Engaged Scholarship
Source: https://www.brown.edu/undergraduate-programs/engaged-scholarship-certificate Parent: https://www.brown.edu/undergraduate-programs
The Engaged Scholarship Certificate allows students to investigate public, civic, and/or social justice issues that they are passionate about through the integration of academic study with community-based learning, research, and action.
Degree Type
Certificate
department
center
Swearer Center for Public Service
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General Undergraduate Certificate Policies & Guidelines
Engaged Scholarship
The Engaged Scholarship Certificate allows students to investigate public, civic, and/or social justice issues that they are passionate about through the integration of academic study with community-based learning, research, and action.
Students pursuing the certificate in Engaged Scholarship engage in intensive interdisciplinary inquiry into a topic or issue area of their choice (e.g., migration, criminal justice reform, educational disparities), coupled with direct engagement with communities, organizations, and practitioners outside of the academy. The certificate has four requirements - a foundational seminar, a three-course interdisciplinary elective sequence, a community-based practicum, and a capstone - that together advance students’ learning and skills and contribute to the world beyond Brown.
Students will have different opportunities to engage with and learn from community partners. They will develop practical skills they can apply to community-engaged scholarship such as: community-engaged research methods, community partnership agreements, creating joint work plans, deep and active listening, group facilitation, and how to co-create knowledge with communities through research and action.
Student Goals
Students in this certificate will:
- Develop an understanding of methods appropriate to community-engaged inquiry (all phases, from collaborative framing of research questions to data collection and analysis to communications to broader publics, data visualization, etc.
- Develop an understanding of the ethics of community-engaged inquiry, including considerations of issues of power, privilege, and positionality, reciprocity and collaboration, indigenous knowledge and decolonizing methodologies
- Inquire into a public, civic, and/or social justice issue (proximate, national, or global) of particular interest and concern to the student, involving both theory and practice, the latter understood as community-engaged experiential learning
- Develop a critical understanding of the topic of inquiry, involving historical analysis, comparative cultural studies, “root cause” and/or systems-level analysis.
The Director is typically the first point of contact for students interested in pursuing an undergraduate certificate. Once students have declared a certificate, they may be assigned a specific advisor from within the department or program.