Conti Receives Fellowship To Develop Service-Learning Think Tank

Dr. Norm Conti, assistant professor in the sociology department and the Graduate Center for Social and Public Policy, has received a faculty fellowship to develop a service-learning think-tank around incarceration.

Conti will be recognized as the University’s 2013 Gaultier Faculty Fellow during the Office of Service-Learning reception on Tuesday, April 23, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in the Shepperson Suite of the Power Center. Brief remarks will be given at 4:30 pm. The campus community is invited to attend and to RSVP at 412.396.5893.

The Gaultier Fellowship, co-sponsored by the Office of the Provost and Office of Service-Learning, creates a space wherein a faculty member deepens a particular facet of the service-learning program through scholarship and by working with faculty peers.

Through this fellowship, Conti will implement a program designed to increase the sustainability of and generate original, student-led research based upon service-learning projects by creating a student-faculty-community think tank around issues of incarceration in greater Pittsburgh. Using this think tank as model, Conti will develop an ongoing service-learning project, then produce a guide for how faculty may develop their own collaborative think tanks.

“The goal of this work is to bring students together with community partners so that they can work on policies to build strong neighborhoods and effective police departments,” said Conti.

Such think tanks facilitate dialogue around social problems and the development of research questions that can be addressed collaboratively. During the Fall of 2014, Conti will lead a faculty learning group on service-learning, co-sponsored by the Office of Service-Learning and the Center for Teaching Excellence.

Since 2007, Conti has led the area’s Inside Out program, which takes a freshman class into jail, teaching traditional and incarcerated students to enhance their learning opportunities.

The fellowship is named after the Rev. Mathurin Gaultier, C.S.Sp, a professor of moral theology at Seminaire du Saint Esprit and later assistant general of the Spiritan congregation. He advocated for scholarly study within the congregation and attracted a number of scholars to the work of the Spiritans. The Gaultier name represents the way scholarship complements the practice of the Spiritan charism, just as the faculty fellow brings scholarship and scholarly leadership to the practice of service-learning at Duquesne.