by Mina Silberberg, PhD, Faculty Director, Duke Center for Community Engagement
Community-engaged scholarship aims to create equitable long-term partnerships between university and community groups to address pressing societal issues. Could a collaborative project benefit your work? Below are some ways to explore this question.
1. Skill up on equitable partnerships. What are the key principles of, and frameworks for, community-engaged scholarship? How is it being done, and what is being learned, across the nation? Start with this 5-minute read: Duke’s Principles of Engagement. Or, if you want a deep dive, download paper published by the CDC with input from 100 practitioners including Duke Health.
2. Connect with others working on the same issues. See the wide range of existing projects and identify potential collaborators with the Partnerships and Initiatives Map (login required). Then, contact with the Duke Center for Community Engagement to set up time for assistance in connecting.
3. Collaborate on a project this summer. Are you a community organization that could benefit from having a Duke graduate student work with you this summer? Are you a doctoral student who wants to work with communities? A few opportunities remain for funded community-engaged fellowships this summer.
4. Have you been involved in community-engaged research and run into challenges with supporting structures such as contracts, compensation, or ethics review? Provide input to the task force focused on reducing administrative barriers to community-engaged scholarship. Learn more about the work the group is doing.
5. Bookmark the Duke Center for Community Engagement website and sign up for the newsletter for more resources.
This column was originally published in the DCA Newsletter. Sign up.
This column is part of our Level Up series recommending resources to help you skill up on a different topic each month. Sign up for our newsletter to get future updates. Email Aimee Munsell to submit a potential topic and/or guest author.
