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 Engaged Scholarship Certificate conduct intensive interdisciplinary inquiry into a topic or issue area of their choice (e.g., criminal justice reform, educational equity, environmental justice), 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 to contribute to the world beyond Brown.
As with all undergraduate certificates, students may only have one declared concentration. and must be enrolled in or have completed at least two courses toward the certificate at the time they declare in ASK, which must be no earlier than the beginning of the fifth semester and no later than the last day of classes of the antepenultimate (typically the sixth) semester, in order to facilitate planning for the experiential learning opportunity (practicum). Students must submit a proposal for their practicum by the end of the sixth semester.
Students in any concentration may pursue the Engaged Scholarship Certificate. No concentrations are excluded.
Certificate Requirements:
Each student will take a required foundational seminar and propose a set of three experiences—a three-course interdisciplinary elective sequence, a community-based practicum, and a capstone—related to their issue area focus.
| Core Course: | ||
| SOC 0310 | Theory and Practice of Engaged Scholarship | 1 |
| Elective Courses: | 3 | |
One course carrying the Community Based Learning and Research (CBLR) curricular designation or an approved alternative. For example: | ||
| Performing Ethnography and the Politics of Culture | ||
| Providence Housing Ecosystem, Development, Displacement and Gentrification | ||
| Black Protest Music | ||
| Memory, Movements, and Mississippi | ||
| Lincoln in the Archive: Material Culture, Representation, and Race | ||
| Language and Migration | ||
| Anthropology of Addictions and Recovery | ||
| Anthropology of Homelessness | ||
| Anthropology of Mental Health | ||
| Heritage in the Metropolis: Remembering and Preserving the Urban Past | ||
| Palaces: Built to Impress | ||
| Community Archaeology in Providence and Beyond | ||
| Southeast Asia’s Entangled Pasts: Excavated, Curated, and Contested | ||
| Classical Art from Ruins to RISD: Ancient Objects/Modern Issues | ||
| Heritage Under Fire: From Conflict to Understanding, Memory, and Reconciliation | ||
| The Archaeology of College Hill | ||
| Arts Writing Workshop | ||
| ArtsCrew & The Future of Arts Work | ||
| Precision Medicine or Privileged Medicine? Addressing Disparities in Biomedical Research | ||
| CS for Social Change | ||
| Teaching LGBTQIA History | ||
| Adolescent Literature | ||
| Fieldwork and Seminar in Secondary Education | ||
| Language and Education Policy in Multilingual Contexts | ||
| Family Engagement in Education | ||
| Policy Implementation in Education | ||
| Turning Hope into Results: The Policy Ecosystem of the Providence Public Schools District | ||
| Human Development and Education in East Asia | ||
| Planetary System Design: A Team Project Course | ||
| Geo-, Environmental + Planetary Sciences’ curriculum design + teaching pract. for local high school | ||
| Reframing Race in Art Writing | ||
| Writing for Activists | ||
| Literary Reportage | ||
| Contemporary Asian American Writers | ||
| My So-Called Life: The Art of the Literary Memoir | ||
| The Poet & The Press Release: Rhetoric of Social Change | ||
| Humans, Nature, and the Environment: Addressing Environmental Change in the 21st Century | ||
| Clearing the Air: Environmental Studies of Pollution | ||
| Podcasting For the Common Good: Storytelling with Science | ||
| Local Food Systems and Urban Agriculture | ||
| Birding Communities | ||
| The Border/La Frontera | ||
| Introduction to American/Ethnic Studies | ||
| L'experience des refugies: deplacements, migrations | ||
| Reproductive In/Justice | ||
| Introduction to Professional Translation and Interpretation | ||
| The Latin American Diaspora in the US | ||
| Networked Movements. Mobilizations for change in Latin America in the 21st century. | ||
| Engaged Humanities: Storytelling in the Americas | ||
| Writers-in-the-Community Training & Residencies | ||
| A Migration Crisis? Displacement, Materiality, and Experience | ||
| Parenting Behaviors and Child Health | ||
| Community-Engaged Research in Public Health | ||
| Designing Education for Better Prisoner and Community Health | ||
| Incarceration, Disparities, and Health | ||
| Migrants, Political Activism and the Racialization of Labor | ||
| Artful Teaching: Intersecting the Arts with Foreign and Second Language Acquisition | ||
| Indigenous Politics in Hawai'i: Resurgence and Decolonization | ||
| Economic and Human Development in South Asia | ||
| Critical Communities, Critical Engagements | ||
| Context Research for Innovation | ||
| Market and Social Surveys | ||
| Ethics, Justice, and Transformations in Engaged Scholarship | ||
| A Hip Hop Companion to Race and Ethnicity | ||
| Arts and Health: Theory | ||
| Art and Activism | ||
| Arts and Health: Practice | ||
| New Works/World Traditions | ||
| Heritage in the Metropolis: Remembering and Preserving the Urban Past | ||
| Housing Justice | ||
| Heritage in the Metropolis: Remembering and Preserving the Urban Past | ||
| The Just City: Installment I, Comparative Perspectives on Juvenile Justice Reform | ||
| Studio Foundation | ||
Issue Area Course: A course that addresses the student’s stated public, civic, or social justice issue of interest (e.g., criminal justice reform, educational equity, environmental justice). That issue or topic will be a coherent thread throughout their ESC course sequence and community-engaged experiences. | ||
Critical Perspectives Course: A course related to the student’s specific community engagement focus that examines the broader ethical, political, and social context of that issue area. Students are strongly encouraged to consider RPP-designated or other courses that address issues of structural inequality, the root causes of social problems, and the production of knowledge and difference in the context of discourses on race, power, and privilege. | ||
| Practicum: The ESC practicum is a significant practice-based experience (internship, fellowship, volunteer role, etc.) with a community organization or project, during which students also complete a series of reflective assignments. In most cases, the practicum will be completed as a non-credit-bearing experience. However, it may be fulfilled through a credit-bearing course, such as the Brown in Washington, DC Practicum. | 0-1 | |
| ESC Capstone: The ESC capstone will provide students with a culminating learning experience through which they reflect back on their certificate work and demonstrate achievement and competency with respect to key learning outcomes articulated in their certificate plan. ESC students will have two options for fulfilling the capstone requirement: | 0-1 | |
Engaged Research/Course Option (credit): Students who elect this option will pursue an engaged capstone involving research or other project-based work with a community partner organization. Students may select an upper-level course - including potentially a concentration capstone or honors thesis course - or propose an independent study (DISP or GISP) aligned with their research interests and, with the agreement of the instructor, pursue a project with a collaborating non-academic partner. | ||
ePortfolio/Reflection Essay Option (non-credit): Students who elect this option will create an electronic portfolio (ePortfolio) of representative ESC work. The ePortfolio will consist of papers, projects, and/or other artifacts developed in courses and the ESC practicum. It will be accompanied by a reflective essay that responds to a series of prompts about the student’s community engaged learning experiences. ESC participants’ faculty advisors, ESC Review Committee members, and/or Swearer Center staff with relevant expertise will advise and evaluate this type of capstone. | ||
| Total Credits | 4-6 | |