Collaboratory for Strategic Partnerships and Applied Research

Please visit the Collaboratory Wiki

Identity
The Collaboratory is an organization of Christian students, educators, and professionals affiliated with Messiah College. We aspire to fulfill Biblical mandates to foster justice, empower the poor, reconcile adversaries, and care for the earth, in the context of academic engagement in the disciplines of our school. As God enables us to serve others today, we seek to grow as disciples of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, serve as God's stewards over the resources of our academic disciplines, and bear witness to the good news of the Kingdom of God.

Vision
Increasing hope and transforming lives through education, collaboration, innovation and service.

Mission
To partner with organizations, businesses and communities in our region and around the world for projects in mathematical and information sciences, engineering, and business that serve disadvantaged people and care for the earth; and to develop our members' abilities and vocational vision for lifelong servant-leadership, and the courage to act on convictions.

Core Values
Dokimoi Ergatai is a Greek phrase that means "Approved Workers". It is taken from a verse in the Bible: "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15)." Dokimoi Ergatai (DE) is our ethos and foundation to the following core value statements, a phrase that expresses our desire to become God's approved workers.

• Sharing the Gospel of Christ in life, word and deed so that others may come to know him.
• Fostering lifelong commitments to Christian vocation and servant-leadership through peer and advisor mentoring and discipleship to Christ.
• Integrating our work and Christian faith by making wise use of gifts and abilities to serve the underprivileged around the world.
• Demonstrating God's love through creative applications of our academic disciplines that meet human needs while valuing local culture.

Cultivating long-term partnerships with the communities we serve, to gain deep understanding and achieve sustainable results.

Overview
The Collaboratory for Strategic Partnerships and Applied Research brings Messiah College students and educators together to apply disciplinary knowledge and express value commitments through creative, hands-on problem solving. Participants engage the knowledge content of their academic disciplines to address needs brought by sponsoring clients. Areas of engagement include projects in mathematical and information sciences, engineering, and business. For comprehensive results we also partner with disciplines and departments from across campus. Our focus is projects that empower the poor, promote justice for the oppressed, reconcile adversaries, and care for the earth. Clients are organizations, businesses and communities that receive a tangible benefit and contribute to educational objectives for students. The Collaboratory fosters learning that supports and builds on quality classroom instruction. Projects enable students to engage classroom fundamentals in an authentic client-provider environment, and the Collaboratory is run by student leaders and the educators who mentor them. Our programs also connect faculty scholarship and service directly to student learning. The purpose of the Collaboratory is to serve the pressing needs of our world today, while advancing the mission of our College to prepare men and women for lives of service, leadership and reconciliation.

Program Strategies

1. Our projects are academically and professionally challenging, and they enable students to express Christian faith and value commitments through excellence in their academic discipline.
2. Our students share project leadership and administration responsibilities with educators, and learn by seeing their teachers in action.
3. Our educators connect their scholarship directly to student learning by making hands-on professional contributions to projects as mentors and members of project teams.
4. Our Christian discipleship intentionally reflects on learning experiences, to sharpen vocational vision, foster servant-leadership, and nurture courage to act on convictions.
5. Our project teams include students from multiple years of study for increased peer mentoring.
6. We include multiple academic disciplines and partner organizations with their various modes of thinking and analysis for comprehensive outcomes.
7. We are committed to projects that can span multiple generations of students to attain tangible and sustainable results.
8. We integrate Collaboratory programming into curricula, to increase both participation and academic engagement by connecting Collaboratory work to faculty and student loads.