Community Scholars Program

The Community Scholars Program (CSP) is a two-year academic community engagement program that works in collaboration with community organizations and movements to advocate for a more just world. Working with groups throughout western Massachusetts and sometimes beyond, CSP students contribute to meaningful social change projects in response to critical challenges and explore possibilities for building a more equitable world. Read more about CSP in this story on the UMass home page: Building Community, Leading Change.

ENGAGEMENT AREAS

Reproductive Justice 
Students have worked with DARLA (Doula Association for Reproductive Loss and Abortion), the Abortion Rights Fund of Western Mass and University Health Services to create a medication abortion doula program on the UMass campus. They have also been engaged in providing political education and workshops about medication abortion.

Abolition
Students have worked on campus with the Prison Abolition Coalition and Dissenters, and off campus with Northampton Abolition Now. In addition there are projects that are working to support restorative practices in local school districts. They are also engaged in a visual storytelling project about student interactions with campus police.

Land Back/Climate
Students have been involved with the potential rematriation of Lampson Brook Farm in Belchertown to the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Tribe. They are also working on a long-term database and mapping project about land back efforts across the state and beyond.

Mutual Aid
Students have worked with the UMass Mutual Aid Project, which holds regular “thing swaps,” maps anti-capitalist efforts across campus, is in the process of creating a time bank and a “thing” resource library, and supports food recovery and food justice efforts.

Outcomes:

• Demonstrate the ability to translate thought into action through meaningful social change projects that engage policy, political mobilization, grassroots organizing, action research, and/or advocacy
• Learn from and collaborate with community members, facilitate reciprocal access to and from community and university resources, and collectively build capacity for change
• Build a classroom learning community where compassion and care are central to our work and knowledge building