Jonathan Choti, associate professor in the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures (LiLaC) at Michigan State University (MSU) has completed successfully a five-day summer intensive training workshop on Community-Engaged Scholarship (CES). Hosted by MSU’s Office of University Outreach and Engagement, the training took place on June 2-6, 2025, at the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center on the MSU campus in East Lansing. The workshop attracted 41 participants who included faculty, academic staff, graduate students, and community partners from different universities and academic backgrounds. Participants explored how academic work can be embedded in and aligned with the needs of local and global communities.

MSU’s Tanzania Partnership Program (TPP) sponsored Choti’s participation in this workshop owing to his role as the faculty director of the TPP, a 6-week summer education abroad program, Sustainable Community Development in Tanzania.

The five-day summer immersive training was designed to empower participants in terms of knowledge, core strategies, and resources that support meaningful, ethical, and sustained engagement between universities and community partners. Workshop participants engaged intensely with key concepts and definitions, historical traditions, theory and practice, and real-world applications of community-engaged research and perspectives.

Coordinated by Dr. Diane Doberneck of MSU’s Office for Public Engagement and Scholarship, the workshop began with participant introductions, a comprehensive overview of the histories and traditions of community-engaged scholarship, tracing its roots in social justice movements, participatory action research, missions of land grant universities such as MSU, and the exploration of indigenous knowledge systems. Through presentations, readings, field trips, and group discussions, participants examined how CES adds to traditional in-class and lab instruction by centering collaboration, reciprocity, experiential learning, university-community linkages, and social impact in higher education.

The training also explored best practices in communicating with public audiences and publishing. This topic focused on ways scholars communicate with the public through writing, storytelling, and media outreach and publishing CES work in academic and non-academic venues, including identifying relevant journals, and co-authorship with community partners. One afternoon was dedicated to field trips to four different community partner sites. The visits offered participants firsthand insights into how partnerships are cultivated and sustained. The visit sites included a neighborhood center, a refugee development center, a courthouse, and an ecological research center. A session on advancing careers in Community-Engaged Scholarship identified strategies for career success in CES, addressing how early-career and fixed-term scholars can align their research, teaching, and/or service with community needs and values. Participants learned how accomplishments in CES can contribute to tenure, retention, and promotion.

The workshop also highlighted the importance of learning from real-world examples through case studies involving MSU scholars. These included:

· Youth Empowerment Initiatives: A case study on how MSU scholars co-designed projects that centered youth in intergenerational programs to preserve and highlight the traditions and customs of Native Americans.

· Capstone Student Projects: Examples of MSU undergraduate engineering students collaborating with local organizations to address pressing community issues through applied research.

· Collaborative Research with Indigenous Communities: Highlighted ethical approaches adapted by MSU in co-producing knowledge with Indigenous partners from early childhood programs.

· Advancing Health Equity: Showcased an MSU scholar’s long-term collaboration with a community to address health issues affecting the youth.

“I did not expect to learn so much about Community-Engaged Scholarship within such a short time. I am proud of what we accomplished within the five days of training. I feel empowered to improve my community-engaged approaches in my education abroad program,” said Choti. “I was exposed to excellent community-engaged work that colleagues at MSU are engaged in and the impactful outcomes of the projects,” he added. “The networks I created during the workshop will enrich my career,” he concluded.

Choti and the other workshop participants praised the workshop organizers and facilitators for their outstanding planning and in-depth knowledge, respectively. They acknowledged the new skills acquired and networks that ensued and pledged a deeper commitment to integrating community-engaged approaches into their academic and professional work.

Choti’s experience in community-engaged scholarship relates to his 10-year collaboration with a rural community in Tanzania that hosts his 6-week summer education abroad program, Sustainable Community Development in Tanzania. His work in Tanzania has been highlighted in previous MSU news, e.g., Excellence Award in Interdisciplinary Scholarship and Network for Global Civic Engagement Grant, among others. Choti believes that “community engaged learning provides a real-world context for students to apply their academic knowledge and skills.”

For more information about future CES workshops and ongoing initiatives, please visit University Outreach and Engagement or contact Diane Doberneck at engage@msu.edu.