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INFRASTRUCTURE & SUPPORT SERVICES
INFRASTRUCTURE AND SUPPORT SERVICES
SINCE RECEIVING THE CARNEGIE CLASSIFICATION FOR COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN JANUARY 2020, UW TACOMA FACULTY, STAFF, AND STUDENTS REMAIN FOCUSED ON MAKING COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT A DEEPER, MORE PERVASIVE, BETTER INTEGRATED, AND SUSTAINED CAMPUS EFFORT.
2021 FACULTY FELLOWS PROGRAM To support faculty members in initiating/expanding their community engagement efforts, the Faculty Fellows Program provides process for faculty collaborator groups to apply for funding for expansion and building communities of practice on campus. In 2021, four new fellowship awards were granted for the January-December 2021 time period. More details and the topic of the four fellowship awards can be found in the Appendix.
The Faculty Fellows Program provides funding up to $10,000 to each cohort of faculty who seek to develop and integrate publicly engaged activities with teaching or scholarships, for the public good. One of the primary goals is to establish communities of practice that focus on existing and new partnerships and actively include community partners in their ongoing co-learning and co-production processes. COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE (COP) The basic premise of CoPs is co-thinking, co-learning, and co-production of knowledge. Based on topics suggested by our community partners at a Spring 2019 virtual meeting, we invited faculty, staff, and community members to five thematic CoPs: housing, food security, social/emotional learning, immigration, and indigenous knowledge. Through a series of meeting, each CoP will identify research topics and projects of mutual interest. Office of Community Partnership support each CoP, as needed.
STAFFING Over the course of the two years, OCP has continued its efforts to build internal infrastructure to support the work of our faculty, staff, and students. Since March 2020, staff pivoted to an online/remote work structure due to the COVID 19 pandemic. Today, the OCP is staffed by an Executive Administrator, Program Coordinator, and Technical Project Manager. In January of 2021, a Marketing & Outreach Intern was hired to enhance community engagement outreach, marketing, storytelling, and research.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT & PUBLIC SCHOLARSHIP The Engagement Scholarship Consortium (ESC) is a non-profit educational organization, composed of higher education member institutions, a mix of statepublic and private institutions. ESC’s goal is to work collaboratively to build strong university-community partnerships anchored in the rigor of scholarship and designed to help build community capacity.
UW Tacoma is a member institution. As a member benefit, ESC promotes opportunities for faculty from Member Institutions to collaborate on opportunities for research and external funding. Member Institutions identify ways that their faculty, staff, students, and community partners can connect with and collaborate on community engagement efforts.
The Office of Community Partnerships serves as a coordination point for faculty and staff who participate and present at the Engagement Scholarship Consortium (ESC). Additionally, OCP financially supports the conference attendance as a supplement for professional development funds provided by the faculty or staff member’s home unit. WORKSHOPS & EVENTS Regular programming of events, trainings, and workshops is a large part of how OCP supports the campus community. Our role in these events depends on the type of activity and the level of support (staffing and/or financial) needed. OCP either hosted, supported, or sponsored over 10 different online/ virtual activities and partnered with over 20 different campus and community partners. In addition to hosting campus virtual events, we identified 24 other webinars, events, and trainings which were hosted by external organizations. Together, these workshops and events aimed to provide faculty and staff needed professional opportunities to advance their ability to effectively partner with others, especially in the face of significant social and public health challenges.
THE OFFICE OF COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS IS COMMITTED to advancing its capability to set and create pathways for community engaged scholarship, teaching, and service – a vision shared by our Seattle and Bothell campus colleagues. Through a process of dialogue, education, and action, our understanding and acceptance for work toward a shared definition of community engagement will provoke questions which guide our work and challenge established notions to seed future campus conversations.
WHAT IS THE PATHWAY TO A COMMONLY ACCEPTED DEFINITION OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT, WHICH EMBRACES THE CARNEGIE DEFINITION AND RECOGNIZES THE UNIQUE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE UW?
HOW CAN WE CHANGE A REWARD SYSTEM TO HONOR FACULTY AND STAFF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT WORK?
HOW SHOULD UW TACOMA SUPPORT AND EMPOWER STUDENT ENGAGEMENT?
HOW DO WE MEASURE IMPACT & SUCCESS?
