Thanks to the support of Lumina Foundation, Campus Compact today announced five scholars, including Lena Jones, Bernice Rosas Belmonte, Jason Leggett, Mathew Oakes, and John R. Unger will serve as Community College Research Fellows for the 2023-2024 academic year. Led by Lena Jones, the team of fellows will each focus on a specific area of relevance to community colleges to pursue research and create resources for the field.
These fellows are part of a group of new and returning scholars, leaders, and practitioners who make up the 2023-2024 cohort of Campus Compact fellows, who will advance Campus Compact’s work in key areas, including community colleges, dialogue and deliberation, student-led engagement, rural serving institutions, anti-racist community engagement, federal policy, intercultural development, field-level research and recognition, and executive leadership.
Lena Jones, Professor of Political Science at Minneapolis College, will serve as the Lead Community College Research Fellow. Lena will identify and recommend new approaches for deepening and advancing civic and community engagement priorities–with a specific emphasis on grass roots approaches and effective strategies in resource-constrained environments. This work will result in a series of resources and tool kits. Additionally, Lena will lead the design of a capacity-building institute to be held in Summer 2023.
Bernice Rosas Belmonte, Director of the Center for Community and Civic Engagement at Mesa Community College, will be re-imagining community engagement programming and the resources and assessments used in Community Colleges for that purpose. She hopes to create a resource hub to support work throughout the network.
Jason Legget, Assistant Professor of Behavioral Sciences at Kingsborough Community College, will be looking at the connection between what institutions say they want to achieve, how they achieve that, and where the gaps are.
Mathew Oakes is a Professor of English at Rock Valley Community College. During the fellowship, he will explore the intersection of civic engagement, anti-racist pedagogy, and Universal Design for Learning.
John R. Unger, Workforce Innovation Director & Engineering, Manufacturing and Technology Faculty at Blue Ridge Community and Technical College, will be looking at basic needs and trauma as it relates to Community College students and community engagement