Workshop 9: Community-Engaged Rhetorical Work

Leaders: Amy Lueck (Santa Clara University) and Brice Nordquist (Syracuse University)

Universities often struggle to connect community engagement, teaching, and research into
sustained systems of impact. This session introduces Syracuse University’s Engaged
Humanities Network (EHN) and the Ohlone Heritage Hub at Santa Clara University as scalable
models for integrating community-engaged research, teaching, and creative work into a
cohesive, place-based infrastructure that advances community well-being. In addition to
providing an overview of these programs and their conceptual frameworks, the session
highlights how storytelling functions as both a method and a metric—capturing impact through
narrative, public performance, and co-produced knowledge.

This session will introduce a conceptual framework of community-engaged rhetorics as
meshwork, in which learning emerges through interconnected relationships across institutions
and communities rather than within isolated structures. Participants will examine how
decentralized but coordinated systems—characterized by mutual support, co-mentorship, and
shared infrastructure—can produce durable, community-centered and community-driven
outcomes while strengthening democratic processes.

Co-facilitated by faculty directors from two university contexts, the workshop will include case
studies, visual models of networked infrastructure, and examples of participatory and
storytelling-based assessment tools. Participants will gain practical strategies for designing
equitable cross-sector partnerships, using mixed-method approaches to assess impact, and
aligning institutional work with community-defined priorities. They will reflect, strategize, and
build community through the application of these models and strategies to their own
institutional contexts and projects.

Note from the organizers:
As per previous workshops, there may be pre-reading and pre-work required before June. Your leaders will reach out to you some time after registration with additional details.

There will be no A/V equipment available in this workshop. The workshop leaders encourage participants to bring charged devices with their preferred hardware and software pre-loaded, especially for any participants who have accessibility needs. You should indicate any accessibility needs on your registration form.