Roundtables

Skilled Trades Educational Pathways (STEP)

TU Lead: Michelle Joyce
Community Partner: Baltimore County and City High Schools

STEP functions as a transformative workforce development initiative designed to prepare students and employees for rewarding careers in skilled trades. STEP embraces an innovative, multi-trade approach that allows participants to explore several trades across TU’s campus, gain hands-on experience and develop diverse skill sets through mentorship, structured training and workforce readiness.

Autism Hiring Program

TU Lead: Kimberly Hubscher
Community Partner: Autism Society of Maryland

The Autism Hiring Program advances workplace neurodiversity by supporting talented autistic job seekers in building employability skills, expanding their professional networks and securing meaningful employment. At the same time, it helps employers create inclusive workplaces that benefit from the skills and strengths of an untapped workforce of neurodivergent employees.

Family Science/Sincerely, Divorced: A Partnership for Translational Research 

TU Lead: Bethany Willis
Community Partner: Sincerely, Divorced

The Department of Family Science, in their growing partnership with Sincerely, Divorced, aims to support education, research and community development as it relates to separation and divorce experiences in our region. With already developed cross-campus connections and interest, this organization hopes to expand research partnerships with faculty and students and co-create campus and community programming that translates research into practice.

Learn, Connect, Act: Justice-Centered Community Engagement Training

TU Lead: Romy Hübler

The Learn, Connect, Act training is designed for TU faculty with an interest in incorporating community engagement into their courses or research. Modules explore the history of local communities and ethical approaches to community engagement, and guide faculty in developing community-engaged courses and research projects.

What Lives in the Harbor

TU Lead: Sarah Haines
Community Partner: National Aquarium in Baltimore

There are increased needs to support school districts in providing meaningful environmental experiences for all students and to prepare preservice K-12 teachers during their undergraduate academic programs to meet the Maryland State Department of Education’s environmental education standards upon entry into the profession. This project, in partnership with the National Aquarium in Baltimore, allows TU students (preservice teachers) to serve as National Aquarium educational instructors, delivering “What Lives in the Harbor” programming to Baltimore City students, onsite at the Aquarium.

Baltimore Immigration Summit

TU Lead: Elizabeth Clifford, Ph.D.,
Community Partners: Baltimore City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs; Baltimore County Office of Community and Engagement 

The Baltimore Immigration Summit brings together academics, policymakers, service providers, activists, community leaders and others working with and for New Americans (immigrants and refugees) to learn about and celebrate these communities. The location alternates each year between TU in Baltimore County and a location in Baltimore City, showing the ongoing partnership between the two jurisdictions.

Tigers Lead

TU Lead: Shemiah Dickens
Community Partner: Baltimore County Public Library, Towson Branch

Tigers Lead is a certificate leadership development program that guides students in discovering themselves as leaders through interactive workshops, hands-on experiences and community building. The community building phase of the program is held in partnership with the Towson Branch of the Baltimore County Public Library, during which students connect with public elementary schools in the Towson area to inform, build content and host original leadership development programs for the community.

Maryland Center for Community Schools

TU Lead: Jessica Shiller, Ph.D.

The Maryland Center for Community Schools (MCCS), housed within TU’s College of Education, engages in relationships with community schools and school districts throughout the state to support their work as they implement the strategy, and conducts research to understand the impact of community schools as they work with families, students and communities. MCCS works in collaboration with TU faculty, staff and students, community school staff members and other partners to focus on training, professional development, research and evaluation.

Baltimore Archaeology Lab

TU Lead: Katherine Sterner
Community Partner: Preservation Maryland

The Baltimore Community Archaeology Lab (BCAL) works to mitigate and protect the historic resources on TU’s campus. The BCAL works with multiple departments across the university to ensure this cultural heritage is protected, documented and made accessible to the campus community. TU archaeology students have access to education modeled in real world experience with archaeological methods and cultural heritage development both on campus and through contracts with outside partners in the greater Baltimore area.

BLinG-Health

TU Lead: Tara Blackshear
Community Partner: Reginald F. Lewis High School

Bling-Health (Black Leadership in Girls’ Health) is a peer-led physical activity program that was piloted at Reginald F. Lewis High School and will become a standard afterschool program.

Fair Chance Higher Education

TU Lead: Elyshia Aseltine

The Fair Chance Higher Education initiative supports justice-impacted people in their pursuit of higher education from pre-application to completion of their college degree and beyond. This is accomplished through increased awareness, implementation of best practices, targeted recruitment and comprehensive mentorship.

Leadership Foundations Program

TU Lead: Ardys Russakis
Community Partner: Cristo Rey Jesuit High School

Launched in 2022, this partnership brings cohorts of high school freshman to the StarTUp at the Armory to develop entrepreneurial skills through a hands-on interactive learning experience. Students identify real-life problems faced by their peers and communities and grow into young entrepreneurs, creating and pitching solutions.

TU Human Resources & Humanim Partnership

TU Lead: Jennifer Stano
Community Partner: Humanim

TU’s Office of Human Resources partners with Humanim to provide workforce training and employment pipeline opportunities to community members. Through this partnership, TU faculty and staff in need of temporary administrative support can fill positions quickly while providing critical workplace experience to program participants, with the ultimate goal of moving into full time, steady positions at TU and other anchor institutions.

TU-COE Robotics Program

TU Leads: Qijie (Vicky) Cai, Liyan Song, Zuzhen Duan, Tracy Cai
Community Partner: Baltimore County Public Schools

The TU-COE Robotics Program is a free, in-person program hosted at TU that welcomes Baltimore County Public School students to complete a series of sessions designed to spark their interest in STEM topics and support their computational thinking development.

Health, Wellness and Science Presentations

TU Leads: Osher Lifelong Learning Institute
Community Partners: Edenwald Senior Living and Baltimore County Department of Aging

TU Kinesiology students have connected with Edenwald Senior Living, BCDA, and Osher to share educational presentations on health, wellness, and exercise-related topics with the older adult community. These presentations sift through hype and assist older adults in the community with understanding the bottom line about health, wellness and exercise-related topics and how that bottom line may most directly apply to them and their personal journey towards optimal health and well-being.

Empowerment Fellowship Program

TU Lead: Willie Sanders
Community Partner: Pass IT On

Pass IT On is a nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating the technology skills gap experienced by youth and adults in disadvantaged communities. This work has multiple connection points with TU and other community partners, including several TU students participating in Pass IT On’s inaugural Empowerment Fellowship Program. Hear from several of these students about this collaborative work.

ECHO Enhanced Community of Practice

TU Lead: Kay Holman
Community Partner: Baltimore County Public Schools

ECHO is a global evidence-based professional learning model that utilizes case-based learning to equitably share information and resources through an “all teach, all learn” framework. It has been utilized in health, education, and civics. Through the pilot, educators and service providers built a community to share knowledge and best practices to support the education of children with disabilities and to coach families and caregivers. Learn about Dr. Holman’s experience and explore how ECHO can be applied throughout other disciplines.