Acadia Roher Named the First Recipient of the Liberating Structures Fellowship

The Social Justice Initiative (SJI) of the Department of Communication at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), in association with PCI Media Impact, a New York-based NGO with ongoing programs in 35 countries, and The University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock, announce the appointment of Acadia Roher as the first 2013 Liberating Structures Fellow.     

Liberating Structures (LS) are a variety of methods, practices, and activities that quickly foster lively participation in groups of any size, making it possible to truly include and unleash everyone. The practice of LS dramatically boosts peoples’ capacity to participate and collectively generate solutions that are empowering and sustainable.

This $10,000 Fellowship Award, spread over 2013-2014, will enable Acadia to support, strengthen, and catalyze a growing community of LS practice within the Clinton School of Public Service and outside in the larger Arkansas community.   Acadia will also collaborate actively with SJI/UTEP in El Paso and PCI Media Impact in New York to synergize cross-learning across institutions and geographies.

Acadia Roher was first drawn to the world of Liberating Structures at the Clinton School
of Public Service, where she earned her Master’s degree, through seminars and interactions with Dr. Arvind Singhal, who is the Samuel Shirley and Edna Holt Marston Professor and Director of the Social Justice Initiative in the Department of Communication at UTEP, and also appointed as William J. Clinton Distinguished Fellow at the Clinton School.   Acadia has used Liberating Structures as a practitioner in a wide variety of settings including classrooms, boardrooms, a community garden, and with youth and children. Acadia completed her undergraduate degree in Environmental Policy at Barnard College of Columbia University. Her work in Little Rock, Arkansas is focused on community empowerment through environmental justice and building the green economy.

The three institutional partners – SJI/UTEP, PCI Media Impact, and the Clinton School of Public Service – have partnered previously to provide international public service project placements for several Clinton School students at PCI Media Impact project sites:  Sarah Leer and Judy Watts (St. Lucia, 2010), Hilary Trudell (St. Lucia, 2011), and Charles Fleeman (Tanzania, 2013).   Further, Anu Sachdev of the Department of Communication, UTEP, spent her summer (2013) in Sierra Leone as a SJI/UTEP and PCI Media Impact Entertainment Education Fellow.  This Liberating Structures Fellowship reinforces the joint commitment of these organizations to prepare public servants and leaders of tomorrow whose actions are socially just, inclusive, and bottom-up.