Campus Spotlight: Community Engagement at the University of Alaska Anchorage

Today’s campus spotlight feature’s the University of Alaska Anchorage’s CCEL or Center for Community Engagement & Learning. CCEL “serves as the intersection of student learning, faculty research and creative activity, and community engagement.  Our mission is to connect academic programs with community needs to use scholarship and action for the mutual benefit of the University and the State, its communities, and its diverse people.” Learn more about CCEL and UAA’s community engagement work in the guest blog post below. And make sure to take time to peruse their 2014 Engaged University Report!

– Jen Domagal-Goldman, ADP National Manager

 

By Judith Owens-Manley, Director, Center for Community Engagement and Learning, University of Alaska Anchorage

Key to community engagement at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) is our academic curriculum.  Service-learning courses allow teaching, learning and scholarship to combine in a way that addresses community-identified needs and enhance community well-being.  Stories of engaged teaching collected for this publication over the past academic year reflect a wide distribution across the disciplines.  From a long-term project in Conservation Biology to Architectural Drafting and everything in between, our university students work with individuals across the lifespan, diverse organizations and communities.  Our 2014 annual report “Teaching Excellence in an Engaged University” features student and faculty reflections for a community-engaged pedagogy and two programs that offer students paths to leadership in community engagement.

The Center for Community Engagement & Learning brings faculty, students, and community members and organizations together, connecting academic programs with community needs for the mutual benefit of UAA, the State of Alaska, its communities and its diverse peoples.  We provide faculty mini-grants for community-engaged projects, as well as the opportunities for Community-Engaged Student Assistants, that facilitate community partnerships that work!  We are very pleased to feature a sample of the many fine faculty members exemplifying their use of high impact practices in their classrooms.  We hope that you enjoy their stories.

http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/engage/upload/UAA-ENGAGE-REPORT-2014-Web.pdf