Why Mindful Service-learning? While over 30 years of service-learning has yielded many benefits, I have found that students today are more stressed than ever, that meaningful and effective preparation for reciprocal service-learning can be lacking, and that an exclusively Western perspective could be expanded to include Eastern views, thereby…

Dadaab Refugee Complex hosts refugees from the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region. According to a UNHCR (2023) report, at 31 January 2023 Dadaab refugee camps were host to a total population of 233,828 registered refugees and asylum seekers, representing 41% of the total recognized forcibly displaced people in Kenya. This paper will explore…

Participatory methods are having sweeping effects on research across the globe. To facilitate transparency around these methods, "Autism" introduced mandatory reporting of community involvement in January 2021. Here, we sought to determine the impact of this policy. To do so, we -- a team of Autistic and non-autistic researchers --…

This paper explores the development of Civic Wellness programs at the Art Institute of Chicago, with an emphasis on how Civic Wellness teaching, partnerships, and strategy are informed by social justice-oriented values. These include equity practice, antiracism, strength in community, and democratic justice-oriented andragogy. The paper lays out…

This paper presents the results of two community and citizen science research projects -- "Cities at Play" and "Community Drive" -- in which young students (aged 11-15) from vulnerable residential areas in Copenhagen, Denmark, collaborated with architects and urban developers to engage in urban development initiatives in their…

Background: The context in which school-based health-promoting interventions are implemented is key for the delivery and success of these interventions. However, little is known about whether school culture differs by school deprivation. Methods: Using data from PromeSS, a cross-sectional study of 161 elementary schools in Québec, Canada, we drew…

State wildlife agency professionals are realizing they need new mindsets and practices for collaboration with diverse stakeholders and community partners to achieve policy, management, science, and education goals. This realization led to a partnership between a state agency, a land-grant university's outreach and engagement office, and University…

This national study included a quantitative inquiry regarding the impact of COVID-19 on service-learning from 207 participants representing community partner organizations (n = 145) and higher education institutions (n = 62). Community partners reported a decreased number of students engaged in service-learning after the outbreak of COVID-19.…

This dissertation project designed, implemented, and measured the efficacy of Transformative Experience teaching methods in Community-Engaged contexts to help students connect with and apply their scientific knowledge in their daily lives. The Transformative Experience framework connects class ideas to everyday experiences by scaffolding students'…

This dissertation project designed, implemented, and measured the efficacy of Transformative Experience teaching methods in Community-Engaged contexts to help students connect with and apply their scientific knowledge in their daily lives. The Transformative Experience framework connects class ideas to everyday experiences by scaffolding students'…

Youth development programs often provide young people with science learning experiences. We argue for reframing youth science learning from a focus on individual scientific literacy to an emphasis on collective scientific literacy--"community science"--to support young people in using science to address issues in their lives and…

This essay reflects on the challenges of facilitating a community program partnership with the Prince George's Memorial Library System. The program, "Community Justice," uses a public syllabus to introduce local teens to social justice concepts, theories, and methods. While issues of sustainability and retention are examined in this…

Background: Farm-to-school interventions are recommended strategies to improve dietary behaviors among school-aged children. Tools are needed to assess community readiness and capacity to optimize farm-to-school implementation. The objective of this study was to identify and prioritize factors to inform tailored farm-to-school implementation by…

This essay examines the inquiry activities that community engagement professionals (CEPs) can utilize to support organizational learning. We advocate for an inquiry approach that focuses on improvement and informing community-engaged practices and organizational change. By unpacking why inquiry is imperative for CEPs and outlining the tensions…

This dissertation is concerned with a move toward community engagement within academia generally, and more specifically the concepts of legitimacy and belonging in engagement practices. My work contributes to a relatively recent shift toward community engagement classifications and designations for institutions of higher education (Saltmarsh and…