Community-Engaged Scholarship

Reflections from Netter Center Alumni

Rita Axelworth Hodges, Rita Axelworth Hodges, Michael Zuckerman, Michael Zuckerman, Rita Axelroth Hodges, Rita Axelroth Hodges, Michael Zuckerman, Michael Zuckerman

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781512827644
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies

A collection of stories by Penn alumni whose lives were transformed by engaging with the West Philadelphia community

For over thirty years, the Barbara and Edward Netter Center for Community Partnerships has served as the University of Pennsylvania's primary vehicle for advancing civic and community engagement at Penn. The Netter Center develops and helps implement democratic, mutually transformative, place-based partnerships between Penn and its local geographic community of West Philadelphia. These partnerships advance research, teaching, learning, and service while improving the quality of life and learning in the community. One of the Netter Center's primary objectives has been to educate Penn students to be creative, compassionate, ethical citizens who contribute significantly to improving the welfare of others—while they are students and throughout their lives and careers.

Community-Engaged Scholarship is a collection of stories told by alumni of the University of Pennsylvania whose lives were profoundly shaped by engaging with the West Philadelphia community as students. Their reflections trace the linear relationship between their involvement in democratic community partnerships through Penn's Netter Center and their current professional activities, primarily in academia, where they remain actively engaged in the struggle to build a more democratic and equitable society. The mutuality and humility that pervade these autobiographical accounts are the core of the democratic aspiration to which the Netter Center is and has always been dedicated. The stories are testimony to the Netter Center's and founding director Ira Harkavy's enduring influence on the next generation of community-engaged scholars and practitioners.

Contributors: H. Samy Alim, Jeff Camarillo, Christina Cantrill, Tamara Dubowitz, Bernice Garnett, Rita Axelroth Hodges, John L. Jackson Jr., Jacqueline Kraemer, David Park, Jiyoung Park, Wendell Pritchett, Eric Schwartz, Margo Shea, Salamishah Tillet, Kim Van Naarden Braun, Michael Vazquez, Jason Yip, Andrew Zitcer, Michael W. Zuckerman.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Chapter 1. “Having a Real Impact”: A Conversation About Community-Engaged Scholarship
• Chapter 2. Majoring in Harkavy: Linking Research, Policy, and Practice to Create Positive Social Change
• Chapter 3. Calling Philosophy Down from the Heavens: The Moral and Civic Imperative of Engaged Philosophy
• Chapter 4. The Transformational Power of Community and Culturally Sustaining Education: Reflections from Two Netter Center Alumni
• Chapter 5. Threads: Reflections on Engagement
• Chapter 6. The Journey of a Data Scientist: How a Local Crisis Bridged Machine Learning, Community Engagement, and Social Entrepreneurship
• Chapter 7. Relational Research and Cultural Humility: An Interdisciplinary Academic Journey in Community-Engaged Scholarship
• Chapter 8. Local Culture of Global Proportions
• Chapter 9. University-Community Partnerships: How Students Help Cities Tackle Urgent Challenges
• Chapter 10. Food, Policy, Social Justice, Civic Engagement, and Epidemiology
• Chapter 11. The Power of Connected Learning
• Chapter 12. A Reflection on Creating My Own ABCS Course Around Participatory Design
• Chapter 13. Weaving Civic Engagement into the Fabric of Scientific Inquiry
• Chapter 14. Reflections on Bursting the Bubble
• Netter Center Timeline: Milestones, 1981 to 2024
• Contributors
• Index