Each year, Pitt celebrates and reflects on collective approaches to community-engaged scholarship at the University at the annual Community Engaged Scholarship Forum.

This year’s forum will be from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. March 4 at the William Pitt Union. Register here.

The forum provides an opportunity for faculty, students, staff and community members to present their community-engaged work, discover new avenues of partnership, network with those who do similar work and celebrate Pitt's commitment to community engagement.

This year's theme — “Reducing Barriers, Creating Opportunity” — continues last year's conversation around the vital conditions for community resilience. The forum will showcase cross-sector and multi-organization approaches to community-informed scholarship that reduces barriers for our region.

Attendees will learn from public policy, research and nonprofit leaders working to create systems integration approaches that connect and coordinate different programs and initiatives to become more human-centered, data-driven and cost-effective. 

The keynote speaker is Andre M. Perry, a senior fellow at Brookings Metro, director of Brookings’ Center for Community Uplift, a scholar-in-residence at American University, and a professor of practice of economics at Washington University in St. Louis.

Brookings’ Center for Community Uplift is an initiative that seeks to increase economic security and well-being for people across racial and geographic lines. Through innovative public policy research, the center aims to dismantle discrimination, racism and exclusion.

Perry’s research focuses on race and structural inequality, education and economic inclusion. Perry’s recent scholarship at Brookings has analyzed Black-majority cities and institutions in America, focusing on valuable assets worthy of increased investment.

A native of Pittsburgh, Perry earned his Ph.D. in education policy and leadership from the University of Maryland College Park.