Past events sponsored by or affiliated with the Action Research Center:
Randy Stoecker -- May 22, 2008
Presentation title: Who is Served by Service Learning?
Those of us in higher education like to think that when we send students out to do service in the community we are providing for the public good. But do we really know that service learning provides value to the community? In-depth research with 64 community organizations in Madison, Wisconsin, shows that we may need a new definition of service learning: a practice where community organizations serve students and higher education institutions by putting aside their own priorities to educate students. Research there found that community organizations generally were dissatisfied with the dominant form of service learning--short term placement of untrained students with community organizations that were already over capacity. Since then we have been working with those organizations to fix service learning--developing project-based service learning models that require less time from organization staff and provide more in return, and amplifying the community voice in shaping service learning.
Bio: Randy Stoecker is Associate Professor in the Department of Rural Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, with a joint appointment in the University of Wisconsin-Extension Center for Community and Economic Development. He has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Minnesota, and a Masters of Science in Counseling from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He moderates/edits COMM-ORG: The On-Line Conference on Community Organizing and Development (http://comm-org.wisc.edu), and conducts trainings and speaks frequently on community organizing and development, participatory research/evaluation, and community information technology. He has led numerous participatory action research projects and empowerment evaluation processes with community development corporations, community organizing groups, community information technology programs, and other non-profits in North America and Australia. Randy has written extensively on community organizing and development and community-based research, including the books Defending Community (Temple University Press, 1994), Research Methods for Community Change (Sage Publications, 2005) and the co-authored book Community-Based Research in Higher Education (Jossey-Bass, 2003).
Nadinne Cruz delivered a presentation at a breakfast gathering on April 16, 2008. More information on Cruz is available through this link.
An end of quarter student exhibit, open house, and discussion panel took place at the Niehoff Urban Studio, on Wednesday March 19th, 5:30-8:30pm, 2728 (Short) Vine Street (at Daniels). Click here for more information.
Social Justice & Engaged Scholarship -- The University of Louisville's recently established Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research hosted its first Regional Symposium on engaged scholarship and its relevance to social justice ideals, on April 3 and 4, 2008. Mary Brydon-Miller organized one of the keynote panels, and other members of the Action Research Center also presented information about their Cincinnati projects. Click here for more information.
Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork -- A discussion of research on women's involvement in disaster relief efforts in Gujarat, India, by Anu Sabhlok, University of Louisville, took place on March 4, 2008. Click here for more information.
Information about a Photovoice exhibition on Sunday, Dec. 2, 2007. Follow this link for more information.
Keith Gilyard (appearance on December 4)
Jay Rothman: On Tuesday, November 6, 2007, Dr. Jay Rothman spoke about his work. Dr. Rothman is a member of the ARIA Group in Yellow Springs, Ohio. The title of his talk is "Envisioning a Peaceful Future in Israel: Jews and Arabs Engage in Action Research." Follow this link for more information: Jay Rothman presentation
Dr. Rothman's information about the ARIA-C3 process is available here.
See also Dr. Rothman's web site at http://www.ariagroup.com/libraryC3.html
Emily Nelson: On November 11 and 12, 2007, Emily Nelson was here from New Zealand to talk about her research. More information is available at Emily Nelson presentation
For a look at Emily Nelson's work, see the 90-second video clip at the URL below. It’s a video that Prof. Nelson created to show her Y7 group and aspects of learning in their classroom. The video is a compilation of images to show engaged and disengaged experiences as well as ideal learning environments. While it has a sound track, there is no accompanying interpretation.
Kenneth Reardon (from an appearance on November 16)