- 6:30 - 10:00 a.m. | Breakfast buffet served in Lodge Restaurant
- Note: All sessions in the Colorado room on Friday will be broadcast over Zoom to virtual attendees.
- 8:30 - 9:00 a.m. | Welcome
- 9:00 - 9:30 a.m. | Opening Message: "Connecting, Reflecting and Looking Forward"
- Taylor Randall, President of the University of Utah and Dean McGovern, Executive Director of the Bennion Center
Concurrent Session 1: Friday 9:45 - 10:45 a.m.
Colorado Room:
What Just Happened? Lessons Learned from the Pandemic
60 min. Panel by Lucy Smith, Ariella Bennett, Jessica Berryman, Renee Mendenhall, Lisa Packer (SLCC)
What in the world just happened? What lessons have we learned during a global pandemic and how have we adapted? How do we teach remotely and still offer high-quality community-engaged learning opportunities to our students? Unique challenges have occurred over the past two years, but this has also created new opportunities and innovation. This panel presentation consists of Salt Lake Community College faculty and a community partner that will speak directly about the conference themes. Discussions will revolve around lessons learned, ways to move forward, and social justice and equity efforts. There will be time for an audience question and answer.
JW Room:
Transition from Dementia Friendly Community to Elder Forum Network
60 min. Interactive Session by Meena Iyer (Dixie)
This interactive presentation will discuss the journey of the ‘dementia friendly’ community engagement project from being actively engaged in an in-person experience to an online elder forum in a span of about 2 years. In the process, the comfort of human presence and contact was abruptly replaced by digital ways of connecting. This dramatically altered the mode and delivery of community engagement. Thinking back and looking forward it has created a new level of engagement wherein, particularly in digital format, people want to be seen and understood, and they are extremely sensitive to tone and authentic caring.
Board Room:
Partnerships Post-COVID: What did we learn, where do we go?
60 min. Roundtable Discussion by Sean Crossland (UVU)
This roundtable is an opportunity for collective reflection on partnerships.
Concurrent Session 2: Friday 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Colorado Room:
Challenges and New Service-Learning Opportunities due to COVID-19
60 min. Panel by Mykin Higbee PhD, RN; Raiden Gaul MSN, RNC, CNE; Noelle Taylor DNP, FNP-NC, RN (UVU)
The unprecedented challenges of the pandemic highlighted the critical service nurses provide in our communities. During this time, faculty were challenged to completely change their pedagogical methods on very short notice. Many service-learning courses were altered to accommodate new distance learning requirements. Currently, many nursing faculty have chosen to continue utilizing alternate teaching techniques and projects in their courses instead of previous methods and assignments. In the past year, faculty and students have reported a greater connection with other faculty, students, and members of the community while recognizing the vital role of nurses in our society.
JW Room:
In It Together: Creating Guidelines for University-Community Collaboration
60 min. Panel by Ana Carolina Antunes (U of U)
"In July 2020, the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Community Research Collaborative (CRC) gathered on Zoom for its first meeting. Over the course of the next nine months, this Salt Lake-based group developed a set of guiding principles for building equitable community-based research partnerships. The principles — along with stories, advice, and tools — were shared in a report titled, In It Together: Community-Based Research Guidelines for Communities and Higher Education (CRC, 2021). The report is now being used as the foundation for developing training, online resources, grants, a community-based research review board, and other projects at the University of Utah, as well as being shared around the country.
In this session, members of the CRC, share some of what we did and what we learned in the process of developing our CBR guidelines."
Board Room:
Community Literacy Partnerships in the time of COVID
60 min Roundtable Discussion by Marilee Coles-Ritchie, Anneliese Cannon, Lauren Llevorson, Eleonor Castillo (Westminister)
This roundtable will focus on the concepts of reciprocity and relationships that occurred with an ongoing partnership with Westminster College and Promise South Salt Lake. Three literacy education professors and an after-school director share how this community engagement project was developed and implemented based on a community need. The partnership included presenting literacy strategies to the summer program educators to be implemented at the summer school program sites. We share intended outcomes and how the project unfolded, focusing on ways to improve connection and reciprocity. We invite the participants to share their experiences with and plans for building reciprocal community partnerships to meet each partner’s needs and goals.
Noon - 1 p.m. Lunch & Break
Lunch Buffet served in Lodge Restaurant/Enjoy walking trail along river
Concurrent Session 3: Friday 1:00 - 2:00 p.m.
Colorado Room:
1:00 -1:30 p.m.
Students and the City: Connecting Service-Learners w/ the Community in COVID-Times
30 min Paper/Effective Practice by Cindy King (Dixie)
While the past twenty months have presented a multitude of challenges for educators, instructors of service-learning courses have faced some particular obstacles. Among them has been the question of how to adapt our curricula in a way that allows our students to engage in community-based projects while keeping everyone safe. This presentation will detail experiences creating opportunities for students to connect with the community remotely and will provide practical pathways for instructors to ensure that their service-learning courses reflect best practices—even at distance.
1:30 - 2:00 p.m.
Connecting classrooms, communities and conservation
30 min. Paper/Effective Practice by Ashley N. Egan (UVU)
Spring 2021, I taught Conservation Biology at UVU and worked with the City of Vineyard to design educational and conservation-minded greenspaces. We worked with a landscape architect to create native plant palettes representing major Utah plant communities to provide beautification, functionality, and educational resources within Vineyard city greenspaces. I incorporated team-based learning strategies, citizen science, and live-stream breakout rooms with SL pedagogy to facilitate our project. I outline our project and course design, as well as discuss the challenges and lesson learned of enacting an SL course during the pandemic and the deep connections made that transcend space and time.
JW Room:
1:00 - 1:30 p.m.
Codes & Styles: Learning to co-teach collaborative Computer Science and Visual Communication projects through a Civic Engagement lens.
30 min. Paper/Effective Practice by Erin Coleman Serrano, Kathryn Lenth (Westminster)
In 2019 the presenters co-taught an innovative interdisciplinary collaboration of two 300-level courses: Web Apps (computer science) and Design and the User Experience (communication). Teams of students across both courses were assigned to clients in the community and were asked to split the responsibilities of design and development to build and deploy a web app and branding design. While there is no exact primer for teaching a collaboration of this nature we invented our own approach. We learned, as educators in very different disciplines, that we would need to teach each other the language, codes and styles, of the field.
1:30 - 2:00 p.m.
Community Rebuilds in Moab (pre-excursion)
30 min. Presentation by Bryan Dorsey (WSU) and Ellie Grosse (Community Rebuilds)
WSU has offered field courses that engage students with volunteers and staff from Community Rebuilds (CR), an affordable housing program in Moab. CR has provided sustainable housing (homes that sequester carbon and use solar energy) to more than 30 individuals and households of lower income in and around Moab. Our students volunteer for a day of work on a home in Moab with CR as they learn about more environmentally and economically sustainable housing options. The session targets three immediate areas of concern: 1) a housing crisis requiring an expanded, more affordable housing stock, 2) a climate crisis requiring more sustainable building materials and methods and 3) CR operates a building school where hundreds of building interns have received education and hands-on experience on building healthy, high performing straw bale homes. This labor exchange program also offsets the construction costs for the low income household.
This session can be attended by anyone, but will be a precursor for those joining the excursion Friday afternoon.
Board Room:
1:00 - 2:00 p.m.
Civitas: Consciously preparing engaged students through direct curriculum
60 min Roundtable Discussion by Barrett Bonella, Becky Jo Gesteland, Richard Fry (WSU)
In this round table discussion, a potential class is presented as a pathway to train students in the concepts and praxis of community engagement, designated as its own course taught and administered by the institutional community engagement center. The course will cover a set of educational goals that encompass the basics, risks, and contradictions indicated in community engagement with the express purpose of training students to be mindfully and critically engaged in the practice throughout their education, eventually leading to an academic honor related to their service. Feedback will be sought on processes, learning objectives, and measures for success.
Excursion
2:30 - 5:00 p.m. (spanning sessions 4 & 5)
Excursion to Community Rebuilds in Moab
Note: The excursion time block includes travel to and from the site (25 min. each way), participant carpooling will be encouraged. Excursion can accommodate up to 12 participants. If going on excursion, please attend the Community Rebuilds presentation at 1:30 p.m.
For those who attend the presentation on the partnership between WSU and Community Rebuilds (CR), this is an opportunity to observe some of the work being accomplished by CR in the Moab community. WSU Professor Bryan Dorsey and Ellie Grosse from Community Rebuilds will reiterate and further discuss two immediate areas of concern: 1) a housing crisis requiring an expanded, more affordable housing stock, 2) a climate crisis requiring more sustainable building materials and methods, and 3) CR operates a building school where hundreds of building interns have received education and hands-on experience on building healthy, high performing straw bale homes. This labor exchange program also offsets the construction costs for the low income household. This is a unique chance to learn more about how the CR program addresses these two concerns as we observe straw bale building projects and the Living Building Challenge in Moab. Caution: You may very well want to build your own straw bale home after this excursion!
Concurrent Session 4: Friday 2:45 - 3:45 p.m.
Colorado Room:
Reconnecting and Reconfiguring, Transitioning the Community Engagement Team
60 min. Panel by Teresa Martinez, Ryan Cain, Jenny Frame, Alex Lancaster (WSU)
During this session, we will discuss the realignment of student service teams at Weber State University’s Center for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL). In partnership with the WSU student government, our reorganization allowed the service teams to provide a broader range of High Impact Educational Experiences to students. This new range spans from “done in a day” service activities to more sustained experiences such as conducting research with community partners. The CCEL mission calls for the center to engage with the community in three ways through: direct service, civic engagement, and community research. Previously, the latter two engagement activities operated separately from the direct service teams associated with WSU student government. While the center has made progress in broadening the leadership and engagement opportunities for students, there have been growing pains doing this work amid an ongoing pandemic. Join us in our panel discussion to hear how we have worked to navigate challenges and make course corrections for the future.
JW Room:
Incorporating Global Learning Goals into Your Courses
60 min. Panel by Yimin Wang, Gavin Roberts, Kacy Peckenpaugh, Melina Alexander, John Cavitt, Darcy Carter (WSU)
This panel features multiple disciplinary perspectives on incorporating global learning goals into your course design. The disciplines represented include Education, Health Professions, Business, Science, Foreign Languages, and Women and Gender Studies. The panel will feature strategies for incorporating global learning objectives both from a content and from a pedagogical perspective. Case studies on infusing global learning goals into courses such as Game Theory will be presented. Towards the end, we will also illustrate innovative ways to engage global perspectives, related assessment tools, and ways to demonstrate the connections between global and local in a variety of courses.
Concurrent Session 5: Friday 4:00-5:00 pm
Colorado Room:
4:00 - 4:30 p.m.
From Challenge to Opportunity: How the Pandemic Improved CEL Projects
30 min Paper/Effective Practice by Anna Murta Hodgson, Alynne Makiyama Silva (UofU)
The abrupt shift to online classes in 2020 put the viability and priority of CEL projects into question in Portuguese classes at the University of Utah. By the fall, we had re-designed our projects to circumvent the limitations of the new format. Unexpectedly, the results revealed limitations in our CEL practice that preceded the pandemic and demonstrated that CEL is even more relevant and feasible than before. In our proposed presentation, we will use three successful CEL projects to discuss how the challenges brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, however traumatic, ultimately extended the scope of possibilities for CEL pedagogy. These redesigned projects were significantly enhanced by fostering consistent individual connections, refocusing on pressing community needs, encouraging creative solutions, interconnecting with projects from different courses, and finally, enabling our own students to cope with the circumstances.
4:30 - 5:00 p.m.
Literacy Academy - An Intervention for Lost Learning during COVID-19
30 min. Paper/Effective Practice by Sonia Manuel-Dupont, Macie Armstrong, Shalice Clarke (USU)
The US academic achievement gap was first identified in 1966. Its persistence in the 2020’s is not only troubling, it has been magnified due to the shutdown of schools through the COVID-19 pandemic. Enormous achievement gaps were already present for students of color and lower socio-economic status. The pandemic deepened this gap by also increasing the number of dropouts, disrupting households where parents did not or could not support student learning and took away programs that helped students engage in school. Mt. Logan Middle School asked for help in setting up an intensive, tutor-run literacy academy to address this issue. This session will present information on the set up and delivery of this program to 90 students with the support of 50 tutors.
JW Room:
4:00 - 4:30 p.m.
Pro Tips: Connecting Students to the Community through Internships
30 min Paper/Effective Practice by Julie K. Nelson (UVU)
This presentation highlights professional development through community internships. Many university majors require some level of practicum, or internship, where students are mentored in a pre-professional workplace paid or nonpaid position. The focus of this presentation offers "pro tips" for how to set up successful agency internship partnerships, guide student project proposals, design online professional learning modules to complement field work, track student progress on goals and skill development, and avoid common pitfalls in field supervision.
The outcomes of a robust internship program can be measured by UVU's (short term): achieve learning outcomes, complete educational goals, prepare for career/graduate education transition, commit to being an active citizen; (mid-term): students become active citizens making personal, institutional, and social impact with their communities; (long-term): vibrant, equitable communities built by active citizens.
4:30 - 5:00 p.m.
Re-building Community in the Office after distance working
60 min. Roundtable Discussion lead by Natalie Hales, WSU
As we seek to positively impact the community around us, it’s important that our teams are continually strengthened from the inside out. The last two years have presented challenges for team cohesion and morale. This networking discussion is an opportunity for CEL Staff and Administration to idea share about how they have been re-building community in the office after distance working. What has worked well for your office? What challenges are you seeking to solve? This is an opportunity to come together and share insights.
6:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Dinner Social held in the Colorado Room
