Relevant, Reciprocal, Responsible Engagement for Transformative Change
UConn’s commitment to Engagement is prominent in theAcademic Vision,Creating Our Future, UConn's Path to Excellence, where it is one of the four core values and a Path Toward Excellence in Public Engagement is one of five strategic goals. The Office of Public Engagement (OPE) fosters engagement in a variety of forms throughout the University on all campuses and thereby extends the transformational impact of the University throughout the state and beyond our geographical borders. OPE coordinates, advocates, and builds capacity for all facets of engagement: scholarship, community based teaching and learning, civic engagement, and community outreach. The work of OPE is through and with others across all disciplines and all campuses and communities.
Service Learning: A Pedagogy of Innovation for the Societal Good
Service Learning is an active and innovative pedagogy engaging multiple stakeholders; the student, the faculty, the university, and the community. Itis a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities (Carnegie Foundation). Service Learning helps the University meet its land grant and sea grant missions while accomplishing goals within UConn’s Academic Vision while enabling faculty to engage in research with our communities. If you are interested in joining our faculty listserv for announcements about events, courses, or general resources, please email . For more information please see our website and the Service Learning Faculty Guidebook.
Engaged Scholarship and Community Based Participatory Research
Engaged scholarship involves the university member in the academically relevant work of teaching, discovery, creativity, integration, application and engagement in a context of collaboration and reciprocity with the community (local, regional/state, national, or global).It entails collaborative and mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources between academia and the community to create conditions for the public good. Engaged Scholarship occurs within andacross disciplines and has the following characteristics: clear goals, adequate preparation, appropriate methods, meaningful results, effective presentation, reflective critique, rigor and peer-review.
Community-based participatory research is a"collaborative approach to research thatequitably involves all partners in the research process and recognizes the unique strengths that each brings. CBPR begins with a research topic of importance to the community, has the aim of combining knowledge with action and achieving social change to improve health outcomes and eliminate health disparities." - WK Kellogg Foundation
Service Learning Faculty Fellows
OPE, in collaboration with the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning provides professional development and course assistance for faculty interested in teaching a service learning course.This initiative increases the quality and visibility of ServiceLearning by increasing the number and variety of service learning courses offered throughout the University - the main campus at Storrs, all of the regional campuses, the Health Center, and the Law School.Courses may be undergraduate or graduate, domestic or international.The Call for Applications will go out in September, please email if you are interested in learning more or want to receive an email when the call goes out.
- Fellows are selected annually through a competitive review process
- Selected fellows will receive a stipend to for their service learning initiative, research, transportation, instructional design activities, meetings and developmental workshops
Community Partner Development
Community Partner Development is the cornerstone to Public Engagement and Service Learning initiatives here at UConn.We strive to develop sustainable and mutually beneficial partnerships with community partners within both Public Engagement and Service Learning and to provide tools to ensure successful collaborations.
Our community partnerships are representative of the university’s core values whether they are focused on education health, water, legal issues, nutrition, landscape architecture, and/or a myriad of other issues that contribute to the public good. In each partnership the ontological and epistemological focus of relevant, reciprocal and responsible reign.
The UConn Cities Collaborative (UCC) is a partnership initiative with Connecticut cities modeled on the Sustainable Cities Initiative and the Sustainable Cities Year Program at the University of Oregon. Through UCC, UConn partners with Connecticut cities to help meet their sustainability goalswhile creatingan opportunity forstudents to gain professional-level training and practical experience. This comprehensive and interdisciplinary program brings together our academic goals with local needs, fostering partnerships that are relevant, reciprocal, and responsible. UCC currently has partnerships with Bridgeport and Hartford.
The New England University-Assisted Community Schools Collaborative is an initiative supported by a grant from the Netter Center for Community Partnerships at UPenn. This collaborative will provide training and technical assistance on the university-assisted community school model and will be actively involved in the communities in which the schools reside. NE UACSC will also serve as a repository for information and guide others to achieve success whileassuring adherence to the principles of the Netter Center for Community Partnerships’ university-assisted community school model in its unique application at their own sites.
Get Involved
We invite all to join thePublic Engagement Forum.The Forum represents all constituent units of the University with membership drawn from faculty, staff, administration, and community partners.Meetings are held throughout the academic yearto discuss initiatives, professional development, and institutional progress.Please refer to engagement.uconn.edufor meeting times and locations and faculty Information.
Contact
E. Carol Polifroni, Director of Public Engagement at
Julia M. Yakovich, Program Manager for Service Learning at
UCC:
NE UACSC:
For general inquiries please contact or 860-486-4854.
Website - – UConnEngaged Twitter - @UConnEngaged