Join us for a lively and intellectually rich discussion around the intersections between social innovation research and community-engaged scholarship through the work of Tulane’s Mellon Graduate Program Scholars. We are learning about the transformative role of community engaged scholarship in graduate education at Tulane and applying a social innovation lens to it via questions such as:

• How have your community-engaged collaborative projects with the Mellon Program deepened your understanding of your graduate studies?
• How have your graduate studies helped you to develop innovative approaches to your community-engaged collaborations?
• What sorts of methodologies and ways of thinking animated your approaches to community-engaged scholarship?
• How are the fields of Community Engagement and Social Innovation related? How are they different? How might they support one another?
• What sorts of big questions arise from the collaborations our panelists have experienced?
• What sorts of power dynamics have you encountered and how have you navigated them?

This event is a collaboration of the Tulane Mellon Graduate Program in Community-Engaged Scholarship and the Research & Scholarship team at the Taylor Center.

The format of the event will be a panel discussion featuring four graduate student Mellon Alumni panelists, who will share their personal stories and present a critical reflection on their doctoral work and their Mellon community-engaged projects, plus current Mellon Graduate Student and Taylor Center discussants.

Mellon Program and CCC Alumna Dr. Jennifer Lilly will be leading and moderating this panel with participation from PhD Candidates and Mellon Program Alumni Caleb Smith (History), Megan Flattley (LAST-Art History), and Theo Hilton (Socio-Cultural Anthropology).

Register to receive the Zoom link by email and reminders. All are welcome.

About the organizers:

This event is co-sponsored by the Phyllis M. Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking as part of its spring Social Innovation Conversation, led by the research and scholarship team, the Tulane Center for Public Service (CPS) as part of its Faculty Series, and the Tulane Mellon Graduate Program in Community Engaged Scholarship. The Tulane University Mellon Graduate Program in Community-Engaged Scholarship is an initiative of Tulane’s Office of the Provost and School of Liberal Arts, launched in 2017 with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Mellon Program supports graduate students doing public humanities work. A distinctive feature of the program is the way it values community organizers’ knowledge and ways of knowing. Community organizers are not just guest speakers, they are integral parts of each cohort and advisors to the graduate students for two years. In addition to coursework and regular meetings with faculty and community advisors, graduate students pursue collaborative projects in publicly engaged scholarship. To learn more about the Mellon program, participants, and projects, please visit mellon.wp.tulane.edu.

The Phyllis M. Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking (Taylor) Research and Scholarship team supports researchers in any discipline (and any stage) who are working to advance knowledge and understanding of the fields of social innovation and changemaking. The Social Innovation Conversations are one of our regular initiatives. Learn more about the R&S team and work at taylor.tulane.edu/research.