Engendering Dignity in Philosophy (EDIP) is a Marquette University program co-founded by two graduate students and two faculty members from the Philosophy department to build curricular partnerships between the university and other community organizations. Through this program we teach an undergraduate philosophy course that enrolls half of the students from Marquette and half of the students from The Milwaukee Women’s Correctional Center (MWCC), a minimum-security women’s prison. This session shares the best practices we have developed in building, sustaining, and growing this innovative partnership including how to:
➢ Utilize different spaces to engage learning. Our course rotates locations, taking MU students to the prison one week and bringing MWCC students to Marquette the following week.
➢ Identify and use expertise strategically. The course capitalizes on the diversity of expertise among participants in virtue of their lived experience and/or educational background.
➢ Engage students in forms of work beyond conventional academic formats. Our program partners with the digital scholarship lab and the campus museum of art for MU/MWCC groups to produce podcasts, short documentaries, artistic showcases, slam poetry sessions, and websites.
➢ Build and sustain relationships between the partnering institutions and among the course participants. We are developing a “continuity of care” dimension that invites former MWCC students to serve as tutors for the course or keynote speakers for the final symposium.
➢ Mentor and train new leaders so that the program becomes integrated into the culture of our institutions. These best practices can inform a wide range of community-based partnerships.
