Faculty Support and Network Building

The Academic Programs Team supports faculty and staff who are designing course-based community-engaged learning experiences for students. This year, support efforts included the facilitation of a faculty learning community, as well as a Special Topics Series for community-engaged learning practitioners to discuss academic community-engaged learning at MSU. Over the 2022-2023 academic year, the CCEL Academic Programs Team facilitated a learning community entitled “Critical Community-Engaged Learning: From Theory to Practice,” generously sponsored by the MSU Office of Faculty and Academic Staff Development. This learning community provided a space for interested practitioners to come together and read current scholarship on critical community-engaged learning/critical service-learning. Dialogue centered around questions such as: What is critical service-learning/community-engaged learning? What are critical community-engaged partnerships? What is critical service-learning pedagogy? This interdisciplinary group of community-engaged scholars and practitioners contributed to building an annotated bibliography centering on these topics. Drawing on the diverse perspectives of learning community participants, the group also collaborated on a book review, which was submitted to an academic journal. Throughout, participants enhanced their understanding of bringing critical community-engaged learning theory to practice and deepened relationships among community-engaged colleagues across MSU.

In the fall and spring of 2022-2023, 108 faculty and staff engaged in six different Special Topics sessions. Participants learned how to design or enhance preexisting community-engaged projects and connected to a network of peers and a cadre of resources. Topics of focus included elements of community-engaged partnerships, the student experience, and democratic engagement. Discussion also centered around the Social Change Wheel and expanding our definition of community-engaged learning through exploring a variety of implementation strategies, which have anti-racism, equity, and community partners at the center. Participants had the opportunity to meet with CCEL staff for consultations at Hooked Bookstore in East Lansing to share in snacks, socializing, and syllabus-planning as well. Several recordings of such sessions, including phenomenal faculty-practitioner exemplars, can be accessed by logging in to the CCEL Faculty Resources Library.

A schedule of sessions for the 2023-24 academic year is available on our Faculty Special Topics Series page. The community-engaged learning community is also being offered in 2023-24. For more information or to request a consultation, reach out to Michelle Snitgen, or Stephanie Brewer.

Student Reflection Workshops

Over the course of the 2022-2023 academic year, CCEL engaged 766 student participants in critical reflection workshops. Workshops included:

• “Core Concepts of Community-Engaged Learning,” which incorporates an overview of wicked problems, United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, elements of building ethical and sustainable community partnerships, and the importance of practicing critical reflection;

• “Situated Spartan,” which explores the concepts of power, privilege, and student identity; and

• “Asset-Based Community Engagement,” which provides an opportunity for students to create their ideal community using community strengths as a starting point.

These sessions challenged students to explore concepts such as identity development, culture, socialization, power, privilege, and asset-based thinking.

Academic Project Assistants

In the spring 2023 semester, the academic programs team developed and implemented a brand-new student program. Six undergraduate students, representative of multiple majors and ages, were recruited to engage with CCEL as academic project assistants (APAs). APAs worked in small groups and as a cohort to provide student input to existing CCEL programs, workshops, materials, etc. They researched existing programs and best practices in project topical areas and thought creatively about ways to increase engagement with undergraduate students. The APAs helped build capacity around the connection between community-engaged learning and student professional development, a community-engaged learning teaching assistant program, and creative facilitation and programming.