Engaged Scholarship Summit

Join us for the 2026 Engaged Scholarship Summit!

September 16, 2026
9 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Student Union Building, Red Raider Ballroom

For the 8th year, the 2026 Engaged Scholarship Summit brings together Texas Tech faculty, staff, students, and community partners to explore the theory and practice of engaged scholarship in teaching, research, and creative activity. Hear from success stories with Community-engaged Learning courses, learn from experts in Engaged Scholarship, and meet to collaborate with local community partners.

Click to Register

For questions regarding this event, please get in touch with Alexandria Fontana, Program Manager for the Office of Outreach & Engagement. alexandria.fontana@ttu.edu

Schedule of Events

Time	Event	Location
9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.	Check-In and Networking	Red Raider Ballroom, Student Union Building
9:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.	Welcome, presented by Provost Hendrick and Vice Provost of O&E, Rod Williams	Red Raider Ballroom, Student Union Building
10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.	Community-engaged Learning Success Stories	Red Raider Ballroom, Student Union Building
12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.	Keynote: From Inquiry to Impact: Best Practices for Designing Courses for High-Impact, Community-Engaged Learning and Research, presented by Susi Keefe, Associate Director for Community-Engaged Scholarship at University of Minnesota	Red Raider Ballroom, Student Union Building
1:00 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.	Conversation with Community Partners Panel, moderated by Cory Powell	Red Raider Ballroom, Student Union Building
1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.	Community Partner and Collaboration Fair	Matador Room, Student Union Building

Keynote Speaker - Susi Keefe, Ph.D.

Dr. Susi Keefe is the Associate Director of Community-Engaged Scholarship at the Center for Community-Engaged Learning at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. As an applied medical anthropologist and public health scholar-practitioner with over 20 years of experience, she specializes in developing high-impact, community-engaged teaching, research, and partnerships by centering community-identified needs and collaborative research methods. Grounded in cultural anthropology, Dr. Keefe's work focuses on understanding how cultural, social, and environmental factors shape community health and wellness systems globally and locally.

Throughout her career, including her roles as Program Director and Associate Professor of the MPH in Global Health at St. Catherine University, and Director of Public Health Sciences and the Center for Justice and Law at Hamline University where she has mentored hundreds of students in applied research. Dr. Keefe has designed coursework where academic inquiry directly drives practical community outcomes. She has established a strong reputation for her expertise in Photovoice methodology and community-based participatory research. Her courses integrate qualitative research directly into undergraduate and graduate curricula, training students to bridge the gap between academic theory and complex community realities.

Dr. Keefe's collaborative initiatives span global and local contexts, bringing together multidisciplinary partnerships to address the built environment, local food ecosystems, and community-centered policy implementation. Internationally, she has conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Tanzania on reproductive health (supported by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Fellowship), and has partnered with the National Health Commission Office of Thailand to evaluate community participation in health policymaking. Locally, she has led high-impact, reciprocal partnerships in the Twin Cities, including leading community-centered qualitative research with Our Streets Minnesota, co-authoring research with student researchers and clinic collaborators at Family Tree Clinic, and co-founding the Cross-Campus Food Access Coalition. Notability, all of these projects have led to student co-authored publications.

Dr. Keefe holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Brown University and a B.A. with Honors in Health, Culture, and Science from Mount Holyoke College. Her work stands as a model for how reciprocal partnerships advance transformative learning for students and elevate academic inquiry into meaningful community outcomes.