February 6, 2017

Interested in learning more about outreach and engagement scholarship and how CU Boulder is connecting with national scholars and organizations around this work?

Register now for the Western Region of Campus Compact's 19th Continuums of Service Conference at the Auraria Higher Education Center in Denver from April 6 to 8. The goal of the conference, Elevating Higher Education for the Public Good: Commitment|Action|Impact, is to empower students, faculty, administrators and community partners to embrace a commitment to advance civic and community engagement for a just, equitable and sustainable future. Click here for the full conference theme statement and goals.

CU Boulder speakers include:

• Roudy Hildreth, associate faculty director, Jen Pacheco, graduate research assistant, and Manuela Sifuentes, director of community partnerships, all from CU Engage. Exploring New Ways to Develop Sustained University – Community Partnerships: CU Engage's Work in Progress. April 7, 10 to 11:30 a.m.

Faculty and staff from CU Engage, the Center for Community Based Learning and Research at CU Boulder, will discuss the center’s work in east Lafayette, CO, one of the most distressed neighborhoods in Boulder County. The center’s purpose is not to create and run new programs (though this might develop), but rather to serve as a convener, catalyst and capacity builder for community organizations, stakeholders and the university. The center’s main focus is to engage in participatory processes so that lay citizens can be the drivers of this process.  

• David Meens, director of the Office for Outreach and Engagement, and Lisa Schwartz, program manager with the office. Network Perspectives for Situating University Outreach and Engagement With and Within Communities. Friday, April 7, 1:30 to 3:00 p.m.

This talk will focus on how university outreach and engagement has shifted toward an ecological understanding of the university’s place within broader social systems, and discuss how network perspectives provide an opportunity to both theoretically and practically situate university outreach and engagement with and within communities.

• Brooke Neely, visiting scholar from the Center of the American West. Partnership with Federal Agencies and American Indian Tribes: Possibilities and Challenges. Friday, April 7, 1:15 to 2 p.m.

CU Boulder’s Center of the American West recently entered into a partnership with the National Park Service to enhance interpretations of American Indian histories. This talk will focus on questions related to how university faculty and staff can partner and engage with non-university institutions and groups in ways that: acknowledge and work through the history of injustice and distrust that informs any potential collaboration between tribal nations and federal/state institutions; build meaningful, productive, and sustained relationships among the partners over time; effectively collaborate with outside partners.

Campus Compact is a national coalition of nearly 1,100 colleges and universities committed to the public purposes of higher education; CU Boulder is a member of Campus Compact. The network includes a national office in Boston, MA and state and regional Campus Compacts. As the only national higher education association dedicated solely to campus-based civic engagement, Campus Compact enables campuses to develop students’ citizenship skills and forge effective community partnerships and supports faculty and staff as they pursue community-based teaching and scholarship in the service of positive change.