Customized Assistance

Service Learning Movement in Higher Education / Welcome to Community-Engaged Alliance
Engagement in and with communities is at the core of most university missions, including language around public service, the creation of knowledge in order to solve problems both locally and globally, as well as preparing students as democratic citizens (Ward, 1996). This session will give a brief overview of the engagement movement in higher education and focus on how Community-Engaged Alliance can support institutions through professional development for staff, faculty, and students. Available funding opportunities will be highlighted and the presenter will be available to answer questions on the types of projects typically funded.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face or Virtually 60 – 90 minutes

Framing Our Work: Key Terms and Concepts of Service-Learning and Community Engagement
This workshop is designed for faculty new to service-learning and will cover basic definitions, history of the field, and planning course construction.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face or Virtually 60 – 90 minutes

Community-Based Learning Curriculum Development
This workshop is a follow-up to introductory community engagement workshops. It explores the development of service-learning course objectives, finding the right community partner, and preparing students for their service-learning experience. It also provides a brief introduction to the concept of reflection and the importance of assessing community-based learning methods. This session includes some interactive components.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face 90 – 120 minutes or Virtually 120 – 160 minutes

Campus-Community Partnerships
Finding the right community partner can be tricky. Is the relationship mutually beneficial, transactional, or transformational? This workshop will help attendees discover the right path for engagement in and with the community, and what it looks like to have a co-educational process with community partners.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face or Virtually 90 – 120 minutes

Creating Meaningful Reflection
The presenter will discuss various reflection techniques which can be used to generate authentic evidence of students’ learning from a service/volunteer experience. Participants will discuss whether reflection activities should public or private, written or oral, and expressive or dialogic. The presenter will help participants connect ongoing reflection to the content/curriculum and their service/volunteerism and allow for some cognitive dissonance of the students' current knowledge, skills, or attitudes.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face 90 – 180 minutes with interactive components
Delivery Method: Virtually 60 – 90 minutes with limited interactive components

Fundamentals of Assessing Civic Learning- Beginning with the End in Mind
This intensive workshop is designed to introduce attendees to the often hidden, if not forgotten, outcomes associated with community-based or engaged learning practices: civic learning and democratic engagement. Participants will be given the time to create a thorough assessment plan for measuring student civic outcomes during college and improving their teaching practices. This is an interactive session designed for experienced community engagement practitioners. The session will be customized for your stakeholders.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face 3 – 8 hours
Delivery Method: 2 or 3 Virtual Sessions 120 – 180 minutes each

Preparing Students for Community-Based Learning Experiences
Preparing students for work with and in the community is an essential aspect of high-quality community-based learning experiences. This session will focus not only on important topics to cover as you prepare your students, but how to include your community partner and other on-campus resources.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face or Virtually 75 – 90 minutes

Identifying Community Assets and Needs
In this session, participants will explore the various tools available when working with community organizations to identify the needs of the organization or community at large. Participants will also be introduced to the concept of asset-based community development and how it can be utilized to strengthen both community partnerships and enhance service-learning courses. This is an interactive session that can be customized with your campus and community in mind.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face 90 – 180 minutes

Delivery Method: 2 Virtual Sessions 120 – 180 minutes each

An Introduction to Critical Service-Learning
This session examines service-learning through the lens of producing social change and working toward the redistribution of power. Starting with the definitions of traditional service-learning and critical service-learning, this session will also provide a survey of sociocultural theories of power, intersectionality, and positionality. Attendees will be encouraged to question assumptions and perspectives they bring to their service-learning work.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face or Virtually 90 – 180 minutes

Community Engagement and Faculty Reward Systems 
We will explore the intersection of community engagement and faculty reward systems, tips for engaged scholars, and suggestions for creating a new campus culture that is inclusive of community engagement.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face or Virtually 90 – 120 minutes

Principles for Creating Quality Engaged Scholarship
This session will discuss approaches to examining engaged scholarship and methods available for disseminating engaged work through traditional and non-traditional outlets. Success stories from the field will be shared along with considerations on finding the time and individuals who can support your work.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face or Virtually 90 – 120 minutes

Becoming an Advocate for Service-Learning and Community Engagement
This session will discuss ways to support others on their community-engagement journey. It will include ways to share your knowledge and expertise across your institution and beyond, support others in doing the same, and examine the various organizations to become engaged with and dissemination outlets available across the field. Success stories will be shared.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face or Virtually 75 – 90 minutes

Student Engagement and Leadership Development
This presentation will help faculty and staff develop a comprehensive plan for working with students as colleagues.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face or Virtually 90 – 120 minutes

Finding Funding for Your Community-Based Service Project
This student-focused session will focus on finding funding for your community service projects (both one-time, ongoing, and course-based). It will cover the principles of grant writing and use the Community-Engaged Alliance Service Engagement-Student Community Service Grant application as a starting point.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face or Virtually 90 – 120 minutes

Planning Meaningful Days of Service
This student-focused session will focus on HOW to plan meaningful days of service ranging from one-day projects connected to events such as Martin Luther King Day of Service, Cesar Chavez Day of Service and Learning, and Global Youth Service Day, to week-long events such as Spring Break experiences—both locally and beyond. It will include a discussion on project ideas, logistical concerns, and how and why to incorporate reflection into the experiences.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face or Virtually 60 – 75 minutes

Now What do I do? Dealing with the Unexpected
So you have spent the last several months working with your community partner to plan the best community-based project. You have more volunteers signed up than you ever could have hoped for, but you get to the service site only to have THIS happen! Now what do you do? This session will cover some of the most common, yet unexpected things that can go wrong during a community-based project and give you tips on how to deal with them and where to turn for help.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face or Virtually 60 – 75 minutes

The Power of Reflection
You want to make sure those participating in your service project not only have a great time, but also understand the societal concern, community connection, or mission of the organization they are supporting. But how do you ensure this happens? Reflection is the key! Taking time to plan how participants are going to reflect on their experiences and connect those experiences to action is an important step, which can lead to many new “Ah-Ha Moments.” This session will focus on how to help participants make those connections.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face or Virtually 75 – 90 minutes

Telling the Story through a Unique Lens
How you tell the story of your service experience can be an important one. It can help to shed light on important issues within the community, encourage others to get involved, and it can even connect you with those that can help fund your projects. This session will help you to identify what information from your project to capture, ways you might assess your project outcomes, and avenues for sharing your story.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face or Virtually 60 – 75 minutes

The Job Connection: Including Your Service Experiences on Your Resume
Current and past jobs aren’t the only things that are of interest to your future employer, so too are the ways in which you are engaged within your community. This session will discuss how you can incorporate service projects and related experiences on your resume in order to make the biggest impact with potential employers.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face or Virtually 75 – 90 minutes

#socialmediaforservice
Twitter. Facebook. Instagram. These and many other social media apps can be helpful when promoting your service events. This session will discuss the ins and outs of ensuring your event is utilizing them to the fullest. It will also engage participants in conversations on the common pitfalls to using social media and how to implement an effective and appropriate social media policy for your community-based projects.
Delivery Method: Face-to-Face or Virtually 60 – 75 minute

Carnegie Community Engagement (Re)Classification Guidance & Preparation
Community-Engaged Alliance fully supports its partner campuses as they prepare to submit their application for the Carnegie Elective Community Engagement Classification in 2024 and beyond. We strongly recommend that campuses intending to apply or reapply during the 2024 application cycle participate in our ACCE Experience during the 2020–2021 or 2021–2022 academic years in order to best prepare.

Bring our Service-Learning Institute to your campus!

This 2.5-day intensive, customized training is designed to meet the needs of your institution’s faculty and community engagement staff.

With a mix of plenary sessions and small-group learning communities, the Institute offers participants an opportunity to redevelop a course into a community-based learning experience while simultaneously getting feedback from peers and the experts at Community-Engaged Alliance.

A Service-Learning Institute (SLI) typically covers best practices of service-learning course design including:

• identification of course-specific civic learning outcomes;
• discussion of reciprocal and sustainable community partnerships and how to create them;
• importance of reflection and review of multiple types of reflection activities;
• how to assess service-learning activities; and
• the importance of, and ways to, document and disseminate any new knowledge generated from service-learning and community engagement projects or pedagogy.