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Lessons learned balancing researcher and participant roles at #CEFP2017

In January 2017, we wrapped up the training week for the inaugural class of the AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program (CEFP), funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The first cohort of Fellows is made up of 17 scientific community managers working with a diverse range of scientific communities. As they continue to develop their community engagement skills and apply some of the ideas and strategies from the January training, the Fellows will report back on the Trellis blog, sharing their challenges, discoveries, and insights. Yesterday Dr. Stephanie E. Vasko shared a recap of a structured dialogue workshop that she helped lead. Today, in part two, she describes the experience of participating in the program as both a fellow and a researcher.

Posted by Stephanie E. Vasko, Research Associate and Program Manager for the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI) at Michigan State University

Three hats hanging by clothespins — “DIY Hanging Copper Hat Rack” by Geneva Vanderzeil under CC BY 2.0

As both a research assistant and the program manager for the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI), I not only engage in designing, implementing, and evaluating workshops, but I also drive efforts for our community engagement (both our internal and external communities), strategic management, project management, and business efforts. On any given day of the week, I find myself wearing my client services, researcher, project manager, program manager, community engagement manager, marketer, and social media strategist member hats simultaneously. In the case of the workshop we ran for the AAAS Community Engagement Fellows I attended as both a member of the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative and a member of the Community Engagement Fellows cohort.

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Structured dialogue at #CEFP2017: A recap of the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative workshop

In January 2017, we wrapped up the training week for the inaugural class of the AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program (CEFP), funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The first cohort of Fellows is made up of 17 scientific community managers working with a diverse range of scientific communities. As they continue to develop their community engagement skills and apply some of the ideas and strategies from the January training, the Fellows will report back on the Trellis blog, sharing their challenges, discoveries, and insights. Today, in part one of a two part series, Dr. Stephanie E. Vasko describes the custom workshop she helped facilitate during the training week.

Posted by Stephanie E. Vasko, Research Associate and Program Manager for the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI) at Michigan State University

Two word balloons made out of cut fabric — “Graphic Conversation” by Marc Wathieu under CC BY-NC 2.0

On Jan 11, 2017, the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI, represented by Dr. Michael O’Rourke, Dr. Stephen Crowley, and Dr. Stephanie E. Vasko) ran a custom workshop for the initial cohort of AAAS Community Engagement Fellows at AAAS Headquarters in Washington, DC.

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The moment you realize you have become a “Community Engagement Manager”

In January 2017, we wrapped up the training week for the inaugural class of Community Engagement Fellows Program (CEFP), funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The first cohort of Fellows is made up of 17 scientific community managers working with a diverse range of scientific communities. As they continue to develop their community engagement skills and apply some of the ideas and strategies from the January training, the Fellows will report back on the blog, sharing their challenges, discoveries, and insights. Today, we’re sharing Elisha Wood-Charlson’s tale of becoming a community engagement manager.

Posted by Elisha Wood-Charlson, Data/Research Communications Program Manager for the Simons Collaboration on Ocean Processes and Ecology

White lightbulb — “Lightbulb – Great Idea!” by uberof202, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Actually, there were several moments – four to be exact – where I stumbled into, explored, and finally embraced the role of “Community Engagement Manager”:

What it was like to take part in the CEFP training week

In January 2017, we wrapped up the training week for the inaugural class of the AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program (CEFP), funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The first cohort of Fellows is made up of 17 scientific community managers working with a diverse range of scientific communities. As they continue to develop their community engagement skills and apply some of the ideas and strategies from the January training, the Fellows will report back on the Trellis blog, sharing their challenges, discoveries, and insights. Today, we’re featuring a piece by Jennifer Davison who describes her experience during the CEFP training week.

Posted by Jennifer Davison, Program Manager at Urban@UW

The AAAS building in Washington, DC. Photo credit: Jennifer Davison

As part of our preparations for the weeklong training in January that kicked off the AAAS Community Engagement Fellows program, the new fellows were given a worksheet to capture expectations, needs, concerns, and hopes for our time together. At the end of the form we were asked to list five emotions we hoped to feel by the end of the week. I spent an inordinate amount of time refining my list (I may have used a thesaurus), settling on the following: Focused, Heartened, Inspired, Grateful, and Prepared.

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How to measure community value: Findings from a new CMX report

Measuring tape — “proper measure(ment)” by Barbara Krawcowicz, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Community managers often face the challenge of communicating their communities’ impact and value back to their organization. As we reported on the blog last year, “defining and measuring shared value” is a top goal for successful communities. Now, a new report from CMX explores the ways in which brand communities are doing just that. In the 2017 Community Value and Metrics Report, CMX shares data from over 500 participants about the ways they measure the impact of the communities they work with.

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Ready, set, engage! The AAAS Community Engagement Fellows program is go!

Posted by Lou Woodley, Program Director – AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program Last week, the pilot year of the AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program launched with a week-long training for … Continue reading “Ready, set, engage! The AAAS Community Engagement Fellows program is go!”

Posted by Lou Woodley, Program Director – AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program

The 2017 CEFP Fellows in a group fist bump. Photo credit: Allen Pope.

Last week, the pilot year of the AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program launched with a week-long training for the inaugural class of Fellows at AAAS HQ in Washington, DC. Our Fellows are from diverse organizations – including scientific societies, research institutes and data sharing initiatives. You can meet all of the Fellows here.

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Meet the 2017 Community Engagement Fellows: working at scientific professional associations

Today, we’re introducing the last group of Fellows from the first cohort of the AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program (You can catch up on earlier posts here). These four fellows will … Continue reading “Meet the 2017 Community Engagement Fellows: working at scientific professional associations”

Today, we’re introducing the last group of Fellows from the first cohort of the AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program (You can catch up on earlier posts here). These four fellows will help develop member champion programs, online community platforms, and global scientific networks for the members of scientific professional associations.

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Meet the 2017 Community Engagement Fellows: supporting local research collaborations

This week, we’re introducing the first cohort of Fellows for the AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program. We’ve already highlighted Fellows promoting open collaboration in science, Fellows supporting global research networks, and Fellows working with cross-disciplinary … Continue reading “Meet the 2017 Community Engagement Fellows: supporting local research collaborations”

This week, we’re introducing the first cohort of Fellows for the AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program. We’ve already highlighted Fellows promoting open collaboration in science, Fellows supporting global research networks, and Fellows working with cross-disciplinary scientific associations. Today, we’re introducing four Fellows who work with local research collaborations. These Fellows will help coordinate major research collaborations at universities around the country, from Hawai’i to Utah.

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Meet the 2017 Community Engagement Fellows: working with cross-disciplinary scientific associations

This week, we’re introducing the first cohort of Fellows for the AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program. So far, we’ve highlighted Fellows promoting open collaboration in science and Fellows supporting global research networks. Today, we’re introducing three more Fellows who are working at cross-disciplinary scientific associations. These Fellows support member-driven efforts to promote conservation, scientific engagement with policy, and the advancement of scientific research.

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Meet the 2017 Community Engagement Fellows: supporting global research networks

Yesterday we announced the selection of the first cohort of Fellows for the AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program and introduced you to the three fellows who are promoting open collaboration in science in their communities. Now, we’d like to introduce the next four Fellows who are supporting global discipline-specific research networks. They’ll use similar strategies to develop communities as varied as Arctic scientists, collaborative brain researchers, and scientists investigating carbon inside Earth.

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