Nafisa Nipun Tanjeem, associate professor in the Interdisciplinary Studies Department at Worcester State University, was recently selected as a Civic Engagement & Voting Rights Teacher Scholar fellow at Clemson University. Through this prestigious program, Tanjeem hopes to develop a new curriculum and build lasting partnerships with local community organizations in Worcester.
As part of the program, she will attend a Summer Institute at the university in Clemson, S.C., in May. She also will work with a cohort of teacher-scholars from various institutions and an array of humanities- and arts-based disciplines across the country. In collaboration with them, she plans to create civic engagement- focused teaching materials over the next academic year designed to support a democratic community and nation.
“I hope to get valuable feedback from other teachers and researchers, and also I will be able to see what kind of materials people are using that specifically center community engagement in their classes,” Tanjeem said.
Tanjeem will work specifically on developing feminist, decolonial, and anti-racist community engagement curricula and pedagogical practices, through which she plans to nurture collaboration with Worcester-based grassroots political organizations.
By fostering these relationships, Tanjeem hopes to empower her students to become active agents of change. “I’m trying to teach my students how to organize within their communities,” she said. “I want them to be able to go to the community being fully mindful about their own positionality, like who they are, what privileges they have, what vulnerabilities they have, and how to listen to the people in the community so they can actually build long-lasting relationships instead of just working on a project for a semester and them moving on.”
Importantly, Tanjeem is interested in partnering with grassroots activist organizations rather than charitable nonprofits. An example of the latter is a group that helps the homeless, important as that is, while an example of the former is a group that advocates for policy changes to end homelessness.
“I am more interested in nurturing coalitions with activist groups, for example, those who are advocating for affordable housing policies that can end the problem of homelessness, who are advocating for affordable and nutritious food for minorities, and who are advocating for maybe larger issues, like some climate justice organizations and racial justice organizations do,” she said.
The Civic Engagement & Voting Rights Teacher Scholars program is an avenue for faculty to work together to create classroom teaching materials–by faculty, for faculty–to support a thriving American democracy, according to the program website. Tanjeem is one of 40 people selected from a pool of 181 applicants for this year’s cohort. The program is funded through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Tanjeem also will participate in dissemination activities, which she hopes will lead to conference presentations and additional publications for the educational materials created.
The Civic Engagement & Voting Rights Teacher Scholar Fellowship will run through the 2025-26 academic year, providing Tanjeem time to develop and implement her community-focused curriculum at Worcester State. “By the end of this year, I’m hoping to have some solid pedagogical resources that I should be able to use in my first-year seminars starting fall 2026,” she said.
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