Collaboratory is excited to launch the Research Fellows Program, which recognizes exemplary and emerging scholar-practitioners who are committed to advancing the field of community engagement. Fellows explore research and programmatic efforts that enact Collaboratory’s mission and support member institutions and the broader field of higher education community engagement. Fellowships are designed to give practitioner-scholars a national platform to pursue research and programmatic ideas that correlate with ongoing Collaboratory initiatives.
Contact Kristin Medlin, Director of Research, at [email protected] with questions.
Available Fellowships
Assessment Fellow:
Collaboratory now proudly houses over 2000 published community engagement and public service activities across 26 diverse institutions – and we are committed to ensuring that the data collected via Collaboratory is an accurate and comprehensive representation of faculty, staff, and student activities. We seek to support a fellow to conduct a mixed methods study using Collaboratory data. Research questions will focus on measures of community engagement and public service activities.
The deadline for submitting applications was 11:59pm EST on Friday, October 2, 2020.
Anti-Racism Fellow:
Higher education is uniquely positioned to stand and fight against systemic racism and work toward agendas promoting a more equitable society. The descriptive data Collaboratory collects across its membership (currently 26 institutions) has the potential to powerfully illustrate concrete examples of how anti-racism is operationalized via community engagement and public service work conducted by faculty, staff, and students, across a broad range of intersectional issues (poverty, homelessness, workforce development, etc.). As higher education begins to shift away from reflection and towards action, examples of how anti-racist work actually manifests through community-university partnerships will be critical to help position – through research and action – higher education’s role in developing a more just and equitable society for all.
Before we can operationalize anti-racism, it must be defined in ways that can be measured. Our goal is to inform how institutions can:
intentionally incorporate anti-racism work into efforts across campus
hold institutions accountable in more deliberate ways, with data
chart a path to do this within individual institutions and as a larger field
To these ends, Collaboratory seeks to support an anti-racism research fellow who will work to develop criteria for what “anti-racist community engagement” looks like – what common characteristics, principles, focuses, etc. are present when engagement is conducted with an anti-racist lens?
The deadline for submitting applications was 11:59pm EST on Friday, October 2, 2020.
The Details
Funding
Fellows will receive a $2,000 research award to support their efforts. Funds may be used for any expense judged supportive of the fellow’s research including staffing, conference/presentation support (e.g., registration fees), project expenses, equipment, or salary support.
Roles & Responsibilities
Fellows lead projects that typically last 3-6 months and utilize de-identified data from Collaboratory institutions, or pursue relevant ideas and questions in partnership with campuses within and beyond our membership. In collaboration with Collaboratory staff, fellows are expected to develop:
- a concise description of the project and how it will be carried out, including timelines, stakeholders, and resources required
- specific outcomes and how they will be measured
- a statement of the eventual impact and value of the project
- a public deliverable to disseminate findings (presentation, publication, report, etc.)
Eligibility
Collaboratory is open to working with any researchers – whether faculty, staff, or students at an accredited institution of higher education or member of the larger community. We expect the fellow to have experience with or expertise in community engagement. We would very much like to support scholars who identify as black, indigenous or persons of color (BIPOC), although this is not a requirement of the fellowship.
To Apply
The deadline for submitting applications was 11:59pm EST on Friday, October 2, 2020. We do not expect interested applicants to have the details of their ideas fully fleshed out – that is something we are excited about developing in collaboration with the fellow. We do, however, ask that your letter of interest begin to address or respond to the roles and responsibilities fleshed out above. Please also include reference to any graduate level courses you have completed or any professional/academic experiences that would be relevant to the project.
