Spotlight on Towson University’s Communities of Engaged Practice
In this month’s Member Spotlight, we feature a range of exciting projects from Towson University’s work at the intersection of community-engaged art, scholarship, and co-curricular programs. Featured projects include: Re-imagining Schools Collaborative, Impact TU, and the recently launched Imagining America Communities of Practice initiative.
Reimagining Schools Collaborative
Morna McNulty (College of Education) and Diane Kuthy (College of Fine Arts) have partnered with an international collective of educators/artists and youth groups to create an ongoing Reimagining Schools collaborative. What started as a class project with students from Samuel Taylor Coleridge Elementary has now become part of a 2024 presentation and publication from the European Conference of Qualitative Inquiry, an event hosted by the Learning Planet Festival.
The international project shares an open call to anyone interested in sharing their visions for “dream schools” of the future at this link: Reimagining Schools.
Impact TU
The Office of Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility along with campus partners reimagined its largest day of community service to provide more intentional opportunities for learning, storytelling, and reflection. Now called Impact TU, the program connects 500 TU students with 30 local partner groups committed to fostering sustainable communities.
We’re introducing the idea of ‘local action for social change’ and how students can use today as a building block for creating positive change in the TU community. We want the students to understand that to achieve sustainable communities, everyone must feel like they matter, and we have to work together to take care of each other.
Romy Hübler
Director, Office of Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility
Students participate in an interactive educational session and hands-on projects focused on environmental sustainability, economic security, social well-being, and civic engagement to learn how to foster sustainable communities at TU and beyond. The program received the
2024 BTU-Partnerships for Greater Baltimore Partnership Award.
Imagining America Community of Practice
TU launched an Imagining America Community of Practice (CoP) to foster a collaborative community and support the infusion of community engagement across the institution. In the 2024-25 academic year, the CoP will utilize the Public Scholar Imagination Guide and Conversation Cards to lead six workshops that encourage participants to develop creative ways of engaging through their programming, teaching, and/or scholarship to advance a just society. The CoP is supported through the Office of Civic Engagement & Social Responsibility, BTU-Partnerships for Greater Baltimore, the Faculty Academic Center of Excellence at Towson, and the School of Emerging Technologies.
Romy Hübler’s quote above is excerpted from the following story:
https://www.towson.edu/news/2024/impact-tu-announcement.html.
Featured Image: Students participate in Impact TU.
Funding has been provided by California Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
