Member Spotlights

Since 1907, the University of Redlands has prepared students for lives of meaning, impact, and joy through immersive, personalized, and career-focused education. In this member spotlight, we learn more about Redlands’ work around civic engagement and educational justice.

+ University of Redlands Champions Civic Engagement and Educational Justice

In this month’s member spotlight, we showcase two multi-disciplinary projects at Pennsylvania State University that explore material collaborations with the natural world through land-based projects that center artistic practice. Both projects are connected to the Center for Virtual/Material Studies (CV/MS), a research center headquartered in the Department of Art History at Penn State.

+ Material Collaborations at Penn State University

Public scholarship is central across Arizona State University’s (ASU) design aspirations of principled innovation, intellectual fusion, social transformation, and leveraging place. This month’s member spotlight showcase just a few of the projects engaging communities to shape the possible futures of science, technology, and sustainability through arts and civic engagement. 

+ Futures of Civic Engagement at Arizona State University

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