CUMU Conference 2019

A major part of the anchor institution mission is to educate and involve students in experiences in which students engage with communities beyond the campus through direct service, community-based academic experiences, and other projects. The University often facilitates these experiences for students in order to ensure that the best interests of all stakeholders—including students, faculty, community members, community partners, and the University itself—are represented and nurtured. With the University as both a facilitator and a stakeholder, however, administering community engagement experiences can lead to difficulties, especially considering University administrative priorities and procedures, including risk management, student safety and satisfaction, legal policies, government and community relations policies, etc.

In this Community Conversation, representatives from the University Community Partnerships team at Drexel University, who facilitate community engagement experiences for thousands of Drexel students each year, will lead a dialogue to create mutual understanding and best practices around maximizing student experiences in the community while minimizing institutional limitations and barriers that can often constrain the potential creative, educational, and social impact of these experiences. The goal of the conversation is to identify connections/consensus around the ideal goals of civic engagement experiences for students, what benefits and downsides exist when Universities assume responsibility for facilitating these experiences, and how we as practitioners can help students find/create authentic engagement experiences while acknowledging the reality of the Institution’s administrative framework.