For communication scholarship to be meaningful, I feel it must often go beyond the academy to engage in constructive dialogue with diverse communities. Such dialogue ensures scholarship is grounded in the needs and particulars of current societal issues and increases the potential transformative power of communication research. To attend to these core goals, I have taken part in various public scholarship actions and outreaches, founded communities devoted to public scholarship, facilitated my students' creation and participation in public scholarship, and presented to other academics on public scholarship.

Action:

•    Conservation Voters of New Mexico (CVNM) , The Wilderness Society, UNM Resource Center for Raza Planning, and Arts de Aztlan outreach project. Working with these organizations and a group of dedicated graduate students, we've begun a pilot study to identify and connect with local rural and urban Hispanic environmental meaning systems. Research will see praxis in connecting and empowering seemingly disparate Hispanic communities, identifying a new enviro-cultural vernacular to help these communties write themselves back into the land, and informing environmental advocacy groups' message-making to advocate for these communities at the levels of politics and policy.
•    Scholar spotlight radio interview on ecotourism, communication, and whale watching. Interview aired in New Zealand, and internationally via the internet. Fresh FM (99.4 FM, 95.4 FM, 88.4 FM) in Nelson, New Zealand. September 2007.
•    Faculty consultant, Hablamos!, annual event of La Semilla Institute that engages local schools in environmental research projects (with leadership of interdisciplinary graduate students) in effort to collaboratively build community, innovative approaches to the environment, and cross-cultural and intergenerational awareness. 2007-present.
•      Workshop titled “Framing the Message” with Canadian and American whale watch boat naturalists preparing for summer tourist season in highest international concentration of whale watching. Presented observations and led discussion and dialogue about successes, challenges, and strategies in framing evocative, engaging, and empowering messages about endangered whales and environment. The Whale Museum, Friday Harbor, San Juan Island. March 30, 2007.
•      Total Projection Action, part of small group of transdisciplinary graduate students and artists who organized and created an interactive communication event in the heart of campus the evening before presidential election. Projected real-time public-created "virtual graffiti," slides, digital text, video, transparencies, and other public visual communication images at a massive scale onto walls of buildings in Red Square. Press coverage. Inspired by University of Washington-based The Day Before Project. Red Square, University of Washington. Nov. 1, 2004.
•      Community Mural assistant facilitator in Seattle. As part of CROW (Creative Revolution On Walls), facilitated large-scale political discourse among hundreds of community members who took part in mural. Mural currently displayed in Rem Koolhaas-designed downtown Seattle Central Library. Multiple media interviews. Group-generated project responding to September Project. Press coverage. Seattle Central Library. Sept. 11, 2004.
•      Facilitator. Preview Forum's "Using Media to Engage the Public and Journalists on Social Issues," nationwide facilitated discussions among journalists and community members on "Ethnicity and Race in a Changing America." Ford Foundation funded. Seattle, WA. May 2003.
•      "Foreign Expert" guest. China Central Television (all-English channel, CCTV 9) talk show on cultural customs. More than 200 million viewers. Beijing, China. December 2001.

Communities:

•      Founder and Director. Nature, Culture, and Public Scholarship Research Collaborative, a transdisciplinary network of 55 faculty, graduate students, and practitioners engaged in interdisciplinary and applied critical cultural research approaches to human relations with the environment. Continues to exist at University of Washington. 2004-2007.
•      Founding member, student chapter of The September Project, an international project started by UW Professor David Silver that on Sept. 11 annually involves public libraries and citizens in organizing free public discussions, events, and actions. 2004.

Student facilitation:

•      Thesis Adviser, for Erin McGee in the UW Comparative History of Ideas Program. Erin's project was both academic and activist and focused on theory and strategies of collectively run organizations. As part of her project, Erin collaboratively created a grocery buyers' co-up within her urban neighborhood with no grocery store. 2006.
•      "What is Your Meaning?" Facilitated my UW Interpersonal Communication students in their formulation of student-generated, course content-focused community activist events. Students organized a public chalk mural on key terms of the election and asked community members to write meanings for terms like "the draft," "the economy," and "freedom." Students also organized a march across campus with signs and performance, engaging pedestrians and drivers. Inspired by University of Washington-based The Day Before (Presidential Elections) Project. Nov. 1, 2004.

Selected Presentations:

•      Milstein, Tema.  "Survive, Critique, and Create: Guideposts for Promoting Social Justice and Environmental Justice through Radical Pedagogy, Eco Pedagogy, and Public Scholarship." Communication and Instruction Interest Group. Western Communication Association. February 2007. Seattle, WA.
•      Milstein, Tema. (with John Carr, Irina Gendelman, and Giorgia Aiello). "Political Discourse and a Community Mural: Getting Our Hands Dirty with Public Scholarship." Communication Department Alumni Graduate Work Showcase, October 2004. University of Washington. Seattle, WA.
•      Milstein, Tema. "‘You Will Use Your Ideas for Great Benefit:' Public Scholarship in the United States Post-WTO and 9/11." Co-sponsored with theme sessions. International Communication Association, May 2004. New Orleans, LA.