R
A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S

welcome
DR. KHAULA MURTADHA, EDITOR

Reflected throughout this celebratory, IU Bicen-
tennial issue of ENGAGE! is the principle of de-
mocratizing knowledge, knowledges that are ever 
developing, as is the notion of a democracy itself.  
The issue is a tribute to Indiana University and its 
commitment to place.  Captured here are descrip-
tions of community conversations that occurred 
across the states’ urban and rural regions as well 
as IU campus-community research partnerships. 
Community-engaged research (CEnR) is an ap-
proach to scholarship in which reciprocal relation-
ships between scholars and communities generate 
knowledge relevant to concerns of the public 
alongside disciplinary discovery. Toward this goal, 
community engaged research methods are selected 
because they can further knowledge for the mutual 
benefit of all committed to social change.   

Dr. Ellen Szarletta, director of the Center for Urban 
and Regional Excellent (CURE) at Indiana Uni-
versity Northwest notes in her article, “Communi-
ty-university relationships must be both fluid and 
ever-evolving.” So this issue captures the dynamism 
of building and sustaining decolonizing relation-
ships--from a solo faculty member working with a 
single partner to the dean of the IU School of Nurs-
ing, Dr. Robin Newhouse’s description of a highly 
complex collaborative effort of community-based 
agencies working with university faculty, staff and 
graduate students in response to the opioid crisis.  

The ultimate purpose of community engaged 
research, according to Strand, K., et al (2003) is to 
change society “. . . to empower those in need, ex-
pand opportunities and resources to the disadvan-
taged, and mitigate structured inequities” (p.184). 
This is a challenge to researchers who are commu-
nity- university-based. Can they alter aspects of 
economic, social or political institutional operations 

or cultural contexts? Will their co-developed research 
provoke or effect the status quo? For example, IU 
South Bend Professor John Gallagher and a research 
team are evaluating drug courts and disseminating 
their research findings throughout the community, via 
local news stories, podcasts, and public lectures. 

IU student success and scholarship are the backbone 
of everything we do! Kayla Nunnally and directors 
of service and learning centers around the state 
found ways of bringing together and immersing our 
IU students into a labor of love, the tutoring and 
mentoring of 6th -12th grade youth. The program, 
“Indiana Kids-IU Tutoring, Mentoring College and 
Career Readiness” engages our students in expe-
riences that make a lasting impression on both 
mentee and mentor. Through professional develop-
ment, IU science, liberal arts, engineering, education 
undergraduate and masters students are challenged 
as to their beliefs about socio-economic status, about 
people with differing language, religious and cultural 
backgrounds, while they develop skills for tutoring.  

IU School of Education, Urban Education Stud-
ies doctoral students, Latosha Rowley and Susan 
Kigamwa stress, in “Speaking Up, Speaking Out” 
the importance of shared space for dialogue. For 
them, as they translate theory into practice, spaces 
become places for building trust and hearing multi-
ple sides of critical, community based issues. They 
are becoming thought leaders determined to make 
a positive impact through research. 

Big ships, it is often said, turn slowly but with 80% 
of Indiana’s residents living within an hour’s drive 
of an IU campus we are persistently making a dif-
ference via engagement—democratizing research-
ing, teaching and creative activity, collaboratively 
meeting the desires and needs of the many diverse 
communities we serve.  

ENGAGE!  |  i u p u i  b i c e n t e n n i a l  e d i t i o n 4