Registration Open: Engaged Department Institute, Apply by Jan. 10

Posted by Slippery Rock University on December 3, 2019

Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, PA
Friday, January 24, 2020, 8:00 – 4:30 PM
Smith Student Center Theater, SRU Campus
Led by Dr. Kevin Kecskes, Portland State University

The Office for Community Engaged Learning at Slippery Rock University (SRU) invites faculty and staff from regional higher education institutions to contribute to our growing community of practice by joining us for our 2020 Engaged Department Institute. The institute is intentionally designed for:

1) Departments where academic service-learning is already established, or in the process of being established or

2) Individual faculty.

Collaboration is at the heart of this advanced community engagement practice; therefore, we encourage teams of faculty & staff from academic units to attend. Together, we will explore how engaged department initiatives have empowered students, elevated community partner voices in multiple ways, and provided probationary faculty with collaborative opportunities to influence unit-wide community engagement  efforts.

Key learning outcomes: 

• Increase understanding about the advanced practice of “departmental engagement,” including how initiatives can:
  • Accelerate, broaden and deepen student learning;
  • Connect teaching, service, research and assessment agendas;
  • Sustain positive community impact;
  • Expand the voices of diverse stakeholders in public problem solving and democratic community building.
• Dialogue with Slippery Rock University academic departments that are actively committed to establishing / furthering their unit-level engagement agendas.
• Return to home campus with tangible engaged department resources to share with colleagues in your academic unit, and beyond.

In order to register, all registrants shall submit a 1-2 page response to the following questions:

1) How would you characterize your department’s collective community engagement efforts to date?

2) What specific (core) curricular and/or unit-focused teaching and research outcomes do you believe could be enhanced by increasing collaboration at the unit level? How so?

3) What might be a community-based issue or community partner(s) for departmental engagement? Briefly describe the vision/rationale for this (potential) community-department collaboration, including discipline-specific curricular and/or research connections.

4) If you’re attending as a departmental team, please indicate that your department head’s name & email to confirm awareness of your attendance so that we may communicate with s/he following this event.

Deadline to apply is January 10, 2020.

Registration now open: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4434015

Apply Here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/EngdDeptInstituteApp, deadline to apply is January 10, 2020

• $75/person for Institutional teams of more than 3 registrants
• $125/person
• All PASSHE participants have free registration based on a generous offer from SRU

Institute Facilitator: Kevin Kecskes, Ph.D. (https://www.pdx.edu/hatfieldschool/kevin-kecskes-bs-edm-phd)