Revolutionizing Research for Social Change
For the first time, American University’s Spring Valley campus welcomed the Summer Institute in Research Methods, “Revolutionizing Research for Social Change.” The Institute brought together graduate students, practitioners, and scholars from across the region for two days of intensive training in antiracist and decolonizing research methods this summer.
The Institute builds from a central premise: too often, standard social science research tools reproduce the systems of power and subjugation that research seeks to understand and change. Fellows examine the racial and colonial history of research methods, the connections between power and knowledge, and ways to build research protocols grounded in liberatory, inclusive, and non-extractive practice. The goal is research that benefits the communities it studies, builds trust, and honors the expertise people already hold about their own lives.
The Institute began in 2022 as a five-day residential program at George Mason University. This year, it shifted to a new home at AU, following an invitation from then-Interim Dean Rodney Hopson that recognized the Baker School’s growing role in the collaboration.
That role reflects the involvement of Meagan Call-Cummings, scholar-in-residence at the Baker School and one of the Institute’s four facilitators, alongside Sharrell Hassell-Goodman, Rob Graham, and Shauna Rigaud.
This year’s cohort included 25 to 30 graduate students from across the US and beyond. For the first time, four practitioners—social workers from Howard County Public Schools—also participated alongside the graduate fellows. Their inclusion marked a meaningful expansion of who the program serves and how its methods translate into practice.
Baker student Asia Sweets, EdD '28, attended the Institute and described it as “incredibly affirming.”
“It reinforced that I am on the right path in thinking about how we center community voice and the experiences of people who have historically been overlooked,” Sweets said. “I left even more committed to asking whose voices are being heard, whose knowledge is being valued, and how we create space for communities to shape the stories being told about them.”
Interdisciplinary scholars from across the DMV region contributed to the sessions, representing the American University, University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, Northern Virginia Community College, George Mason University, and Georgetown University—underscoring the Institute’s roots as a regional collaboration.
Beyond the two days of programming, the Institute is designed to build lasting connections among participants. “Another major goal for the institute is to build a network for future mentoring opportunities, because so often graduate students who are committed to using these types of methods are isolated in their departments or institutions,” Call-Cummings said.
For Sweets, one of the most profound elements was being challenged to reconsider what “counts” as data.
“Seeing poetry, storytelling, visual representations, and lived experience treated as meaningful ways of knowing pushed me to think differently about research,” she said. “There is knowledge in people’s stories, experiences, and voices, and those forms of knowledge deserve to be valued.”
As the Baker School deepens its role in hosting and shaping the Institute’s future, this year’s move to AU’s campus marks more than a change of venue. It signals the School’s expanding investment in research that centers equity, community, and social change.