Scholarship with Purpose: Advancing UAB’s Public Mission Through Collaboration
A Community-Engaged Scholarship Showcase featuring research, teaching, and service as scholarship—grounded in Boyer’s Scholarship Reconsidered (Discovery, Integration, Application/Engagement, and Teaching & Learning).
UAB invites faculty and staff to submit abstracts for the Scholarship with Purpose Showcase, a university-wide celebration of community-engaged scholarship that advances UAB’s public mission through collaboration.
This showcase highlights work that strengthens communities, expands access and opportunity, and improves quality of life—demonstrating how research, teaching, and service become rigorous scholarship when they are intentional, evidence-informed, reflective, and shared.
The deadline to submit an abstract is Monday, March 16, 2026, at 5:00 p.m.
The scholarship showcase is co-sponsored by the UAB Office of Access & Engagement, the Office of the Provost, Center for Teaching & Learning, Center for the Study of Community Health, the Service Learning & Undergraduate Research, and Blazer Pulse.
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Theme
Scholarship with Purpose
UAB’s public mission comes to life when we build knowledge with communities, connect disciplines to solve real-world problems, and translate learning into meaningful impact. We welcome submissions that show how collaboration—across campus and with community partners—drives measurable benefit and mutual learning.
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What Counts as Scholarship
In the spirit of Boyer, we encourage submissions aligned with one or more of the following:
1) Scholarship of Discovery (Research)
Generation of new knowledge through inquiry—especially when it is community-informed, equity-attentive, and responsive to public needs.
Examples: community-based participatory research, engaged clinical/public health studies, evaluation research, policy analysis, mixed-methods studies with community partners.
2) Scholarship of Application/Engagement (Service as Scholarship)
Use of expertise to address consequential problems—where service is scholarly because it is grounded in evidence, implemented with partners, assessed for outcomes, and disseminated for others to learn from.
Examples: community programs with evaluation results, implementation projects, partnerships improving systems or outcomes, workforce/pipeline initiatives, policy/practice innovations.
3) Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (Teaching as Scholarship)
Teaching becomes scholarship when it is designed intentionally, assessed with evidence, improved through reflection, and shared beyond the classroom.
Examples: community-engaged learning courses, experiential learning models, innovative curricula, reflective pedagogies, assessment of student learning and community benefit.
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Eligibility
The Community-Engaged Scholarship Showcase is open to UAB faculty and staff. Abstracts must report results from original research, teaching, or service project. A presenting author is expected to register for and attend the showcase.
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Submission Guidelines
Abstracts submitted for the showcase must adhere to the following guidelines:
- Abstract length: up to 350 words, excluding title, authors, and affiliations
- Include subheadings: Purpose, Methods, Results, Discussion/Conclusion
- No references, tables, figures, or images
- Define abbreviations at first use
- List the presenting author first and include community partners as co-authors when appropriate
- Indicate your preferred format: Poster or Oral Presentation
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Submit an Abstract
UAB faculty and staff are invited to submit abstracts for oral or poster presentations in the areas of community-engaged research, teaching, and service.
The deadline to submit an abstract is Monday, March 16, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. Participants will be notified of their acceptance to the showcase by Monday, March 23rd.