PRF is excited to announce the program's 23-24 theme: "Engaging Portland."
How can UP engage with the neighborhoods and city around us in ways that invigorate our work, our students, and our mission as an institution committed to the common good? What would it look like to become—in our university President’s words—a University for Portland?
PRF calls for faculty fellows to develop undergraduate research or curricular projects animated by these questions; see the call below for details and how to apply. Applications due Tuesday, April 18th!
Read the 23-24 "Engaging Portland" Call for Faculty Fellows here.
Wednesday, March 29, 11:45-1:00pm
This Spring, the Public Research Fellows program is gathering information about the experience of being a humanities student at UP. With the support of an NEH grant, PRF is laying the foundation for a humanities hub on campus and we want to better understand how a humanities-based organization can provide resources and support for students as they study on campus and prepare for life after graduation. What challenges and opportunities do students see for the humanities? How do humanities students think about the connections between their majors/minors and their future goals?
To explore these questions, we’re hosting a catered focus group lunch on Wednesday, March 29, 11:45-1:00pm to find out what it’s like to study the humanities at UP from the student perspective. If you’re a humanities major or minor (English, History, ILC, PFA, Philosophy, Theology), we’d love to have you join us. There are 12 spots available and participants will have their choice of gourmet sandwiches, snacks, and drinks; RSVP to Dr. Jen McDaneld (mcdaneld@up.edu) to reserve your spot!
Interested in lending your perspective but can’t make the lunch? Please take our short survey to tell us a bit about your experience in the humanities at UP.
The Public Research Fellows, with the support of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and UP's Core, invite applications for our pilot Engaged Humanities Institute, a two-day workshop to support faculty from all UP schools, disciplines, and ranks in developing engaged humanities pedagogical approaches for new or revised courses. Check out the call below for details and how to apply; applications are due March 31!
PRF is seeking a research fellow for 2022-23 to assist in managing, documenting, and publicizing our work on a National Endowment for the Humanities grant in addition to supporting continued program building. The selected student will receive the annual Laurie McLary PRF Scholarship of $2500; the donor’s preference is for the scholarship to be awarded to a female BIPOC student with financial need. Check out the call for applicants and spread the word!
PRF is excited to announce that two of its co-founders, Molly Hiro and Jen McDaneld, have won a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for their project “Core Humanities: Integration Through Curriculum, Campus, and Community.” The grant will fund the development of engaged humanities core Exploration courses and the foundational planning of an Engaged Humanities Hub to support the long-term advancement of the humanities on UP’s campus.
Join us in Franz Hall for an interactive open house as the program's working groups unveil their projects. Come by to check out what our interdisciplinary teams have been creating all year, from experiential studies of art and wellness, to narrative exploration of Portland's food cultures, to multimodal investigation of the UP community's experiences during the pandemic. Free snacks and drinks. All are welcome!
The Public Research Fellows kicks off its Spring Series exploring interdisciplinarity with a faculty-student discussion of disciplinary stereotypes and how we might move beyond them at UP. Join us on Thursday, Feb. 3, 4:00-5:15pm in the Bauccio Dining Room for a lively conversation about perceived divides between our disciplines, how they affect our teaching and learning, and the potential in thinking across them. And stay tuned for follow-up student and faculty workshop where participants can get hands-on experience with putting interdisciplinarity to work.
The program is pleased to introduce the 21-22 PRF working groups that will collaborate across the year to explore a variety of timely topics, from Portland foodways, to art therapy and mental health, to the opportunities and challenges presented by the return to campus after the remote year. Drawing from disciplines across campus, including English, Environmental Studies, Psychological Sciences, Health and Wellness, and the Performing Arts, the working groups bring faculty and students together to collectively design, build, and disseminate research in public-facing ways. The working group model will showcase the humanities as a hub for the creation of exciting interdisciplinary work on campus and in our communities.
Are you interested in developing innovative public-facing research projects in a supported environment? Have you wanted to work more interdisciplinarily but haven’t been sure where to start? We invite you to participate in the third-annual Public Research Fellows, a program of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Humanities Collaborative that supports exploration of broad humanistic questions through publicly-engaged research and teaching. A key goal of PRF is to create conversations and collaboration beyond the typical confines of our campus culture and our scholarly disciplines.
See the 21-22 CFP below for details and how to apply.
Monday, May 17, 3pm PDT: Attend an informal Zoom session to learn more.
Interested in becoming a Student Fellow? See the PRF Call for Student Fellows.
Thursday, Apr. 29, 7:00-8:15pm PDT
The Public Research Fellows invite you to a showcase of the program’s 20-21 work. Students and faculty fellows will unveil their projects and be on hand to guide attendees through a variety of lenses for thinking about our theme, Displacement and Justice. From a podcast that explores displacement through the experience of first-generation students, to an interactive map that uses Portland African American literature to tell local stories of displacement, to a virtual performance that thinks through displacement with music—the PRF teams have created a range of exciting projects that use innovative, accessible forms to expand our ideas of what research can look like. Join us for this interactive event to get inspired about the possibilities in your own work and learn more about how displacement manifests in local contexts and beyond.
Thursday, Apr. 8, 2021, 4:00-5:15pm PDT
What does the work of the PRF program look like in practice, and how could it inspire your own work? Whether you're a faculty member looking to refresh your teaching and research by experimenting with public engagement, or a student seeking opportunities to connect your learning to timely issues in our communities, we invite you to join us for an interactive discussion of the public humanities at UP. Topics will include: the central tenets of the public humanities; how the PRF program works and how to get involved; and collective brainstorming of future annual themes and potential community partnerships.
Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, 5:00-6:15pm PST
Join us for a roundtable discussion that brings together community leaders to discuss an ever-pressing issue in Portland: Displacement and Justice. From houselessness to redlining, Portland's politics of displacement have impacted already marginalized communities. By centering community-led efforts, the event seeks to conceptualize justice considering injustices experienced by the displaced.
Panel Discussion, Thursday, 6-7pm on Zoom
As we look ahead to November, voting rights have never been a more important part of the national conversation. But what are the best ways to engage the public on this vital issue? And how can academic work make a real difference in how we understand the history of the vote and its meaning today? Join us for a panel discussion featuring students, faculty, and activists as they talk about their work in the inaugural 2019-2020 year of the Public Research Fellows program and in the community.
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This year's theme is the U.S. Women’s Suffrage Centennial. Faculty fellows from a variety of humanities disciplines will work with students to co-develop and implement public-facing projects that take the historic and contemporary topics of women’s voices, civil rights, and political engagement as a prompt.
The public humanities draws on the humanities’ powerful modes of inquiry—things like interpreting, historicizing, raising questions, and analyzing discourse—to address pressing concerns in our local communities, in our wider publics, and in our everyday lived experience. To produce these impacts, public humanities methods toward collaboration—across disciplines, and across campus/community borders, using innovative forms of dissemination that can reach a wider, more diverse variety of publics and open up new avenues of civic engagement.
The University of Portland’s inaugural Public Research Fellows Program has landed three external grants to support public humanities undergraduate research projects inspired by this year’s 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. The Juliet Ashby Hillman Foundation has awarded $14,582, the Juan Young Trust has granted $10,000, and the Jackson Foundation has given $7,500 to fund projects that explore the suffrage movement, voting rights and women’s political voices in the modern era. The program has also received a $2,500 sponsorship from US Bank.
"The 2019-20 academic year will host the inaugural Public Research Fellows program at the University of Portland, centered on the centennial of U.S. women’s suffrage..." Read the article.
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