1. Overview PERSONAL STATEMENT

PERSONAL STATEMENT 1. Overview My definition of scholarship follows that espoused by the late Ernest Boyer, American educator and president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching: " The scholarship of engagement means connecting the rich resources of the university to our most pressing social, civic, and ethical problems, to our children, to our schools, to our teachers and to our cities. " It is in this light that since co-­‐ developing the blueprint for the establishment of the School of Public Health (SPH) in 1994, my teaching, research, practice, and service have sought to create opportunities designed to advance students' competencies while instilling in them a sense of engagement and advocacy on behalf of vulnerable and marginalized populations. At the time that I was asked to co-­‐ develop the SPH's blueprint, no extant school of public health—domestically or internationally—relied principally upon problem-­‐ based learning (PBL) pedagogy or community-­‐ based learning. The city's public health challenges, and the imperative to train future public health professionals in interdisciplinary teams, convinced me of the need to advocate for adoption of a PBL curriculum including community-­‐ based experiential learning. Below, I provide a synopsis regarding my research, teaching, practice and service on behalf of the SPH, as well as how I have contributed to the advancement of its mission. Additionally, I will discuss my work's contributions to the communities served by the SPH, to the field of public health as well as future directions in my role as faculty. My research orientation builds on the evidence provided by successful community-­‐institutional partnerships linked to effective prevention science as well as service-­‐learning. i In this regard, Seifer has identified key factors that can facilitate and impede successful community-­‐institutional partnerships and outcomes, as well as strategies for building community and institutional capacity for participatory approaches to prevention research. The research I have undertaken has sought to embody partnerships with institutions committed to the vulnerable and marginalized. Service-­‐learning, ii and community-­‐based participatory research (CBPR), iii are two major methodologies for community-­‐academic partnerships that serve as the focus of my scholarship. CBPR received the endorsement of the Institute of Medicine in 2002, and constitutes a core competency in academic public health education.