Publish or Perish versus Community Engagement and Activism

by | Sep 24, 2020 | Uncategorized

I found this unpublished gem today. Now that I am on the other side of tenure, I figured I would share some of my (previously unpublished) thoughts…   ****** I am in my third year on the tenure track as an assistant professor. I have had a fair number successes, a few failures, and some major obstacles. As I have highlighted elsewhere, I have been successful in the area of publishing my work–I have co-edited three books and written book chapters and journal articles. I have two books on the way and a slew of working papers. I am proud of all of it all. Yet, I am struggling to feel completely fulfilled. With my roots in activism, organizing, and community engagement, I long to be more deeply connected with my communities– be they my neighborhood, region, university, or identity group. I have tried to attend local meet-ups and meetings; I have presented a different community events. Yet, it is not enough. *****   For reference, I am now in my 5th...

Gratitude to the ‘The Folks of Flint’

by | Sep 18, 2019 | Uncategorized

I had the privilege of working on a project of Dan White’s, The Folks of Flint, in 2017. I was introduced to Dan through the Jan Worth-Nelson, the editor-in-chief of East Village Magazine. After wrapping up fieldwork for my book Power, Participation, and Protest in Flint, Michigan. I spent the next month interviewing Flint residents about their life stories and their relationship to the city. I recently learned of the passing of Norm Mercier, who I interviewed that summer. We sat on his porch for more than an hour talking about what Flint meant to him. Many of the stories I collected for the project have stuck with me, especially Norm’s. I am grateful for the time I spent with Norm. I am grateful to the people of Flint who welcomed me into their homes and trusted me to share their stories. I hope that in all of my work, whether short-form narratives or long-form book, I continue to uplift the stories and experiences of Flint residents and community members in meaningful and authentic...

[Personal] Reflection on Identifying as a “Critical Scholar”

by | Jan 30, 2019 | Uncategorized

Originally Prepared for: ARNOVA Conference, Austin, TX, November, 2018   My entrance into critical nonprofit and voluntary action studies was winding and non-linear. This reflection essay highlights my journey to identifying as a critical scholar, how I see this identify in relation to my identities as a scholar-activist and feminist, how critical perspectives have shaped my approach to both teaching and research. While it may be perceived as academic navel-gazing, the goal of this essay is to highlight that critical scholarship is not an exclusive club, but a broad umbrella under which a range of critical perspectives are valued. I was not trained in big “C” Critical Theory, but instead stumbled into it. My undergraduate degree was in psychology, and I minored in women and gender studies. My graduate degree was in public (and nonprofit) administration. With a few notable exceptions, my course work emphasized professionalism and a neo-managerialist approach to in public and nonprofit management, rather than public service and social equity (for a discussion of these two conflicting paradigms see Eikenberry & Kluver 2004; Denhardt and Denhardt, 2015; Rivera & Nickels, 2018). So I sought out course work in macro-social work, reading and discussing Freire (1970); I independently read and tried to find ways to apply feminist theory to my nonprofit (and public admin) coursework. For a long time, I did not know that there were scholars that merged these areas of research and practice under the broad mantle of critical nonprofit (and critical PA) studies. In fact, I was often conflicted in classes, frustrated that activist, organizing, and social movement voices/ theories were not represented in course syllabi....

Three co-edited books!

by | Apr 24, 2018 | Research

This last year has been a whirlwind. I am wrapping up my second year on the tenure-track with some successes and some failures. For today, I am focusing on the successes! Between May 2017 and April 2018, I published three co-edited books. Each of the books is very different. Two are academic books and the other a collection of essays, poetry, and personal narratives. Two of the books focus on urban and community-based issues and the other on feminist approaches to teaching and learning. All of the books, to some extent, focus on power and oppression. And, all three of the books explore the ways in which individuals and organizations navigate and/ or respond to structures of inequality, paying close attention to strategies for creating social change. All of the books are available for purchase: Feminist Pedagogy, Practice, and Activism: Routledge or Amazon Grand Rapids Grassroots: Belt, SchulerBooks (support a local book store!), or Amazon Community Development and Public Administration Theory:...