Julie Schumacher Cohen Named Higher Education Trailblazer in PA

Julie Schumacher Cohen, assistant vice president for community engagement and government affairs at The University of Scranton, was among the 50 Higher Education Trailblazers named by City and State Pennsylvania, a multimedia news organization that focuses on the commonwealth.

At Scranton, Cohen leads a variety of community and civic initiatives. She served as project director of "Scranton's Story, Our Nation's Story," a project that garnered a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. A multiple-year, community-wide project, "Scranton's Story" explored themes of history, belonging, identity, community and democracy through a series of humanities-based programs culminating in a fall 2023 oral history collection.

"These Scranton Stories give voice to a broad array of Scranton experiences - bringing underrepresented and long-told narratives together - to create a new mosaic that connects Scranton to our nation's ongoing story prior to its 250^th anniversary," said Cohen of the project.

In 2022, Cohen coordinated the University of Scranton's third Living Wage Study rooted in the Catholic social justice tradition that details problems and solutions related to economic insecurity in Northeastern Pennsylvania. She chairs the University's Community-Based Learning Board, which involves academic, course-based programs through which students work with individuals or organizations on projects that address community needs in such areas as poverty, neighborhood revitalization, refugee solidarity, and non-profit capacity building. She also chairs the University's Political Dialogue Initiative, which encourages reflective, structured discussion for students around contentious issues such as immigration, guns, upcoming elections, foreign policy and more. Cohen serves on several Scranton area boards, including Scranton Tomorrow, Valley in Motion and First Friday. She co-chairs the city of Scranton's World Refugee Day.

Cohen joined the University in 2010. During her tenure, she has spearheaded a new downtown Scranton student-engagement initiatives and built collaborative relationships with community, neighborhood and government leaders and organizations. Together with community and faculty partners, she has helped to create refugee solidarity programming. From 2016-2019, Cohen served as co-chair of the University's Middle States Self-Study for reaccreditation. She has written editorials and articles that have appeared in the Scranton Times-Tribune, America, Connections, Conversations and the Journal of Ecumenical Studies.

Prior to Scranton, Cohen served as deputy director of Churches for Middle East Peace, a coalition of church bodies that works to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace, among other roles with cross-cultural and social justice organizations. She is currently a member of the Catholic Advisory Council of Churches for Middle East Peace and the board of the Foundation for Middle East Peace and has been active this past year in organizing educational programs and activities on the Gaza-Israel crisis to discuss how to end the current hostilities and foster a just peace.

Cohen earned a bachelor's degree in political studies and English literature from Gordon College and a Master of Public Administration from Villanova University. Currently, she is pursuing a political science doctoral degree at Temple University.