CAMPUS PROFILE

(Providence, Rhode Island)

Brown University concluded its pilot stage of a new undergraduate fellows program in which students work with faculty to plan and/or implement community-engaged courses. In 2019-2020, a program builder team comprised of students, partners, a faculty fellow, and Swearer Center staff designed the Community-Based Learning and Research (CBLR) Fellows Program to offer a pathway for curricular engagement among Brown undergraduates, while enhancing the capacity of faculty and community partners to refine existing and co-create new CBLR-designated courses. For students, this leadership experience ideally relates to their academic interests, supports their sustained engagement with community partners or issues they care about, and furthers their skills in communication, partnership development, organizing and problem-solving. Grounded in a strong tradition of peer mentoring and advising at Brown, the program is also part of a broader strategy to support interested faculty in collaborating with students and community partners to address community-driven or -defined priorities. During the 2020-2021 academic year pilot stage, 10 student fellows were matched in one- or two-semester partnership with faculty teaching 10 engaged courses in Anthropology (2), Education, English, French, History, Literary Arts, Public Health (2), and Theatre Arts and Performance Studies.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, President Paxson announced the Healthy Brown plan, which shifted Brown’s 2020-2021 usual two-semester academic year to three terms and delayed first-years’ enrollment to spring, carrying significant implications for both the schedule of course offerings and students’ enrollment plans, and requiring all community engagement activities and many courses to happen remotely. Acknowledging the impact of the pandemic on engaged courses, the Swearer Center released guidelines for engagement, committing to core principles for all its programs, including, “prioritize and expand opportunities for students to contribute to advocacy, public policy, fundraising, and other capacity building or systemic change efforts, in addition to direct service, which may not be possible in on-line settings.” Remarkably, all the CBLR fellows and faculty remained committed to their collaborations. Adapting to a challenging context, 6 fellowed courses were offered in Spring 2021, with others planned for Summer and Fall 2021. During the pilot stage, student fellows are working with faculty on: 

• Curriculum development, such as designing assignments or reflective activities; 

• Facilitating specific discussions and identifying relevant resources; 

• Cultivating and coordinating relationships with community partners;

• Mentoring students around community engagement components of the course; 

• Documenting and disseminating the results of engaged courses; and 

• Supporting longer-term engagement with community partners. 

Swearer Center staff -- Julie Plaut (Assistant Dean of the College & Director of Engaged Scholarship), Annaka Paradis-Burnett (Graduate Student Program Coordinator), and Carmine Perrotti (Assistant Director, Engaged Scholarship) -- held monthly virtual meetings via Zoom with the student fellows throughout Fall 2020 and Spring 2021. Topics for many meetings were identified by the fellows, including: supporting effective remote community engagement; how to engage with community partners in supportive ways given our current context; what roles student fellows can play in supporting and mentoring students in the engaged courses they are following; and community engagement and self-care. Julie also convened a discussion with faculty partners in December, Annaka met individually with each student fellow in February, and Carmine is meeting with each faculty/student pair in March. Calls for students applications and faculty applications for the 2021-2022 academic year were released in January, and the Swearer Center staff and one current fellow (a graduating senior) are now interviewing, selecting, and matching applicants.

Students, faculty, and community partners involved in the pilot stage are playing a major role in evaluating and refining the program model for the future. In addition to gathering feedback in meetings, student fellows and faculty will complete an anonymous online survey in April. These evaluative activities will also contribute to a broader assessment of the Community-Based Learning and Research (CBLR) curricular program / course designation, which was launched in 2018. In 2020 the Swearer Center worked with the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning to add specific questions to the new student feedback survey for CBLR courses, and we will work with the Office of Institutional Research to collect additional relevant data. This broader CBLR program assessment will be reviewed with members of the College Curriculum Council next year. 

In the meantime, course instructors and student fellows have identified significant benefits from their collaborations -- and some creative adaptations to remote work. Multiple fellows and faculty reported broadening their approach to community engagement while online/remote, acknowledging that students can participate in engaged work within their own community contexts. The fellow in ANTH 1300: Anthropology of Addiction and Recovery presented on remote research engagement to students in the course and then the cohort of fellows, while the fellow in ANTH 1515: Anthropology of Mental Health facilitated a session on ethical engagement and consulted one-on-one with students navigating constrained engagement opportunities. Others found that holding class sessions and other activities over Zoom increased accessibility for guest speakers, and eliminating transportation time for students engaging with local community members left more time for direct engagement. 

Faculty and student fellows have certainly missed in-person engagement, expressing frustration even as they attributed the challenge to COVID. Fellows would have preferred to be able to connect regularly with their undergraduate peers in the remote courses that they were following. 

Students in ENVS 1557: Birding Communities found teaching elementary students over Zoom difficult because of poor internet connections, which weren’t fully fixed by providing a hotspot at the partner school, and asked if they could lead outdoor activities if they followed strict safety protocols. 

The instructor and community partner for FREN 1410T: l’Expérience des réfugiés et des immigrés: déplacements, migrations decided to delay the course until engagement in person would be possible again. The flexibility of the fellowship program allowed the fellow to support course planning rather than implementation, including researching and contributing new course materials for the course syllabus. He also drew on other Swearer Center programs (e.g., the Bonner Community Fellowship and Community Corps) to develop a plan for longer-term engagement with Women’s Refugee Care. 

The instructor and student fellow for PHP 1820: Designing Education for Better Prisoner and Community Health have deemed the program “transformative” in creating a sustainable model for longer-term engagement with specific community partners. Because the fellow had already taken the course, she could continue to steward critical community-engaged projects that required more than one semester to complete. Students have developed, for instance, a toolkit for mothers and advocates concerned about protecting parental rights, which is now in the process of being digitized for broader access.

In TAPS 1281W and 1281Z: Artists and Scientists as Partners: Theory and Practice, students work with skilled teachers learning about teaching dance for people with Parkinson’s disease or autism spectrum disorders. Students also pitch new ideas they identify over the course of their placement and present solutions at the end of the term -- and this year, students have formed a new co-curricular student group, “Artscience Collaborative,” to support continued engagement with community partners beyond the course. Group members have solicited assistance from their CBLR fellow to learn more about Swearer Center resources and good practices in community engagement.

These examples illustrate the creativity and dedication of CBLR fellows and faculty who, together with their community partners, adapted engaged courses in a very challenging context.