Professors Launch New Effort to Support Fisher Urban Scholars

Dr. Jonathan Shelley, assistant professor English, and Dr. Anthony Siracusa, assistant professor of history and community engagement, are piloting a new first-year program designed to provide additional support to students in the Fisher Urban Scholars program.

Shelley and Siracusa are among the 21 faculty member teams from across the country selected for a Pathways Step Grant from the Modern Language Association of America (MLA), which provides up to $10,000 to support the development of new resources that bolster the recruitment, retention, and career readiness of undergraduate students. The projects were selected through a rigorous peer-review process and demonstrate an array of innovative approaches intended to engage and enrich humanities students in the classroom and beyond.

The grant is funding the project, “Developing Learning Communities with the Fisher Urban Scholars,” which seeks to improve the experience, retention, and four-year graduation rate of students in Fisher’s Urban Scholars program. Created in 2020, the Fisher Urban Scholar Award pledges $40,000 per student over the course of four years to any high school student who resides in the City of Rochester and enrolls at Fisher as a first-year student. The project will provide targeted support for the scholars through two humanities-based initiatives.

Shelley and Siracusa will co-teach a first-year Learning Community course specifically for the incoming 2025 cohort of Urban Scholars. Current Urban Scholar Eriel Young is also consulting on the course creation, to bring the unique perspectives of the students into the initiative. The course will ask students to use their writing and research skills to create 2D and 3D personalized, annotated maps using ArcGIS, a cloud-based mapping software. Students will use their Apple iPads – given to first-year students as part of the iFisher Next Generation Learning Initiative – to create and add interactive content, including videos, images, text, and music to their maps.

“The StoryMaps will allow students to create an enduring, public-facing artifact that communicates their lived experience and articulates how their connection to the St. John Fisher University community can help them to advance their educational journey,” Shelley explained.

In spring 2026, the students will present their StoryMaps at the annual Fisher Showcase, a campus-wide research and creative works symposium.

Shelley and Siracuse are also launching a 20-person working group made up of first-year Urban Scholars who will meet regularly throughout the spring semester and author a white paper for faculty, administration, and staff on how to improve support services for students in the program but also first-year students in general. Urban Scholars who participate in this working group will be provided a stipend for their time spent meeting and contributing to the composition of the report.

“We believe the efforts of this project will serve as an effective pilot and model for faculty who teach future Urban Scholar Learning Communities,” Shelley said. “It will also provide the University at large with data that will assist in the design of long-term support for Urban Scholars.”

Shelley and Siracusa will present their project at the 2026 MLA Annual Convention, taking place in Toronto in January 2026.