Paul Schadewald

2022-2023 Crystal Globe Recipient

As part of Macalester’s Community Engagement Center for over 20 years, Paul Schadewald has been a true friend of the Geography Department.  As the Crystal Globe Award recognizes, he contributed significantly to the life of our department, the education of our students, staff, and faculty, and the ways in which we practiced geography.

The Geography Department takes pride in its long-standing commitment to community-engaged teaching and scholarship.  From 1999 until 2022, Paul facilitated much of this work.  His extensive knowledge and dedication to the communities of the Twin Cities helped Macalester – and Macalester Geography – to become a leader in community-engaged scholarship.  His deep intellectual and philosophical insights on the nuances and practice of community engagement have been a constant source of inspiration.

Paul provided visionary leadership and unwavering support in helping to create experiential learning opportunities off-campus for countless Geography courses.  He collaborated with all of our department faculty and staff to create high-impact experiences for each particular course, from introductory to advanced.  He helped organize and support numerous trips to Common Harvest Farm in Osceola, WI for Prof. Moseley’s People, Agriculture and Environment class and harmonized an approach across several Macalester faculty who collaborate with the farm.  He co-taught the experimental Democracy in Action course with Prof. Carter through the difficult time of the start of the Covid pandemic.  He helped identify and support semester-long community partnerships in multiple iterations of our advanced project-based GIS courses with Prof. Barcus, Smith, and Nepp. He worked extensively with Prof. Trudeau to build and sustain community engagement into many of his courses and support ethical and reciprocal practices in the curriculum. In all of these partnerships and activities he thought of every detail, including the important task of keeping students nourished.  His kindness, patience, and unending energy and enthusiasm have fostered a culture of collaboration amongst several generations of Macalester students.

Since leaving Macalester in 2022, Paul has continued to contribute to the Geography Department through collaborations on ACM faculty workshops and a book project with Prof. Moseley on experiential learning and food-related courses and liberal arts colleges.  He has gone on to apply his talents in ways that deepen and widen the impact of his gifts and commitments to higher education.

We are deeply grateful for Paul’s commitment to and lasting impact on the Geography Department.  He is truly deserving of the Crystal Globe Award!