Mission
CURE’s mission is to produce justice-oriented, community-engaged research, while training and empowering future researchers.
CURE is a place where community work and research go hand-in-hand. Research needs to go beyond knowledge acquisition and distribution, and civic engagement needs to go beyond community service.
CURE believes in movement work. This moment requires that we, as a research community, support existing community movements. Research has a key role in such work, and CURE funds, supports, and produces research that contributes to grassroots movements.
History
In 2011, under the leadership of Executive Dean Margaret Marsh and Chancellor Wendell Pritchett, Rutgers University–Camden established the Center for Urban Research and Education (CURE).
CURE was a part of a series of investments in Camden by Rutgers that sought to improve its relationship with its neighbors. Launched in parallel with the Office of Civic Engagement (now DICE), and the PhD Program in Public Affairs and Community Development, CURE was to be the home for world-class urban research that was relevant to the Camden community.
For 12 years, founding Director Dr. Paul Jargowsky and Associate Director Dr. Natasha Fletcher led that mission. Highlights included receiving a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to study segregation and a Neighborhood Change Survey.
In 2023, Dr. Stephen Danley was named Director of CURE. Danley’s own work on grassroots organization and community movements was heavily influenced by his time as a CURE-affiliated scholar and by walking the streets of Cramer for CURE’s neighborhood change survey.
In 2024, Mariah Casias joined the team as Department Administrator, helping CURE become a leader on campus and beyond at making the nuts and bolts of community-engaged research a win-win for community members and researchers at Rutgers.