The  Community Literacies Collaboratory (CLC), the signature program of the Brown Chair in English Literacy in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, has awarded $162,905 in grant support to state and national literacy organizations, librarians, educators, researchers, and literacy advocates, supporting programs and scholarship that help all people access and practice literacies more fluently, richly, productively, and joyfully.

The total amount awarded is a 59% increase from the total awarded in 2023, the inaugural year of the CLC grant program, reflecting both an increase in competitive grant applications received and the demonstrated need by literacy workers in Arkansas and nationally.

Of the grants awarded, $129,480 of the total was awarded via the 'Seed and Growth' branch of the grants program which supports new or continuing literacy programs and initiatives, such as organizations, book clubs, libraries, teachers, school counselors, and workshops that promote or enhance literacy learning and development in community and/or collaborations. While $33,425 was awarded via the 'Literacies Research' branch to support original literacies research with grants to support the many costs associated with this work, such as the purchase of books, audiovisual material, transcriptions, research travel, and events to collect research data. This includes dissertation research and other research toward scholarly article and book publications.

All research grants involving human subjects are required to provide proof of an approved and current Instituional Review Board (IRB) certification with protocol number from an accredited college or university. For both 'Seed and Growth' and 'Literacies Research' grants priority is given to Arkansas-based individuals and organizations, though consistent with the Brown Chair's mission to have national impact, grant applicants in other states are eligible to apply as well.

The CLC was founded in May 2022 by Eric Darnell Pritchard, the Brown Chair in English Literacy and Associate Professor of English in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at The University of Arkansas. Currently, the CLC is entirely funded by The Brown Chair in English Literacy,  established in March 2003 with funds given by The Brown Foundation of Houston, Texas and matching funds from the Walton Family Gift.

"Access to literacy is always imperative, but people's ability to connect with, comprehend, and communicate accurate information is especially urgent in these times. Also timely is innovation in how access to literacy is achieved," said Pritchard.

"The community partners that make up the 2024 cohort of CLC grantees present a wide array of new and established programs and research that are exemplary in many ways, but most importantly, for the way each leverages creativity in doing its work. Creativity will, afterall, be what helps us to imagine and create the more just world we all deserve, inspite of whatever," Pritchard continued.

 The CLC is pleased to announce the fifteen 2024 Seed and Growth (10) and Literacies Research (5) grant recipients.

2024 SEED AND GROWTH GRANTEES

The Springdale Public Library has been awarded a grant to create a mobile learning lab to offer free basic and advanced computer classes to its patrons. The grant, submitted by Tanya Evans, Multicultural Outreach Librarian at Springdale Public Library, will support adults who lack basic computer knowledge to acquire skills they need to become digitally literate.

As Evans notes, "implementing these classes will enhance our community's ability to find, create, and communicate through digital mediums" which is essential generally and particularly to Springdale, "a diverse working-class community of over 87,000 people." The funds will purchase eleven laptops dedicated exclusively for the mobile learning lab, a big increase in public access to computers at the library which are limited in number and not oriented to be used for group instructional purposes. The grant funds will also be used to purchase hardware and software necessary for the classes and fund instructors to offer the computer classes in multiple languages, including Spanish.

The River Valley Learning Alliance, based in Dardanelle, Arkansas, provides services to five predominately rural Arkansas counties: Johnson, Franklin, Logan, Pope, Yell, and satellite courses in Paris and Ola, Arkansas.

The CLC grant will fund their new partnership with the Dolly Parton Imagination Library for RVLA to become the official steward of the program at Dardanelle Public Schools and the Dardanelle Library. Specifically, the funds will aid RVLA in supplementing the amount of bilingual and Spanish language texts available and build a parallel family literacy program complimentary to their partnership and the needs of the people of Dardanelle.

Programs will encourage bilingual literacy by all families regardless of home language. With Dardanelle's 30-40% Spanish speaking rate, a majority of the funds will go to programs that support literacy learning and development of multilingual language learners including providing dedicated after school and during school bilingual tutoring at both the elementary school and high school; bilingual General Equivalency Diploma (GED) tutoring for Spanish speaking adults, who face additional barriers to passing the exams given too little preparation that takes their first language into account; and providing family literacy and caregiver support within Dardanelle Library's Reading Readiness Program by resourcing parents with in-person or recorded bilingual sessions with trained teachers and tutors, where they would gain support and skills to integrate bilingual literacy into their daily loves. 

The Ozark Foothills Literacy Project (OFLP) serves Adult Literacy and English as a Second Language students, and promotes family literacy, in Sharp, Izard, Fulton, Stone and Independence counties in Arkansas.

The CLC grant funds, applied for by OFLP will pay for professional items and personal printing to promote the OFLP's service through informational and personalized items (e.g. brochures, bookmarks, post-its, keychains, pens, pencils, etc.); purchase books, supplies, citizenship exam flashcards and subscription to online English language learning classes for students for whom in-person English courses is a barrier such as rural Arkansans; provide books, games, food and beverages for a free Family Literacy Event; and provide partial funding of Program Director salary, essential to retaining a skilled professional to provide direct service to students and tutors across the five counties OFLP serves.

In St.Louis, Missouri, Ymani Wince, literacy activist and founder of The Noir Bookshop, a concept bookstore dedicated to the Black experience, wanted to raise people's consciousness about the problem of "book deserts": geographic areas with little to no access to age-appropriate books. In some areas where free libraries are available, they may be located in areas that can be unsafe for anyone searching for free books or a library. It is Wince's belief that book ownership should not be a privilege only for those with a disposable income, and that creating book ownership in safe environments for young people from infancy through high school sparks a love of reading that lasts a lifetime.

To address this issue, Wince created the BOOKS ARE GOOD campaign, which provides information about book deserts with a plan to place free public book vending machines stocked with donated books in locations throughout St. Louis that services children and their families. In March 2024, Wince's vision came true when the first book vending machine 'ONYX' was placed at the Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club in St. Louis. The CLC grant will fund a second custom vending machine to be placed in the city and associated costs including insurance, moving and placemet fees, machine tokens, and initial inventory.

Project Row Houses (PRH), a community development initiative in the Third Ward of Houston, Texas, a predominantly Black neighborhood, and the University of Houston's Department of Curriculum and Instruction, have collaborated on a proposal to start an arts-based Community Literacies Center. The programming of the PRH-UH Community Literacies Center will be guided by scholarly and pedagogical experts in culturally sustaining literacy pedagogies, content-area literacies, translanguaging, culturally sustaining children's literature, bilingual education, and visual and performance artists who will mentor pre-service teachers, families, and community members who will provide support to the young people the center serves. With the CLC grant funds, the center's organizers will coordinate weekly Saturday events in the morning and afternoons until June 2026, utilizing feedback from children and parents to regularly reshape programming to meet needs. The funds will also support collaborations with other community development organizations in the Third Ward to expand the new center's work by bringing literacy events to other spaces frequented by community members.

The Storytelling Thru Inquiry and Literacy Expression (STILE) Collective is an afterschool program founded by Kelly Franklin, a PhD student at Texas Christian University. The grant funds will support STILE to sustain the work Franklin began in the grant program's first year whereSTILE partnered with Southwest High School in Forth Worth, Texas to create space with and for Black girls to engage in artistic partnerships fusing reading and writing with their other creative interests in efforts to support their literacy development and practice. With additional grant funds STILE will provide each of the young women with free materials to enhance their participation including journals, art supplies (e.g. paint, brushes, glue), t-shirts, and a meal or snacks during programming. The funding will also assist STILE with outreach efforts to alert even more potential participants of this resource including printing posters and attending recruiting events.   

Founded in February 2016 in Jackson, Mississippi, The Lighthouse | Black Girl Projects employs Black feminist, community-focused, narrative-shifting lenses to create a consortium of projects that provide programming and spaces of solidarity and safety for Black girls, women and gender-expansive people in the southeastern United States. One of the organization's signature programs is The Black Girls Times (BGX), a news and culture reporting publication that provides opportunities for creative expression that affirms the importance of literacy and the arts within Southern Black American Culture. The CLC grant will fund critical needs for a companion program, Black Girl Times University. Geared toward high school students in Jackson, Mississippi, Black Girl Times University creates opportunities for young people to have practical, mentored experience in journalism that is guided by mentor-professionals. The objectives are to increase literacy enhancement through the research, writing, and editing process, also increasing critical thinking skills, writing proficiency and reading comprehension; establish career readiness  through semiweekly workshops led by journalists and editors. Among the needs CLC funds will meet include stipends for interns, marketing and outreach expenses, and supplies for program participants. The grant was submitted by Natalie A. Collier, the organization's founder and President.

Another previous CLC grant awardee, Tree House Books,  aims to improve literacy as it grows and sustains community for young people in North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The 2024 CLC grant will fund the organization's "Third Space" the name given to its teen literacy programs, referring to the sociological and urban planning term that characterizes the neutral public spaces outside of work and home that are rapidly disappearing from the live's of young people. The "Third Space" program consists of book clubs, schoolwork assistance, social justice-based literacy activities in writing, visual arts, and performance, as well as immersive experiences such as trips to museums. The funds will also provide stipends to participants in a mentorship initiative and also a leadership initiative to incentivize those who commit to sustained connections with the youth as a mentor, provide an apprenticeship opportunity for youth to observe and try on leadership roles, and also in recognition of mentor-leaders's labor in and with the community generally.

The Hidden Black Histories Project of the Bronx New York, encourages critical literacy development and historical consciousness by uncovering deliberately-concealed Black histories of the land that now compises the Bronx. It creates a space for pre-college students who have been tracked into the criminal justice system to develop academic literacies while contributing to an interdisciplinary local history project and participating in community engagement with Van Cortland Park and the Bronx County Historical Society. The CLC grant will fund student researchers who will take on a deep historical dive into the process of mapping plantation histories of the North Bronx. The grant will provide workshops in digital community mapping for students, faculty, and community partners; support faculty partners meeting weekly with student cohorts regarding research progress; fund research site visits to archives and cultural institutions; provide honoraria to Bronx-based guest speakers/facilitators; supervise student-driven writing and research projects; and collect and organize data for an end-of-summer assessment report that will strengthen continued work in the program in successive years.

Created by Dr. Kashema Hutchinson, The 5th Element, is a new hip-hop literacy program at the New Lots Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. Named after the fifth element of hip-hop culture: "Knowledge of Self  and Community." Through an immersive 8-week curriculum that is open to participants in-person and virtually, participants will learn how the elements of hip hop including DJing, MCing/rapping, Graffiti (writing), as well as videography and audio production play a role in knowledge production. The curriculum includes experiential learning sessions with guest presenters. Through the curriculum, participants will  develop critical literacy skills (e.g. critical thinking, analytical skills, conceptual thinking, presentation/oratorical skills, and interpersonal communication) as they develop a foundational understanding of hip-hop culture history, but also an understanding of its current state and emerging issues on various topics circulating through the culture.  The CLC grant will fund materials for the program including customized journals, books, and pens; transportation costs for those participating in person and travel to experiential learning sessions at museums and other venues; partial costs for curriculum development and facilitation; stipends for guest speakers; and costs for shipping materials to virtual participants.

2025 LITERACIES RESEARCH GRANTEES

Rebecca Carpenter de Cortina, Doctoral Candidate in the University of Arkansas Department of Curriculum and Instruction and the U of A's Director of Sponsored Students and Special Programs in the Graduate School and International Education (GSIE), has received a CLC grant for her dissertation study "Language and Literacy Practices of Multilingual Children Living and Learning in a Family Literacy Program of an Emerging Borderland Community." In her ethnographic study, Carpenter de Cortina explores the language and literacy practices in the social setting of a local community family literacy program and in those families' daily lives. Through her research, she explores how to make multi-literacy curriculum and pedagogy more authentic, responsive, and joyful. The CLC grant will fund various costs toward the completion of Carpenter de Cortina's dissertation study and sharing that information in scholarly community including books and art supplies for the program, audiovisual equipment, transcription and translation services, and partial funding to attend a national conference to present her work.

Erin Green, a PhD candidate in English at the University of Maryland-College Park, has received a CLC research grant to support her dissertation study "Writing Abolition: Dismantling Carceral Literacies of the Prison-Industrial Complex through Black Queer Activist Storytelling." In her work, Green "uses storytelling methods," and Black queer storytelling specifically, "to argue for implementing abolitionist praxes in writing studies and literacy education." Investigating what she terms "carceral literacies" - literacies grounded in the prison-industrial complex—Green examines the practices, documents, genres, and logics" that buttress the prison-industrual complex including linguistic racism in schools, zero-tolerance policies, police procedurals in media, and punishment, respectively, tracing carceral literacies in writing classrooms and programs. Green's CLC research grant will fund her travel to Atlanta, Georgia to interview activists and organizers of the Stop Cop City movement, visit demonstrations, and local research from community-engaged actions. With this research, Green will complete a hybrid dissertation chapter in a form that will be part written and part podcast.

Beth Krone, Assistant Professor of English Education at Kennesaw State University, has received a CLC research grant for her project "Reading the Word and the World in a Georgia New Teacher Research Group." In 2022, Georgia teachers came under increased surveillance when lawmakers passed a bill that banned the discussion of "divisive concepts," and in 2023, the Georgia Professional Standards Commission removed all language around diversity, equity and inclusion from their standards. This all occurs at the same time that the population of the state of Georgia has become even more culturally, lingustically, and racially diverse. The project, which has had a successful pilot study year, provides support to new Georgia English teachers by inviting them into a research collaborative that will function as a space for Georgia teachers who are committed to discussions of power, justice, and equity, to have open critical conversations about the ways they are navigating teaching literary studies in the state in the current political context. Studying this collaborative, Krone explores how new teachers approach the shifting landscape of teaching literature today against repressive policies in districts and the state. The CLC grant will fund classroom supplies for innovative literary pedagogy including more playful, performative, and artistic instructional units for the study of literature; school "book rooms" with new text sets that teachers have had difficulty acquiring and sharing with students who request them in the face of budgetary constraints; food, beverages and transportation/travel support for teachers participating in the monthly meetings. 

Cristina Sánchez-Martin, Assistant Professor of English at the University of Washington-Seattle has been awarded a CLC research grant for her project "Cultivating 'Translationships' through Multilingual Community-Engaged Digital Storytelling Pedagogies." The project is a study of a collaborative community-based digital storytelling project between university professors and community partners at Casa Latina and Community Source, two Seattle-based organizations that teach English literacy to adult multingual immigrants and other community members. The purpose of the project is to co-create and cultivate space for equity-oriented English language and literacy learning, and to co-create a digital repository of multilingual soucres and podcasts relevant to communities in Seattle. The CLC grant will fund multilingual transcription of the podcast and develop a multilingual interface to increase access of the podcast and other resources to the community; listening parties with community members, teachers and others to receive feedback on the various components of the website, accessibility, impact, and use; upgrading the translation plugin capability for the 'translationships' website; and planning, recording, editing and publishing the second season of the podcast in collaboration with six multilingual community members who speak Taiwanese Chiene, Tagalog and English, Korean, Mandarin, Chinese and Amharic, as well as small stipends for each of those collaborators. 

Jon M. Wargo, Associate Professor of Educational Studies in the University of Michigan- Ann Arbor's Marsal Family School of Education, has been awarded a CLC research grant to support his study "Righting (Writing) Protest: Campus Community Literacies at the Intersection of Arts, Activism, and Critical Data Literacy." The project examines how college students who self-identify as activists visualize their voices through artistic expression and demonstration. Identitying the students as "authors, artists, and information architects" to examine the confluence of campus life as local politics and larger geopolitical landscapes. Wargo argues that by treating these student expressions as "consequential scenes of politicization and critical data literacy," higher education professors, administrators, researchers and others invested in the life and work of student activists might be better equipped to engage in the learning process as a collective one that not only expands intellect and political understanding but also conceptions of identity and knowing. The CLC grant will find stipends for research participants, transcription costs; and research technology including cameras and software for qualitative research support.

We at the CLC and Office of the Brown Chair in English Literacy hope you will join us in congratulating the 2024 CLC Grant cohort and wishing these projects well. We also hope that you will encourage others in Arkansas (and beyond) to apply for grant funding for their literacy programs in our future grant cycles. We will be accepting proposals for our next grant cycle from February 1, 2025 through April 1, 2025. Decisions will be communicated to applicants in the summer of 2025. For more information on applying, check out the CLC's website here.

To support prospective applicants, Dr. Pritchard and the designated Brown Chair and CLC staff are available for brief appointments with prospective grant applicants between February 3 and March 3 to answer any questions about the grants program. These appointments are limited in number and will be filled on a first come, first serve basis. If you wish to meet with the CLC team with questions regarding its grants program please contact them at brownchairinenglishliteracy@gmail.com.