Overview
Launched in January 2010, the American Cultures Engaged Scholarship (ACES) Program built on the foundation of the Berkeley Engaged Scholarship Initiative (BESI). Developed as a partnership between the American Cultures Center and the Public Service Center(link is external), this program aims to transform how faculty’s community-engaged scholarship is valued, to enhance learning for students through a combination of teaching and practice, and to create new knowledge that has an impact both in the community and the academy.
Today, ACES courses continue to be developed, providing opportunities for students to participate in collaborative projects with community partners, engage in experiential learning, create meaningful collaborative research environments with partners outside of the university, support reflective engagement on broad social issues and interests, and explore the possibilities and challenges of collaborative scholarship for both community partners and academic communities.
ACES courses represent corners of campus that highlights the intent of the AC requirement, while also deepening the meaning of that intent through a combination of multi-disciplinary research and praxis, the development of students and community partners as co-educators, mentoring opportunities, and increased and sustained accessibility of information. The ACES Program provides support for faculty to incorporate community-based learning into new or revised AC courses. If you are a faculty member interested in developing or continuing an ACES course, please visit our Grants page.