Speaker Series Catalog

Particularly, HEIs community outreach in the K-12 sector can contribute to the state's economic and educational development, ensuring educational quality and better preparing K-12 students to be competitive in the ever-evolving job market (Jacob et al., 2015). In addition, with universities dedicating resources to promoting equity, HEIs can foster educational practices that close gaps in college preparedness and career readiness for the K12 students.

It has been particularly challenging for the large-research universities to assess and include their K-12 outreach impact in the institutional strategic planning. This is because the K-12 outreach is often dispersed throughout different departments and units at the institution and is not centrally tracked.

In this presentation, we address the significance and challenges of assessing K-12 outreach impact using Collaboratory, a software that tracks institutions' public engagement to collect dispersed efforts for K-12 engagement and build a synthesis of institutional outreach data. Lastly, we will also discuss the application of interactive visualization software and map-based visualization such as Power BI, Kumu, and GIS software to assess K-12 outreach endeavors at our institution.

Problem: The state of our democracy is in peril, and the problem lies in a lack of civic knowledge and civic engagement.

Vision: Despite the grim data, the United States is seeing a bright spot in terms of youth civic engagement. From the 2014 midterm to the 2018 midterm, youth voter participation increased by 79%. Climate change, racial discrimination, and gun violence has sparked a particular wave of youth civic engagement, and it is necessary to turn this momentary interest into habituated interest. It is the youth who have the power to redirect the perilous course of US democracy. The Youth Civic Engagement Council will create a generation of bold, cooperative, positive young leaders inclined to address the challenging issues present in their schools and communities with creative and sustainable solutions.

Mission: To develop civically minded young people by giving them the direction, structure, responsibility, and mentoring necessary so that they become effective leaders in their schools and broader communities and increase civic awareness and engagement among their peers.

This group of young people will have the added responsibility of being an example to their peers of proper civic awareness, engagement, and knowledge.

We will give practical ideas to develop Youth Civic Engagement Councils giving young leaders the opportunity to work with community leaders governmental, business, healthcare, not-for-profit, educational and others in a role that gives them responsibility for decisions for action and not being told what to do in the issues of the community.

We want to create the next Greatest Generation.

Key Takeaways: Participants will leave with differentiating between Internship, Work study, and co-opt and their value towards obtaining success post-secondary and beyond.

Engaging, motivational and interactive, this presentation and discussion dives into what makes us who we are and what separates us from the masses. From intrinsic motivation, adaptability and resiliency to empathy and humility, we look at how a strategic, creative, daring, and even deferential approach to our lives and relationships can improve productivity and performance, while simultaneously building better, more lasting connections.

This session will encourage participants to consider adding service-learning components to their course to further engage students, give them real world experience and help meet community needs.

The session will describe the theoretical concept of, and components entailed in service-learning (SL) and give examples of what types of courses could be considered. The presenter then share stories (both successes and failures) of their experiences in SL. Participants will complete a short brainstorming session regarding SL opportunities in their fields and be given handouts to help guide professors in using SL in the classroom.

1) Participants will be able to identify necessary components in an SL course.
2) Participants will be able to recognize types of activities professors use to engage students in SL.
3) Participants will be able to describe the benefits of adding a SL component to their courses and list potential pitfalls of working with community partners.

The presentation will begin with a 5-question oral pretest to test participants’ understanding of Service Learning. Audience members will then participate in a 5- to 7-minute brainstorming session, creating lists of potential community partners and potential courses in which they could include SL components. Participants will also participate in a 5- to 7-minute group discussion regarding their experience with SL at their universities.

Participants will learn about ungrading theories and research and then see examples of contracts, rubrics, and syllabus language used in ungraded community-based projects. Participants will have time to adjust an assignment or course to include aspects of ungrading and receive feedback. Ultimately, the participants will leave the session with new strategies to focus on measuring and rewarding student learning in community-engaged projects.

Connecting with community partners and showing them the benefits of service learning.
o Doing yearly intakes of community partners and noting the current leadership.
o Noting the community partners wants and needs and connecting them with appropriate university faculty.
o Creating a memorandum of understanding for the community partner so that they and students/faculty understand the parameters and outcomes of projects.

Walking faculty through managing a service-learning project. This can include:
o Linking faculty members with community partners.
o Setting up meetings with faculty and community partners to set intentions, create the parameters of the project, and create a memorandum of understanding so that expectations and outcomes are clearly stated.
o Helping faculty find funding for their project, either through internal or external sources.
o Helping faculty create assignment sheets and rubrics for their students.
o Collaborating with faculty on articles or presentations, thereby showing faculty that service learning is an excellent path toward tenure and promotion.

Setting and communicating student expectations. This can include:
o Communicating the benefits of service-learning projects for involved students.
o Creating concise learning objectives, outputs, and outcomes.
o Expectations for site visits.
o Non-expectations, meaning that students understand when they are being asked for something outside of the project expectations.
o Creating a template and rubric for self-reflection at the end of the project.

This talk will illustrate the essentials of service learning, showing how service-learning personnel can foster a mutually beneficial tripartite relationship among community partners, faculty, and students.

The TEAM (Total Engagement Adds Meaning) Initiative
We have developed the TEAM Initiative to truly engage students into experiential leadership roles within the community where they study. The Initiative has three areas of action studies producing results.

TEAM I
This is the initial study to determine the state of relationship and communications between the schools and students with the community in which they reside. Also determined is how the students interact with the community. Interviews with community and campus leaders, as well as an assessment of current programs and involvement of students, take place followed by an action report of findings as outlined. Students will be involved in the study by interviewing, tabulating, interpreting information, and making recommendations to the schools and the community. They will learn Servant Leadership through this real-world experience.

TEAM II
This program examines existing service activities or other community issues in which students are involved and makes recommendations of how they can be developed into engagement that adds meaning and gives the student experiential learning and leads to problem solving of those issues within the community. Specific issues will be addressed. An example is: students may work on a Saturday for Habitat for Humanity as a service project which is encouraged, but an engagement of the students will have them asking questions and helping to resolve them such as why is there a shortage of affordable housing within the community?

Students are responsible for Research, Communications, Logistics and Facilitation. School assets may be used in the implementation of the action plan and students continue in a leadership role.

TEAM III
In TEAM III, students act as leaders of a Community Vision/Action Plan while learning the Servant Leadership model. They work as peers with community leaders as they help develop the vision for the community and goals and measurable objectives. They will lead the open community process at Public Meetings and through interviews. By doing so they also receive mentoring from community leaders.

Students are responsible for Research, Communications, Logistics and Facilitation. School assets may be used in the implementation of the action plan and students continue in a leadership role.

Ideas will be shared to give attendees ideas to grow Community Engagement for student athletes as the work with community leaders, including government, business, healthcare, education and not-for-profits.

Practical experience opportunities will grow for the students. Class credit may also be included in the TEAM Initiative.

Many people believe that by understanding the perspective of the other, it will increase the chances of being able to convince them to do what we want them to. However, that is the antithesis of the pragmatic spirit. This understanding of pragmatic philosophy will provide the underpinning of some of the goals of service learning. I will use insights from this philosophical foundation as a framework for exploring the following questions:

Why do DEI goals align with service-learning goals? Is there anything we can learn from the business world's DEI initiatives that will work well with service learning? What can we learn from students' reflections about their service-learning experiences?

Addams, Jane Twenty Years at Hull-House, Ed. Victoria Bissell Brown. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins,1999) 91.

Drawing from both scholarship and practice, exploration into how campuses are currently positioning community engagement as a key component of their strategic visions will be shared. Through a critical scholarly lens, this talk will examine the strategies employed by higher education institutions to integrate community engagement into their strategic plans, both broadly across core institutional priorities and deeply within them.

Moreover, this talk will address the crucial aspect of aligning metrics to track the impact of campus-wide community engagement initiatives. Recommendations for more purposeful alignment of institution-wide data collection to inform and advance campus strategic planning will also be shared.

Through real-world case studies and interactive discussions, participants will gain actionable insights into how to embed community engagement into the DNA of their institutional strategic plans. By embracing a holistic approach that emphasizes accountability, transparency, and continuous improvement, institutions can harness the full potential of community engagement to drive positive change within and beyond their campuses.

Specific focus will be given to how campuses can (1) better define community engagement/engaged research in institution- and unit-level guidelines, (2) restructure guidelines to be more accepting of faculty engagement, (3) incorporate metrics that are better suited to evaluate the quality of engaged scholarship, and (4) support review committees tasked with evaluating faculty's engaged work. Resources and clear methods that campus leaders can utilize to implement a review of promotion and tenure guidelines and/or a campus-wide temperature check on the recognition of community engagement at their own institutions will be provided. Further, discussion will include how the collected data might be leveraged, both at the institutional, unit, and individual levels, to make the case for appropriately valuing engaged research and scholarship in promotion and tenure.

Through interactive discussions, evidence-based research, and institutional case studies, participants will gain actionable insights into how to advocate for campus policies and practices that valorize community engagement in promotion and tenure decisions. By embracing a culture of recognition and reward, academic institutions can empower faculty members to fully realize their potential as scholars committed to the public good.

This talk provides concrete direction into how campuses can better understand, assess, and evaluate their institution-level community engagement activities, with special focus on the importance of cultivating a culture of assessment within academic institutions. The assessment and evaluation of community engagement will be positioned not as an end in itself, but as a means to inform decision-making and drive continuous improvement. Attention will be paid to the three levels of data institutions should collect (i.e., micro, mezzo, and macro) and how the data can be intentionally leveraged to provide a holistic and integrated understanding of campus-wide engagement.

The foundational principles underpinning effective assessment of community engagement efforts will be discussed. From defining clear objectives and indicators, to engaging stakeholders in the evaluation process, this talk will unpack the essential components of a comprehensive assessment strategy. Building upon this foundation, best practices gleaned from a diverse array of case studies, scholarship, and practice will be shared. Through real-world examples and practical insights, innovative approaches to data collection, analysis, and reporting that capture the multidimensional impact of community-campus collaborations will be explored.

Through interactive discussions and collaborative exercises, participants will gain actionable strategies for designing and implementing effective assessment processes that demonstrate the value of community engagement to internal and external stakeholders alike. By embracing a holistic approach to assessment, higher education institutions can strengthen their commitment to social responsibility and collective impact, fostering vibrant and inclusive communities for years to come.

1. Recognize the importance of effective university- community partnerships in the context of the evolving landscape of higher education.
2. Identify the fundamentals and benefits of the EPIC model for partnering institutions of higher education and local communities.
3. Engage in initial strategic thinking about how the EPIC model could be leveraged at the participant’s home institution.

This workshop will introduce the landscape of philanthropy in the United States (part history, part mythbusting) and unpack some of the varied perspectives on how philanthropy could adapt to new community needs. Just as important is developing your own giving goals - We’ll discuss how to align these goals with your values, passions, and future aspirations. Whether it’s supporting educational equity, promoting sustainability, or championing mental health initiatives, your giving goals become a compass, guiding your actions and amplifying your impact. Setting these goals as college leaders ensures that philanthropy becomes a lifelong commitment, integrated into your personal and professional endeavors.

Through a compelling history and stories, actionable strategies and tools, and an exploration of how student leaders across the globe are making a difference, this address will inspire you to embrace philanthropy as a cornerstone of your leadership journey. Together, we will reimagine what it means to give, not just today, but for generations to come.

Let’s transform your potential into purpose and your leadership into legacy” because the world needs leaders who don’t just lead, but give.

Discover the concrete steps required to get engaged in your communities as a leader rather than a spectator. Learn the skills most important to effective citizenship. Overcome the tendency to believe that ordinary citizens cannot create meaningful changes in their communities and in people's lives. Based on the civic leadership model developed by former U.S. Senator Bob Graham, this presentation is designed to teach you everything you need to know to become a civic leader and to start developing leadership training sessions of your own.

How do you do it? Where do you start? Whether you are new and considering organizing a small voter registration event for the first time or more experienced and interested in expanding capacity and impact in a full-scale drive, this presentation will cover all the essential and optional components to organizing effective and meaningful civic engagement activities, such as voter registration drives, candidate forums, voter education efforts. Some of the best practices will include identifying community partnerships and nurturing those relationships, locating funding for events, considering target audience and tailoring message and information to need, promoting and marketing, providing multi-modal interactions (in-person canvassing, literature drops, in-person/hybrid/virtual events, etc.), and tracking and measuring interactions to assess outcomes and impact.

In this talk, the presenter will discuss the evolution of a field philosophy course (ED350: Curriculum Theories) that teaches theory by having students directly address concrete community problems. The course evolved from a series of in-class philosophical thinking simulations into a fully developed community-embedded class. Rather than studying curriculum theory in isolation, students partner with Educating Children of Color, a nonprofit serving low-incoming BIPOC students in Colorado Springs, CO, to design a curriculum that prepares adults for volunteering with the organization.

By wrestling with real-world constraints, power dynamics, and community needs, students come to profoundly understand curricular concepts and their hidden tensions, such as scope and sequence, cultural responsiveness, and assessment. More importantly, the experience cultivated their civic agency and motivation to work toward social change.

This talk outlines an alternative model called critical mentoring designed to cultivate students' capacity for social critique and change. Grounded in critical pedagogy, it shifts the mentor's role from assimilationist to community organizer.

This talk gives an overview of major paradigms in undergraduate mentoring, differentiating them from critical mentorship. It then uses a case study of how one group of undergraduate mentors built incoming students' critical capacities and sense of community agency by mobilizing them to change one campus policy over one academic year.

In this talk, focus will be given to identifying the foundational principles underpinning effective community engagement and the necessity to infuse engagement into other key, high-priority campus initiatives (e.g., strategic planning, promotion and tenure, infrastructure). Positioning community engagement as a strategy through which campuses must anchor institutional efforts, as opposed to the responsibility of a solitary unit, models of organizational change and governance structures that facilitate the integration of community engagement within institutional initiatives will be shared and discussed.

Through real-world case studies and best practices gleaned from working with a network of engaged campuses, this talk will elucidate how community engagement serves as a catalyst for experiential learning, research innovation, and social impact. From navigating power dynamics to overcoming resource constraints, hurdles encountered by institutions will be explored and pragmatic solutions informed by scholarship and practice will be shared. This session will provide a roadmap and essential tools that higher education leaders, administrators, and practitioners can leverage to cultivate and institutionalize a culture of community engagement within their campuses.

A majority of Americans report feeling angry and exhausted when thinking about politics. They also view members of the opposing political party as more immoral, dishonest, and closed-minded than members of their own party. Such beliefs make it difficult to hold meaningful conversations about a shared future.

In one study, a whopping EIGHTY PERCENT of workers admitted to putting off a scary but important conversation in the workplace. And one in five employees in a different study shared that they lacked confidence in successfully having similar scary conversations!

To continue along this path of silence and fear projects a dangerous trajectory that, if left unaddressed, threatens society - and democracy - as we know it.

The presenter will provide insights and tools to build individual confidence and skills in having productive conversations that lead to shared understanding and better outcomes.

Learn to incorporate civic action projects into face-to-face, hybrid, and (a)synchronous online courses using a simple menu-based approach. The speaker will provide a menu of ideas to develop students’ civic skills that can be adapted and applied across disciplines and subfields. Suitable for both introductory and upper-level courses, these easy-to-adopt projects will make you an active partner in promoting civic literacy and educating students for democracy.

Join award-winning civic educator for a discussion of common rhetorical approaches designed to mislead the audience. Educate yourself and others to avoid falling for and spreading fallacious arguments.

By the end of the session, participants will be able to spot a wide range of fallacies, including: Begging the Question, Evading the Issue, Faulty Analogy, False Dilemma, Inconsistency, Non Sequitur, Strawman, Ad Hominem, Guilt by Association, Slippery Slope, Two Wrongs, Appeal to Common Practice, Appeal to Traditional Wisdom, Appeal to Ignorance, Appeal to Authority, Appeal to Emotion, Appeal to Popularity, Equivocation, Suppressed Evidence, Tokenism, Hasty Generalization, & Questionable Cause.

Improve your critical thinking skills today!

Less attention has been paid to the relationship between interdisciplinarity and democratic education. This is surprising given the fact that interdisciplinarity supports the civic aims of education, advances civic values and democratic forms of deliberation, and is increasingly understood as integral to addressing complex civic problems.

In this talk, the presenter discuss the historical relationship between interdisciplinarity and democracy, illustrating the various ways interdisciplinarity has supported (and continues to support) aspects of citizenship and civic life in a connected and increasingly complex world.

In this talk, the presenter will argue that the historic dichotomy between liberal and professional learning is not only unproductive, but it is also anti-democratic. The presenter will make their argument through the lens of what John Dewey called occupational education, which was a way of situating disciplinary insights and methods within real-world projects aligned. The term occupation in this context means both the educational project capturing students' attention at any given moment, and their emerging professional identity.

The talk centers on the case study of a curricular experiment in the first-year seminar program at Colorado College. In the first-year program, all incoming students take clustered courses designed to help students understand what disciplines are, how they relate to one another, and how they are relevant to improving the world beyond the campus. In our unique model, all seminars are topic-driven and inquiry-based, and they are clustered into thematic groups that allow students to understand how solving real-world problems requires the integration of disciplinary knowledge.

Yet according to Pew Research Center data, U.S. adults ages 18-29 are nearly as likely to trust information on social media sites as they are from national news outlets. Half of all adults under 30 trust social media information compared to 56 percent who rely on national news. Among all age groups, local news has the highest trust rate.

Confronting misinformation amongst friends and family can be hard, but some things to remember, recommended by PEN America, include:
- Verify the information before you engage someone.
- Is making the effort worth it?
- If you decide to engage, use empathy and presume good intent.
- Don't escalate a situation with someone who isn't open to hearing facts.
- Try to be a resource for family and friends to provide accurate information.

In our conversation, we'll discuss how to fact check stories you're consuming and when and how to gently correct friends and loved ones who are eager to share bad info.

The talk will connect the historical struggle to contemporary movements, demonstrating how her legacy informs and inspires modern-day activism through the Civil Rights Heritage Center. The goal is to move beyond mere commemoration to a deeper, more actionable understanding of her story, prompting attendees to consider how they can continue the unfinished revolution in their own communities. This is an invitation to engage with history not as a static event, but as a living force for change, urging a new generation to pick up the mantle of progress and justice.