Community Engaged Faculty Fellows

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Offices and Services

The Community Engaged Faculty Fellows program is a year-long opportunity that supports faculty to deepen their community engaged scholarship, build the capacity of our local community in the Charlotte region, and provide input into faculty resources for community-engaged and experiential learning.

Community engaged scholarship can focus on a range of issues (e.g., food justice, poverty, educational equity, literacy, public health, housing) and take a range of forms (e.g., community-based research, action research, policy work, consulting and capacity building projects incorporated into courses).  Regardless of the issue or specific enactment, the faculty fellow(s) focus on a community-defined need understood through conversation and dialogue with the community.  The goal of the program is not to develop more campus-based programs, but to engage within existing structures and networks on and off campus. The Center for Civic Engagement team helps identify and make connections with community leaders and organizations that focus on a particular area of interest.

The faculty fellow(s) receive a $15,000 grant and are expected to: 

  • Incorporate community-based learning components into at least 1 course during the 23-24 academic year.
  • Work on a community-engaged scholarship project of interest that is aligned with a community-defined need and CCE partnerships.
  • Offer one workshop, talk, or discussion during the academic year related to the community-engaged project or community-engaged pedagogy.  The CCE team will help coordinate all event logistics.
  • Provide input into the development of community-engaged and experiential learning resources for faculty.
  • Engage with other faculty in one on-campus professional development opportunity related to community engaged learning each semester.  The CCE team will coordinate all event logistics.   
     

2025-26 Community Engaged Faculty Fellows

Dr. John Corso-Esquivel

Associate Professor of Art

Dr. Corso-Esquivel’s current community-engaged learning interests focus on mapping Charlotte’s visual arts ecosystem with a special emphasis on community-driven and social justice-oriented initiatives. His work brings together oral history, digital humanities, and collaborative partnerships to foster reciprocal learning between students and local arts organizations. Through the fellowship role, Dr. Corso-Esquivel hopes to deepen his relationships with Charlotte-based institutions such as the McColl Center and the Mint Museum, while also developing public-facing resources that document and strengthen artistic networks across the region. He aims to train students in community-based research practices that support underrepresented artists and promote dialogue through the arts. He will also incorporate community-engaged learning elements into his course(s) ART 250: Social Justice Art in the 21st Century; ART 300: Critical Theory for Visual Studies; and, HUM 104: Justice and the Humanities (Spring 2026).

Dr. Rebeca Fernandez

Writing Center Director, Professor of Writing & Educational Studies

Dr. Fernández has spent over two decades promoting literacy and bilingualism across the lifespan. In the Charlotte region, she has supported educators working with migrant students and served on the boards of literacy-focused nonprofits, including International House, Read Charlotte, and the Augustine Literacy Project (ALP). As a community engagement fellow, she will partner more closely with ALP as they innovate and expand their reading interventions. Students in her EDU 361: Bilingualism and Literacy course will help to pilot and evaluate ALP’s new online tutoring platform with second-grade bilingual students in a Charlotte elementary school. In the spring, she will collaborate with ALP staff and students to document and share the organization’s impact through publications and presentations.

Dr. Randi Gill-Sadler

Assistant Professor of English and Africana Studies

Dr. Gill-Sadler’s community-engaged learning interests focus on sharing, preserving, and providing access to Black women’s literary and archival materials and collaborating with Black cultural workers to highlight histories of anti-imperialist, Black cultural expression. Through the fellowship, she and her students will collaborate with Charlotte-based,  independent, Black feminist, literary magazine Sistories to create a portable curriculum that will highlight Black women writers’ aesthetics of liberation. In collaborating with Sistories, students will engage in collaborative knowledge production and community-based pedagogy. She will also incorporate community-engaged learning elements into her courses:  AFR 283: Gender and Literary Geographies and AFR/ENG 287: Power and Archival Methods. 

Dr. Gerardo Martí

William R. Kenan Jr. Endowed Professor of Sociology

Dr. Marti’s current community-engaged learning interests focus on racial justice efforts in local Christian congregations. Also, he recently collaborated with K-12 educators in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools to provide professional development on the complex interconnections among race, religion, and political power.  Through the fellowship role, he aims to foster meaningful connections between ¹ú²ú¸£Àû¾«Æ·ÍƼö students and local racial justice initiatives. His work will center on building partnerships with leaders and members of area businesses, schools, churches, and nonprofit organizations in the Charlotte and Lake Norman regions. In particular, he will focus on collaboration with two Charlotte-based organizations—one led by Dr. Lucretia Carter Berry and another by Rev. Dr. Benjamin Boswell—to deepen student engagement with racial justice efforts and prepare them for responsible community impact.  He will also incorporate community-engaged learning elements into his courses: WRI 101 Race, Religion, and Representation, SOC 120 Society of Strangers, and SOC 205 Race and Ethnic Relations, enabling students to apply course concepts in real-world contexts through reflective engagement with local communities.