Online Community Engagement Enhances Service Learning
It was Spring 2020 and the Steans Center faced a challenge unlike anything in its almost twenty years of supporting service learning at DePaul: how to safely engage students with community when they were no longer attending class in person. During a typical spring term, DePaul has approximately 1,000 students engaged with Chicago communities through courses. That Spring, the Center shifted course and staff created Online Community Engagement (OCE), a program faculty employ to encourage dialogue on select topics relevant to curriculum, communities and students. Within a matter of weeks, OCE provided self-directed modules including reading materials and videos for students focused on issues such as mental health, immigration, community organizing, police accountability, and gentrification. The modules culminated with a live online event on Fridays featuring guests from DePaul and Chicago communities. One year later, OCE is not only a valuable teaching and learning strategy during a time of crisis. It has become a new pedagogical tool to be integrated into Steans Center support of service learning as the university reemerges into a post-pandemic world.
To read the full article on OCE, click here.
To register for upcoming OCE Live events, click here.
For more information about community engagement, contact servicelearning@depaul.edu.
Congratulations to Steans Associate Director Helen Damon-Moore
Helen was highlighted in DePaul Magazine for her long career and accomplishments in higher education community engagement. Read the article here.
Congratulations, Dr. Walidah Bennett!
Congratulations to Dr. Walidah Bennett on her recent appointment to the Advisory Council on Veterans at the Mayor's Office. As the Director of the Multi-faith Veterans Initiative, Dr. Bennett does amazing work with veterans in our city, and we are thrilled she will be sharing her experience and expertise in this role. Congratulations from everyone at Steans!
Kimberly Fair, Racial Equity Graduate Research Fellow
The Irwin W. Steans Center for Community-based Service Learning and the Center for Black Diaspora are pleased to announce Kimberly Fair as a second recipient of the inaugural Racial Equity Graduate Research Fellowship. The fellowship supports African-American graduate students in conducting focused, community-based research on efforts to promote racial equity in Chicago. Kimberly's research seeks to evaluate fellowship and mentoring program success at combating systemic racism through economic mobility and empowerment in 18- to 30-year-old black men.
Kimberly is a Public Policy graduate student and Winter 2021 Chaddick Scholar. She has a deep passion for economic policy and how it can be used to tackle poverty in the US. Her area of interest is developing policy programs at the state and municipal level to alleviate poverty for distressed black communities. She has a genuine love for helping others and wants to dedicate her life's work to eliminating poverty. In addition to her academic life, she is a wife, mother, and avid swimmer.
Save the Date: 2021 Service Speaks Conference
Greetings!
We are pleased to invite you to this year’s annual Service Speaks conference, at which we will hear from and honor our students who have been engaged in the community in a year like no other. Service Speaks is co-sponsored by the Steans Center and the Council on Community Engagement.
We hope that you will take some time on Friday, May 28 from 2-3:15 pm to learn about the work of our students through a dynamic roundtable, slide show, and sharing of our online Chapbook. Your support will mean the world to our students and to the community partners who will join the conversation that day as well.
Some of you have been asked already to invite your students to participate, but keep persisting with your students! And we hope that others of you will also help us to represent DePaul’s student activities by forwarding the links below for the slide information and reflection form for possible inclusion in the Chapbook (see the Chapbook draft here: https://www.flipsnack.com/FCFA5888B7A/2021-service-speaks-chapbook.html)
Celebrate National Volunteer Month with Collaboratory
This is a great time for faculty and staff to share their community engagement activities in Collaboratory, the university’s platform where we manage, track and access all forms of community engagement. These could include co-curricular service, academic service-learning, social philanthropy, project and research based engagement and more. During National Volunteer Month, let’s show through Collaboratory how we are collectively supporting communities by facilitating impactful community engagement across Chicago, nationally and internationally. To get started, log into Collaboratory using your campus connect password. See below for tips on documenting your community engagement activities in Collaboratory.
For more information, please contact Steans Center Associate Director Barbara Smith
ABCD Institute Upcoming May Events
The ABCD Institute and ABCD In Action have events coming up on poverty reduction, rural communities and story-telling. See below for details on the events and registration links.
ABCD Institute Event:
A Unique Approach to Asset-Based Poverty Reduction with ABCD Institute Steward, Paul Born
Tuesday, May 18, 2:30 p.m. - 4 p.m. CST (Zoom)
The Tamarack Institute in Canada has created a unique approach to reducing poverty in local communities. Their initiative in hundreds of cities has proven to be an effective method for engaging entire communities in poverty reduction.
Join Paul Born, Co-CEO of the Tamarack Institute, as he shares their approach to mobilizing communities to launch campaigns for large scale change. Active in nearly 400 communities in Canada and the US, the Tamarack Institute provides both a methodology for organizing and the supports that make the work of large-scale community change easier and more effective. For more information and to register.
ABCD in Action Global Gathering:
How Can ABCD Unlock the Many Assets of Rural Communities?
Tuesday May 4, 9 a.m. CST (Zoom)
Rural communities are often defined in terms of what they DON'T have, their deficits, such as the lack of affordable housing, limited public transportation, poor internet services, etc. However, many people who live in rural communities know that they are actually rich in assets, from the natural environment to the many gifts of people who live in these communities, and much more.
The question we will be exploring during this Global Gathering is how might we use an assets-based approach to think about rural communities in order to unlock and build on those assets. We'll all be sharing stories of communities that we have experience with that have done just that (whether they call it ABCD or not) and we'll explore what makes these efforts successful. For more information and to register
ABCD in Action Global Gathering:
Storytelling
Wednesday May 26, 10 a.m. CST or Thursday, May 27 at 5 p.m. CST (Zoom)
How can the power of storytelling be used to create stronger, more resilient communities? So often people feel that they do not have a ‘story’, or that their own story is not important enough to tell. Sometimes folks are not able to share their story. That could be because no one has asked, no one has taken the time to listen, or they have not had a way to tell it so that others would understand. There is no greater gift than to witness the strength and power in telling one’s own story. There is no greater power than witnessing change inspired by the telling of a story. For more information and to register
One-on-One Consultations for CbSL Courses
Steans Center Associate Director Helen Damon-Moore offers one on one consultations for Community-based Service Learning courses. In CbSL Workshop 101, we:
• Identify evidence-based best practices for teaching community-based service learning;
• Reflect on your beliefs about teaching and learning in the classroom and community;
• Consider the theoretical frameworks for community-based service learning;
• Discuss the types of service learning (direct service, project-based, advocacy, community based research, on-line, GLE);
• Consider the importance of reflection, cultural identity, and authentic partnerships of service learning; and
• Discuss a course or other teaching strategy that strengthens student learning and honors community partnerships.
