Community Engagement Faculty Fellows

Community Engagement Faculty Fellows are selected by their dean to serve a two-year appointment, with the option to renew. They have an in-depth understanding of TU’s community and civic engagement culture, resources and best practices, and work to institutionalize these while supporting rising engagement colleagues.

2026 Fellows

Carrie Grant, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of English
College of Liberal Arts

Dr. Grant is the co-director of the Grant Writing in Valued Environments (G.I.V.E.) community writing program and co-founder of the Towson University Nonprofit Summit. Her research interests intersect technical communication, community engagement, digital rhetorics, and social justice, with scholarship appearing in Communication Design Quarterly, Computers and Composition, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, and edited collections. Dr. Grant has over 10 years of experience teaching community-engaged courses with nonprofit partnerships emphasizing grant writing, content strategy, and empirical research.

Sarah Haines, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Biological Sciences
Fisher College of Science & Mathematics

Dr. Haines' research interests lie in the areas of science education, and in particular, environmental education. Her focus is in improving preservice and in-service teacher knowledge and training in the area of environmental education, and promoting environmental education and awareness among students in grades K-12. Her courses all include outdoor components, and many incorporate service learning and civic engagement activities. Dr. Haines has built community partnerships with many local nonformal educational institutions, often teaching her classes at these institutions and her students frequently lead programs at them as well.

Donal Howley, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Kinesiology
College of Health Professions

Dr. Howley is an Assistant Professor in Health and Physical Education Teacher Education in the Department of Kinesiology. He represents the College of Health Professions on the BTU Council. His work involves the establishment of university-community research-practice partnerships with the help of his pre-service teachers and others at Towson promoting child, youth, adult, and intergenerational participation in meaningful play and physical activity across the lifespan.

Emily Minner

Student Success Librarian
Albert S. Cook Library

Emily Minner (she/her) is an academic librarian at Towson University where she specializes in information literacy instruction, student success initiatives, and community engagement. Emily is a dedicated advocate for Indigenous students. She advises the Native American and Indigenous Student Union, supporting their academic endeavors, building culturally responsive library resources and collections, and strengthening their community connections. Emily frequently volunteers and engages with community arts projects through the Baltimore American Indian Center.

Desiree Rowe, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Communication Studies
College of Fine Arts & Communication

Dr. Rowe’s research digs into the tangible embodied interactions of our cruel fantasies of life. Through queer performance ethnography, arts-based methods, and critical qualitative interventions her investigations center on negativity in two ways. First, through reparative negativity (a la Sedgwick) that allows space for reframing and revisioning institutions and institutional life. Second, through embracing a contradictory negativity, one that is an unruly anti-productive or unwell negativity. Desirée’s community engagement work includes partnering with local schools for storytelling projects, local businesses for research partnerships, and the TU community for voting initiatives.