September 16, 2021 | Issue 21
A Message from the Vice Provost

As we welcome students back to campus this month, I’ve been musing about how the university can help them build a sense of community and connection, not just on campus but with the neighborhoods, towns, and regions that surround us. One way to facilitate this is through community-engaged experiential learning.  

In case you missed it, the UC Davis Majors blog just published a great story about Catherine Brinkley’s Community Development students. In talking about what motivates her students, she noted, “You’re not feeling hopeless because you’re not just reading about issues, you’re helping to fix them with a lot of other people. It’s about creating positive change for communities.” We couldn’t agree more with Dr. Brinkley’s sentiment. It is exciting to see our students engage with communities beyond campus borders, and it is essential for them to learn how to do so in a way that is centered on ​​collaboration and mutual benefit.

With support from a Public Impact Research Initiative (PIRI) grant, Dr. Marcella Gonsalves was able to bring an undergraduate student researcher into her community-based action research project. Beyond the potential community impact of their research, Dr. Gonsalves saw how much the project helped prepare her student Mariah for life after school in a way no textbook could, and Mariah learned first-hand how important communication and realistic goal-setting are to community engagement. 

Public Scholarship and Engagement is working to create more opportunities for students to become involved in community-based learning and research. Not only do we support faculty interested in incorporating community-framed problems and questions into their classrooms and studios through our Community Engaged Learning Faculty Fellows, this year we’re also helping to launch First-Year Seminars focusing on community-engaged learning to provide students an opportunity to explore complex issues impacting our communities. 

I look forward to focusing our efforts on helping to build and support more of these types of relationships between communities and UC Davis scholars this year, so stay tuned. 

In community, 


Michael Rios
Vice Provost, Public Scholarship and Engagement  
Updates and Announcements
Work with us! Public Scholarship and Engagement is seeking a graduate student with an interest and/or background in community engagement, community-engaged research, equity and inclusion, higher education, or other related fields. This is a minimum 2-quarter GSR appointment @ 25-50% FTE but can extend to a total of 4-quarters with a projected start date in the 2021 fall quarter. Salary and equivalent GSR step will be commensurate with prior experience.
First-Year Seminar Community Engaged Learning (FYS-CEL) courses give students the opportunity to build community with each other while exploring some of the complex issues impacting societies today. Through these courses, faculty can help new Aggies learn about community engagement methods, theories, and practices that equip them to collaboratively address community-identified topics, issues, and/or concerns. Proposals for Winter 2022 are due Friday, October 1.
We are proud to have co-sponsored this short documentary about environmental justice in Kettleman City featuring associate professor and Public Scholarship Faculty Fellow Clare Cannon. The film will be shown at the American Public Health Association's Film Festival in October featuring a panel discussion — stay tuned for more details.
Recognitions and Celebrations
Associate professors Steve Boucher and Kristin Kiesel (2020-21 Community Engaged Learning Faculty Fellow) are launching a new program to enhance and expand pathways to the professoriate for historically underrepresented populations. Activities will develop mentorship networks that build community and provide mutually beneficial experiential learning and research opportunities for all program participants.
Check out the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Member Spotlight featuring AAAS Fellow (and our very own Associate Vice Provost) Tessa Hill, Ph.D.
Congratulations to Assistant Professor Caitlin Patler (Community Engagement Advisory Committee), Associate Professor Erin Hamilton and Ph.D. student Robin Savinar who won an award for their paper: “The Limits of Gaining Rights While Remaining Marginalized: The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program and the Psychological Well-Being of Latina/o Undocumented Youth,” which is due to be published in Social Forces.
In Case You Missed It
America has long experienced a shortage of health care workers in rural areas, but through a collaborative partnership, the School of Medicine and Oregon Health & Science University are working to address this critical issue by creating pathways to place medical students. residents in community clinics throughout the border region.
The global pandemic made community-engaged research nearly impossible for 2020 Mellon Public Scholar Eli Alston-Stepnitz. But upon reflection, Alston-Stepntiz realized that even though his project was on hold, his learning and growth — as both a person and a scholar — continued.
Tools and Resources
We've created a new hub for publicly engaged scholars at UC Davis. You'll find programs that Public Scholarship and Engagement offers to Academic Senate and Federation members, as well as resources we recommend for anyone interested in public engagement work, and ways to access additional support.
We've curated a collection of resources from across UC Davis and beyond to help you engage with public audiences, share your expertise outside the university setting, and create meaningful public impact. Have an idea you want to talk through? Send us an email or sign-up for a 30-minute consultation with our staff.
Events and Opportunities
Join Campus Compact for a national dialogue with leading scholars on advancing best practices in anti-racist community-engaged pedagogy. Participants will explore how they can apply the lens of anti-racist community engagement to research and to faculty and staff development.

Event: September 20, 2021 | 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Is home where we are born or where we live? Is home a right, or is it earned? The UC Placemaking Initiative invites you to contribute to the “Home is _____” project through words and/or images.

Deadline: September 30, 2021
In Other News
The Office of Research recently awarded a total of $435,000 in three proof-of-concept grant programs for faculty, while the Office of Public Scholarship and Engagement gave a total of $67,500 in seed and bridge grants to faculty for publicly engaged research projects.
C-STEM will establish a new initiative to introduce Black/African American girls to engineering and robotics and provide them with resources to lead in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in their schools, communities and careers.
Not every academic can or should do public outreach, but those who do it well benefit all of academe.
Native Orphan’s Remains Returned to Alaskan Birthplace After More Than a Century
See about how some first-year students were inspired by the pandemic to study medicine.
Professor Keith Watenpaugh and his team at UC Davis are racing to raise awareness of a tool they developed that allows those students to store important documents securely: the Article 26 Backpack.
Partnering for the Public Good
At a time when our planet and its people face unprecedented challenges, UC Davis is reimagining the vital links that connect university, community and society. Philanthropic support plays a vital role in advancing UC Davis research, education and collaborations that make the world a better place. We invite the partnership of university friends who share our vision of discovery, learning and engagement for the public good. 
About Public Scholarship and Engagement
Public Scholarship and Engagement is building and supporting meaningful relationships between communities and UC Davis scholars that work together to solve today’s problems and tomorrow’s challenges. We envision a university unbound that seeks to serve the public, equitably and inclusively, resulting in reciprocal and mutual benefit to California’s communities and beyond.

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