Power Tools and Wax Figures: Learning and Co-Teaching with Baltimore Communities, Part 2

Description

This is a two-event session integrated into the American Studies Association annual meeting hosted by the Center for Social Concern's Engaged Scholar Faculty and Community Partner Fellows Program.

A tour of the Station North Tool Library, one of the country's premier libraries of things, which celebrated a decade of programming in 2023, starts at 4:15 p.m. The panel discussion about community-based learning runs from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., followed by a half an hour at the end for refreshments and mingling.

The Engaged Scholar program's faculty and community partners will examine and reflect upon the Center for Social Concern's four recommendations for engaging with community partners, using examples from their own community-based courses:

1. Adopt an asset-based mindset
2. Practice lifelong learning and critical self-reflection
3. Recognize and challenge power imbalances
4. Accept multiple perspectives and embrace both/and thinking

Attendees will also have an opportunity to meet with the community-engaged scholars, community partners, and select students. There will be formal and informal opportunities for dialogue and exchange, and every attendee will be given a special, hand-made Risograph zine/program—limited to an edition of 300—that will include further information about the Engaged Scholar program's nonprofit partners, best practices in the community-based learning space, and a list of suggested readings and additional resources for scholars and instructors curious about building effective, meaningful, and lasting community collaborations.

For American Studies Association annual meeting: The Station North Tool Library is 2.2 miles northeast of the conference site.

The community-based courses discussed over this two-part session include:

• Homayra Ziad: Never Forget: Muslims, Islamophobia, and Dissent after 9/11 (with a virtual presentation by community partner Darakshan Raja, executive director of Muslims for Just Futures)
• Victoria Harms: Through the Lens of 1968: Exploring Baltimore's Past and Present with Co-Educators, Eyewitnesses, Friends
• Anne-Elizabeth Brodsky: Listening and Practicing with Baltimore Symphony OrchKids
• Nate Brown: Build, Borrow, Repair: Writing with the Station North Tool Library
• Jasmine Blanks Jones: RACE and Blackstorytelling: Reparative Arts in Community Engagement