Building from our networks with local community experts and stakeholders, CURTO projects and initiatives share a number of core features that are directed by our guiding values and rooted in our mission to serve as an intellectual axis and key convener of programs that address issues central to affirming human rights and human dignity. While each project takes on it's own life and identity in these university-community collaborations, CURTO projects and initiatives tend to be aligned in the following ways:

CURTO projects and initiatives encapsulate our three pillars - research, teaching, and outreach.

CURTO projects and initiatives are at the intersection of our three pillars - research, teaching, and outreach. Teaching and professional development initiatives, as well as outreach relationships, are valuable sources of inspiration for projects. And they are important sources of accountability for the direction of this research.

CURTO projects and initiatives center stakeholders in all phases of project development.

CURTO projects and initiatives aim to center stakeholders in all phases of project development. These projects emerge in response to research and teaching needs expressed by our Milwaukee-area partners. Undergraduate and graduate students are intimately involved in all phases of project development, and they are often the creative inspiration for many of CURTO's projects and initiatives. Phases of project development in which CURTO strives to incorporate all stakeholder voices include stakeholder research and mapping, project ideation, program development, program evaluation, and program reporting.

CURTO projects and initiatives are deeply interdisciplinary.

Because CURTO's work is problem-centered, our projects and initiatives are deeply interdisciplinary. We aim to facilitate research collaborations across disciplines, bringing together a wide range of faculty, graduate student, and undergraduate research specializations from the humanities, social sciences, educational sciences, natural sciences, and professional studies. 

Undergraduate and graduate students play an active leadership role in managing CURTO projects and initiatives.

Each semester a number of faculty at Marquette offer project-based courses in collaboration with CURTO. Building from CURTO's growing network of Milwaukee-area partners, undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in these courses work on real-time research and teaching projects that enact CURTO's mission and guiding values. Examples of past and present student-led projects include:

• Conducting oral history research.
• Directing CURTO's strategic planning process.
• Planning, hosting, and analyzing the data from a national deliberative polling event in collaboration with Stanford's Center for Deliberative Democracy.
• Mapping a vision, mission, and guiding values for CURTO's Milwaukee Roots Dialogue Series and developing curriculum for it.
• Collaborating with Milwaukee's Office of Equity and Inclusion to conduct a racial equity survey of municipal employees, analyze the data, produce a report, and develop curriculum proposals.