By Hannah Blanning-Leloup, PhD Student Department of English
Rachael Deagman Simonetta is Associate Teaching Professor of English at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Community and community building have long been Dr. Simonetta’s focus, made evident by her research, which focuses on community building in medieval and early modern English literature, as well as community models. Deeply invested in her department, student community, and in collaborating with community members, Dr. Simonetta founded and directs the English Department’s Internship Program, working closely with a range of arts and publishing organizations. She also heads the Shakespeare CoLab, an interdisciplinary Digital Humanities pedagogy project and is a key member of the University of Colorado interdisciplinary course development team that was recently awarded an NEH Humanities Interconnection Grant.
Inspiring Mentor
I first met Dr. Simonetta when she came to an English graduate seminar I was taking— “What is a Humanities Lab?”—as a guest speaker. Candidly discussing her experiences working in academia and with community-partners, she inspired everyone in the room by encouraging us to listen to ourselves, and our hearts, when making career choices. Her open minded approach and genuine dedication to helping students put their English skills to work in ways that mutually benefit them and communities make her an exceptional mentor and educator.
Background, Experiences, and Working with Communities
H: What about your background, identities and experiences have informed your community-engaged work?
R: I think that one important thing about my background is some of the theoretical work I did on my dissertation at Duke. The faculty there—David Aers and Sarah Beckwith—were very purposeful in creating community among the medievalist and early modernist graduate students. For example, we all read Aristotle and Alasdair MacIntire’s After Virtue. They were purposeful in looking with us at versions of community theoretically, at how late Medieval writers take up models of community, as well as fostering community amongst graduate students, which is so important. It’s easy for graduate students to become isolated. So, in terms of academic background, that was both important and formative for me.
In turn, I then worked with theories of communities I learned about in graduate school in my research. My research engages in models of community building, both theoretical and literal in late Medieval England, so I specialized in literature, drama, and architectural history as a minor field, as well as the sociological and ideological frameworks of Gothic architecture.
Hammering Theory into Practice with Habitat for Humanity
R: I did all of that work on my dissertation and was really excited to be able to put it into practice in my teaching. I taught an upper-division course for majors at Duke, which was terrifying at the time, and also really exciting, and which was geared towards my research. And I was also able to do my first experiential component of the course; I had students go out and literally build community with habitat for humanity, using hammers and nails, and building buildings, so that was the first model of community-engaged work that I did while I was still in grad school. It was formative and important.
In terms of background, another thing that was important for me early on in my time at CU was that I did a summer fellowship with Roudy Hildreth in the School of Education. He runs the CU Engage Program. So, to be in a room with other faculty who were teaching experiential learning courses, to hear their stories and their narratives, to learn from one another, to have a group of scholars engaged in these kinds of activities, as well as looking at and working through challenges as a group, was really helpful.
That kind of collective thinking has contributed to how I tackle current projects. For example, I am actively rebuilding and rethinking the English Undergraduate Internship Program, addressing some of the challenges that have come up following COVID.
Alongside the training I received, what has mattered most is working in places that I felt had space for me to continue that work. One of the things my professors at Duke opened up to me was the possibility of going out and continuing that work outside of the university. That encouragement and vision fostered my interest in a kind of community-engaged work that wasn’t necessarily going on there at that time.
If I go way, way back to the first time I did community-engaged work, it was in middle school. I had a series of teachers who were invested in bringing students out into the community, and in giving them a wide range of opportunities. I think that was a really important foundation for me as well. I remember being a candy striper for the admissions center at the hospital with my science teacher. My 7th grade social studies teacher took us out to volunteer for a day at ‘‘The Gathering Place,’’ and that was when I was introduced to them and the incredible work they do for the homeless. Those kinds of things stayed with me.
Philosophy of Designing and Creating Inclusive Communities
H: How would you describe your philosophy when it comes to designing and implementing inclusive communities?
R: Recently, I completed my career development facilitator renewal course and received one-on-one training on how to facilitate inclusive practice in the internship program. The professor suggested that I might think more about how and why students opt into the program and why others do not. As you know, in the post-COVID reboot of the program, I started to address one potential barrier by providing compensated options for students; however, it's possible that there are other hurdles.
She provided me with educational research that's been done on how to identify potential impediments to college internships with a variety of students, from historically marginalized communities to students with physical disabilities and those who face mental health obstacles. We sketched out a model for how to proceed by reading the research and assessing its relevance to our program. From there, I might consider putting together a survey or focus groups to study our population of English majors at CU, maybe with a survey or focus groups or both. I'm grateful to have Judy as a mentor. Now I feel like I have a solid, research-informed, plan in place for how to approach the question of facilitating inclusivity in English internships.
Building and Maintaining Relationships with Community Members
H: How do you build relationships with your community partners, and how do you maintain relationships beyond and after your collaborations?
R: In building community partner relationships, it has been really helpful that I am a Colorado native and familiar with a lot of the arts and humanities organizations, so from that perspective that has been an advantage. I know a lot of people in the area who are doing really wonderful work, and people know people, so I have been able to meet a lot of delightful, interesting human beings through the relationships I have—that naturally happens. I try to get the word out about English internships, and people tend to help with introductions. When I talk to new-site supervisors, they often suggest and ask me if I have thought of other places, so I find that the community has been really helpful in terms of building relationships.
In maintaining relationships, it’s so important—and I haven’t been able to do this because of COVID, but will do so as soon as I am able—to go to the site, to have face-to-face conversations. If they have a space, I really value seeing the space they are working in. I also think it’s important to get to know site supervisors, to know their personalities and meeting the people that the interns will be working with. Because, I then have a much better sense of the unique strengths and values of the community partner. So, I think that communication on the front end is really critical, and then maintaining communication as frequently as I can. I have done a whole lot of lunches, coffees and outings with site supervisors.
On navigating challenging relationships and critics of one’s work
H: How do you navigate difficult situations, relationships, or critics of your work?
R: I have been fortunate in that I haven’t been confronted with many challenging relationships so far. I have had some challenging situations, so I think that Zoom conversations are preferable to emails and meeting in-person is better than Zoom. I’m very lucky though—when we have had challenging situations, the people I work with tend to come from teaching backgrounds, so we find ways to work together.
With regard to critics of my work, it is worth mentioning that the most vocal critics tend to be within the university. There are people who think that career development doesn’t belong in the English department—that Career Services should be the group to offer internships and career advice to undergraduates. I have really tried to listen to and take that concern seriously.
Dealing with Difficulty
H: Describe an unexpected experience or event that went wrong during your community engagement. How did you respond?
R: COVID was a disaster for the Undergraduate Internship Program. We had a lot of exciting momentum going and then COVID hit. To be honest, I panicked. One worrying thing was that I had no idea what teaching was going to look like; I didn’t know what internships would look like. I didn’t know whether or not some of the organizations I work with would close altogether. I panicked and shut the program down.
Jane Garrity, our Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies at the time, is less prone to panicking than I am. She suggested that we could work through the obstacles. Looking back, I think she was right. We could have focused on finding alternative ways forward rather than putting the program on hold. It ended up closing for a year, but in retrospect I think I should have just done that for a semester. I was grateful that many of the sites adapted to changing constraints.
Staying the Course
H: How are you able to nourish yourself while giving to others? And how do you maintain your motivations and take care of yourself?
R: Some of the most important things for me to remember are that I need to set aside enough time to exercise and sleep enough. Part of that means learning to say ‘‘no.’’ When I talk to my interns, one of the things I ask them to do is to identify their strengths and weaknesses. During COVID, one of the things I realized is that I’m not good about nourishing myself, which means exercising and resting enough.
I also nourish myself through work with an incredible group of mentors, including Jane Garrity, David Glimp and William Kuskin. Part of how I keep going is by fostering my own community.
Finally, the most impactful, motivating experiences I have had is when a student drops into my office hours and comes by to say that they have landed their first job. That encourages me and keeps me going. It also happens sometimes that the internship sites hire our students, and then interns end up becoming site managers themselves. That makes it all worthwhile.