The Community Fellows are community leaders—staff, board members or resident volunteers of community-based organizations. CURL recognizes that individuals with extensive experience in addressing community issues possess knowledge invaluable to understanding those issues and developing innovative solutions to problems facing urban communities. Typically community fellowships are funded through outside research grants developed in cooperation between CURL and community partners. Over the years community fellows have served in multiple capacities such as:

• Participation as a co-researcher in developing or expanding collaborative community : university research action projects that will produce community change
• Coordination of an exchange of knowledge between the community and university that produces equitable change for low income residents and new understanding within the academic community
• Analysis of public policy at the local, state or national level that results in new policy positions and advocacy around those position
• Involvement in teaching (or co-teaching) in the community or at the university and mentoring students or other community activists in a research action project

 

Year	Community Fellow
2005-2006	- Dina Evans, Senior Director, Early Childhood Education Programs, Albany Park Community Center - Brenda Chock Arksey, Child Education & Development Services Manager, Chinese American Service League - Naomi Samuels, Vice President of Child Development Services, Jane Addams Hull House - Sandra Schaefer, Director of Child Care Programs, Erie Neighborhood House - Jan Stepto-Millett, Chief Operating Officer, Center for New Horizons - Carrie Steinbuck, Executive Director, and other staff, Rogers Park Community Council
2004-2005	- Kristie Baumgartner, Alton Community Unity School District #11 - Tanya Kellam, Korean American Community Services - Sarah Jane Knoy, Executive Director, Organization of the NorthEast - Nancy Aardema, Executive Director, Logan Square Neighborhood Association
2003-2004	- Carlos DeJesus, Former executive director, Latinos United
2002-2003	- Peter Haas, Mgr. Technical Information, Center for Neighborhood Technology - Patricia Novick, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist, Latinos Leadership Project - Bud Ogle, Good News Partners - Jane Samuelson, Ph. D., St. Anthony Hospital, Project Hope - Maria Woltgen, Esq., Lead Poisoning Prevention Conference, Loyola Child Law Center
2000-2001	- James Mumm, Organization of the NorthEast - Mike O'Connor, Esq., Earned Income Tax Credit project - Rene Luna, Access Living - Mike Rohrbeck, Executive Director of PRIDE (Peoples Re-Investment and Development Effort), to work with faculty on ways to enhance capacity building, especially through participatory evaluation processes with community-based organizations.
1999-2000	- Pam Smith, Howard Area Community Center Alternative High School - June Terpstra, Former Director, Rogers Park Youth Net - Marrice Coverson, Executive Director, Elliott Donnelley Youth Center, to develop "Open Book", a TV Talk Show for Youth. - Doug Dobmeyer, Poverty Issues. . . Dateline Illinois, to develop 6 lectures in the community and at Loyola that will teach strategies for impacting policy at the local, state, and national levels. - Gwen Griffin, Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance, to develop a strategic marketing plan to demonstrate how the Conservatory can be more available and relevant to West Side residents.