It is a commonly accepted statement in the community engagement field that community partners function as co-educators of students. However, this construct of co-educator is much harder to put into practice when one is actually creating and implementing a course. Hear from pairs of faculty and community partners about how their co-educator partnerships work “in practice,” and get their candid insights about the opportunities and challenges inherent in this kind of relationship. Participants will also explore how partnerships can situate faculty and community partners as comrades and co-conspirators in transforming higher education and community spaces to be more just and equitable.
This workshop is for faculty, professional staff, students, and community partners.
Moderator:
- Star Plaxton-Moore, Campus Compact Faculty Development Fellow & Director of Community-Engaged Learning, Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good, University of San Francisco
Panel Participants:
- Antonne Henshaw, CEO of Transformative Justice Initiative
Antonne Henshaw, is a Rutgers Camden School of Criminal Justice Graduate School Student, the CEO and Founder of Transformative Justice Initiative, and creator of “Meet Em at the Gate” and in partnership with “Meet Her at the Gate” with Severe Solutions LLC. He is a Founding Member of N.J.S.T.E.P., New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons Program, which began organizing in Trenton State Prison in 1992. Mr. Henshaw is also a Motivational\Public Speaker, Entrepreneur, NuEntry Opportunity Specialist for Camden County, and One of the Lead Credible Messengers in New Jersey. Mr. Henshaw has dedicated himself to eradicating mass incarceration and transforming legislation to end the structural violence that threatens the public health of our communities. He is an outspoken advocate against police brutality in and outside of the carceral spaces of New Jersey. He is committed to educating the Community about the machinations of brutality that permeate the carceral state that is disproportionately directed at Black and Brown “Carceral Citizens”. - Benjamin F. Berger, Executive Director, Lang Center for Civic & Social Responsibility, Associate Professor, Political Science, Swarthmore College
Ben Berger is Executive Director of Swarthmore College’s Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility and associate professor in the Department of Political Science. Under Berger’s Lang Center leadership, Swarthmore has achieved international recognition as an Engaged Scholarship leader among liberal arts colleges. His Lang Center team was chosen as Campus Compact’s sole partner to lead the nationwide Engaged Scholars Initiative, and Lang Center programming earned Swarthmore the Excellence in Student Engagement Award from the international Engagement Scholarship Consortium (for which Berger now serves on the Executive Committee). In 2019 he was named Princeton University’s Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching, instructing a combined class of incarcerated students and Princeton undergraduates at East Jersey State Prison. He has served on nonprofit boards and civic committees, and has expanded and deepened Swarthmore College’s mutually beneficial community collaborations in Chester, Philadelphia, and surrounding regions (with the Camden-based Transformative Justice Initiative as a superlative example). Berger’s book, Attention Deficit Democracy: the paradox of civic engagement—published by Princeton University Press—won the NASSP Best Book Award in 2011. He has written for a variety of political science journals, and has been a repeat guest on the nationally syndicated NPR program “Radio Times” as well as KYW Newsradio’s In Depth radio broadcasts and podcasts. Berger holds an AB from Princeton University and an MA and PhD from Harvard University. - Holly Horan, PhD, Assistant Professor, The University of Alabama
Holly Horan, MA, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alabama. She is also a birth and postpartum doula. Holly was previously a program coordinator for a Medicaid-funded, community doula program in Oregon. Her research focuses on the relationship between maternal stress and birth outcomes and the scaling up of collaborative perinatal healthcare with an emphasis on the inclusion of doulas as members of the perinatal healthcare team. - Susan Petrus, M.A., CD(DONA), LCCE, Executive Director of Business Operations, BirthWell Partners
Susan has a masters in English from Auburn University and a Welding Diploma from Bessemer State Technical College. She is a DONA certified birth doula and a Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator. She is the mother of two children and devotes her time to improving the health of each person who gives birth and works to ensure the best start for every infant.