With much gratitude and sadness, the Morgridge Center for Public Service announces the departure of Assistant Director of Community-Engaged Scholarship Haley Madden. Madden has been at the Morgridge Center since 2014, where she first started as a Community-based Learning graduate assistant. Madden also served as Community-Engaged Scholarship specialist from 2017 to 2020.
Madden’s passion for community engagement started in her first semester as a grad student pursuing her PhD in mass communication, when her research methods professor told the class that “research is done for the benefit of other academics. Research is not done to change things out in the real world.”
“I sat in that class, thinking I’ve made a really bad life choice by going to grad school because that’s why I came to grad school,” Madden says. “Because I wanted to learn how to do work that could help improve life for folks.”
Then Madden heard about a Community-based Learning (CBL) course from a friend. After taking the class, Madden realized her love for community-engaged work. This interest in community engagement led Madden to do Community-based Research (CBR) for her doctoral work and to take a position at the Morgridge Center.
“I really loved working with people and helping the university be more responsive to community priorities,” Madden says. “That’s what led me here. I saw the power of doing community-engaged work with your research or with your teaching and wanted to help support it.”
As the assistant director of Community-Engaged Scholarship, Madden supports Community-Engaged Scholarship (CES) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. This includes CBL and CBR, where either a college course or academic research aligns with a community partner and works to address a community need or problem. At the Morgridge Center, Madden runs grant programs for community-engaged projects, connects CBL courses with adequate resources and transportation and supports a graduate certificate and doctoral minor.
Madden has also implemented professional development resources for professors adding a community-based aspect into their course or research, and she has worked to connect campus resources with community partners and vice versa. Madden’s favorite part of her job has been seeing social change happen at so many levels—in community, in college classes or through academic research—and facilitating this work to happen smoother or more effectively.
“The main bulk of what I’ve gotten to do here is get to know people all across campus and in the community doing all these different kinds of research and teaching and trying to make social change happen,” Madden says. “And see how I can help them do their work, maybe a little bit more easily or a little bit more smoothly. I think that’s been really my favorite part of this job.”
That’s what led me here. I saw the power of doing community-engaged work with your research or with your teaching and wanted to help support it.
Her favorite project at the Morgridge Center was the Wisconsin Idea Conference, which is a conference highlighting community and campus expertise and their ability to create a more equitable world. Throughout her time at the center, Madden has had the chance to develop so many new projects, from the conference—to the Morgridge Fellows Program—to the Community-based Research grant program.
Madden recently expanded her portfolio of community engagement preparation materials with the recent release of “Preparing Students to Engage in Equitable Community Relationships,” a handbook written by her, Cory Sprinkel and Elizabeth Tryon. The book provides a comprehensive set of resources to prepare students to engage in community-based work and help guide students as they navigate social identity and positionality.
In September, Madden will take a position as a teaching faculty in civil society and community studies at the School of Human Ecology. Specifically, she will work to recruit undergraduates to the major and will teach a course about social innovation. She looks forward to continue helping students learn about community engagement and fostering students’ passion for creative solutions to community problems.
“The students at UW–Madison are really awesome students. People come here because they want the world to be better. They want to hold the world accountable. They want to make a world that works for more people,” Madden says. “I’m excited to help students figure out how to do that and support them on their journey.”
The Morgridge Center is deeply grateful for Madden’s dedication to the center and her ardent passion for creating stronger relationships that allow for a more just-world. We thank Madden for her time, commitment and greatly look forward to seeing where her work continues in the future.