Community Engagement

The UNC Charlotte Gerontology Program celebrated its 25th anniversary this spring, while helping state leaders roll out North Carolina’s first plan to comprehensively address dementia. The community conversation drew students, scholars, practitioners and community activists from the gerontology field to UNC Charlotte Center City.

UNC Charlotte writing students’ digital stories are part of the ¡NUEVOlution! Latinos and the New South exhibit at the Levine Museum of the New South, in the video series hosted on the Levine Museum’s YouTube channel. These digital stories created by UNC Charlotte students, along with others in the exhibit, bring the voices and stories of people to the forefront.

The 40th annual conference of the National Council for Black Studies marks a historic occasion, with a theme of “Forty Years of Black Studies in the Local, National and Global Spaces: Past Accomplishments and New Directions.”

Dr. Seuss’ birthday is coming up, and that means it’s time for the annual Seuss-a-Thon. This year’s Seuss-a-Thon will take place on Saturday, March 5, 2016 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Park Road Books, 4139 Park Road.

A documentary that recounts the Cold War struggles of Mario Röllig, UNC Charlotte “CLAS Eyewitness in Residence” will premiere this week during the 66th Berlin International Film Festival. The film includes scenes filmed during a visit Röllig made to UNC Charlotte in 2014.

Sixty UNC Charlotte students who are enrolled in Spanish language classes caught a glimpse of what it means to live in poverty in a foreign country, struggling to survive with limited language skills through a simulation organized by Spanish lecturer Susana Cisneros.

Atrocities can start with seemingly insignificant acts. UNC Charlotte students have learned this painful, yet powerful lesson through their in-depth study of the Holocaust. As scholars in the course “Bearing Witness to the Past: A Journey to Auschwitz,” they have traveled to the death camps of Auschwitz and Krakow. They have studied the photographs of the dead and read their names. They have seen the mute mountains of surrendered belongings – the shoes, the battered suitcases, the eyeglasses.

UNC Charlotte and Gaston County are working together on an effort to protect and monitor a key portion of the county’s water supply. Funded by a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the “Healthy Wells” program will establish a public digital database of the county’s wells and promote the protection of private well water supplies.

A cadre of UNC Charlotte students this summer worked alongside homeowners and local masons in Ahuachapán, El Salvador to build foundations for new homes, through a partnership with Habitat and with support from donors. The program offered hands-on experience building affordable housing, integrated with academic course content designed to develop deep understanding of complex social problems.

As the new director for UNC Charlotte’s Center for the Study of the New South, Ashli Quesinberry Stokes will draw upon her research expertise and knowledge, along with her leadership and community engagement experiences, to lead the Center in its work.