Join us for an interactive panel where we explore innovative strategies to connect DePaul University to our Chicago communities. Howard Rosing, executive director of the Steans Center for Community-Based Service Learning, will be joined on the panel by two teams showcasing their university-community partnerships. Each project will be represented by both a community partner and university leader, offering a dual perspective on the collaborative process. These panelists will cover strategies, challenges, and rewards to collaborating with community partners and culminate with table breakout discussions. Whether you’re interested in community collaboration in your research, teaching, or creative activities, the goal of this panel is to equip you with practical tools and examples to foster meaningful connections with community partners.

Keynote Speaker:
Howard Rosing
Executive Director
Steans Center for Community Based Learning

Dr.  Rosing is the Executive Director of the Steans Center and has been at DePaul since 2001.  He oversees the work of Academic Service Learning, the Egan Office for Urban Education and Community Partnerships, and the Institute for Restorative Educational Engagement, and supports DePaul’s partnership with the Asset-Based Community Development Institute. He works with faculty to develop scholarship on service-learning and community-based research and serves as an affiliate faculty member in Geography, Sustainable Urban Development (SUD) and Community Psychology and as an adjunct faculty member in Anthropology and Community Service Studies and Peace Justice and Conflict Studies. He also serves on the faculty advisory boards for SUD, Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, and Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies.  Dr. Rosing’s teaching directly supports DePaul’s Minor in Food Studies and Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Urban Food Systems. He is a cultural anthropologist whose research focuses on sustainable food systems, urban food access, economic restructuring, and food justice movements in Chicago and the Dominican Republic.

Panelist:
Winifred Curran
Professor
College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

Winifred Curran is a Professor of Geography at DePaul University. Her research has focused on understanding the effects of gentrification on the urban landscape, looking at labor, industrial retention, policing, environmental gentrification and the gendering of urban policy. She has worked with community groups in Pilsen to contest gentrification for 20 years. She is the author of Gender and Gentrification (Routledge 2018) and has co-edited two volumes on gentrification, Research Agenda for Gentrification (Elgar 2023) with Leslie Kern and Just Green Enough: Urban Development and Environmental Gentrification (Routledge 2018) with Trina Hamilton.

Panelist and Community Partner:
Victoria Romero
Public Administrator
Chicago Department of Health

Victoria Romero is a DePaul alumna and one of the Face of DePaul chosen in honor of Depaul’s 125th anniversary. She is a former board president of the Pilsen Alliance and connects with DePaul students through service-learning opportunities designed to make community information more available and user-friendly for Pilsen residents. She currently serves on the Zoning Advisory Board for the 25th Ward and is a Public Health Administrator with the Chicago Department of Public Health.

Panelist:
Megan Greeson
Associate Professor
College of Science and Health

Megan Greeson, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Community Psychology and Program Director of the Ph.D. in Community Psychology at DePaul University. She has been part of the anti-violence movement for over 20 years. She partners with communities on research to improve the response of formal community systems to survivors of sexual assault. In doing so, she highlights the importance of attention to systemic change and marginalized groups of survivors. Her most recent work has examined multidisciplinary collaboration and the response of civil legal, medical, and advocacy systems to survivors.

Panelist:
Sarah Beuning
General Counsel
Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault (ICASA)

Sarah Beuning is General Counsel for the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault (ICASA). She serves as a technical assistance resource for the 31 Illinois rape crisis centers and provides training on legal issues related to sexual assault for crisis center staff and allies. As a registered lobbyist for ICASA, Sarah advocates for changes in the law to support survivors and for increased funding for sexual assault crisis services.
Sarah previously worked as General Counsel & Director of Human Resources for Tom Lange Company, Inc. and prior to that was an employment law attorney in Minneapolis/St. Paul. She received her J.D. from Cornell Law School and is licensed to practice in Illinois, California, and Minnesota.
Sarah is a member and Past President of Illinois Women in Leadership (IWIL) and a member and past Steering Committee Chair of the Women for Women giving circle at the Community Foundation for the Land of Lincoln. She was also the founding Board President for Compass for Kids, Inc.

Session Chair and Moderator:
Michelle Stuhlmacher
Assistant Professor, Geography and GIS
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Dr. Stuhlmacher is an Assistant Professor in the department of Geography and GIS at DePaul University. She is a human-environment geographer, bridging the two sides of geography with a focus on urban green space and community engaged research. Her research employs satellite imagery and spatial analysis to quantify the distribution of green space and its socio-environmental impacts on urban systems.

Table Moderators

Casey Bennett, Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media
Luciano Berardi, Student Affairs
Elissa Foster, College of Communications
Euan Hague, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Christie Klimas, College of Science and Health
Joe Mikels, College of Science and Health
James Mourey, Driehaus College of Business
Denise Nacu, Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media
Mark Potosnak, College of Science and Health
Ljubomir Perkovic, Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media
Geoff Smith, Driehaus College of Business
Roselyne Tchoua, Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media
Grace Wange, College of Communication