Section-Level Designation for Community-Engaged Learning Courses

For years, across campus faculty have been trying to get approval for a section-level designation for courses that have a Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) component. In partnership with the Registrar's Office, effective immediately, it is now possible to indicate at the section level which courses have CEL components.

The benefits are threefold:

  1. This designation allows students to know in advance which courses have CEL components and for students who want to be more engaged with community partners, they can opt-into these specific sections of courses.
  2. Faculty who utilize this pedagogy can now officially indicate it for students and colleagues, and potentially highlight this teaching and learning strategy as part of the faculty review process.
  3. This designation will allow CCESI to better track CEL and acknowledge existing CEL courses across campus. Tracking CEL is an instrumental part of the Carnegie Foundation Classification for Community Engagement.

The following list of Essential Ingredients is provided to assist faculty in determining if they should add a section-level designation to their course.

The Essential Ingredients of Community-Engaged Learning (adapted from Haverford College and Cornell University) Courses with a community-engaged learning component involve:

  • Working with and learning from a community partner to establish community-articulated desires
  • Students and faculty applying academic and professional skills
  • Clearly connecting community engagement to course content and student learning outcomes
  • Students critically reflecting on the experience throughout the course
  • Producing measurable output and desired outcome(s) aligned with community interest

Step-by-step instructions for how to add a community-engaged learning section-level designation to courses can be found here.

Section Level Designation for Courses with a CEL Component