is a leading researcher in the use of microcomputers, digital imaging, multimedia and communications technologies. Dr. Chen utilizes her professional service and academic outreach to develop new technologies to better enable the practitioners of library science. In addition, she has brought her teachings to over 30 countries to provide training for research and educational programs in the fields of library and information studies. Dr. Chen has published, presented, initiated projects that enable the development of and has lead the effort to broaden the use of technology for the global internetworking of libraries. Dr. Chen has been recognized for her work on many levels including being appointed by President Clinton to the Presidential Information Technology Advisory Committee in 1997.
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Honorable Mentions:
Nicholas Cutforth is an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction in the College of Education at the University of Denver. Dr. Cutforth’s areas of academic outreach have included urban education, school-university collaboration, ethnographic research and program evaluation. Dr. Cutforth is being recognized for his efforts to utilize physical education and recreation as a means of improving youth development and as a bridge between universities and communities.
Kathleen Farber is an Associate Professor of Educational Foundations and Inquiry/Women’s Studies and Director of Partnerships for Community Action at Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, OH). Dr. Farber is being recognized for her efforts to integrate professional service and academic outreach with the research efforts of university faculty and expanding the educational opportunities available to students and community members. The partnerships that she facilitates are dedicated to redefining the relationship between the university and the broader community through building and sustaining projects that enhance equal educational opportunity, economic development, health and wellness and cultural awareness in Northwest Ohio.
Pierrette Hondagneau-Sotelo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Southern California. Dr. Hondagneau-Sotelo is being recognized for research efforts and involvement of her students in the study and understanding of the lives of the poorest and most disenfranchised immigrants. She not only challenges herself and her students by increasing the data documenting this population, but she also challenges people to become advocates on the behalf of this population.
Rose Jensen is the Director of the Beard Center on Aging and Associate Professor of Sociology at Lynchburg College (Lynchburg, VA). Dr. Jensen is being recognized for her efforts to combine her teaching, learning and research on the complexity of the aging experience and to promote positive aging, socialization and relationships across generations. Her ability to combine her students’ learning and her research has expanded the opportunities available to the senior population in her region of the country.
Judith Primavera is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Fairfield University (Fairfield, CT). Dr. Primavera is being recognized for her efforts to develop, lead and sustain the teaching and research efforts associated with the Adrienne Kirby Family Literacy Project. This project is a true partnership that links Fairfield University and Action for Bridgeport Community Development in a “resource exchange network” that enables university students, community members and faculty members to utilize one anothers’ expertise talents in mutually beneficial ways.
Jean Trounstine is Professor of Humanities at Middlesex Community College (Bedford, MA). Professor Trounstine is being recognized for her efforts to empower and challenge both her students and women in prison through English composition and Drama. Her research and teaching have enabled students to reach new levels of development and have taught them how to utilize their voices to address social concerns. Her book, Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama in a Women’s Prison, based on this work and one of her courses, will be published this year by Saint Martin’s Press.
Richard A. Couto
Richard A. Couto is Professor and George Matthews and Virginia Brinkley Modlin Chair in Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. Over the past 25 years, his engaged scholarship has integrated community-based, problem-centered
teaching and research. Linking participatory action research, community change and policy is a cornerstone of each effort he undertakes whether at the local, national or international level. Dr. Couto, along with his students, works with community groups through multi-site programs that contribute to the development of health services, social services and community organizations in low-income, rural communities. His work has influenced colleagues, court cases, public policy, foundation programs, community leaders and organizations and, most notably, students.
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Honorable Mentions:
Fran Ansley is a Professor in the College of Law at the University of Tennessee Knoxville (UTK). A founder of the Community Partnerships Center at UTK, Dr. Ansley and her students have conducted community-based research on issues related to welfare reform and empowering recent immigrants in the state of Tennessee
Gail Della Piana is an Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture and Interdisciplinary Studies at Miami University in Ohio. She has developed exchange programs and innovative collaborations between Miami University and universities and village communities in Ghana.
Brenda Jarmon is an Assistant Professor and the Associate Director of the Undergraduate Program in the School of Social Work at Florida State University. Focusing on the needs of the Tallahassee, Florida community, particularly in the area of teen pregnancy prevention, Dr. Jarmon has demonstrated a passion for educating and inspiring others.
Kenneth Reardon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This year he is also a Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University. His work in East St. Louis, Illinois links his academic research and teaching of architecture and urban planning with revitalizing a disadvantaged community.
Steven Zuckeris the Director of the Area Health Education Centers Program and a Professor in the College of Osteopathic Medicine, the College of Allied Health and the College of Dentistry at Nova Southeastern University. Dr. Zucker’s research and teaching efforts have improved the access to and quality of health services for isolated and remote rural communities, inner-city communities and minority groups on a local, state and national level.
Kathryn Pyne Addelson, Mary Huggins Gamble Professor of Philosophy, History of Science; andFrédérique Apffel Marglin, Professor of Anthropology, are the co-founders of the Center for Mutual Learning at Smith College, MA. The Center endeavors to connect the academic world to communities in the United States and South American. Dr. Addelson and Dr. Apffel Marglin’s work centers on how professional expert knowledge needs to change in order to learn with and from local communities. They have developed new epistemological theories and concepts, which help to form a bridge between learning in the academy and learning in the community.
Joseph Bathanti, Professor of English, Program Coordinator of the Humanities Division and Writer-in-Residence at Mitchell Community College in Statesville, North Carolina. Dr. Bathanti’s belief in the power of writing extends the walls of his classroom to encompass the community. It is in this extended classroom that his deep commitment to education as a vehicle of social and intellectual change comes to bear. His work involves many groups that society often overlooks – prisoners, battered women and the poor.
Leonard Fleck is Professor of Philosophy and Medical Ethics in the Center for Ethics and Humanities and the Philosophy Department at Michigan State University. His special interests lie in medical ethics and particularly, in issues of social and economic justice in the allocation of health care resources. Through the “Just Caring Project,” he uses his skills as a philosopher-ethicist to facilitate community dialogs that bring together citizens and opinion leaders to determine moral values in health care. The ultimate goal is to create a more informed electorate to participate in political decision making about the future of health care.
Peter Kiang is an Associate Professor in the Graduate College of Education and the American Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Dr. Kiang is the founder of the University’s Institute for Asian American Studies and the University’s Center for Immigrant and Refugee Community Leadership and Empowerment. Currently, his work focuses on analyzing racial conflict in schools, developing leadership with Asian American youth and immigrant/refugee communities and ensuring access by communities of color to the information superhighway.
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Honorable Mentions:
Clint Gould, Associate Professor, Humanities; and Coordinator, AIDS Education Program, Community College of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for his work in HIV/AIDS education, prevention, policy and research.
Meredith Minkler, Professor and Chair, Community Health Education Program, Division of Health and Medical Sciences, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, for her work in fostering the development of healthy communities.
Mary Morton, Associate Professor, Biology; Charles A. Dana Faculty Fellow; and Science Projects Coordinator, College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, for her work with K-12 public school teachers and students on innovative biology curricula and pedagogy.
Thomas O’Toole, Assistant Professor, Division of General, Internal Medicine; Associate Director, Division of General, Internal Medicine Fellowship Program; and Course Co-Director, School of Medicine, Ambulatory Care Course at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for establishing clinics that provide healthcare to the homeless.
Robert Prigo, Professor, Physics, Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, for his work with local K-12 teachers and administrators on inquiry-based, science teaching and learning.
Linda Silka, Professor, Regional Economic and Social Development and Director, Center for Family, Work and Community, University of Massachusetts Lowell , for her efforts to promote and enhance skill building with local immigrant groups.
Robert Sykes, Associate Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, for his work that integrates design principles for physical space with new political and institutional frameworks for community building.
Ann Withorn, Professor of Social Policy, College of Public and Community Service, University of Massachusetts Boston , for her work on welfare rights and social justice.
Mark Chesler
Mark Chesler, Professor of Sociology and Project Director of Center for Research on Social Organization at the University of Michigan. Working with students as co-investigators, Dr. Chesler’s service and participant-in-action research addresses issues involving in families with childhood cancer, racism and social discrimination and injustice in organizations. He has directed community service learning courses for 20 years and organized workshops to help faculty to improve teaching in areas of diversity.
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Honorable Mentions:
Albert Camarillo, Professor of History, Stanford University for his work on poverty and homeless issues.
Hiram Fitzgerald, Professor of Psychology and Chair, Applied Developmental Science Program, Michigan State University for his work on infants and model university-community programs.
Frances Johnston, Professor, Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania whose academic outreach is in nutrition both locally and in Guatemala.
Patricia O’ Connor, Assistant Professor of English, Georgetown University for her work with prison inmates.
David Orr, Professor and Chair, Environmental Studies and Politics, Oberlin College for his work on the environment.
Geneva Smitherman, Professor of English and Director of African-American Language and Literacy Program, Michigan State University for her work on the relationship between community relations and community speech and language and literacy programs.
Bird Stasz, Director of Elementary Education, Wells College for establishing the student literacy corps and outreach in community based literacy and adult education.
Maria deLourdes Serpa
Maria deLourdes Serpa, Director of the Special Needs Program, School of Education, Lesley University, MA. An experienced classroom teacher in both general and bilingual special education, Dr. Serpa has worked in education at the local, state, national and international levels on literacy and language issues for underserved immigrant school populations and their families. She has been recognized for her service by the Massachusetts Commissioner of Education and, most recently, received the Commander of Public Instruction Award from the President of Portugal.