Community Engagement Scholars
I spent late yesterday afternoon passing out certificates and medallions to recognize twenty students who have completed the University of Minnesota's Community Engagement Scholars Program.
According to its web site, the Community Engagement Scholars Program
- Recognizes you for integrating community engagement into your educational experience.
- Allows you to simultaneously pursue your interests, meet your educational goals, and make a difference in your community.
- Provides you with a foundation of analytical, reflective, interpersonal, and leadership skills through real-world experience.
- Holds strong to the notion that public engagement is a fundamental expectation of responsible citizenship.
- Supports the University's mission of public engagement and outreach by fostering connections between the University, its students, and their community.
- Encourages you to make a difference by taking action in your community.
- Advances service-learning by increasing student, departmental, and University participation in learning through community involvement.
- Encourages citizens' involvement in their community, both as undergraduate students and beyond.
The requirements of the Program are substantial:
- Semester meetings with advisors.
- 400 community engagement hours.
- 6 reflections on community engagement experiences.
- 8 credits of service-learning course work (including 1-credit ICEP Seminar).
- Integrative Community Engagement Project (ICEP) and Seminar.
One important reward of completing the Program is a Community Engagement Scholar notation on the official academic transcript, something that many colleges and universities have not been able to arrange.
Some of the projects that the students described briefly but movingly at yesterday’s event:
- Sexual assault counseling and legal advice
- Creating public art in collaboration with community members
- Working with Indonesian tsunami victims
- Studying sources of sex education of poor, rural Ecuadorian kids
- Producing videos on public engagement issues in collaboration with community members
- Persuading poor, uneducated parents that higher education is important for their kids
As Jerry Rinehart, our Vice Provost for Student Affairs, said in his closing remarks, it’s from these engagements with real-world, important issues that students truly learn.