CESI Continuing Relationship with King's College London Through Research Fellowship

Posted on Wednesday, January 26th, 2022

Written by Kendra Schnarr

As of January of 2022, Community Engaged Scholarship Institute (CESI) Director, Dr. Elizabeth Jackson will also be taking on the role of Visiting Research Fellow with the Faculty of Arts & Humanities at King’s College London. This virtual fellowship will link the Faculty and CESI with the goal of enabling long-term collaboration and increasing expertise, knowledge exchange, and impact on both sides. Dr. Jackson will be hosted by colleague Dr. Ed Stevens, Impact and Knowledge Exchange Manager in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at King’s.

As Visiting Research Fellow, Dr. Jackson will be supporting work toward “Impact and Knowledge Exchange,” including capacity development for faculty, staff, and students, by sharing her expertise in critical community engagement and arts-based methods. Dr. Jackson is also firmly placed as a learner, as she will be immersed in the culture and priorities at King’s to learn about their commitments, methodologies, and approaches to engagement and research impact, with the goal of bringing these insights back to inform the University of Guelph’s practice and ongoing learning.

“I’m really excited and honoured to have this opportunity,” says Dr. Jackson. “It’s a great chance to learn from, and contribute to, the community engagement practices of my colleagues in the U.K. It’s also a uniquely collaborative opportunity that will allow us to build deeper connections between our institutions by forging relationships, sharing expertise, asking difficult questions, and developing and disseminating new knowledge.”

This fellowship is the next step in an intentional, sustained partnership between CESI and the Faculty of Arts & Humanities. In 2019, Dr. Stevens was appointed as a Visiting Scholar at CESI. In this role, he shared his research and expertise in the higher education, voluntary, and community sectors and community-based participatory research in the United Kingdom. Dr. Stevens also built relationships with CESI staff, colleagues, and community partners as well as University of Guelph faculty to learn more about their commitment to critical CES, community engaged teaching and learning, and knowledge mobilization.

“I was left truly inspired by the cutting-edge, thought-provoking work in critical community engaged scholarship, knowledge mobilization and community engaged teaching practiced by CESI and was keen to retain links,” says Dr. Stevens. “As a Faculty, we’re delighted to be hosting Dr. Jackson as a Visiting Research Fellow and look forward to sharing our experiences with, and learning from, her.”

Byron Sheldrick, Acting Dean of the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences at the University of Guelph, adds “I see tremendous value in this relationship between the University of Guelph and King’s; it demonstrates an ongoing commitment to learning, expanding practices, and methodological innovation - all across international borders.”

Dr. Jackson’s activities will include delivering workshops on anti-oppressive practice and critical community engaged scholarship, and on arts-based methods. She will join working groups and committees setting research impact and knowledge exchange agendas and will network and develop relationships with emergent scholars and faculty members with interest in sustained collaboration. She will also be focusing her efforts on developing and delivering intensive training in critical community engaged scholarship customized to the students and faculty at King’s. This experiential learning opportunity is also designed to help Dr. Jackson better understand engagement in the UK and to develop opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to collaborate between the two institutions. The key learnings from this fellowship will be shared by Dr. Jackson and Dr. Stevens in co-authored pieces exploring overall learnings, methodological innovations, and knowledge co-creation in an international context.

 

 

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