The Latinx Action Research Collaborative is a partnership for applied research and learning between Casa Latinos Unidos and the School of Language, Culture, and Society (SLCS). The partnership was established on March 14th of 2019 with the signatures of Claudia Torres, executive director of Casa Latinos Unidos, and Dr. Susan Bernardin, Director of the School of Language, Culture, and Society. The Collaborative’s memorandum of understanding can be accessed below:
The purpose of the Collaborative is to promote engagement between students and faculty of the SLCS and Casa Latinos Unidos, in the form of collaborative research and action initiatives. In particular, the Collaborative seeks to motivate students to get involved in service learning and applied research activities on issues of interest to the local Latinx community. The diagram below tries to represent the principles that guide the Collaborative:
History
The Latinx Action Research Collaborative (LARC) is the product of the concerted effort of a group of SLCS faculty and students, and staff and board members of Casa Latinos Unidos. Spearheaded by Dr. Ricardo Contreras, an applied anthropologist, the group met for the first time in January 2019 with the purpose of imagining an applied research and learning initiative centered around Latino issues, and guided by the principles of engagement, shared power, and social justice.
Based on a long history of collaboration between Oregon State University and Casa Latinos Unidos, in part through the Center for Latin@ Studies and Engagement, the group decided to establish the collaborative, base it at the SLCS, and use it as a platform through which students and faculty would learn and practice forms of engaged research, service, and learning that would help them in pursuing their career goals but at the same time benefit the community. Furthermore, the Collaborative would engage in projects that emerge from the local Latinx community, that are implemented collaboratively, and whose results would always be given back to the community partner. In other words, through LARC, we are trying to build a tradition of engaged research and learning on Latino issues that equally strengthens the University and community partners.
The Latinx Action Research Collaborative is mentioned in the OSU reapplication to the Carnegie Classification (See pages 107-108 of “Re-Classification: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching”), as an example of a memorandum of understanding guiding the partnership between the University and community organizations. Access the report here.
