Carolina Across 100: Research and Evaluation that Responds to Community Needs (Research Week)

If you haven’t heard of Carolina Across 100, this is your chance to learn about the unique, pan-University effort! The initiative, launched by Chancellor Guskiewicz and led by Anita Brown-Graham at the UNC School of Government, is responding to challenges created or exacerbated by COVID-19. Over the five years, the initiative will engage with communities in all 100 North Carolina counties by centering community needs and voices.

Having recently wrapped up its first full programmatic year, this session will take a look back at what has been accomplished and where we’re going next, highlighting the campus-led, community-focused research efforts that are embedded in this work.

Participants will hear about lessons learned to date, examples of community-informed research, and learn about ways to get involved and stay informed about the initiative from a fabulous selection of presenters, including student interviewers who helped launch the community listening phase, students helping design and conduct focus groups, students support for our first group of community teams, and the UNC-based evaluation team helping to guide and assess the work all along the way.

Abacus Evaluation will be co-presenting with the Carolina Across 100 (CX100) team.