How can educators/researchers promote sustainable self and community transformation?  Interested teacher-scholars across campus joined together to brainstorm or advance scholarly projects related to the content and process of transformation.  Whether this transformation revolves around themes of conflict resolution, human rights, sustainability, global education, religious and cultural understanding, social justice, or self and social change, the hallmarks of this scholarly community included: (1) identifying the community and self needs and contexts for transformation, (2) understanding content and processes of transformation, (3) identifying the theoretical frameworks and research paradigms that inform the work of transformation, (4) developing interventions that could lead to effective transformation, (5) designing ecologically valid assessments that will indicate progress in research and practice (6) perhaps piloting some interventions and gathering  evidence, (7) disseminating ideas, (8) and celebrating transformation.  As participants work on individual and/or group projects, they will benefit from interdisciplinary input that will help them transform their understanding into research and practice.

This Madison Research Fellows group is related to a larger JMU interdisciplinary initiative, the “Cultivating the Globally Sustainable Self” Summit Series on transformative learning.

Faculty participants progressed toward these scholarship area outcomes:

  • Enhancing scholarly productivity,
  • Form collaborative scholarly projects with students, faculty, & staff at JMU and other institutions.

Faculty participants progressed toward these program outcomes:

  • Understanding the needs, the content, and means of transformational learning processes,
  • Brainstorming or advancing a scholarly project related to the topic, and
  • Developing plans that could be pilated and disseminated to lead to transforming self and communities.

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