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Date May 12, 2017
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Brown awarded grant to expand engaged scholarship

The $225,000 grant from the Davis Educational Foundation will allow faculty members to deepen their exploration of engaged scholarship and teaching.

Timmons Roberts with Brown students
Timmons Roberts, professor of sociology and environmental studies, teaching The Climate Change and Environmental Justice Lab, part of the Swearer Center's TRI-Lab Program that brings together students, faculty and community practitioners to engage with complex social issues and collaboratively develop, refine, and test solutions to these issues.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The Davis Educational Foundation awarded $225,000 this month to Brown University to fund an Engaged Scholarship Faculty Fellows Program, a new effort directed by the Swearer Center for Public Service as part of the Engaged Scholars Initiative, which leads and supports engaged teaching, learning and scholarship at the University.

Beginning in the 2017-18 academic year, the program will support five faculty members from a range of disciplines in their efforts to expand their professional explorations, research and teaching around engaged scholarship — work by students, faculty and members of the external community to create high-impact learning experiences and educational partnerships that address social challenges and produce public benefits.

“It’s an exciting time in the life of the Swearer Center to be able to more fully integrate the expertise of our faculty and grow our capacity to pursue significant engaged scholarship,” said Mathew Johnson, director of the Swearer Center and associate dean of the College for engaged scholarship. “The fellows program will give faculty the free time and opportunity to become more involved in engaged scholarship, and it is our hope that they will become champions and ambassadors of this work across campus.” 

The grant will also be used to create five faculty learning communities, small groups of faculty — each co-led by a faculty fellow and a Swearer Center staff member — who will meet, communicate and collaborate to expand their knowledge and work around engaged scholarship. In addition, Johnson said the fellows will collaborate with colleagues at other colleges and universities in Providence to create more engaged scholarship opportunities within the city and state.

The grant was received from the Davis Educational Foundation established by Stanton and Elisabeth Davis after Stanton Davis’s retirement as chairman of Shaw’s Supermarkets, Inc. The Davis Educational Foundation supports the undergraduate programs of public and private, regionally accredited, baccalaureate degree granting colleges and universities throughout the six New England states.