Submit Abstracts for ‘Making a Difference in North St. Louis’ Symposium

Abstracts submissions for the symposium, which takes place from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Monday, April 3, are due by Monday, March 6, and should be sent to Megan Dorsey at dorseymb@slu.edu.

Background on the North St. Louis Initiative:

Saint Louis University, with its urban location, Jesuit tradition, mission, commitment to social justice, and history of service to the underserved, is in many ways uniquely positioned to address social, economic, education, and health disparities that exist in North St. Louis. Several faculty, staff, and students currently partner with community organizations on a number of program, service, and research activities. However, despite significant investment on the part of the university, community engagement and partnership* is too often fragmented, uncoordinated, and unfocused. Coordinating these activities through a community-focused SLU initiative could help crystallize these efforts, providing a home for enhanced service learning activities and a base upon which to build future research.

Principles of the North St. Louis Initiative:

• Members of the community regularly request that SLU work with them.
• Partnerships* between SLU faculty, staff, and students are key to the initiative.
• Activities include education, service, and research that are consistent with the Jesuit mission.
• SLU will have a physical presence in the North Saint Louis community.

Purpose of the symposium:

In lieu of our current ability to formalize the North Saint Louis initiative with dedicated staff and resources, we would like to offer faculty, staff, and students from across the campus the opportunity to gather and share their actual or proposed work in North St. Louis. We believe this symposium will continue the momentum for work in North St. Louis that was developed during the spring 2013 Atlas week. The objectives of the symposium are to:

• Highlight projects, service, or research conducted in North St. Louis through poster presentations on topics such as education, incarceration, health, etc.
• Encourage collaboration among faculty, students, staff, and community members on current or future projects, service, and research in North St. Louis
• Introduce our current community partners to the university family and the work that is being done with North St. Louis in order to increase and strengthen partnerships with the community.

*Principles of Partnerships:

Community-Campus Partnerships for Health has adopted a set of principles of “good” community-campus partnerships. We provide some of those principles below that are relevant to this project.

• The relationship between partners is characterized by mutual trust, respect, genuineness, and commitment.
• The partnership builds upon identified strengths and assets, but also works to address needs and increase capacity of all partners.
• The partnership balances power among partners and enables resources among partners to be shared.
• Partners make clear and open communication an ongoing priority by striving to understand each other's needs and self-interests, and developing a common language.

Making a Difference in North St. Louis Abstract Guidelines

Consistent with the objectives of this symposium, the following should be included in the abstract.

• Mission of the community partner and its alignment with SLU’s mission
• Description of the partnership between SLU faculty, staff, or students and the community partner
• Challenges and/or opportunities that the partners addressed (or plan to address)
• Description of the project in North Saint Louis
• Demonstration that SLU personnel and community partners jointly participated (or will participate) in the project
• How the project extended (or will extend) to scholarship and community change.

Photographs and/or videos are encouraged.  Presenters will be responsible for providing their own computer to show a video.

Although this is not a juried competition in the usual sense, we expect that authors will include all of the components listed above. If components are not addressed, the symposium organizers will work with the authors to assure they address all aspects of the project in their poster.

Co-Sponsored by:

• Center for Community Service and Engagement
• Office of Diversity and Community Engagement
• Office for Mission and Identity
• Office of Research Development and Services
• College for Public Health and Social Justice
• Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy
• SLU Chapter Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society

For more information contact Darcy Scharff at 314- 977-4009 or scharffd@slu.edu.