Signature Projects

BTU supports a variety of signature projects to sustain, scale, align, and institutionalize critical community-engagement efforts across campus and throughout the community. These projects receive the following wrap-around strategic support:

Connecting and convening with key internal and external partners
Specialized consultative services
Program and budget management and oversight
Advocacy for sustained support and resources
Dissemination and promotion of program impact

Take the first step: Schedule a discovery meeting with the BTU Team

If you're interested in growing your community engagement and partnership work or exploring how BTU can support your efforts, contact the BTU team.

Professor Dana Kollmann leads TU students on a forensic field study to help with a 39-year-old cold case in Kentucky

Advanced Forensics Field Investigations

TU lead: Dana Kollman, Ph.D., Dept. of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice
Partner: Bay Area Recovery Canines

This interdisciplinary project is centered in the work performed by students in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice, who have had success searching for and recovering human remains at the request of law enforcement and forensic archaeologists.

BCCC refugee youth working on a project with TU students

BCCC Refugee Youth Partnership

TU lead: Kate Collins, Ph.D., Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts Infusion
Partners: BCCC Refugee Youth Project, Patterson High School

This community engagement curricular project uses innovative curriculum to enable collaborative artmaking strategies that support and engage refugee youth in Baltimore. This emerging investment project has transformed into a priority investment focused on expanding community engagement with this population.

College of Education and Urban Education

TU lead: Jessica Shiller, Ph.D., Dept. of Instructional Leadership & Professional Development
Partners: Baltimore City Public Schools, Afya Public Charter School, Calvin M. Rodwell Elementary School, Forest Park High School

Using Baltimore City as a case study, students study how racial inequity in urban schools came to be and how to combat it. Students learn about community schools and spend time in them, working with community school coordinators in the school programming.

Empowering Secure Elections

TU leads: Natalie Scala, Ph.D., Dept. Business Analytics & Technology Management; Josh Dehlinger, Ph.D., Dept. of Computer & Information Sciences
Partners: Harford County Board of Elections & Anne Arundel County Board of Elections

The College of Business and Economics and Fisher College of Science and Mathematics are collaborating to examine potential physical, cyber, and human vulnerabilities to the voting process and create educational materials for Board of Elections personnel.

Fair Chance Higher Education Initiative

TU lead: Elyshia Aseltine, Ph.D., Dept. of Criminal Justice
Partners: Baltimore County Detention Center, Goucher Prison Education Partnership, Harford County Detention Center, Jessup Correctional Institution, University of Baltimore Second Chance Program, Volunteers of America

Based off the successful creation of an increased Inside-Out cohort of TU faculty from emerging support in 2018–19, this project seeks to increase the capacity for formerly incarcerated individuals to access higher education and employment opportunities.

GIVE: Grantwriting in Valued Environments

TU lead: Zosha Stuckey, Ph.D., Dept. of English
Partners: The Friends of Patapsco Valley State Park, Ltd., Safe Alternative foundation for Education, Inc., The Be. Org, Family Survivor Network, Black Girls Cook, Womb Work Production, & St. Lukes Youth Center

This partnership advances students' professional writing goals by connecting their coursework to the writing needs of small non-profit organizations in the Baltimore/Washington region.

Baltimore Immigration Summit: Restoring Hope through Solidarity

Home and the Human: Public Humanities Immigration and Refugee Outreach Project

TU lead: Jennifer Ballengee, Ph.D., Dept. of English
Partner: Baltimore Immigration Outreach Service Center

Through this service-oriented partnership with the Baltimore Immigration Outreach Service Center, students will gather refugee stories as part of asylum application processes and as public testimony to the situation of refugees and immigrants in the Baltimore region and the work of the IOSC.

Baltimore Immigration Summit: Restoring hope through solidarity

TU students outside of the Baltimore County detention center

Inside-Out Prison Exchange

TU lead: Elyshia Aseltine, Ph.D., Dept. of Criminal Justice
Partners: Baltimore County Detention Center, Harford County Detention Center, Jessup Correctional Institution

Inside-Out courses provide unique opportunities to bring TU students and incarcerated students together inside a correctional institution to learn together as peers. This successful emerging investment has transformed into a larger priority investment to further develop and support returning citizens.

Public Communication Center

TU lead: Desiree Rowe, Ph.D., Dept. of Communication Studies
Partner: to be determined

The PCC provides direct services to students in classes with a presentation component and provides a space for cross-campus and community engagement.

Sweaty Eyeballs Animation at the SNF Parkway Theatre

TU lead: Phillip Davis, MFA, Dept. of Art + Design, Art History, Art Education
Partners: Stavros Niarchos Foundation Parkway Theatre, Maryland Institute College of Art, Maryland Film Festival–Stavros Niarchos Parkway Theatre

This community engagement curricular project offers students programming, networking and educational opportunities in the animation field and access to cutting-edge animators. The festival provides an opportunity for local audiences to experience animated films that might not otherwise have a clear path to distribution through the Station North Arts District in Baltimore. As part of a partnership with the Maryland Film Festival, Sweaty Eyeballs is part of a larger institutional focus on arts entrepreneurship.

altimore City school students viewing oysters at the harbor

TEAB: Teaching Environmental Awareness in Baltimore

TU lead: Sarah Haines, Ph.D., Dept. of Biological Sciences
Partner: National Aquarium

This partnership enables Baltimore City school students to explore the environment of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and the Inner Harbor through hands-on experience at the National Aquarium in Baltimore.

TU-BCPS Model United Nations

TU lead: Alison Rios Millett McCartney, Ph.D., Dept. of Political Science
Partner: Baltimore County Public Schools

The TU-BCPS Model UN program provides equal access to civic engagement learning experiences for students in Baltimore County Public Schools while providing TU students with hands-on opportunities mentoring high school students.

TU Empowering Communities Project

TU leads: Aminata Silah, Ph.D., Dept. of Political Science; Donn Worgs, Ph.D., Department of Political Science
Partners: A variety of black and/or minority-led Baltimore City nonprofit organizations

This partnership between the Department of Political Science and several nonprofit organizations is focused on economic empowerment and capacity building with goals around connecting nonprofits to opportunities, providing technical assistance, and facilitating collaborative ventures.

University broadens initiative to serve women at high school, collegiate and mid-career levels

Women's Leadership Collective

TU lead: Nancy Grasmick, Ph.D., Presidential Scholar for Innovation in Teacher and Leader Preparation
Partner: Junior Achievement of Central Maryland

The Women’s Leadership Collective at Towson University provides leadership skills and experience to women throughout their academic and professional lives—while creating a collective of women supporting women.

Refugee high school students in the YAAAS! program

YAAAS! Youth Allies and Artists Taking Action in Society

TU lead: Kate Collins, Ph.D., Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts Infusion
Partners: Baltimore City Community College Refugee Youth Project, Patterson High School

YAAAS! provides refugee high school students with safe, positive opportunities to collaborate one-on-one with TU students, increasing their global competencies.