2011-2012 Speaker Series
As the new year begins, farmers use this seemingly quiet time to turn attention to preparing for the growing season ahead. With these opportunities, stay local and participate in discussions with community and university colleagues from near and far about the impacts of engagement.
RENEWING THE SOIL FOR COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Nadinne Cruz (Bio)
Speaker, Author, Independent Consultant
February 16 & 17, 2012
CHALLENGES OF CHANGE AGENCY: A Student Workshop
Thursday, February 16, 2012, 7:00pm-9:00pm
Joyner Room, EUC
Leadership for a worthy cause with idealistic goals can be discouraging, not only because of all the hard work it requires of us, but because the challenge of complex group dynamics—the “dramas” small and large—can stop good work from moving forward. How should we address the gap between ideals and the realities of group work? Nadinne will share experiences and offer a framework to deal with a topic that is often hidden away but is necessary to leading for change.
RENEWING THE SOIL FOR COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: A Faculty Workshop
Friday, February 17, 2012, 9:30am-12:00pm
Maple Room, EUC
Weaving poetry with stories of her own journeys as a pioneering practitioner of service-learning, Nadinne invites faculty to pause for reflection on what is at stake in “being sustainable” in the practice of community engagement.
PUBLICLY ENGAGED GRADUATE EDUCATION: A Graduate Student Workshop
Friday, February 17, 2012, 1:00pm-3:00pm
Joyner Room, EUC
Will publicly engaged graduate education help break the cycle of reproductive “schooling,” or will it become yet another academic specialty? Nadinne will share her perspectives to launch discussion. What is your view? How will you shape the future of publicly engaged graduate education?
STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT vs. REAL WORLD SIGNIFICANCE
Sam Wineburg, Ph. D. (Bio)
Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and (by courtesy) of History at Stanford Univ.
Friday, February 17, 2012, 12:00pm-1:00pm
2711 Moore Humanities & Research Administration (MHRA) Building
A lunchtime talk on how research on historical understanding has had to change to reach real kids and real teachers in our nation’s urban schools. Lunch will be provided to registrants!
FIELDWORKING
THE ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH PROCESS FOR ENGAGED COMMUNITY PROJECTS
Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, Ph. D. (Bio)
Professor of Rhetoric & Composition, UNCG
Wednesday, February 22, 4:00pm-5:00pm
UNCG Faculty Center
FieldWorking is an engaging guide to the fundamentals of ethnographic study, complete with practical help for research and writing. Emphasizing civic responsibility and community engagement, FieldWorking incorporates examples by professional writers such as Mark Singer, Pico Iyer, Joan Didion, and Jamaica Kincaid, as well as student research projects on topics as diverse as a local truck stop, dinner clubs, blogging, and a horse sales barn, to help students identify and define their own subcultures and communities. Because students are connected to their research, FieldWorking’s ethnographic approach makes projects fascinating and empowering for all students as they learn to observe, listen, interpret, analyze, and write about the people and artifacts around them.
CULTIVATING PARTNERSHIPS FOR OUR FUTURE
Barbara Holland, Ph.D . (Bio)
Higher Education Consultant, Professor at Portland State University and University of Sydney (Australia), Senior Scholar at IUPUI
The Nexus Between Interdisciplinary and Community-engaged Scholarship
Friday, March 16, 8:30-9:30am,
MHRA, 3rd Floor Faculty Lounge
To fully and appropriately address the complex and critical social and environmental issues of our time will require an interdisciplinary approach that is equally complex and critical. Join our morning gathering with others who are interested in exploring the nexus between interdisciplinary and community-engaged scholarship and opportunities. Through the course of this hour together, we will discover common themes that unite our interests and learn about exemplary models that advance profound and innovative models of collaboration to maximize intellectual and human capital for the benefit of all involved.
Keynote Address: Cultivating Partnerships for our Future: Engagement Strategies to Benefit the Community and University
Friday, March 16, 2012, 10:00am – 11:30am
329 Nursing Moore Building
Areas to be covered include: the future of higher education and why we need a community engagement plan; what it takes to develop and support cross-sector partnerships for mutual benefit through a dynamic relational approach; examples of how some universities and communities are partnering for profound change and impact.
Master Class: Measuring and Monitoring Community Engagement
Friday, March 16, 2012, 2:00pm – 4:00pm
Claxton Room, EUC
Understanding who, what, when, where, and why about community engagement activities is essential to the continuous improvement of programs and initiatives. Data is equally important in telling the full story of our organizations’ impact on the student and public communities we serve. This workshop will provide participants with strategies to identify measures, as well as collect, evaluate, and use data that aligns with their program’s or institution’s priorities. We encourage participants from UNCG and beyond, especially university faculty and staff, as well as leaders and administrators in community-serving, business, and civic organizations who wish to use data to improve programs and demonstrate their important outcomes to others.
SETTING THE STAGE FOR COMMUNITY-BASED SCHOLARSHIP
PUPPET SHOWS AND HEALTH COMMUNICATION
Rebecca Dumlao, Ph. D. (Bio)
School of Communication, East Carolina University
Friday, March 30 2012, 2:00pm-3:30pm
Maple Room, Elliott University Center
Setting the Stage for Community-Based Scholarship:
Puppet Shows and Health Communication
Healthy eating and diabetes are major health priorities in North Carolina. In 2006, diabetes alone cost North Carolinians an estimated $3.6 billion! The innovative Health Communication Puppetry initiative addresses this important problem using puppetry as a fun way to reach at-risk children and their families. The initiative started by health/family communication scholars is intentionally designed to share healthy eating and diabetes prevention messages and involves a team of interdisciplinary experts as well as undergraduate and graduate students through service-learning. This work builds upon established theories, other puppetry “success stories”, and partners with existing community programs. Still, building a sustainable program to address the problem effectively requires extensive planning, long-term program development/revision, and careful relationship building. This presentation will address the groundwork required to establish partnerships for scholarship and teaching, show the puppets-in-action using a video clip, and explain the foundations for this work. Insights and lessons learned to date will be described as well as planned next steps. Scholarly products developing from this work will also be detailed. Discussion from those attending will be welcomed.
DESIGNING PLACE
A FRAMEWORK FOR MULTIDISCIPLINARY EXPLORATION OF PLACE-BASED NARRATIVES IN SOUTH-PARK EAST RALEIGH
Kermit Bailey, (Bio)
Graphic Design, College of Design, North Carolina State University
The intersection of place, space, and race provide rich theoretical and methodological terrain for multidisciplinary research. With this working assumption in mind, a research question is positioned: How can complementary practices in the exploration of place-based narratives suggest a multidisciplinary framework for graphic design, landscape architecture, and linguistics as specific to issues of transformation and change in South Park East Raleigh?
As a common spatial context and parameter for the project, the three disciplines all explored The South Park-East Raleigh Historic District, the largest African-American neighborhood in Raleigh, and whose state-wide historical significance is notable. This presentation will provide an opportunity to discuss and identify the models of success, as well as the benefits and challenges, involved in conducting multidisciplinary, engagement-oriented research. The research and making, which focused on the neighborhood revitalization efforts, is especially relevant given Raleigh’s current focus on urban renewal and downtown revitalization. The historic South Park East Raleigh community, with a strong acknowledgement of cultural memory and heritage, provided an opportunity to develop effective methods for collecting audio and visual data in support of documenting the community‘s cultural values and preserving historic neighborhood characteristics. A range of visual design products were developed to simultaneously articulate the neighborhood‘s cultural assets and critically model the community‘s vision of physical spaces and subjectivities.
The 2012 Community Engagement Speaker Series is sponsored by the UNCG Office of the Provost, Office of Research & Economic Development, Office of Leadership & Service-Learning, Office of Undergraduate Studies, College of Arts & Sciences, MERGE, and the Public Scholarship Graduate Network.
