Bunn named provost’s fellow for public engagement

Austin Bunn, professor of performing and media arts in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), has been appointed provost's fellow for public engagement.

Bunn is the seventh faculty member to hold this position in an initiative that launched in 2011 to strengthen Cornell's capacity to support public engagement. He will work with the Office of the Vice Provost for Engagement and Land-Grant Affairs and the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement, as well as administrators and stakeholders in A&S and across the university, to advance Cornell's public engagement mission and initiatives involving community-engaged learning and research. His three-year appointment began July 1.

Bunn, who served as the director of the Milstein Program in Technology and Humanity from 2020-25, will report to Vice Provost for Engagement and Land-Grant Affairs Katherine McComas, Ph.D. '00. 

"Austin brings a deep understanding of community-engaged learning," McComas said. "His prior work with the Milstein scholars means he knows what it takes to build and sustain meaningful engaged-learning experiences for students and community partners. His ability to bridge the humanities, STEM and social sciences will be a real asset as we work to expand the visibility and impact of public engagement opportunities across the College of Arts and Sciences."

A writer and filmmaker whose career has spanned journalism, screenwriting, documentaries and audiobooks, Bunn joined Cornell's faculty in 2012.

"I am really excited and honored to be asked to be the provost's fellow because when you're a faculty member, you can sometimes just focus on making the best possible experience in the classroom," he said. "But I've discovered in my own life and my own creative work - maybe because I was a journalist in my 20s - I've always been really interested in and compelled by the outside world: wanting to go to new places, meet new people, understand other walks of life. And I think I've brought that energy with me into my teaching life."

Public engagement projects have often contained a service component, but Bunn will study a wide range of what "engagement" looks like across the college and university, with a broader definition for high-quality learning, from internships and entrepreneurship to field studies and workshops, to cooperative education and community-based research.

"Working with people who are not on campus can teach you a lot about, for example, how to be in the world, how to have a hard conversation, how to receive feedback and what it means to have a lasting impact," Bunn said.

The primary criteria for such projects include addressing a community interest or issue; working with and learning from a community partner; connecting community-engaged experiences with educational content; and structured critical reflection.

The goal is for 100% of undergraduates to participate in these efforts. Already, 89% of the Class of 2026 universitywide, and 64% in A&S, report having a community-engaged learning experience. A&S had 33 different community-engaged learning courses in 2025-26.

One of Bunn's priorities is to work with university partners to find ways to connect interested students with opportunities, such as tagging courses that have a public engagement component, as well as helping faculty members understand that their courses qualify.

"There's so much already happening on campus. I'm just one of many faculty who are doing engaged work," he said. "I'm very interested in knowing how all faculty might be thinking about this and ways to adapt what's working. We're looking for collaborators and advocates who are passionate about this work."

Public engagement and community-engaged learning not only benefit students and the community, Bunn noted; they also help the university as a whole.

"Universities have realized that we need to do a better job looking outside, welcoming people in and grounding our research, so that the general public can see the results and benefit from the talent and resources of a university like Cornell," he said. "This is a part of that ethos: making the universities feel less like a city on a hill and more like a place where people can come together, a crossing point for communities."

As a "locally-oriented person who grows where he's planted," and whose own documentaries have explored rural LGBTQ communities, Bunn is encouraged by the curiosity and compassion he's seen in his students' efforts so far, such as a vegetarian making a documentary about a local butchery and Milstein scholars recording audio stories of residents at the senior community center Lifelong.

"Cornell has a history of publicly engaged education since its beginnings," he said. "Students, especially at Cornell, are naturally drawn to wanting to have a real-world impact. I'm just amazed at their life force. I think they really see the value of this work and it's incredibly inspiring."