What's happening at the Center

Join us for the final fall colloquium at 2:30 p.m. Friday, December 4, when sociology Ph.D. candidate Damian Williams will discuss how interactions between homeless workers and day-labor dispatchers in Nashville’s Lafayette district create an informal system of workplace control.  

Read more about the presentation

The annual Fall Conference on October 30 featured 20 presentations from faculty members, graduate students and research teams on a wide range of topics related to health, education, neighborhoods and other community issues. In addition, the students working with community partners through the Center's new Community Matching Program presented summaries of the projects they will be doing with their agencies in the coming weeks and months.

Read the 2009 Fall Conference agenda

Read the session abstracts

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Our Mission

The challenges facing modern society are immense. Homelessness, ineffective schools, youth violence, inadequate health care and distressed families are just a few of the problems that exact a high societal cost -- in actual dollars and in lost human potential -- as people struggle to overcome obstacles and become contributing members of society.

The interdisciplinary Center for Community Studies brings together academic researchers with community partners to critically evaluate these pressing problems with the goal of supporting and promoting positive human, social and economic development.

Center experts work with government agencies, non-profit organizations, private sector partners and grass-roots groups to define and address major societal challenges, providing objective analyses grounded in current research and best practices. As such, they serve as a ready institutional resource for community partners from the first steps of identifying problems and strengths through the final phase of evaluating the effectiveness of new policies, practices and initiatives.

The goal of the Center is two-fold: to support social inclusion, social justice and human flourishing and to develop new theories and bodies of knowledge that will inform this mission. The Center members work in a variety of social science disciplines, and in related areas such as law, environmental science and medicine.

A core strength of the Center is its emphasis on marrying interdisciplinary academic research with genuine community partnerships to address some of the most critical issues affecting people and how they live, including homelessness, fragile families, school effectiveness and affordable housing. The Center is supported in this effort by sponsors who believe research-informed, community-driven initiatives can make positive change.

The Center mission is further supported by a robust schedule of colloquia, conferences and public events that provide a forum for the presentation, discussion and analysis of cutting-edge scholarship, national and local policy initiatives, and the challenges and opportunities related to our goals.

Announcements

Susan Saegert, formerly of the City University of New York, has joined the Peabody faculty as Professor of Human and Organizational Development and director of the Center for Community Studies.

Student mentors from Peabody take high school students climbing at Climb Nashville.

The Center for Community Studies

Susan Saegert, Director
Jill Robinson, Assistant
Elizabeth Older, External Relations Coordinator

Peabody #90
230 Appleton Place
Nashville, Tennessee 37203-5721
Telephone: (615) 322-8484
Fax: (615) 343-2661

For more information about the Center for Community Studies, please contact Elizabeth Older or Jill Robinson.