Community Cooperative Initiatives
Connecting ASU students and staff to community initiatives
What is the CCI Program?
The Community Collaborative Initiatives (CCI) program trains undergraduate interns and graduate fellows on ethical approaches to community engaged research. CCI was created by Dr. Sujey Vega to better serve surrounding community organizations and provide students with hands-on experience that provide concrete practical information. We know many grassroots organizations often struggle with being overworked and understaffed. CCI was created as a way to alleviate some of those burdens by embedding student researchers in a collaborative relationship with the organization. Together with our community partners, we co-construct research projects that serve the organizations directly. CCI currently hires four graduate students (CCI Fellows) and incorporates undergraduate interns to work alongside community partners that serve Latinx, Black, LGBTQ, and low-income populations. Through this experience, CCI Fellows are trained as project managers and benefit from gaining tangible skills as they work alongside organizations to improve the quality of life for otherwise marginalized communities.
Through a collaborative community-engaged approach, CCI does not presume to know all the answers nor does it's work aim to "fix problems." Instead, CCI trains ASU researchers to humbly participate in a co-constructive role to build better community engagement.
Contact CCI Director Sujey Vega (sujey.vega@asu.edu) for inquires or to apply.
