Tag: place-based community engagement

Categories
Office of General Education

Engage Dallas’ Place-Based Community Engagement Symposium Call for Proposals are now open

Greetings,

We are excited to extend an invitation to the 4th Annual Place-Based Community Engagement Symposium hosted by Engage Dallas, in collaboration with Residence Life & Student Housing, the Office of Social Change and Intercultural Engagement, the Office of General Education, the Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics & Public Responsibility, and the Center for Teaching Excellence. This year’s theme is Thriving Together: A Place-Based Approach to Combating Isolation through Connected Communities.

Our theme explores how intentional, place-based community engagement fosters meaningful connections and a sense of belonging. By centering relationships, collaboration, and local contexts, we aim to address social isolation and strengthen the ties between campus, city, organizations, and community. Through shared learning and action, we seek to build more engaging, resilient, and connected communities where everyone can thrive through community engagement.

This two-day event will occur on November 5th, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm (Bishop Arts Theater Center) and November 4th, 8:30 am – 3:30 pm (SMU Campus)

RSVP Today

Call for Proposals 

We welcome session proposals from community leaders, nonprofit professionals, Faculty, and students interested in sharing innovative place-based engagement strategies. Our symposium will consist of the following session types:

  • Breakouts 
    • Breakout sessions provide an opportunity for smaller, in-depth discussions, fostering learning and discussion. Sessions last 50 minutes and feature a 40-minute presentation and a 10-minute question-and-answer period.
  • Champion Talks
    • Champion Talks are quick, impactful, fast-paced stories intended to educate, uplift, and inspire our audience. Sessions last 20 minutes and feature a 10-minute presentation and a 10-minute question-and-answer period.
  • Posters

Poster sessions will feature visual presentations on both research and sharing topics. Student posters are highly encouraged.

Focus Areas

Our focus areas are designed to provide a structured yet flexible framework for presenters to begin thinking of possible presentations and our attendees to map a curated symposium experience. This year, our focus areas are:

  1. Campus-Community Connections: Fostering Meaningful Partnerships 
    1. Focus: Strategies for building sustainable, reciprocal relationships between higher education institutions and local communities to combat isolation.
    2. Example Topics: Service-learning initiatives, community-based participatory research, university-community resource sharing, and cross-sector collaborations.
  2. Improving Connection: Building Belonging on Campus and Beyond
    1. Focus: Creating physical, digital, and social environments that cultivate connection and reduce loneliness.
    2. Example Topics: Engaging pedagogy, student-led engagement initiatives, the role of campus design in fostering belonging, and digital communities for remote/hybrid learners.
  3. Personal and Collective Well-being: Strengthening Social Resilience 
    1. Focus: Approaches to enhancing individual and collective well-being through community engagement.
    2. Example Topics: Mental health initiatives, intergenerational engagement, the impact of storytelling on social connection, and grassroots efforts for social support.
  4. Reflective and Experiential Sessions
    1. Focus: Sharing experiences of loneliness, overcoming organizational and interpersonal isolation, and community building.
    2. Example: Interactive Workshops, activities that model community-building practices, guided reflection circles, embodied connection activities, creative expression for connection, civic reflection discussions.
Proposal Deadline

The proposal submission deadline is April 30, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. Acceptance decisions will be sent by May 5, 2025.

Submit Your Proposal

About the Place-Based Community Engagement (PBCE) Symposium
The PBCE Symposium is a gathering of thought leaders, academics, community leaders, and nonprofit professionals from SMU and the DFW area. This event is designed to explore the transformative potential of community engagement within specific geographic contexts. Our goal is to delve into the strategies and innovations that have the power to catalyze positive change within communities, with emphasis on campus and community collaboration and sustainable, mutually beneficial relationships.

About the SMU Engage Dallas Program 
Engage Dallas is a place-based community engagement initiative via SMU’s Residential Commons to address community needs focusing on South and West Dallas. The initiative is a long-term, university-wide commitment led by students to partner with local residents, organizations, and other leaders to positively impact the community. There is equal emphasis on campus and community impact stemming from the initiative. This symposium allows us to share, expand and further develop the work of Engage Dallas, as well as invite other SMU faculty and staff to consider new and innovative ways to support community engagement efforts in Dallas.

Categories
Office of General Education

2nd Annal Place-based Community Engagement Symposium a success

The 2nd Annual Place-based Community Engagement Symposium was a success last week. Participants engaged around the theme of “Listening, Learning, and Leading: A Place-based Approach to Promoting Public Responsibility and Community Engagement in a COVID-impacted World.” 114 registered for the two-day symposium.

The conference planning committee chose this theme due to their observation of the challenges posed by COVID-19; our community engagement landscape has evolved significantly, from decreased volunteer participation to heightened community needs.

Conference registrants helped shape this year’s symposium. The planning committee had over 60 questions submitted for our opening session and panel discussion. Plus, questions were arranged as discussion topics at the networking event on Thursday evening.

Audryanna Reed, Associate Director for High-Impact Practices, Co-initiative Manager of Engage Dallas, and Chair of the conference planning committee, shared, “Engage Dallas is grateful for the opportunity to bring together non-profit and civic leaders in Dallas as well as staff and faculty across SMU and Dallas College. Such inspiring words, cultural context, and critical challenges posed by our keynotes Latosha Bruff and Jerry L. Hawkins, M.Ed., as well as our panelists and workshop hosts!”

A copy of the program booklet is included below.

Reed and the conference planning committee are underway with year three planning. Building off the dialogue from this year’s conference, the theme will likely incorporate the concept of “under-championed communities,” which was prevalent in this year’s sessions. Reed says to expect a save the date soon for the November 2024 symposium.

This Engage Dallas symposium collaborated with Residence Life & Student Housing, The Budd Center, The Office of General Education, the Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics & Public Responsibility, and The Center for Teaching Excellence.

Categories
Office of General Education Student Academic Engagement & Success

Approved meeting minutes from the Council on General Education on October 20, 2023

The Council on General Education met on October 20, 2023. The meeting minutes for September 29, 2023 were approved at this meeting. Below is the agenda, and the meeting minutes have now been posted on the General Education website.

  1. Approval of Agenda for the October 20, 2023, Council on General Education meeting.
  2. Approval of Minutes for the September 29, 2023, Council on General Education meeting.
  3. CoGE Secretary Election
  4. Course Proposal Update
    1. Courses tabled from Spring 2023
      1. WL 3311 (Food/ Identify in the SW) – TAS
    2. Courses approved still pending assessment meeting.
      1. ASIM 1300 (Introduction to Digital/Hybrid Media) – TAS
    3. Courses approved pending assessment meeting: CC tags added.
      1. RELI 3331 (Renewal: Roman Catholicism) – PREI
      2. ARHS 3355 (Exhibiting Cultures Curating and Interpreting the Arts of the Global South) – CA
      3. UHP 3301 (STEM Communications) –PREX-W
    4. Courses tabled pending revisions.
      1. ASCE 1310 (Ceramic Technology) – TAS
      2. ENGL 1363 (The Myth of the West) – PREX-HD
      3. APSM 3360 (Nutrition and Population Health) – PREX-CIE
  5. Course Proposal Form Feedback Discussion
  6. Common Curriculum Assessment Results
    1. CC Components Assessed
    2. Presentation at December 1st CoGE Meeting
  7. CoGE Working Groups (Spring/Summer)
    1. External Test Credit Review (AP, IB, CLEP)
    2. Re-Evaluation of Transfer Credit on Texas Common Course Numbering System (TCCNS)
  8. General Education Office Updates
    1. November 2/3 Engage Dallas Place-based Community Engagement Symposium
      1. November 2nd 4:30-7:00pm at SMU Indoor Performance Center
      2. November 3rd 9:00-1:00pm at Dallas College- West Dallas Campus

Please contact the Office of General Education for questions or proposal development support.

Categories
Office of General Education

SMU to host community engagement symposium on October 3 and 4

Join Engage Dallas for the Place-based Community Engagement Symposium on October 3 and 4 on the SMU Dallas campus. The Office of General Education is a proud partner of Engage Dallas and the symposium.

Most universities recognize they lack the strategic focus and resources to maximize and sustain their impact on communities to engage their campuses in their surrounding community. Place-based community engagement (PBCE) is an innovative tool that connects campus and community to foster positive social transformation. SMU adopted the PBCE model to launch the Engage Dallas initiative as part of the university’s approach to introducing students to place-based community engagement opportunities.

Engage Dallas and its partners will host a kickoff of the Place-based Community Engagement Symposium on October 3 in Hughes-Trigg Student Center Ballroom from 11:30-1:00 pm with a free keynote and luncheon. The keynote is headlined by Dr. Erica Yamamura and Kent Koth, authors of the book Place-Based Community Engagement in Higher Education: A Strategy to Transform Universities and Communities.

Erica K. Yamamura Ph.D. is the former Associate Professor and Program Liaison Coordinator of the Student Development Administration Program in the College of Education at Seattle University. As a faculty member, she utilized service-learning and community-based projects as part of her pedagogy at Carleton College, Texas State University, and Seattle University. Kent Koth is the founding director of the Seattle University Center for Community Engagement. In this role, Kent has overseen a rapid expansion of campus-community partnerships that have received national recognition including the 2012 President’s National Community Service Higher Education Award.

The two scholars distinguished place-based community engagement as more beneficial than traditional community engagement strategies like traditional service-learning pedagogy and anchor institutions. Learn more about PBCE and the Engage Dallas initiative at the keynote.

Additionally, a la carte sessions will also be offered at the symposium on October 4 as follow-up sessions. Sign up for additional community engagement sessions including:

  • Place-Based Community Engagement Symposium Post-Keynote Faculty Workshop: One of SMU’s strategic plans is to increase faculty and student engagement in co-curricular activities beyond traditional coursework in each Residential Commons, the university undergraduate housing system. Adaption of PBCE model for the Engage Dallas initiative has helped maintain the strategic plan in focus. This post-keynote workshop for faculty will be facilitated by the authors to: (1) reflect on key takeaways from the keynote, (2) discuss the benefits of PBCE to pursue racial equity, and (3) how to build faculty capacity for community engagement. Faculty will have the opportunity to reflect and ask questions about the PBCE model and the goal of the Engage Dallas initiative. RSVP Today; Space is Limited. Tuesday, October 4 from 9:30 – 11:45 am
  • Tagging Your Courses Workshop for the Community Engagement Proficiency: This workshop, facilitated by SMU’s Office of General Education, is designed for instructors and will cover in detail the process of tagging your courses with the Community Engagement Proficiency and Experience on the Common Curriculum. This course is ideal for instructors who have community engagement or plan to include place-based community engagement activities in their courses. RSVP Today; Space is Limited. Tuesday, October 4 from 2 – 3 pm

The university’s adoption of this strategy has seen success already as the budding initiative has led to widespread participation and enthusiasm from students, who help lead the initiative’s implementation and contribute to a Residential Commons-specific social cause in monthly service events.

Join us as we work to embed place-based community engagement into life on the Hilltop.

The event is co-sponsored by: Residence Life & Student Housing, Center for Teaching Excellence, Dedman College Interdisciplinary Institute, and Office of General Education.