CETR Names 2016-2017 Gaultier Fellows

The Center for Community-Engaged Teaching and Research (CETR) has announced its 2016-2017 Gaultier Community-Engaged Teaching Fellowship class.

The new Gaultier Fellows are Dr. Melanie Turk, associate professor in the School of Nursing, and Dr. Emad Mirmotahari, associate professor of English in the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts.

The Gaultier Fellows work closely with Duquesne instructors and students by sharing successful community-engaged teaching strategies and best practices, and by serving as strong advocates for the benefits that the University’s community-engaged programs provide.

Turk partnered with her nursing faculty colleagues to utilize innovative methods to help students understand and be sensitized to the influences that poverty can have on one’s health and well-being.

Mirmotahari utilized a series of readings to engage students in a discussion of the complexities, virtues and failings of community involvement and social change work.

For each year’s call for applications, CETR establishes a theme that reflects an aspect of community-engaged teaching that needs to be strengthened at Duquesne. To address the 2016-2017 theme Preparing Students for Effective Community-Engaged Learning, Turk and Mirmotahari will curate a collection of assignments and learning experiences that community-engaged faculty use to prepare students before working in the field. The fellows will also share their own strategies at CETR programs such as Design Day and the CEL Course Designation Workshop.

“Our new Gaultier Fellows will help facilitate the leap that brings academic classroom work alive in our local communities,” explained CETR Director Dr. Lina Dostilio. “We look forward to seeing the fellows reinforce the history and culture of the communities in which our students work, and model promising practices for other community-engaged learning faculty.”

For more information on the Gaultier Fellows program, contact CETR at 412.396.5893.