MSU Scholar Profiles
Karen McKnight Casey
As the director of the Center for Service-Learning and Civic Engagement (CSLCE) at Michigan State University, Karen Casey acts as a vital link among the students, cultural centers, and community groups she works with every day. Her title denotes her leadership, but her speech – peppered with verbs like “collaborate,” “coalesce,” and “engage” – illustrates a working philosophy centered on community empowerment, partnership, and democratic practice.
The CSLCE’s mission is to foster lasting engagements between the MSU student body and a variety of local organizations through public humanities projects, community action, and volunteerism. These collaborative efforts help to form a more closely-knit relationship between the university and local communities that is beneficial to everyone, says Casey: “Students get the opportunity to establish connections in arenas they might not otherwise have considered post-graduation, and their work helps to develop the community’s sense of MSU’s dedication to its role as a land-grant institution.”
At the root of Casey’s work with the CSLCE is a commitment to using available resources and tools to expand the humanities’ presence in the community: “Public humanities is the collective soul of any community. To sustain that soul, it’s important for MSU and other community partners to coalesce around shared ideas and practices that can build the humanities.” Established in 1966, the Center has a rich history of service that focuses on developing affiliations with museums and cultural centers to create literacy-based projects. The resulting programs, Casey explains, not only facilitate a broader educational experience for MSU students outside of the classroom, but also illustrate the “deep commitment to public service embraced by the faculty at MSU.”
Because it is “easy to lose humanities in the daily jump from task to task,” Casey believes special attention should be given to the humanities. Doing so helps to ensure that fundamental elements of learning are not overlooked in the rush of life. Casey, a former Peace Corps volunteer who grew up in the climate of possibility created by public figures like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and President John F. Kennedy, strongly believes in the university’s – and the individual’s – obligation to share access to knowledge and to collaborate in developing mutual-learning environments in those places where help may be needed. That element of exchange is crucial, she explains, because in fulfilling an obligation to the community, students and faculty also receive valuable lessons: “While meeting needs on both sides, both parties become stronger as a result of their interaction – an understanding develops about who the participants are.”
The CSLCE’s promotion of collaborative humanities work has, at its core, a fundamental conviction that arts-based literacy is a crucial component of building strong communities. As Casey puts it, “You can’t feel people are important without also feeling the importance of the humanities. The humanities help us understand who we are.”
