Student Resources
By transcending the boundaries of the classroom, the MPES aims to link academics to real-world questions, problems, and opportunities, challenging students and faculty to integrate scholarship with community perspectives, knowledge, and expertise to have impact within and beyond the academy.
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Why Engaged Scholarship?
How will you connect the “rich resources of the university to our most pressing social, civic, and ethical problems”? (Boyer, 1996)
Engaged Scholarship centers learning by doing. Whether you’re creating evidence-based infographics for the public, developing a robust reflection practice in the context of academic work, or collaborating directly with a local organization on timely research, MPES classes across disciplines–from ANTHRO to WOMGEN, from MATH to MUSIC–build on course content to ask big questions such as:
- How can we bridge theory and practice to effect real change? When and how should we move from thinking to doing?
- What skills are necessary for building relationships with people, communities, and organizations beyond Harvard?
- What are the principles of ethical research?
- How can we center community needs and put people first in the pursuit of knowledge and change?
- What does true collaboration look like?
- What are strategies that allow us to critically interrogate the processes and norms of knowledge production? Who gets to be an expert and why?
- Where does creativity come into the process of social change?
- What does it mean to be of service?
- How can you bring your education at Harvard into the larger world right now and in the future?
Courses
Explore Engaged Scholarship courses offered this year.
Resources
Learn about the principles and practices of Engaged Scholarship.
Listserv
Join the student listserv to receive information from MPES.
Student Perspectives
Read more about the kind of projects and collaborations you can expect in Engaged Scholarship courses.
- Yasmin Issari ’16
Our education is directly linked to us wanting to make a positive impact in this world. In SOC-STD 68EC: Education and Community in America we often discussed John Dewey’s perspectives on education. How he believed that to learn, we must…Continue Reading Yasmin Issari ’16 - Emelia Vigil ’18
Harvard is an institution wherein students are encouraged to engage critically and liberally with myriad academic disciplines. While there are certainly benefits to a hyper-academic approach to learning, one pitfall is in the lack of hands-on engagement with the material…Continue Reading Emelia Vigil ’18 - Alan Yang ’18
Music 176r: Music and Disability was an opportunity for me to bridge the realms of scholarship and service, and to use that bridge as a platform for contemplating my own work with MIHNUET, a student organization dedicated to building positive…Continue Reading Alan Yang ’18
What Next?
Opportunities and events to further your learning beyond a grade.