The Center for Community Engaged Learning connects students to opportunities to enhance their training and education outside the classroom, while understanding community-identified needs, and the social, structural and environmental determinants of health impacting the community.

How you can engage with the community:

Serve

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve.” Whether you are seeking to gain new knowledge, develop new skills or make a difference by putting your knowledge and skills into action, the Center for Community Engaged Learning can help you find a service opportunity to meet your needs.

The Center offers on-going, short-term, and one time opportunities to get involved with varying levels of service commitments (for example Service Learning Leader versus Service Participants). All service opportunities supported by the Center for Community Engaged Learning have been vetted to ensure that your experiences are meaningful and mutually beneficial to the community partners.

Learn

The Center forCommunity Engaged Learning works closely with the College of Medicine to provide opportunities that align with course competencies.  Additionally, each of our signature programs has a set of learning objectives. We can help you identify the courses in your college that have a service component.

An essential component of service learning is learning from community members. The Center for Community Engaged Learning prioritizes cultural humility, the practice of seeking to understand individuals’ backgrounds that differ from your own. With this in mind, all service learning opportunities are developed in close collaboration with our community partners. Through endeavors such as needs assessments, community-based research, and even patient intake at free clinics, students directly learn about experiences of others, including struggles faced by, and resources available to, the community.

Lead

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader”

- John Quincy Adams

Through your service, you have the opportunity to take on leadership roles and responsibilities both formally and informally.  Formal leadership can be accomplished by becoming a Service Learning Leader.

Service Learning Leaders are enrolled in a course that has a service learning requirement and, thus, have a greater level of responsibility and commitment than other volunteers (Service Participants). Reflections and other coursework are required in addition to attendance at monthly sessions.  Scholars are assigned to a signature program and are responsible for recruiting and coordinating volunteers for the program.

Other opportunities for formal leadership may arise throughout the year during Center forCommunity Engaged Learning events and activities.

Informal leadership occurs when, because of your actions and behaviors, people trust you and follow your lead even though you hold no formal leadership position.  Informal leaders inspire and encourage, making a difference by showing up and doing what needs to be done.  All of our service participants have the opportunity to be informal leaders within our long-term, short-term, or one-time programs.