News in Engaged Learning

Along with the rest of the CFDE and the university, in March, the Engaged Learning Program began to work virtually with a focus on workshops, teaching consultations, and community engagement online, and finding new ways to support faculty in the process.

A major area has been community building using community-sourced pedagogical approaches such as story circles. Director of engaged learning Vialla Hartfield-Méndez is a member of ETHOS, Emory Telling and Hearing Our Stories, which launched Stories from the Pandemic, a website that leverages the power of stories to create a shared personal and intellectual experience in the Emory community. Vialla offers story circle workshops for faculty and graduate student instructors as well as teaching consultations on how to engage with community partners and create meaningful community engaged learning experiences even during the pandemic.

Other workshops address the intersection of community engagement and the National Science Foundation’s “Broader Impacts” requirements. Additionally, Engaged Learning grants are available for the spring semester. We have found that these grants and the teaching consultations work well together: if you would like to talk through an idea for engaged learning activities or would like to brainstorm a specific workshop, please contact Vialla at vhartfi@emory.edu.

Please note that Emory is a member of two major organizations that support community engagement in higher education.  Imagining America:  Artists and Scholars in Public Life and Campus Compact.  Both offer resources for faculty to explore and further develop community engaged research and teaching.