Collaboratorium Open House

History Collaboratorium Brings Communities and Students Together in Cutting Edge Community-Engaged Scholarship Initiative

The Community-engaged History Collaboratorium builds partnerships with First Nations, non-profit organizations, and community organizations to co-create knowledge, and it does this by providing students with unique research experiences as paid interns on projects the communities themselves have identified as priorities. In meeting community research needs and providing students and faculty with exciting grass-roots research opportunities, the Collaboratorium is helping establish the UofS as a national leader in Community-engaged Scholarship (CES).

Situated within the History Department in the College of Arts and Sciences, the Collaboratorium is an initiative spearheaded by Prof. Keith Thor Carlson (Research Chair in Indigenous and Community-engaged History) that this summer partnered eighteen students with eleven different communities. The students came from a range of disciplinary backgrounds (history, political studies, education, Indigenous studies etc) and conducted research in accordance with the goals of the community partners, including Flying Dust First Nation, the Saskatchewan History and Folklore Society, Legal Aid Saskatchewan, and the North Saskatchewan River Basin Council.  In total, the communities provided well over $100,000 to fund the Collaboratorium’s student internships. The university contributed additional resources in the form of partnerships seed money, academic leadership, administrative oversight, physical space, intensive methodological training, and equipment.

The Collaboratorium works on the principle of sharing. The collaborative model being piloted through the Collaboratorium helps give a voice to people whose history has been either eclipsed or contested by the powerful narratives that emerge from corporate and government institutions. Collaboration helps reinforce the idea that universities can serve community interests in ways that advance scholarship and our understanding of the world. It teaches students to think beyond the classroom, and of the real world implications of their work. It reminds universities that they do not exist in isolation and that they are, in fact, part of the communities in which they exist.

Students truly appreciate the opportunity to put into effect the skills they have been learning throughout their undergraduate careers. For Steven Langlois, researching aspects of the intangible history of Saskatoon, the internship enabled him to “become acutely aware that historical trends and past injustices don’t simply vanish because it’s 2016.”

Similarly, Courtney Bowman, a member of a team compiling a database of Saskatchewan’s colonial history for Legal Aid Saskatchewan to help Indigenous people who have become entangled in the justice system, is drawn to the opportunity to work “on a project that has a significant amount of impact in terms of social justice.” Bowman feels that it is an “honour to be able to serve Indigenous people in this way, and to participate in creating such an important research tool.”

The Collaboratorium is at the forefront of the CES movement. For Prof. Carlson and his team of students the Collaboraotrium is not merely about making what they are doing interesting and useful to the community; it is about asking the community what questions they have, what problems they see that are linked to historical interpretation, and collaborating with them to co-create knowledge to answer those questions and solve those problems.   Such an approach ensures that marginalized voices are not only heard, but that communities become active holders of their own histories. It also ensures that universities are seen less as isolated ‘ivory towers,’ and more as valuable partners in creating better and more inclusive relationships between communities and academic institutions.

Anyone interested in learning more about this exciting new community-engaged experiential learning opportunity is welcome to come to the Collaboratorium’s Open House on October 7, 2016, between 3:00 and 5:00 pm (110b Arts Building, University of Saskatchewan). For more information about the Open House or about the Collaboratorium, please contact Keith Carlson (keith.carlson@usask.ca)