Member Spotlights

James Madison University (JMU) has a long-standing commitment to community-engaged practice, and fosters opportunities for community and university collaborative engagement. In this month’s member spotlight, we learn about a few initiatives at JMU that advance these goals: the IA Open Forums, the JMU Arts Mobile, and the Community Engagement and Volunteer Center.

+ Community-Engaged Practice at James Madison University

At Southwestern University (SU), community engagement and publicly engaged humanities are not separate initiatives; they are interwoven threads in a broader tapestry of regional care, social justice, and liberal arts education. As a private, Hispanic Serving Institution with Methodist roots and a deep commitment to its core values of encouraging activism in the pursuit of justice and diverse perspectives, SU is reimagining its role in Central Texas through collaborative, justice-oriented scholarship.

+ Rooted in Justice, Reaching Out: Publicly Engaged Humanities at Southwestern University

In this month’s spotlight, we turn to two projects at IA Member institution Bates College: one that focuses on Creating Refuge and the other, Ka Bogso: Be Healed, that celebrates healing and growth as a shared journey rooted in community. Both projects showcase the importance and the impact of community-engaged research and collaboration across institutions.

+ Spotlight on Healing and Refuge at Bates College

In this month’s member spotlight, we report back from Emerson College’s Amplify & Ignite Symposium, which hosted three days of workshops, panel discussions, presentations, working groups, and dialogue about our questions, curiosities, and work at the intersection of performance, community building, education and justice.

+ Spotlight on Emerson College’s Amplify & Ignite Symposium

In this month’s member spotlight, we uplift a collaboration between institutes at University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) that are prioritizing community-engaged scholarship, and we invite a close look at Watsonville is in the Heart – a community research and archive initiative undertaken in collaboration with UCSC faculty and graduate students, currently housed at The Humanities Institute.

+ Spotlight on UC Santa Cruz’s Community of Practice

In this month’s member spotlight, we focus on the ‘Desert Forest’ project from IA member Reed College, that centers the Joshua Tree. Co-conceived and co-directed by Prof. Juniper Harrower, this multidisciplinary project brings together natural history, Indigenous knowledge, public policy, conservation science, and creative works by historic and contemporary artists to spotlight the threatened tree and preservation efforts around it. And we bring you a sneak peek from Reed College’s collaboratory project!

+ Spotlight on Reed College’s Arts-engaged Scholarship

In this month’s member spotlight, we take a look back at Michigan State University’s three year project at the intersections of public art and public health. The project documented how everyday people used creativity to cope with the pandemic by crowdsourcing contributions, undertaking public humanities collaborations, and highlighting art as a tool for combating inequity and injustice. 

+ Spotlight on Michigan State University’s Creativity in the Time of COVID-19

This month, we shine a spotlight on the many ways in which faculty and students at Emory University are leveraging the power of public scholarship to foster conversations across and between departments and disciplines through story circles, sidecar courses, and IA engagement tools.

+ Spotlight on Emory University’s Cross-Disciplinary Dialogues and Public Scholarship

In this month’s IA Member Spotlight, we bring lessons at the intersection of arts and disability justice from Art Professor Amy Schmierbach’s First Responder, Art Collaboration, Training (FACT) workshops, which are offered in conjunction with her ART 308: Community Engaged Art class at Fort Hays State University.

+ FHSU Spotlights Prof. Amy Schmierbach’s FACT Workshops

In this month’s Member Spotlight, we feature a range of projects from Towson University’s work at the intersection of community-engaged art, scholarship, and co-curricular programs. Featured projects include: Reimaining Schools Collaborative, Impact TU, and the recently launched Imagining America Communities of Practice initiative. Check out the CALL FOR ART included in the post!

+ Spotlight on Towson University’s Communities of Engaged Practice

IA member Ohio State University shares three projects that demonstrate the power of the arts in addressing community history, sustainable design, and the…

+ Spotlight on Art and Activism Projects from Ohio State University

Georgetown University’s Red House, founded in 2013, serves as a curricular and educational R&D unit focused on transformative education. Through its projects, the…

+ Spotlight on Georgetown University’s Red House