Community-Based Research
The Mulliss Center for Civic Engagement at Davidson, along with students and faculty, engage in place-based community research in partnership with the community.
Community Research Fellows Program
Community Research Fellows (CRF) is a Davidson College program launched in summer 2020, a collaboration between the Mulliss Center for Civic Engagement and Davidson's Data CATS program. It engages students and faculty in place-based community research in partnership with the community and citizen leaders it serves: not research done on a community, but with one.
Recent cohorts have focused on North Mecklenburg County (Davidson, Cornelius, and Huntersville), examining housing, healthcare, and early-childhood care and education through a data equity framework. Each summer's cohort builds on the last, typically adding one new community determinant to the group's public research.
2026 Community Research Fellows
Community-based research (CBR) is a form of investigation in which the question to be studied arises from the needs of a group of individuals, such as undocumented workers or people who are homeless; from a concern of a nonprofit organization; or from the interwoven social challenges a geographic or other type of community faces.
Beckman & Long, 2016, p. 1