Board Spotlight: Dr. Sarah Summers
Building Connections That Strengthen Campuses and Communities
At Community-Engaged Alliance (CEA), our Board and Advisory Council bring together leaders from colleges and universities across Indiana who believe higher education extends far beyond the classroom. Through our Advisory Board Spotlight series, we're introducing the people who help shape CEA's mission while strengthening civic and community engagement across the state.
This month, we're pleased to feature Dr. Sarah Summers, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Franklin College and a member of Community-Engaged Alliance Advisory Council.
A Passion for Service Starts Early
For Sarah Summers, community engagement has never been a single project or volunteer opportunity. Instead, it has been a thread woven throughout her life.
Growing up in Greenfield, Indiana, her parents encouraged her to become involved in organizations that emphasized leadership, service, and giving back. Through student council, Key Club, leadership programs, and eventually as a Lilly Scholar, she discovered not only the value of volunteering, but also the importance of creating opportunities for others to serve.
Today, that commitment continues both professionally and personally.
In addition to serving as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Franklin College, Sarah serves on the Lilly Scholars Network Board, helping cultivate service opportunities for Lilly Scholars throughout Indiana. At home, she and her husband encourage their two children to embrace that same spirit by participating in service projects, student leadership organizations, and community volunteer activities.
For Sarah, service is more than helping solve immediate problems. It's about building lasting connections within a community.
Helping Faculty Create Meaningful Learning
At Franklin College, Sarah's role touches many aspects of the student experience, including faculty development, first-year academic programs, advising, undergraduate research, and community-engaged learning.
Before joining Franklin, she spent several years as an English professor at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology after graduating from DePauw University, giving her a unique perspective as both a faculty member and academic leader.
That experience has shaped the way she approaches community engagement.
Rather than viewing service-learning as an additional responsibility, Sarah sees it as a powerful way to enrich teaching while helping students better understand the communities around them.
One example came through a CEA grant that supported a Faculty Learning Community focused on community-engaged teaching. Four Franklin faculty members spent the summer redesigning courses to incorporate community partnerships into their curriculum.
The results reached far beyond the classroom.
Students collaborated with local organizations on projects ranging from STEM initiatives at the public library to water quality research with the parks department. At the end of the semester, Sarah watched students present not only what they had learned academically, but also how their experiences had changed the way they viewed their own community.
Those moments reinforced why community-engaged learning matters.
Rebuilding Community Partnerships
One of Sarah's favorite recent initiatives was a networking event designed to reconnect Franklin College faculty with local nonprofit organizations.
Like many campuses, Franklin saw community partnerships disrupted during the pandemic. The networking event offered faculty, staff, and nonprofit leaders an opportunity to reconnect, share ideas, and begin building new relationships.
The informal gathering sparked conversations about future collaborations while reminding participants that strong partnerships begin with simply getting people in the same room.
That event has already led to new opportunities for faculty and community organizations to work together in ways that benefit students while addressing community needs.
Learning Together Through Community-Engaged Alliance
Sarah first became involved with Community-Engaged Alliance after Executive Director Elijah Howe visited Franklin College to discuss the institution's long history of service-learning and opportunities to strengthen that work.
Soon after, she accepted an invitation to serve on CEA's Advisory Council.
For Sarah, the decision was an easy one.
"None of us are doing this work in a silo, and we all have things to learn from each other, said Dr. Summers, said Dr. Summers."
That collaborative spirit is what she values most about Community-Engaged Alliance.
Among CEA's many programs, one of her favorites is the Spreading the Word Speaker's Series.
Sarah has participated as both a presenter and a host, bringing speakers to Franklin while also sharing her own expertise with campuses across Indiana. She believes the program provides faculty with fresh ideas while creating opportunities to connect with colleagues facing many of the same opportunities and challenges.
One of her favorite memories came from presenting a Spreading the Word Speaker's Series session on using artificial intelligence to write grants during the early days of AI adoption in higher education.
While the presentation began as a workshop, it quickly became something more.
Faculty members shared ideas, exchanged resources, asked questions, and learned from one another. Rather than pretending to have all the answers, participants explored together what these emerging technologies might mean for teaching, grant writing, and community engagement.
For Sarah, that experience perfectly captured what Community-Engaged Alliance does best: bringing people together to learn from one another.
She is equally passionate about CEA's grant programs, both as a recipient and a reviewer. She understands how meaningful even modest funding can be in helping faculty launch innovative ideas that may not otherwise move forward.
Looking Toward the Future
As Franklin College continues expanding its community-engaged learning efforts, Sarah hopes to build the strong foundation that already exists.
Her goal is to help more faculty discover that community-engaged teaching is both achievable and rewarding. By sharing the experiences of colleagues who have successfully integrated service-learning into their courses, she hopes to encourage even more faculty to explore those opportunities.
She also looks forward to strengthening partnerships between institutions across Indiana through Community-Engaged Alliance.
Collaboration among campuses, she believes, allows everyone to benefit from shared ideas, successful programs, and collective experience.
Preparing Students for a Lifetime of Engagement
When Sarah reflects on the long-term impact of Community-Engaged Alliance, her focus always returns to students.
She believes the experiences students gain through community engagement extend far beyond their college years.
"The work that Community-Engaged Alliance does is really a part of shaping people way beyond what happens in college, said Dr. Summers."
Helping students see themselves as active members of their communities creates habits and values that remain with them long after graduation. Those experiences strengthen not only individual students but also the communities they eventually call home.
For Sarah, that's the lasting value of community engagement. It helps students recognize that they don't have to solve challenges alone. By working alongside faculty, nonprofit organizations, and community partners, they learn that meaningful change begins with collaboration.
It's a lesson that continues to shape her own work and one she hopes future generations of students will carry with them wherever life leads.
For more stories like Sarah’s, stay tuned to CEA Chronicle. If you have any photos or additional stories to share about your community engagement work, please reach out to us. Together, we can continue to build stronger, more connected communities.