Concurrent Workshop Block 1 (9:15-10:05):
Telling Stories Of Place: Community-Driven Narrative and Embodied Pedagogy: A Humanities based approach to community engagement offers a model that critically examines the role that narratives of space and place play in the development of student work and sustained place-based commitments to organizations and people. Often, these narratives of space and place precede the community engagement and involve histories, cultures, and personal experiences in varying measure. Through my work as instructor of Secret Pittsburgh, a literature course offered through Pitt’s English department, and our recent community partnership with Kelly-Strayhorn Theater (KST), I will demonstrate how one cultural institution’s commitment to community can undergird student experiential and place-based learning. This yields not only compelling student work born of community relationships, via the students’ essays and photography on the Secret Pittsburgh website, but also activates a pedagogical third space in which community-driven agendas, embodied learning, and institutional goals can realign and make something new.
Recentering Communities Through Equitable and Just Greater Pittsburgh's Equity Researchers Working Group: Equitable and Just Greater Pittsburgh (“EJGP”), a regional network of networks, organizations, groups, and residents committed to advancing equity and justice. Over the last six months, EJGP has been building an “Equity Researchers Working Group” that attempts to re-center community priorities in university-community relationships across the city. This working group is made up of researchers, teachers, staff members and others from local colleges and universities who want to use their subject-matter expertise and influence to support community-driven transformational, people-centered change in the Greater Pittsburgh region. This presentation discusses the work to date and what’s ahead.
Grantseeking Strategies to Support Engaged Scholarship in the Social Determinants of Health: This workshop will present Pitt Research resources available to support engaged scholarship focused on the social determinants of health. Attendees will identify what areas of grant seeking assistance they need to support their determinants of health work, explore potential funders, and identify potential cross-disciplinary/ cross-sector collaborators from others in attendance.
Concurrent Workshop Block 2 (10:10-11:00):
Carnegie Elective Classifications: Hear from Dr. Marisol Morales of the future of the classifications and how campuses can continue to reorient their self-studies for imact
Community Partnerships with the Center for Human Environmental and Equity Research (CHEER): The Center for Healthy Environments and Equity Research (CHEER) provides infrastructure to spur multidisciplinary, intersectional, and community-engaged research focused on regional environmental health disparities. This panel will give an overview of CHEER, share work from existing research teams, and highlight some of CHEER’s existing community partnerships. CHEER leaders will share benefits of membership and invite university investigators and community partners to join our mission.
The Untapped Wealth Within Racial and Ethnic Minority Communities: For decades the deficit model has attributed demeaning characteristics to members of racial and ethnic minority communities. The deficit model focuses on perceived weaknesses and oftentimes stereotypes assigned to vulnerable communities. The tenets of the Community Cultural Wealth model can be used to refute and irradicate such an assignment of deficit. This model celebrates the untapped wealth that resides in vulnerable communities. The Community Cultural Wealth model focuses on inherent capital (wealth) while incorporating a strengths’-based approach. This presentation will introduce participants to the Community Cultural Wealth model and provide practical strategies to immediately integrate into practice.
Keynote remarks with Dr. Jay Perman (12:40pm-1:10pm)
Dr. Jay Perman, Chancellor of the University System of Maryland, will join us as an institutional aspirational peer with a keynote positioned to address Expanding Narratives through Leadership. Chancellor Perman will share his experience in setting the tone for—and institutionalizing the work of—engaged scholarship at an urban professional university and, in turn, suffusing that culture of community engagement across a system of 12 heterogeneous universities. He will address the challenges of leading change and establishing “anchor” as central to a system’s identity and values.
Lightning Block 3 (1:20-1:50):
Community Conversations about Data Science for Social Justice: Scoping data projects with the community can be a rewarding and challenging experience. This workshop will discuss several examples of bringing community partner into the classroom to do data related projects. We will discuss the timeline, project scope, output, time commitments, and expectations from various perspectives: faculty, classroom students, student leaders in social justice, and community partners.
Data sharing in the context of community-engaged research: what about reciprocity and engagement? Data sharing, increasingly required by funders and publishers, makes data accessible to researchers worldwide. This can challenge expectations of participants and communities who agreed to support a research project only in the context of hard-earned relationships of trust and reciprocity. We present case studies and invite suggestions for new policies/practices.
Fostering a Culture of Diversity and Inclusion in Clinical Research by Training and Hiring Community Members: The Pitt Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and the nonprofit Bidwell Training Center co-developed a program to foster diversity and inclusion in clinical research. The STricklAnd Research Training (START) program provides students in the Medical Assistant program at Bidwell a career path in clinical research.
Connecting Students to Opportunity through Dual Enrollment: This presentation will explain how the IOP Task Force on Equity in Dual Enrollment and Pre-apprenticeship Programming worked with community partners to develop policy recommendations for a comprehensive dual enrollment system in Pennsylvania, which will lead to more equitable outcomes for students who have previously been excluded from opportunities.
Afternoon Plenary with Dr. Rhianna Rogers (2:00-3:30)
Expanding Narratives through Methodology – Lessons from the RAND’s Center to Advance Racial Equity Policy (CAREP): We are at a critical point in history where creating equitable ways to engage diverse populations is not only necessary but a central component of achieving racial equity, developing inclusive public policy, and ensuring global justice for all. In 2021-2023, RAND’s Center to Advance Racial Equity Policy (CAREP) has piloted a series of equity-centered, participatory-based case studies that built on the award-winning Buffalo Project methodology, developed by Rogers. CAREP’s case studies focused on developing new methodological frameworks to achieve impact-oriented, community-centered solutions. This presentation will provide our initial findings and offer tips and best practices for developing meaningful, action-oriented research that advances community-engaged, racial equity policy.
Concurrent Workshop Block 4 (3:40-4:30):
Social Justice Education Summit: Programming for Health Justice: The Office of Health Sciences Diversity, Equity and Inclusion recently hosted its first Social Justice Education Summit, a space designed to engage in the how-to and the best-of for co-creating learning across the health professions education life span for inclusive and equitable campus-community engagement practice. Our workshop will review Summit proceedings and outcomes and provide suggestions for application for social justice practice.
The Power of Picturebooks to Enact Culturally Informed Reading Practices: A Case Study from the 3Rs (Reading, Racial Equity, and Relationships): We will present a case study from the 3Rs, a literacy program that uses high quality racially affirming picturebooks with K-3 teachers to develop racial literacy and shift reading practices. We will highlight results from a collaboration showcasing the ways teachers use picturebooks to expand narratives with students and colleagues, and explore the role of school leadership in supporting and sustaining these types of collaborative interventions.
Measuring Up: Grading Drinking Water Quality, Affordability, and Transparency Practices in Allegheny County: Our interdisciplinary team evaluated 36 community water systems, documenting transparency, affordability, and water quality practices. Findings were translated into report cards designed to empower residents and organizations to achieve more equitable water governance. We will highlight the university-nonprofit partnership, report findings, and creating impactful tools for community use through research.