Cory Bowman

Cory Bowman has been working for Penn’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships since its inception in 1992 and its predecessor (the Penn Program for Public Service) since 1991.

Cory helps direct Netter’s core activities, including developing local academic partnerships with schools, non-profits, and communities of faith. Central among these activities are Academically Based Community Service (ABCS) courses and other forms of community-engaged scholarship, which integrate service with research, teaching, and learning, and bring together academic expertise with community expertise. Through collaborative problem-solving, this work is designed to improve the quality of life and learning in the community and the quality of learning and scholarship in the university. It is also designed to help students become active, creative, contributing citizens of a democratic society.

Cory helps lead the development of University-Assisted Community Schools (UACS) in Penn’s local community of West Philadelphia. UACS focus on schools as core institutions for community engagement and democratic development; school day and after school curricula are linked to solving community identified, real-world, local problems. 

In addition, Cory supervises Netter’s local and national UACS adaptation and replication program, including serving as director of the UACS National Network as well as the UACS Regional Training Centers program.