Dr. Lois Warner Selected for 2021-2022 Chancellor’s Scholarship in Residence Fellowship Program at RU-N's P3 Collaboratory

Dr. Lois Warner, assistant teaching professor in the School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA) at Rutgers University–Newark, has been selected for the 2021-2022 Chancellor’s Scholar-in-Residence Fellowship Program (SIR) supported by the P3 Collaboratory for Pedagogy, Professional Development, and Publicly-Engaged Scholarship at Rutgers University–Newark. During the Spring 2022 semester, Dr. Warner will support the ongoing program-related research of the center, which was established to focus on institutional interventions that support holistic faculty development over the lifecycle of an academic career. In addition, she will work toward developing a collection of Open Educational Resources with related learning activities for SPAA’s undergraduate course on the Arts and Culture of Public Service, for which Dr. Warner is the professor of record. 

Within the P3 Collaboratory’s Publicly-Engaged Scholarship portfolio, RU-N faculty learn and implement evidence-based pedagogies in their courses while enjoying opportunities to develop and advance their scholarly agendas. In recent years, scholars-in-residence worked on program design, course redesign, and teaching development, in areas such as American studies, arts, culture and media, earth and environmental science, literary arts, and psychology and social work.

Dr. Warner has a background in design, graduating with a Diploma in Design from Croydon College of Design and Technology, Surrey, England, and as a Diploma Member of the Royal Society of Artists and Designers, UK (now the Chartered Society of Designers). Her experience as an administrator in arts and culture encompasses many roles, including developing and implementing programs for a public art gallery and organizing festivals and traveling exhibits to promote the sales of indigenous arts. Throughout that period, she benefitted from internships with various arts and design institutions in Europe and the U.S. 

During the SIR fellowship program, Dr. Warner envisages redesigning SPAA's Arts and Culture of Public Service course to reflect the vivid arts and culture-based communities in Newark and other parts of New Jersey. "The aim is to strengthen relationships with related anchor institutions in identifying and selecting multimedia Open Education Resources and developing various learning activities for SPAA’s undergraduate students," said Dr. Warner.

The current design of the course aims to:

• Deepen awareness of the relationship between the arts and culture and public service 
• Introduce students to the range of artistic and cultural expressions that relate to public service, raising awareness of how they relate to professional excellence 
• Raise awareness of the organizational importance of the public sector in public policy development and implementation for the fields of arts and culture
• Introduce students to the scope for social and economic impacts through arts and culture programs
• Instruct students on how to assess and evaluate local public arts and culture programs 

"Among the outcomes expected from the redesign of the course are that students will better understand the local public sector context and environment for the arts and culture," said Dr. Warner. "They are likely to derive a better understanding of the social and economic importance of developing the arts and culture in local communities and be prepared as members of the public and as public service professionals to meaningfully assess and evaluate public policies and programs for arts and culture."