Research for Change: Transforming Policy, Scholarship, and the Classroom through Engaged Research with Communities of Color

The past year of a five-year campus-community research project marked the release of a substantive report that details broad and deep racial disparities stretching across institutional practices and outcomes, service access, and economic and social conditions. The report has catalyzed an abundance of advocacy opportunities, as the release has opened doors for dialogue with promising signs of reforms appearing within the first year since the report's release. In this article, the principle investigator shares how this research experience has benefited her development as a publicly engaged scholar; including her path towards tenure, her experience in knowledge creation in collaboration with community partners, and her experience infusing this content into her classroom pedagogy and her relationships with students. Her experience affirms that public scholarship holds transformative possibilities for researchers, students, and community partners alike.