Action Research Pathways

Bray School Lab

"The William & Mary Bray School Lab is a key component of the Williamsburg Bray School Initiative, a ground-breaking and innovative partnership between William & Mary and The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation with the shared goal of uncovering, documenting, preserving, and disseminating the history and legacy of the Williamsburg Bray School. As we reconstruct the Bray School’s history, we aspire to transform traditional accounts of America’s history into a multi-layered story that centers Black legacy at the heart of U.S. democracy."

Sharpe Scholars will assist the W&M Bray School Lab staff and other partners in researching ways in which Black Virginians, enslaved and free, acquired literacy as well as identifying sites where Black literacy was documented in primary sources. The first phase of the project will focus on the year 1619 to 1783 and the second phase will focus on 1784 to 1865. Historical data will be compiled and translated into a digital map of Virginia.

 Family Focus

In partnership within the Virginia Cooperative Extension (Virginia Tech University and Virginia State University), Family Focus’ goal is to educate, support, and strengthen families with research-based prevention measures to reduce rates of child abuse and neglect. Family Focus offers science-backed parent/child playgroups, parenting classes, and a curriculum called Al’s Pals: Kids Making Healthy Choices. Family Focus operates in James City County and York County, where the team offers over 100 playgroups a year over 40 weeks at parenting centers in each county.

Scholars who engage with Family Focus will join a team of student and professional researchers to examine the longitudinal impact of their multidimensional program on at least two generations of clients in the region.

Griffin School Partnerships

"Together with members of William & Mary and our broader communities, W&M Civic & Community Engagement cultivates equitable and transformational relationships, and provides programming and resources for students to become lifelong community-centered leaders."

Their vision is "a just and sustainable world, thriving communities, and a campus that embraces lifelong civic learning and action"

Sharpe Scholars who work with W&M Civic & Community Engagement will be able to participate in their Griffin School Partnership program, where W&M students work with local schools to reach literacy and equity goals. Sharpe Scholars will travel to nearby schools to assist students and teachers in local tutoring programs. Transportation provided.

 Grove Christian Outreach Center

Recognizing the need of vulnerable families in the Greater Williamsburg area, Grove Christian Outreach Center became its own nonprofit charitable organization in 2004 with a focus on providing food, clothing and financial assistance to those in need. In 2024, a total of 878 unique households were served through our Pantry a total of 10,400 times and a total of 40,734 people through various programs. Facing the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Grove Christian Outreach Center reevaluated its services to center more on the overall health of the community by offering more access to healthy foods. Families now do their own shopping in The Gathering Place, Williamsburg’s first free grocery market, for products that include local produce, dairy items and ready-to-eat meals such as salads, in addition to staples like soups, pastas, side dishes and other pantry items. 

Sharpe scholars who engage with Grove Christian Outreach will join a team of student and professional researchers to explore the national Food is Medicine movement and support interagency collaborations to bolster health outreach in the region, with research and action. 

Jolly's Mill Pond

"Jolly's Mill Pond is a 200 year-old, tree farm and pond in Williamsburg, Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Its unique features have been studied by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and The College of William and Mary. We also have a largely unknown Black history that connects us to Colonial Williamsburg and other sites in early Virginia."

Sharpe Scholars will research the interdisciplinary opportunities of heritage food cultivation, ranging from Black and Indigenous foodway history to sustainable agriculture and aquaculture techniques. The research conducted in this program will allow Jolly's Mill Pond to continue to grow our sustainable products and build opportunities for students and other farms.

Literacy for Life

Literacy for Life works to provide literacy services to help Williamsburg community members function more effectively through individualized, one-to-one and small group tutoring for adults in reading, writing and math skills as well as instruction in English for speakers of other languages.

Sharpe Scholars with Literacy for Life will work with the organization's HEAL Initiative, which increases students’ knowledge and confidence in the healthcare topics they need to take control of their health. Sharpe Scholars will engage with individuals and organizations in the Williamsburg area who might benefit from health literacy instruction, researching what barriers to access exist to receving such instruction. 

 Local Black Histories Project

 "Williamsburg, Virginia holds a powerful place in U.S. history. As the colonial capitol of Virginia on the eve of the American Revolution, Williamsburg brands itself as the “birthplace of the nation” and the “cradle of American democracy." Yet, Black histories of the greater Williamsburg area have often been neglected or narrated by those who did not live these histories. The Local Black Histories Project centers the role of the descendant Black community in producing knowledge about these histories."

Sharpe Scholars who join the Local Black Histories Project will support ongoing community-engaged research for a documentary film on Black history in Williamsburg. Participation in Dr. Amy Quark's SOCL100: Populating Early 20th Century Black Williamsburg is preferred. 

Williamsburg Regional Library 

"The Williamsburg Regional Library (WRL) is a vibrant community resource dedicated to serving residents of Williamsburg, James City County, and York County, Virginia. WRL provides excellent public library services, offering access to a vast range of information resources, both physical and digital collections, engaging learning opportunities, diverse programs, and welcoming community spaces."

Sharpe Scholars who join the WRL pathway will assist in the daily functionings that make the library a central pillar of the community - including shelf-reading, stocking book or movie displays, maintaining the seed exchange, and computer assistance. Students in the WRL pathway will also have the opportunity to critically reflect on the role and history of libraries in the Williamsburg area. 

Health Inequality Across the Americas

This course challenges nation-state conceptions of health and community to advance students’ understanding of inequality in an interconnected, global world.  Additionally, the course introduces students to biomedicalization as a complex social process that shapes health care institutions, delivery, and policy on a global scale, using cases to compare across regions described as the Americas.  Students will learn to engage health issues theoretically and sociologically, with critical perspectives on a variety of measures and methodologies that demonstrate human and social difference, perpetuate and challenge inequalities.  Ethical issues such as the human right to healthcare, conflict and cooperation, and justice-driven interventions will be explored in class discussions. This class will also focus on how health scholars study differences in health outcomes across geographic regions described as “the Americas” and the ways scholars conceptualize health differences as forms of inequality.

Sharpe Scholars pursuing this pathway will enroll in AMST353: Health Inequality Across the Americas (3 credits, Mondays 3:30-6:20pm) with Dr. Monica Griffin. Students will be required to work with local and regional communities and health organizations, to collectively imagine and/or organize outreach or research that addresses identified themes or patterns in continuing health disparities. This course satisfies the COLL350 requirement. 

 Parks & Ecotherapy Research Lab (PERL)

"The Parks & Ecotherapy Research Lab (PERL) (formerly "Parks Research Lab") is directed by Dorothy C. Ibes under the Environment & Sustainability program at William & Mary. PERL's mission is to cultivate nature-connected communities that nurture mental health, sustainability, and environmental stewardship. We do this primarily by:

• Conducting interdisciplinary, use-inspired research that enhances understanding of the connection between mental health and nature engagement;
• Applying current research to inclusive campus outreach and programming that supports diverse students in: 
  • Spending more time engaging with nature, both indoors and out, and
  • Developing a meaningful relationship with the natural world.
• Inspiring and equipping the next generation of practitioners, researchers, and advocates in the field of greenspace and nature therapy." 

Sharpe Scholars pursuing this pathway will enroll in ENSP490: Parks & Ecotherapy Lab (1 credit, Time TBD) with Dr. Dorothy Ibes.  Students in this course will design and implement parks and ecotherapy projects in a collaborative, small group setting. Students will also practice and lead short ecotherapy exercises for an embodied experience of the work in the field. The course will culminate in an Ecotherapy Student Project Showcase, planned and coordinated by students.

Sharpe Alumni Engagement Project

This project seeks to understand how we might facilitate and encourage collaboration and connections between generations of Sharpe Scholars through community building on W&M One Network. There are two dimensions for exploration: 

• Building the Sharpe online community in One Network: Researchers explore how scholars and alumni want to use the One Network platform to create an active and sustainable online community for connection and collaboration across generations. Scholars engage a design thinking process together to plan and produce content for the online community with alumni. 
• Alumni Interviewing: Researchers conduct relational interviews with Sharpe alumni and incorporating their input in all design thinking to build the online community, foster civic capacity in cross-generational connections toward community action and research, and document the rich histories, experiences, and outcomes of Sharpe’s collective engagement over time. Researchers are trained to conduct interviews with alumni, code data, and integrate results across goals of sustaining the online community and creating a Sharpe archive that documents the program’s history in relation to communities and community-based research.