In the Spring Semester, first-year Sharpe Scholars have the opportunity to participate in research apprenticeships and mini-internships with numerous community-based research and engagement organizations who have partnered with Sharpe.
These Pathways provide students with invaluable community, academic, and professional connections that can inspire and support future research endeavors after their first year.
Applications are now open! The deadline for submission is 11:59pm on December 1, 2024.
Sharpe is excited to offer the following opportunities for spring 2025.
Campus & Community Pathways
ARP partners
The 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.
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. There are two possible opportunities with Griffin School Partnerships:
Local Tutoring: Sharpe Scholars will travel to nearby schools to assist students and teachers in tutoring programs. Transportation provided.
Youth Development & Education Programs: Sharpe Scholars will work with Civic & Community Engagement Staff to develop school and tutoring curricula based on local community issues and history.
Jolly's Mill Pond
"Jolly's Mill Pond is a 200 year-old, tree farm and pond in Williamsburg, Virginia andthe 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 potential, sustainable crops that can be cultivated in the pond. The research should explore international examples of small-scale aquaculture (in lakes and ponds), their best practices, and how they can be applied to the farm. 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.
The Lemon Project
"The Lemon Project is a multifaceted and dynamic attempt to rectify wrongs perpetrated against African Americans by William & Mary through action or inaction. An ongoing endeavor, this program will focus on contributing to and encouraging scholarship on the 300-year relationship between African Americans and W&M, and building bridges between the university and Williamsburg and Greater Tidewater area. The Lemon Project is a member of the Universities Studying Slavery Consortium. The Lemon Project is generously funded by the Office of the Provost at William & Mary."
The Lemon Project builds bridges between William & Mary and African American communities through research, programming, and supporting students, faculty, and staff. Sharpe Scholars who work with the Lemon Project will be able to work with project faculty and staff to conduct research on matters related to race and enslavement in Williamsburg, work with project promotion and marketing, build essential transcription and accessibility infrastructure, and engage with historical and archaeological data.
The Let Freedom Ring Foundation
"We will preserve, conserve and protect the First Baptist Church historic building, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance. We will work with our partners in the community to understand and educate everyone about our past. We will endeavor to spark a continuing conversation that looks at our history in different ways, asking ourselves questions about what is important in our history. This is an important way for us to transmit our understanding of the past to future generations. Historic preservation helps us to tell the stories of our past, celebrating events, people, places, and ideas that we are proud of; other times it involves recognizing moments in our history that can be painful or uncomfortable to remember. It is important to understand and share our place in the history of Williamsburg and the nation."
The Let Freedom Ring Foundation seeks to partner with student researchers to broaden exposure to the rich history of one of the first black congregations in America. Through several initiatives including archeological research, community oral history, and genealogy, Sharpe Scholars will have opportunities for hands on experiences. This all takes place during a unique time as Let Freedom Ring is in the development stage for a new museum-quality exhibit as part of the City of Williamsburg’s African American Heritage Trail.
The LGBTIQ Research Project
The W&M LGBTQ Research Project was created eight years ago with the goal of putting together archival materials and oral histories to document Virginia’s LGBTQ past. Since its creation over 150 undergraduate and graduate students have participated in the project. They have collected archival materials from VCU’s Cabel Library, the VA Historical Society, the Valentine Museum, and the Library of Virginia (among other locations), and with the cooperation of our community partner, Diversity Richmond, have had over 110 oral histories shared with student interviewers. While COVID put a pause on their activities, they have returned to this work in the last year with the goal of creating a digitally accessible space for these materials to call home.
Continuing to work to engage and process the oral histories we were shared during the work done over the past 5 years in the LGBTQ+ Research Project, Sharpe Scholars will put together exhibits based on these oral histories for the W&M LGBTQ+ Research Project Omeka site. Students will be working with materials collected during this community-engaged research project and creating ways to display these materials and the perspectives of those who shared their oral histories most effectively on the Omeka site.
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 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.
Course Pathways
ARP partners
Community Sociology & Williamsburg Regional Library
Sharpe Scholars pursuing this Pathway will enroll in SOCL411: Community Sociology (3 credits, TTh 2:00-3:20) with Dr. Meaghan Stiman. This course interrogates the meaning of community. Course participants will ask questions about what communities are, where they exist, how they change, the conditions under which they flourish (or do not), and how the perspectives on these various questions have changed over time. This course will first engage with the long-standing debate about "the community question" in sociology, or the debate about whether community is lost, found, or liberated, given large-scale social and economic changes. These theoretical concerns will be explored in practice throughout the semester. Students’ course assignments will be structured around their observations and experiences while volunteering at a local community institution, the Williamsburg Regional Library. Taken together, in this course, students will learn how best to define contemporary communities and unpack the ways in which they shape our lives.
For this course, students are expected to do 5 hours of volunteering (+1 additional hour of observation) at the Williamsburg Regional Library located on Scotland Street. After volunteer hours, students will take extensive field notes about your observations and experiences. These experiences will culminate in the following class assignments: apply a theory paper, group project on a community-based intervention for the library, and final paper in which student use course theory to analyze their field notes.
Please note this is an upper-level seminar course which involves extensive reading and discussion.
Parks & Ecotherapy Research Lab (PERL)
"TheParks & Ecotherapy Research Lab (PERL)(formerly "Parks Research Lab")is directed by Dorothy C. Ibes under theEnvironment & Sustainabilityprogram at William & Mary. PERL's mission is to cultivatenature-connected communities that nurture mental health, sustainability, and environmental stewardship. We do this primarily by:
Conductinginterdisciplinary, use-inspiredresearchthat enhances understanding of the connection between mental health and nature engagement;
Applying current research toinclusive campus outreach andprogramming that supports diverse students in:
Spending more time engaging with nature, both indoors and out, and
Developing a meaningful relationship with the natural world.
Inspiringand equipping the next generationofpractitioners, researchers, and advocatesin the field ofgreenspace and nature therapy."
Sharpe Scholars pursuing this pathway will enroll in ENSP440: Parks & Ecotherapy Lab (3 credits, MWF 12:00-12:50) 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-Led Pathways
On a yearly basis, Sharpe staff design and select themes for exploration in action research. Students are likely to work in teams, collaborating to produce a group project.
Self-Determined Pathways
Students involved with mentored, sustained commitments to community engagement, civic leadership, or community-based research are invited to propose a pathway to be approved by Sharpe staff.
Examples include: Civic Leadership Program with Civic & Community Engagement or sustained and mentored volunteerism.
Griffin School Partnerships
Jolly's Mill Pond
The Let Freedom Ring Foundation
Local Black Histories Project
Community Sociology & Williamsburg Regional Library
Sharpe Scholars pursuing this Pathway will enroll in SOCL411: Community Sociology (3 credits, TTh 2:00-3:20) with Dr. Meaghan Stiman. This course interrogates the meaning of community. Course participants will ask questions about what communities are, where they exist, how they change, the conditions under which they flourish (or do not), and how the perspectives on these various questions have changed over time. This course will first engage with the long-standing debate about "the community question" in sociology, or the debate about whether community is lost, found, or liberated, given large-scale social and economic changes. These theoretical concerns will be explored in practice throughout the semester. Students’ course assignments will be structured around their observations and experiences while volunteering at a local community institution, the Williamsburg Regional Library. Taken together, in this course, students will learn how best to define contemporary communities and unpack the ways in which they shape our lives.
Parks & Ecotherapy Research Lab (PERL)
