Greetings,

For more than 50 years, the Center for Community Engaged Learning has worked to cultivate and support partnerships between communities and Michigan State University around community-engaged learning, with the goal of preparing students for lifelong civic and social responsibility. As part of this work, the center offers programming and resources for faculty, students, and community partners that advances community learning and promotes our shared efforts to build healthy and vibrant communities.

We dedicate this edition of the MSU Community-Engaged Learning Index to a great civil and social justice activist, the late John S. Duley. During his time as a campus minister from 1962-1982, John pioneered the national service-learning movement, strengthened services for nontraditional students, and pursued fair housing in East Lansing for non-White residents. John’s ongoing support of the Center for Community Engaged Learning has strengthened us as leaders and practitioners, and inspired us to stay grounded in our purpose of preparing students for lifelong civic and social responsibility.

The 2020-2021 academic year brought about new challenges that had yet to be faced in the history of the center. As partners, we learned that it is possible to work together through a global pandemic. We learned that it is possible to advocate for equity together, even when we have never met in person. Most importantly, we learned how interdependent and capable we are as learners and partners. This report features inspiring and innovative stories from our faculty members who are committed to academic community-engaged learning, our partners who value their partnerships with our university, and our students who have risen above unimaginable challenges to stay connected with one another and community partners.

The center’s academic team was able to quickly adapt our faculty Special Topics Series to the virtual space, where we connected with faculty practitioners in conversations about academic community-engaged learning course design, community partnerships, developing syllabi, and orienting students to enter a community with knowledge of identity, equity, and privilege. We also adapted all of our sessions and tools to include recommendations for engaging students in virtual community-engaged learning experiences.

This index report tells the story of how university and community partners came together in new and necessary ways. Creating virtual volunteering efforts that were effective for partners presented many challenges, from inequitable availability of technology to providing a safe learning environment for youth in virtual programs. Several opportunities came together for students to serve, including summer service challenges that engaged students with new partners across the nation and the world, a new cohort program that addressed the technology challenges of virtual volunteering, and an expanded understanding of partnership work through long-standing scholar and intern programs.

The level of engagement on the part of students, partners, and faculty and staff members in the 2020 presidential election was outstanding! The work of the MSUvote Campus Coalition assured that student voters were educated about the democratic process and that they had a virtual space to go to discuss differences, seek understanding, and advocate for fairness. At a time when feeling disconnected, and at times isolated, had become an unfortunate reality, the MSUvote Campus Coalition provided opportunities to connect and build relationships through a series of MSUvote Civic Dinners. These virtual conversations have become a model with other campus programs and among our peer institutions.

Since 2016, the Center for Community Engaged Learning has worked with campus partners to collect these data and stories for this important annual report. Michigan State University is a leader among peers at effectively advancing this work and for telling the story of community-engaged learning at our university.

Thank you to the faculty, staff, partners, and students whose stories of community-engaged learning are featured in this year’s MSU Community-Engaged Learning Index. For the 2020–2021 academic year, there were 20,205 student community-engaged learning registrations. Of those registrations, 38 percent (7,657) were in community-engaged learning as part of an academic course or program and 62 percent (12,548) were in co-curricular community service.

Your grace under pressure, commitment to our shared work, and dedication to community are inspirational and impressive. As we continue to grow our programs, projects, and partnerships in a post-pandemic world, we will collectively bring with us the new skills and agility gained through the past year. Together we will continue building equitable and effective partnerships in new and innovative ways that aim to achieve the public purposes of higher education.

With gratitude and respect,