Bringing Coursework Into the Community

In Minna Ng’s “Neuroscience Service Learning” course, students create hands-on brain activities for after-school camps run by the Durham Children’s Initiative and the Downtown Durham YMCA.

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“One of my students got recruited to be a counselor for their summer camp to work with the kids and train other counselors,” says Ng, who is assistant professor of the practice of psychology and neuroscience. “She took the activities we created, made them better and reported back to me, saying ‘This doesn’t work, this works really well, try this next time.’ I imagine that it strengthened her CV for medical school, and it was also an opportunity for her to do what she really loves to do.”

“A lot of our students crave real-world experiences,” says Genna Miller, lecturing fellow of economics. Through her “Social Inequalities and Low-Wage Work” course, Duke students work with community organization Student U to tutor middle and high school students in Durham. The nonprofit is dedicated to creating a more equitable education system.

“Duke was an original partner that helped Student U get off the ground,” says Alex Turner, the organization’s director of academic support. “Volunteer tutors are such a massive part of our work, because we have 100 to 140 students in the afternoons, and tutors allow us to give more students the individual attention and support we know they each deserve. It really matters to have folks who can sit down with an individual student and say, let’s dig into math. There’s something about a college student coming in to tutor that I think is really energizing.”

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Collaborative Research 

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Miller and Ng met at a Duke Service-Learning workshop focused on STEM fields. “We [went on to] publish a practice-based article about the how-to of using service-learning and community engagement within STEM fields,” Miller says.

“We’ve collected some data to look at STEM and non-STEM fields,” she continues. “Next semester, we are planning to collect data again from classes at Duke. We’ve been focusing on the student side of things, but we also are planning to look at the community partner side. Both of us have had experiences where we’ve approached somebody about being a partner, and they’ve been kind of reluctant.”

“Maybe it means we have to be clearer about what the deliverables could be,” Ng muses, “and put out a CV, if you will, of capabilities and maybe examples, too, of what has come out of working in these partnerships. This could possibly be useful for instructors, as well.”

Dealing With Challenges

Community-engaged scholarship often comes with a set of structural hurdles.

“The IRB process [for research approval] has been a bit cumbersome,” Miller says, “in addition to how to compensate community partners.”

“Funds to support students going off campus have been an issue for us,” Ng notes. “I had four different sites where students went to after-school programs. We spent a great deal of time figuring out who had a car among the students, who could carpool and when. And to top it off, I didn’t have funds to pay them for their parking and gas.”

Fortunately, Duke’s Partnering for Effective Research Collaborations (PERC) initiative is addressing these challenges, helping to reduce administrative barriers for faculty and smooth the path for IRB approval, transportation, payments and more. 

Finding Support

For Miller’s new course, “Economics with Community-Based Clients,” she received an Undergraduate Program Enhancement Fund grant to support the extra work involved, from logistics to relationship-building. 

Miller and Ng have both benefited from student assistants provided by Duke Service-Learning. 

And the new Duke Center for Community-Engaged Scholarship was established to facilitate collaborative scholarship between community partners and Duke faculty, staff and students. 

I hope other instructors will venture into community engagement.

Ng spoke with the center’s faculty director, Mina Silberberg, about her interest in finding new community partners. Ideas flowed, and Ng quickly set up a meeting with a potential new partner.

“I’ve been really pleased with the networking opportunities that they’ve been able to offer so far, because they’re so plugged into the community,” says Miller. “I hope other instructors will venture into community engagement.”

“Every semester, Dr. Miller asks, ‘Can we keep doing this?,’” Turner says. “And we’re like, ‘Yes, please!’”

Main image: Students and staff of the Durham YMCA working with the Y Learning program in Spring 2023 (Photo: Courtesy of Minna Ng)