The projects profiled here represent wide-ranging approaches to collaborative, project-based, socially engaged learning and public scholarship. They vary across diverse dimensions including, among others: social issue, disciplinary approaches; type of partners and forms of engagement; lengths of the partnership; pedagogy and content; student outputs; and intended learning outcomes and partner outcomes.
The New York City public school system comprises 1,856 schools and 1,133,963 students – an enrollment greater than that of 38 states. The system is home to some of the finest public schools in the country, and some of the worst, with a high degree of racial and socioeconomic segregation contributing to unequal opportunities and outcomes.
The Nahuatl language and culture is disappearing. Continually threatened by the legacy of colonialism and more recently neo-colonialism through the presence of multinational corporations in Mexico, Nahuatl speakers have dropped from over 5% of the population in 1895 to 1.5% in 2000.
Incarceration: A Podcast for Change preserves, reframes, and disseminates audio content from the States of Incarceration initiative developed by the Humanities Action Lab (HAL) in 2015-16. Students at The New School and other partner institutions created content in support of a traveling exhibit (ongoing) and related community outreach.
Born of a desire to enrich these bright young men’s educational experience, introduce them to literary role models, and help them develop and trust their own voices, WriteOn! NYC was piloted by Fiction Chair, Professor Helen Schulman and two selected MFA candidates in January 2016. The MFA students worked with Helen and George Jackson and developed a curriculum.
Given the current political landscape in the U.S. and the recent executive orders that have left immigrant and refugee communities in a particularly vulnerable position, we believe our project is taking place at a pivotal moment for our university and country. The Mentoring Through Making initiative is an innovative approach to education that combines the critical thinking of a seminar, the creative experimentation of a studio, and the real world experience of service-learning.
The Institute for Transformative Mentoring (ITM) is a program at The New School – Center for New York City Affairs. The Institute for Transformative Mentoring (ITM) is a dynamic training program focused on the development of Credible Messengers (formerly incarcerated men and women) working in the social services fields throughout New York City.
Across the Northeastern US, the health and wellbeing of local communities and fragile ecosystems are under significant threat due to an unprecedented rollout of Shale Gas infrastructure. This comes in the forms of fracked gas drilling pads (Hydraulic Fracturing), transecting pipelines and compressor stations.
The DEED (Development through Empowerment, Entrepreneurship, and Design) Research Lab, founded in 2007 by Parsons & Milano faculty, models more sustainable ways to support artisans globally. Through international fieldwork programs, strategic institutional partnerships, and academic research, we challenge the artisan sector to become, truly, “fair”.
By harnessing the power of art, science and technology, Public Works in collaboration with the Department of Environmental Quality constructed a dynamic network that collects and translates groundwater data from across Kentucky into interactive soundscapes that manifest as public art installations and educational outreach programs.
The Do Tank is an action-oriented design thinking course, tied to a challenge to translate learnings into local impact. In collaboration with different partners every year, the Do Tank cultivates a group of people with varied skillsets to work together on a real-world issue, from collaborative ideation to collaborative creation.
Designing for Financial Empowerment (DFE) is a cross-sector initiative to explore how service design can be used to make public sector financial empowerment services more effective and accessible.
"Sound the Mound” is a project developed by students from the Transdisciplinary Department as part of their core PROJECTS STUDIO 1 course. In this course, they address complex issues of climate, sanitation, landfill reclamation, public parks, cellular technology, public art, sonification and more.
In the Participatory Community Engagement course at the Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy, graduate students work with New York City nonprofits to create a space for listening, dialogue and collective analysis of issues of shared concern.
Beyond Green’s Community Builder Kit (CBK) is a customizable tool that invites people to reflect on and identify community groups as well as public spaces in their neighborhood and the relationship between both. The CBK is an open tool, available for download through the Beyond Green website. Each community is encouraged to use it as they see fit.
OutHistory was founded by Jonathan Ned Katz, author of the groundbreaking Gay American History (1976) and other books on the history of sexuality. As the web became part of the everyday life, Jonathan saw the possibilities for LGBT history to reach larger audiences than ever before.
New Challenge expands opportunities for students to realize their ideas and to take them to the next level of implementation. Building on The New School’s commitment to learning through action, New Challenge helps students develop as changemakers and lead real change in the world.
HealthClass 2.0, a civic engagement project housed at The New School, is an experiential learning program empowering New York City youth to engage in new conversations about health, food and exercise.
This two-year collaborative service design grew from a shared interest in asking “What does it mean to make a thing for ourselves?” across our three learning communities: formerly incarcerated young people at The Fortune Society, public high school students at Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School (WHEELS), undergraduate students at The New School.
The first HAL project will focus on the past, present, and future of incarceration, exploring the explosion of prisons and incarcerated people in the US — including immigration detention centers — and its global dimensions.
Our aim is to create an appropriate digital memorial that helps preserve significant cultural memories about AIDS, art, and activism, and personal memories about those who died of HIV/AIDS who are commemorated on the Quilt.
The purpose of the HCP is to support young people in Harlem to meet their higher potential. We will do this by testing our assumptions, being grounded in relationships and acting responsibly.
Integral City: Warren is a collaboration between community groups in Warren, Ohio and The New School Urban Collaborative (Milano Finance Lab + Parsons School of Design Strategies) to propose, design and implement visionary new models for urban life.
There is a lack of engagement and meaningful learning in pre-college education when it comes to History. This problem is compounded by a lack of funding, support, and innovation in history and social studies classrooms across the nation.