{{youtube:small|bWjzKqaGwAo,Learn about W&M's Sharpe Community Scholars}}Our Program

The Sharpe Community Scholars Program strives to support the development of select students through the integration of academic studies, research and community engagement.  

Our Values

• We are committed to student development and academic rigor through our first-year experience (FYE)—the Sharpe Living-Learning Community in Spotswood Hall.
• We build students’ capacity to conduct ethical and responsive, participatory action research –through course work and mixed methodologies training in the W&M Sharpe Participatory Mapping Project.
• We believe that knowledge is embodied in the everyday experiences of all human beings in many forms of community, and that the residents of our local neighborhoods and surrounding communities continually produce knowledge that is central to our research activity.
• We uphold local knowledge as essential in the formation of the participatory action research process and the direction that it takes.
• We value self-reflection that cultivates awareness of ourselves as scholars who are members of the local community and not set apart from it.

{{youtube:small:right|XpuH7CiVFxI,Learn about W&M's Sharpe Community Scholars}}Our Initiatives

• First-year Sharpe Community Scholars share their very own Living-Learning Community in Spotswood Hall.  Yearlong special interest programming gives Sharpe scholars the opportunity to work closely with faculty, community partners, campus professionals, and peer mentors in forming plans toward community-based research.
• The W&M Sharpe Participatory Mapping Project is a team-based participatory action research initiative involving the use of GIS technology.   The Mapping Project fosters collaboration between academic and professional scholars with students and residents to identify, represent and address prevailing issues in the local area.  Affiliated with the Mapping Project is a COLL200 seminar designed to train students in interdisciplinary mixed methodologies for conducting community-based research.  
• Sharpe Scholars, both those who are in the Living-Learning Community and those enrolled in the Sharpe Mapping Project course, are eligible to apply for Sharpe summer research funding. This grant provides students with a $3000 stipend to conduct a community-based research project of their own design.