New England Equity & Engagement Consortium

The New England Equity & Engagement Consortium was co-created in 2019, funded through two Massachusetts Department of Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) grants. The grants served to support work that diversifies the professoriate and provides anti-racist and community engaged professional development for faculty. This work continues today and is done as a multi-campus initiative along with Worcester State University, Fitchburg State University, UMass Amherst, College of the Holy Cross, and Merrimack College.

Centering Equity Initiative

As an offshoot of the HEIF grant work, this initiative focuses on the necessity of centering equity in community engagement practices. Stemming from a central argument of our Critically Engaged Civic Learning research, this initiative also argues that the term “service-learning” is problematic as it invokes inequitable power dynamics that inherently privilege one group over…

Building on the Cultural Wealth of Minoritized Students: Anti-Racist Community-Engaged Programming, Pedagogies, and Practices

This $132,000 grant focused on understanding the effects of community-engaged teaching on minoritized students and ensuring community-engaged teaching moves beyond “service-learning” frameworks that reify racist practices and have negative impact on students and communities of color. As part of this initiative consortium members held focus groups with students of color and community partners to articulate…

Diversifying the Faculty: Pathways Toward Equity

This $100,000 grant built the foundation for the New England Equity & Engagement Consortium (EEC) of faculty leaders and administrators across the campuses to create resources that support community engaged faculty work and support a commitment to building and maintaining diversity in the faculty. This initiative used an innovative strategy to diversify the professoriate by…