Special Interest Groups

The mission of IARSLCE is to promote the development and dissemination of research and service-learning and community engagement internationally.  IARSLCE Special Interest Research Groups help incubate and deepen research areas and can play an important role in cultivating researcher connections, deepening individual researcher capacity and collective knowledge sharing.  

Grounded in a framework of networked inquiry and knowledge sharing, the Special Interest Research Groups (SIGs) provide a forum for IARSLCE researchers to come together around a common interest. The goals of the SIGs are to provide a capacity building infrastructure for IARSLCE members to deepen existing research, foster new research, and mentor the next generation of service-learning and community engagement researchers. Participation in a SIG allows more members to assume an active role in IARSLCE between annual meetings. You can join an existing SIG or propose the exploration of a new SIG.  

SIGs are housed under the Scholarship and Publications subcommittee and are supported by a Scholar in Residence. The Scholar in Residence collaborates with the coordinators of the Alliance, Graduate Student Network, Special Programming Committee, and the Global Research Agenda on areas of synergy and opportunity. SIG participation is open to all active IARSLCE members and community partners. 

Benefits for IARSLCE and Members

  • IARSLCE members have researcher communities of practice (SIGs) they can affiliate with to support their research 

  • Individual researchers can build and strengthen collaborative researcher networks

  • Networked knowledge sharing

  • IARSLCE members can disseminate their research through IARSLCE conference and publications

  • IARSLCE graduate students and early career researchers can affiliate with a SIG for professional development/mentoring/research coaching in a supportive environment e.g. an interested graduate student could co-facilitate/coordinate the incubation and development of SIGs with guidance from the Scholar in Residence

  • Newer researchers can collaborate with established researchers 

  • Researchers on a promotion track receive visibility for the leadership as a SIG co-chair or researcher

SIGs Model - Incubation & Development

Elaine Ward, Scholar in Residence

Elaine Ward has led the development of the IARSLCE Special Interest Research Groups and as a Scholar in Residence will help steward the SIGs toward a self-sustaining model. For general inquiries email warde@merrimack.edu.

Each SIG is coordinated by chair/co-chairs, convenes regular virtual meetings, and SIG scholars work together to advance research on the topic of the SIG. Outputs of the SIG could include: IARSLCE conference proposal and presentation, journal publication or other creative activity, book chapter or edited book.

Role of the co/chairs:

  • Primary point of contact for IARSLCE members who want to learn more about the SIG

  • Convene meetings between conferences (no required frequency)

  • Communicate back with Scholar in Residence with any updates and/or questions about the SIG

  • Support the mentoring of early career researchers/scholar-practitioners

  • Keep track of SIG outputs and projects

Role of the SIG participants:

  • Attend SIG meetings

  • Contribute to the scholarly outputs of the SIG

Social Drivers of Health & Community Engagement

An IARSLCE roundtable in 2024 led to 10 scholars wanting to remain connected to explore the intersection of public and social determinants of health and community engagement.  This group includes past IARSLCE board members and current Alliance members. 

Members: 

Chair Melissa Yack Hall, University of Utah (melissa.Hall@hci.utah.edu)
Elaine Ward, Merrimack College | Eleanor Shonkoff, Merrimack College | Tom Dahan, Rutgers University, Camden | Lizzy Curran, Creighton University | Alex Lancaster, Weber State University | Katie Barnhart, Grand Valley State University | Rose Wedemeyer, Oakland University | Eric Sung, Providence College | Katherine Feely, John Carroll University | Suzanne Buglione, Johnson and Wales | Katie Vega, University of Southern California | Nicholas Longo, Rutgers University

Oral History & Community Engagement

A growing number of community-engaged scholars/practitioners are focused on the curation of oral histories of national and international leaders who began much of the work to institutionalize and professionalize the field in the past 20 years. Dr. Elaine Ward, of Merrimack University, has led efforts to document the experiences and work of the founders of the Carnegie Elective Community Engagement Classification, as told by the founders themselves, in advance of the 20th anniversary of the classification. Drs. Kristy Wittman Howell and Erica Wrencher, inspired by Dr. Ward’s work, began their own project to create a campus- and community-wide collection of oral histories of community partners, faculty, staff, students, and administrators. Both projects were catalyzed by a sense of urgency to document the origins of the work, people, higher education institutions and associations involved and the motivations, intentions and purposes for engaging in community-engaged work, before those stories were lost. 

Members: 

Co-Chairs: Kristy Howell, University of North Carolina at Greensboro (khowell@uncg.edu) and Erica Wrencher, University of North Carolina at Greensboro (ejwrench@uncg.edu)

Emily Janke, University of North Carolina at Greensboro | Elaine Ward, Merrimack College | Diana Coello, University of San Francisco de Quito

Promotion and Tenure

This is a national group of researchers who are collaborating on mining the Carnegie data on the P&T questions. This group is particularly interested in encouraging newer researchers to join. Researchers currently collaborating in this group include IARSLCE members, past board members, and Alliance members.

Members:

Chair: Emily Janke, University of North Carolina at Greensboro (emjanke@uncg.edu)
Drew Pearl, Kansas State University | Elaine Ward, Merrimack College | Michael Rios, University of California, Davis | Timothy Eatman, Rutgers University, Newark

Graduate Student Preparation in SLCE

This is a national group of scholars some of whom came together in Susan Harris et al.’s IARSLCE roundtable a number of years ago.  The group has grown to include researchers from across the country. Currently, the group is finalizing a book proposal on graduate students and professional development in SLCE. This group includes current and past IARSLCE board members, Alliance members, and GradSN members. 

Members:

Chair Susan Harris, University of Southern California (scharris@usc.edu)
Diana Soto-Olson, Loyola University, NOLA | Meghan Zulian, University of California, Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute | Lucas Diaz, University of Tennessee, Knoxville | Cammie Jones-Friedrichs, University of Southern Mississippi | Ryan McBride, Tulane University | Nicole Williams, Antioch University | Samantha Renee Bernstein, University of Southern California | Emily Phaup, Campus Compact | Elaine Ward, Merrimack College  | Drew Pearl, Kansas State University | Tessa Hill, University of California, Davis | Stacey Muse, IARSLCE | Michael Rios, University of California, Davis

PROPOSED TEMPLATE FOR SIG EXPRESSION OF INTEREST  GOOGLE FORM

SIG Webinar Series

Launch - Dr. Elaine Ward

March 3/31/26 @ 7:00 PM (EST)  Zoom Link - same link for all SIG sessions

April 28, 2026 @ 7:00 PM

May 26, 2026 @ 7:00 PM

SIG Networked Inquiry and Knowledge Sharing Sessions

June 30, 2026 @ 7:00 PM

July 28, 2026 @ 7:00 PM

Aug 25, 2026 @ 7:00 PM