To "renew and extend our commitment to public engagement and apply our knowledge and skills to lift the world's burdens," as President David Skorton recently said, Ernie Stringer, a visiting scholar at Cornell, suggested that universities develop approaches to teaching, research and service that are more closely connected to the realities of the diverse communities they serve.

Speaking Nov. 2 as part of the Engaged Cornell Speaker Series, Stringer used examples from his experience with marginalized groups in Australia and the United States. He demonstrated how close engagemen t with community groups can enhance and enrich university teaching and research programs, while making the expertise and resources of the university more accessible to the community.

He also explained how "reframing approaches to research and learning can enable university programs to develop creative and effective ways of accomplishing their strategic mission, especially in national and international settings where cultural diversity is a significant feature of the context."

Participatory action research and engagement, he added, can provide a useful set of processes for achieving these purposes, "bringing the resources of the university out to the community" in ways that are "directly relevant to [their] community life" and allowing for the most effective "sharing [of] our knowledge and making it meaningful to the community."

Being involved in outreach programs, he said, is yet another way of "enriching the lives of others" and of the university itself.

His talk "Of the People, By the People, For the People: Action Research for Social Change," was the fourth in the Engaged Cornell Speakers Series, sponsored by the Cornell Public Service Center. Topics of the remaining talks are available online.

Lauren Cué '15 is a writer intern for the Cornell Chronicle.