CUMU-COLLABORATORY RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP

The CUMU–Collaboratory Research Fellowship program explores campus-community partnerships on a national scale by leveraging Collaboratory Data to advance knowledge around campus-community partnerships, with a focus on larger, more quantitative methodologies that challenge assumptions, clarify anecdotal evidence, and examine larger trends and patterns. Fellowships are designed to give practitioner-scholars a national platform to pursue research and programmatic ideas that correlate with ongoing CUMU and Collaboratory initiatives.

2024 CUMU–Collaboratory Fellow

Jeremy Price, Ph.D., associate professor of technology, innovation, and pedagogy, Indiana University Indianapolis, was named the 2024 CUMU-Collaboratory Research Fellow. During his fellowship, Price collaborated to develop new and effective metrics to support community-engaged scholars in telling their stories.

Quality, not quantity: Metrics made for community engaged research

Jeremy Price shares research outcomes from his 2024 CUMU-Collaboratory Research Fellowship in this webinar.

2023 CUMU–Collaboratory Fellow

Paul Kuttner, Ed.D., formerly associate director of University Neighborhood Partners at the University of Utah, was named the 2023 CUMU-Collaboratory Research Fellow. During his fellowship, Kuttner collaborated with his colleague Erin Clouse, director of strategy and alignment for University of Utah Medical Group, to leverage Collaboratory data to conduct a mixed methods study examining outcomes and impacts of community engagement in higher education and how they are ​​conceptualized, measured, and facilitated across institutions.

Using institutional data to understand the impacts of community engagement across the country

Paul Kuttner shares research outcomes from his 2023 CUMU-Collaboratory Research Fellowship in this webinar.

JEREMY PRICE NAMED 2024 CUMU-COLLABORATORY FELLOW

PAUL KUTTNER NAMED 2023 CUMU–COLLABORATORY RESEARCH FELLOW

paul kuttner headshot

More about the CUMU–Collaboratory Fellowship

Collaboratory’s Open Dataset is the largest dataset of its kind, representing data on community engagement and public service from 43 institutions across the United States. Collaboratory is not a survey; it is a dynamic software tool designed to facilitate comprehensive, longitudinal data collection on community engagement and public service activities conducted by faculty, staff, and students in higher education. Collaboratory utilizes a standard questionnaire developed by its co-founders (Janke, Medlin, and Holland, 2021) in the Institute for Community and Economic Engagement at UNC Greensboro, which continues to be closely monitored and adapted by Collaboratory’s staff and academic colleagues. It includes descriptive characteristics (what, where, when, with whom, to what end) of activities and invites participants to periodically update their information in accordance with activity progress over time. Examples of individual questions include the focus areas addressed, populations served, on- and off-campus collaborators, connections to teaching and research, pedagogies and student learning outcomes, the role community partners play in activities, and location of activities, among others.

  • Collaboratory’s Open Dataset is publicly available online in the CivicLeads repository. Review the codebook to understand the data structure and full scope of variables provided.
  • Researchers also have access to identifiable data from Collaboratory beyond what is openly available. Examples of such data include locations, funding, and activity descriptions. Proposals using identifiable data will be subject to full review in collaboration with UNC Greensboro’s Institute for Community and Economic Engagement.

Fellows will leverage Collaboratory data to establish and examine the research question(s) under consideration. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Examining common characteristics of community-based activities that involve multiple faculty, multiple disciplines, and multiple community partners
  • Comparing data across institutional subsets via IPEDS characteristics or other publicly available datasets
  • Exploring partnership quality throughout connections to teaching and research
  • Refining understanding of the relationships among activity types, foci, populations served, and/or outcomes

Submissions must be from a faculty member, staff, post-doc or graduate student from a CUMU member institution. Fellows should have the ability to synthesize findings from complex datasets.

Fellows will receive an award of $5,000. $2,500 at the initiation of the project and an additional $2,500 upon submission of the research brief. Funds may be used for any expense judged supportive of the fellow’s research including staffing or subcontracting analyses, transcription, or other services; professional travel; project expenses; equipment; or salary support.

CUMU and Collaboratory will support the research fellow through ongoing consultation and technical assistance to support the research project.

The Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) is the longest-running and largest organization committed to serving and connecting urban and metropolitan universities. CUMU focuses on strengthening institutions that are developing new responses to the pressing educational, economic, and social issues of the day. CUMU was formed in 1989 by leaders of metropolitan and urban institutions who realized their unique challenges and opportunities as they looked to the future of higher education. Today, CUMU is dedicated to its member institutions and to the creation and dissemination of knowledge on the issues that face our urban and metropolitan campuses and the communities we serve.
Collaboratory is a one-of-a-kind software that helps higher education understand the landscape of their engagement—the who, what, where, when and why of activities designed with and for their communities. Institutions committed to community engagement are challenged to track essential aspects of activities and partnerships for the purpose of planning, reporting, and accreditation/classifications, as well as to build best practice and impactful outcomes. In Collaboratory, the specific details of campus-community activities are connected to a network of affiliated community partners, units on campus, courses, and institutional programs and initiatives. The resulting data enables administrators and scholars to develop institutional identity around community engagement, increase buy-in and understanding for community engagement and public service from internal and external stakeholders, advocate for its recognition in faculty rewards and institutional plans and policies, and demonstrate the value and impacts of their partnerships.