Campus Compact and the Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship are partnering to host the Addressing Wicked Issues through Community-Engaged Scholarship series. Each year, this series takes a deep dive into some of the most critical issues threatening our communities and explores how we—higher education community engagement professionals, practitioners, and scholars—can make a difference.
The 2024-2025 Addressing Wicked Issues series will focus on youth and gun violence. Gun violence has become a vast and daunting issue that has impacted lives of youth across the country—as direct victims of violence, as witnesses to violence, and in day-to-day public life. In 2020, homicide was the second leading cause of death for 15-24 year-olds, with the vast majority involving firearms. Instances of gun violence in our schools and public spaces are prevalent in the media, and have led to growing calls to action from youth across the country.
To move the needle on complex and nuanced issue like gun violence, we must apply a variety of different perspectives and approaches. This series will will generate resources, highlight promising examples, and create space to explore how higher education can make a difference through community-engaged research, community-engaged teaching and learning, anchor strategy & community partnerships, and student-led civic engagement.
Over 6 sessions, we will provide the necessary context and then dive into the root causes of gun violence, the interrelated individual, familial, and community factors that put youth at risk, and how higher education can respond.