R-Next Initiative

CAL’s new R-Next Initiative seeks to reimagine what it means for SDSU to be an R1 institution at this moment, in this place, and for our communities. R-Next seeks to foster socially responsive research, grounded in our shared disciplines, and extends the driving questions, methods, applications, and audiences of our work beyond traditional, investigator-driven, discipline-focused scholarship.

At its core, R-Next emphasizes that the humanities and social sciences play essential roles in the health, vitality, and future of human societies. We facilitate “community impact” by building relationships and addressing the diverse factors that contribute to human flourishing.

Three such projects have received two years of seed funding:

Africana Research & Cultural Renaissance Center

Project Director: Taharka Adé, Africana Studies

This initiative, which has achieved formal center status at SDSU, aims to research and preserve African and diasporic cultural heritage. It seeks to combat misrepresentation and exploitation through digital humanities, community partnerships, and student scholarships. In San Diego, the center will collaborate with the Alliance for African Assistance and the Black Leadership Alliance Coalition, and has also secured a partnership with the Molefi Kete Asante Institute for Afrocentric Studies in Philadelphia.  

Documenting Data Center Development

Project Director: Dustin Edwards, Rhetoric and Writing Studies

With the support of community collaborators in Doña Ana County (NM), Las Cruces (NM), and Imperial Valley (CA), researchers and border communities will unite to document the environmental and social toll of AI data centers. The initiative aims to build public resources available to communities, legislators, and others that will drive equitable, sustainable policies for our shared technological future.

Global Border Nexus Initiative

Project Director: Haley Ciborowski, Geography

Partnering with colleagues across five SDSU colleges and external offices such as the California Department of Public Health, this initiative will unite currently dispersed researchers into a cohesive interdisciplinary network that addresses borders as dynamic global systems. In doing so, the initiative will catalyze research with real-world relevance for communities shaped by migration, climate, and cultural exchange.

Two additional projects also received funding:

Beyond Access: Rethinking Food Security through Culture, Inequality, and Everyday Life in the San Diego–Border Region

Project Director: Pascale Marcelli, Geography

How do people experience and navigate food insecurity in everyday life? This interdisciplinary project brings together researchers, students, and community partners to explore how culture, gender, migration, labor, and the environment shape food insecurity in the San Diego–border region and how communities respond creatively to these challenges.

Generative AI in San Diego’s language classrooms: Teachers’ practices, perceptions, and needs

Project Director: Mathias Schulze, Comparative International Studies

How do language teachers learn about, use collaboratively, and teach with digital tools that rely on generative AI (GenAI)? With this powerful new technology, what are their achievements and missteps, their aspirations and concerns, and their mastery and growth areas? We are studying the GenAI teacher practices, perceptions, and needs in classrooms in community language schools, middle and high schools and their afternoon language programs, community colleges, and at university.