The Cover Story

Lessons in Community

BY MICHELLE KEARNS

Community matters.

It defines who we are. It aligns with our mission as a public research university and graduate school of education. Community and its lessons strengthen academics with innovations and evidence-based practices, improve opportunities for people and spark creativity.

Communities are organic opportunities. They form and intersect. Relationships develop and learning happens when education, ideas and impact expand.

This work is at the very core of our purpose. It’s in GSE’s DNA.

Faculty ground their research in local schools. They design projects that aid educators and address emerging issues, like racial justice and learning in virtual classrooms.

Our students pitch in with life-changing efforts, like providing free tutoring for a public school system when teachers, students and parents struggled with the shift to learning.

We come together to ensure that a student struggling with the isolation of the pandemic feels supported and included in his new GSE community so that he can imagine his future as a leader in higher education.

Newcomers are welcomed and supported, allowing them to bring a fresh perspective and to do their best work.

We offer help and expertise to a new virtual summer camp designed to keep young students on track. This work, in turn, enhances teacher preparation, giving our students a chance to learn as they worked.

By collaborating and partnering with communities we identify needs and find solutions. When we rally together, ideas materialize into empowering initiatives like the new Youth Alliance on Education, a consortium of teens from schools throughout the region talking about educational reform.

“Working with communities is transformational. The stories in this issue of Learn highlight the seriousness with which we take our responsibilities as a public research university.”

—Suzanne Rosenblith, Dean

Seven stories. Seven insights.

Lesson/insight: Ideas for change are bigger and better when a community works together.

Ground-breaking collaboration with teens from across Western New York sparks new ideas for school reform
6/23/21
It was 30 minutes into the very first meeting of teenagers from across Western New York. Students were typing their thoughts about school reform and change on bright yellow, orange and pink virtual sticky notes. The cyber bulletin board on the Zoom call was filling up with their ideas about school change.

Lesson/insight: Experiential learning benefits both teacher and student.

UB Homework Help tutors come to the aid of high school students
3/31/22
Kier Bishop, 14, made his mother proud and impressed her with his confidence and focus as he transformed his freshman year grades last semester. He had a rocky beginning as the pandemic shifts set in. When he started high school last fall at Frederick Law Olmstead, he was making a transition from a smaller Catholic school to a public school that he was not able to step inside of. Nor did he get to meet any of his classmates or teachers as he finished his first year.

Lesson/insight: Connecting to a community and being flexible strengthens learning.

In-person literacy program morphs into a unique summer tutoring camp for Buffalo students
3/31/22
A unique lesson in community and learning emerged last summer when the pandemic stretched on after the semester ended and GSE began supporting the virtual summer camps set up by Buffalo’s Say Yes to Education Program to keep students engaged while school was out.

Lesson/insight: Communities need advocates to support their members.

GSE’s community supports new student as he starts grad school on rocky virtual ground
6/25/21
After finishing his degree in criminology and sociology as the pandemic started last spring, Anthony Vargas, BA ’20, enrolled in GSE’s higher education and student affairs master’s program.

Lesson/insight: Volunteering fosters opportunities to contribute and learn.

Coalition addresses food inequity: GSE professor’s research resonates in the food crisis of the pandemic
6/8/21
After the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools, Sarah A. Robert, GSE associate professor of learning and instruction, and specialist in school food politics, began volunteering with Seeding Resilience. This Buffalo coalition of community members, nonprofits, schools and government—organized spring 2020 to address food inequities highlighted by the pandemic—aligned with Robert’s research.

Lesson/insight: Sharing knowledge with a community fosters change and inclusion.

Creating inclusive curricula and awareness
6/25/21
As part of a new UB effort to help faculty reimagine their courses to include more diverse perspectives, two GSE professors shared their expertise and ideas with colleagues as one of a series of “Inclusive Pedagogy” online seminars organized by UB’s Office of Inclusive Excellence.

Lesson/insight: Creating community brings people to learn, change and grow.

GSE symposium explores MLK’s vision of just and equitable schools
6/25/21
About 650 people, including an estimated 200 UB students, listened to five authors, activists and educators share insights about reshaping the education system to be less punitive and more responsive to young people from all backgrounds and transform schools into places where everyone thrives.

Community, planted, rooted and in bloom.

Community is embedded in everything we do. At GSE, it is a noun that acts like a verb. “That’s where the power lies. This pandemic has taught us that,” said Terri Watson, visiting scholar and associate professor of educational leadership at the City College of New York. “There’s no singular person that’s more important than the whole.”

As a visiting scholar, Watson brought people together, lead conversation and created dialogue this past year, “We have to be in dialogue, and I think community is the best and safest place for that,” said Watson.

The “Beloved Community” title of the spring symposium, taken from Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to action, also reflects GSE’s core goals. In this age of the pandemic and social justice reform, it’s easy to become siloed in a divided world. In GSE’s community, people are invited to come together to learn, challenge ideas and grow.