Overview

The Simpson Center and The Graduate School are pleased to announce a new graduate Certificate in Public Scholarship scheduled to launch Fall 2010, pending final approval. The Certificate in Public Scholarship is designed to bring together cross-disciplinary cohorts of graduate students and faculty interested in the following:

• public scholarship in the cultural disciplines and other fields that work with culture as a form of public practice;
• revitalized emphases on campus-community partnerships across all sectors of higher education;
• new forms of scholarly dissemination (digital publication, multimedia formats, exhibitions, learning environments, and performance, among others);
• emerging trends and methodologies of community-engaged research, teaching, and service;
• professional development for careers in research universities and other sectors inside or outside higher education.

Graduate students of good standing in any program at the University of Washington are eligible to apply for admission to the certificate. Upon admission, students become Simpson Center Public Scholarship Fellows, are assigned a portfolio advisor, and pursue a 15-credit course of study that allows them to

• develop forms of research practice and dissemination that engage with the medium of culture across academic programs, professional fields, and community formations;
• create a portfolio of research, teaching, and engagement practices designed to complement their scholarly work in their home departments;
• reflect upon and articulate the significance of public scholarship for academic and non-academic audiences.

Pending approval, the graduate Certificate in Public Scholarship will accept applications in Spring 2010 and admit its first cohort of six to twelve fellows to begin in Fall 2010 with the 2-credit gateway course, HUM 594: Scholarship as Public Practice.

Curriculum

The curriculum of the Certificate in Public Scholarship is grounded in four core learning objectives:

• become familiar with conceptual vocabularies, research methodologies, and institutional initiatives related to public scholarship as a field of practice;
• develop a flexible and situated understanding of public scholarship at different scales across academic, professional, and community settings;
• engage creatively and critically with public and applied forms of scholarship in research, teaching, and/or community-engagement projects;
• articulate and provide evidence of the significance of public and applied forms of scholarly practice for academic and/or professional audiences.

The certificate’s core curriculum advances these objectives by providing Fellows with a background in the historical, political, and intellectual foundations of public scholarship; creating a space for practical experiences with one or more of its forms and ensuring that graduates can articulate the significance of their accomplishments in intellectual and professional contexts, including their home departments.

Core Courses

HUM 594: Scholarship as Public Practice (2 credits, C/NC).  This short course serves as the gateway to the certificate. It introduces new Public Scholarship fellows to research conversations about the public dimensions of professional practice within and beyond the university, orients them to the resources of the graduate certificate, and provides an initial opportunity to shape the learning and professional portfolio that structures the certificate as a whole.

HUM 595: Engaged Scholarship/Public Culture (7-9 credits).  Courses across the three campuses of the UW are cross-listed with HUM 595, based on the approval of the certificate’s steering committee. These courses, ranging from 5-credit graduate seminars to 1-credit microseminars with visiting scholars, develop the themes introduced in HUM 594. Assignments completed in these courses become artifacts in students’ learning and professional portfolios. (Fellows may petition to have additional courses satisfy this requirement.)

HUM 601: Capstone Project (3-5 credits).  The capstone project involves a practice-based experience shaped with and approved by fellows’ capstone advisors. Capstone projects are scaled to fellows’ educational goals: the piloting of a community-engaged scholarly project; the development of a community-based learning course, an academic internship; or the launch of a digital form of research designed for a wider public; among many other possibilities. All capstone projects require some form of public presentation. They may be completed individually or collaboratively.

HUM 602: Portfolio Capstone (1 credit, C/NC).  The portfolio capstone course takes the form of an independent study with fellows’ portfolio advisors during the final quarter of the certificate. The course allows fellows to complete their learning and professional portfolios by selecting appropriate artifacts and developing a reflective statement about those artifacts that links their documented accomplishments to the learning objectives of the certificate and to their personal and professional goals. Portfolios are reviewed and approved by the certificate program’s core faculty.

Contact

Inquiries? Questions? Please contact Miriam Bartha at mbartha@uw.edu or 206.543.3920.

Public Scholarship Steering Committee

Bruce Burgett (Director)
Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, UW Bothell

Miriam Bartha (Associate Director)
Simpson Center for the Humanities, UW Seattle

Rob Corser
Architecture, UW Seattle

Moon-Ho Jung
History, UW Seattle

Ron Krabill
Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, UW Bothell

Katharyne Mitchell
Geography, UW Seattle

Chandan Reddy
English, UW Seattle