Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship
Since 2001, the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship has served as CU Boulder’s lead unit for building the campus’s capacity to undertake engaged research, teaching and creative work. Our office supports a campus culture and structures that enable and reward faculty and staff members for public and community-engaged scholarship. Doing so, we help CU Boulder realize its mission as a comprehensive, public research university.
The Office for Faculty Affairs, the Research and Innovation Office, CU Engage, and the Volunteer Resource Center support public and community-engaged scholarship as a subset of their work. We encourage you to visit their websites to learn more about their focuses on behalf of CU Boulder.
For the broadest snapshot of outreach and engagement efforts (e.g., public and community-engaged scholarship, service learning, public-facing events) by CU Boulder, please visit our Community Outreach and Engagement Programs website.
What Public and Community-Engaged Scholars Have to Say
"The way community members can amplify scholarly instincts and connect scholars to the people already doing the work is valuable. We’re [scholars] investing in big systems and institutions, but engaging with the people inside them helps us understand practical limitations and opportunities."
Associate Professor Leah Sprain · Higher Education and Democracy Fellow, 2023-24
“ It is [hard] to quantify the influence that outreach awards and discussions with the Office for Outreach and Engagement have had on the way I think about my scholarship and the field as a whole. My whole professional development and world view has been shaped by this work.”
- Associate Professor Eliana Colunga · Building Early Language and Math Together · Communities Code: Engaging Underrepresented Youth in Creative Computing · Co-Designing an Early Education Program for Children Birth to Three · Conversations About Growing Up With Two Languages
"Doing community work really helped with my ability to go in and out of different spaces, to navigate many classes, communities and studios. Partnering with the community is inclusive. It also informed how I think about my research."
- Jesús Muñoz · Engaged Arts and Humanities Scholar 2022-23