AIɫɫ Engaged Faculty Fellows

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Offices and Services

The AIɫɫ Engaged Faculty Fellows program is a year-long opportunity that supports faculty to deepen their community engaged scholarship, build the capacity of our local community in the Charlotte region, and provide input into faculty resources for community-engaged and experiential learning.

AIɫɫ engaged scholarship can focus on a range of issues (e.g., food justice, poverty, educational equity, literacy, public health, housing) and take a range of forms (e.g., community-based research, action research, policy work, consulting and capacity building projects incorporated into courses).  Regardless of the issue or specific enactment, the faculty fellow(s) focus on a community-defined need understood through conversation and dialogue with the community.  The goal of the program is not to develop more campus-based programs, but to engage within existing structures and networks on and off campus. The Center for Civic Engagement team helps identify and make connections with community leaders and organizations that focus on a particular area of interest.

The faculty fellow(s) receive a $15,000 grant and are expected to: 

  • Incorporate community-based learning components into at least 1 course during the 23-24 academic year. 
  • Work on a community-engaged scholarship project of interest that is aligned with a community-defined need and CCE partnerships. 
  • Offer one workshop, talk, or discussion during the academic year related to the community-engaged project or community-engaged pedagogy.  The CCE team will help coordinate all event logistics.
  • Provide input into the development of community-engaged and experiential learning resources for faculty. 
  • Engage with other faculty in one on-campus professional development opportunity related to community engaged learning each semester.  The CCE team will coordinate all event logistics.   
     

2024-25 AIɫɫ Engaged Faculty Fellows

Vanessa Casteñeda, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Afro-Latin American Studies

Dr. Castañeda’s current community-engaged learning interests focus on working with community leaders and farmworkers in order to holistically address questions of food justice, structural racism, immigrant labor rights, and community care. Through the fellowship role, Dr. Castañeda will deepen and further formalize a long-term partnership with the farmworker-led advocacy group, El Futuro Es Nuestro (EFEN), that is reciprocal for both EFEN and the Davidson community. Dr. Castañeda is invested in ensuring that students engage in critical reflection and meaningful engagement with class materials in order to ethically and critically build a relationship with EFEN that recognizes them as humans with dignity and knowledge producers whom we can learn from and with. Dr. Castañeda also intends to co-write a research article with the founders and members of EFEN as a collaborative and horizontal approach to the growing academic literature that seeks to legitimize authorities of knowledge outside of academia. She will also incorporate community-engaged learning elements into her course(s): “Gender, Race, and Food” (AFR 260) and “Introduction to Latin American Studies” (LAS 101).

Takiyah Harper-Shipman, Ph.D.

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Associate Professor of Africana Studies

Dr. Harper-Shipman’s community-engaged learning interests focus on preserving space and history in gentrifying Black communities in Mecklenburg County. Through the fellowship role, she and Africana Studies majors will collaborate with the Smithville AIɫɫ Coalition to document and archive Smithville according to the community's strategic vision. She will work closely with Smithville community members to catalog the shifting political economy in Cornelius and its impact on Smithville. She will also incorporate community-engaged learning elements into her course: AFR 495 Africana Capstone Course.

Rose Stremlau, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of History

Dr. Stremlau’s current community-engaged learning interests focus on campus and regional histories, particularly those related to women, gender, and sexuality and to Native people of the Southeast. Stremlau has worked with students, other faculty, staff, alums, and community members on projects ranging from documenting the stories of LGBTQ+ alums to researching the history of Confederate portraiture in AIɫɫ’s collection. As a fellow, Stremlau will work with Dr. Susana Wadgymar, Catawba partners, a Cherokee ethnobotanist, and Davidson students to establish companion ethnobotanical gardens at AIɫɫ and the Catawba Indian Nation. The Davidson garden will be designed for community enjoyment, as lab space for service and research projects, to provide materials for artistic and culinary uses, and for use in teaching about sustainability, Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge, and Catawba culture. One Catawba garden will be located at the Catawba Cultural Center and feature plants that provide materials used by the nation’s artists. We will create additional plantings at Yawakče Yabsigre (Black Snake Farm) on the reservation. Students in Stremlau’s WRI course on Indigenous Foodways in spring 2025 will contribute to the installation of gardens and will work closely with Dr. Wadgymar’s class to develop textual and web-based educational website about food sovereignty, Catawba history, and ethnobotany.

Susana Wadgymar, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Biology

Dr. Wadgymar’s  community engaged learning interests focus on communal learning about Indigenous history, culture, and current initiatives and expanding educational opportunities for communities that have been historically excluded from higher ed as a member of Dútα Bαhiisere Kus Ráˀhere (We Know Corn Together, a collaboration between the Catawba Indian Nation and AIɫɫ) and as a founding member of Project ENABLE (Enriching Navajo as a Biology Language for Education). Through the fellowship role, she will work with Catawba partners, a Cherokee ethnobotanist, and Davidson community members to establish companion ethnobotanical gardens at both AIɫɫ and the Catawba Indian Nation. The Davidson garden will be available for community enjoyment, various service and research projects, harvesting of materials, and for use in teaching. One Catawba garden will be located at the Catawba Cultural Center and focus on plants that provide materials used by the nation’s artists. We will create additional plantings at Yawakče Yabsigre (Black Snake Farm) on the reservation.  Members of her Plant Adaptations (BIO 320) course in the spring of 2025 will play a crucial role in the design and installation of both gardens and will work closely with Dr. Rose Stremlau and her Indigenous Foodways course (WRI 101) as they develop an educational website about food sovereignty, Catawba history, and ethnobotany. In future semesters, students of BIO 320, members of Dr. Wadgymar’s research group, and any interested community members will maintain the garden and make seasonal adjustments to its composition.