Graduate Community of Practice

The Graduate Community of Practice is a small cohort of cross-campus graduate students who are incorporating community-engaged methods into their scholarly work. 

 

The 2024-2025 application is now closed. Check back in spring 2025 for the 2025-2026 application.

Questions?

What is the Community of Practice Experience?

The community of practice cohort meets 2x each quarter (meetings 1-2 hours in length) to do some communal reflection, collective problem-solving, and knowledge-sharing on the unique challenges and opportunities of doing community engagement work as a graduate student at DU. Each meeting session will be co-created by participants with support from facilitators. Participating graduate students will have the opportunity to co-lead a discussion at least once. Participants will also submit a written reflection with the option to have it published in a special issue of CCESL’s Public Good Impact. 

Who Can Join?

Graduate students at any stage of their community-engagement journey, from early project development to writing up, are encouraged to join! To ensure that all participants have a foundational knowledge of community-engaged methods, all participants will complete an asynchronous training module before the first meeting.  

What is Community Engagement?

Community-engaged methods differ from approaches that emphasize one-way applications of academic expertise to community problems. Community engagement is a method, a strategic approach to teaching, scholarship (research, creative work) and service to address public problems through collaborative community partnerships, where community partners are involved in proposal and project development, that:  

  • Are reciprocal, mutually beneficial  
  • Share risk, benefit, responsibility  
  • Can be local, national, and/or global  
  • With diverse entities (e.g., non-profit, government, private sector) 

Graduate Community of Practice

A promotional image for International Archaeology Day at Red Rocks Park & Amphitheatre on October 19, 2024. The top section shows an illustration of the famous red rocks with the event details, while the bottom features a group photo of smiling volunteers and staff wearing event t-shirts, posing against the backdrop of the iconic Red Rocks landscape. Mountains and a clear blue sky are visible in the background.

Community and Archaeology

Cyndal Groskopf is a graduate student engaged in a community-centered archaeology project. Her work emphasizes collaboration with local communities to create more inclusive and trauma-aware research practices. Through the Graduate Community of Practice at CCESL, Cyndal received mentorship and resources to expand her project, focusing on ethical considerations and community involvement. The support from CCESL helped her integrate these aspects into her archaeological research, enhancing her ability to engage with community partners and develop meaningful, inclusive projects.
 

A young child is standing on grass under a tree, holding a pink hula hoop. The child is wearing a white t-shirt, camouflage shorts, and sneakers. A bright blue bus is parked in the background, and the sky is clear and sunny with trees and a street in the distance.

Graduate Community of Practice Reflection

Kristopher Tetzlaff, a PhD Visiting Teaching Assistant Professor at DU, engaged with the Graduate Community of Practice through CCESL, focusing on community-engaged research with You be You Early Learning, a mobile preschool. The program supported his research on ethical frameworks for participatory research involving young children from marginalized communities. CCESL provided mentorship, discussions on ethical practices, and a platform to integrate the Three Rs conceptual framework (Reflexivity, Rights, Relationships), which enriched his community-based research.

The image shows a red poster stuck on a street pole. The poster contains text in yellow and white that says, "Do you want decency, equality, and real social justice?" The background appears to be a street crossing with blurred lines and cars in the distance.

Community-Engaged Research as Part of an Anti-Racist Research Agenda

Özlü Aran, a PhD candidate at DU, focuses on the intergenerational transmission of health, particularly perinatal stress and health disparities. Through the CCESL Graduate Community of Practice, Özlü gained insights into community-engaged research, recognizing that traditional research often excludes marginalized voices. CCESL helped guide her shift towards an anti-racist research agenda by engaging with community partners, ensuring that her work addresses real-world needs and benefits those facing health disparities. This support has strengthened her commitment to socially just research practices.

Indeed, what I most appreciated from our time together this year was the opportunity to hear from other people’s experiences and to hold space to talk about questions and issues related to community-engaged scholarship…With colleagues of diverse disciplinary backgrounds and prior experience in community engagement, we were able to ask hard questions and explore important issues, and the most important takeaway I had was the importance of relationships in community-engaged research. Graduate Student Participant
group of students chatting

The 2024-2025 application is now closed. Check back in spring 2025 for the 2025-2026 application.

Questions?

Contact

 

John Macikas, Student Programs Manager