What is a 'Community of Practice'?
Ginsberg Center Communities of Practice (CoP) offer faculty and staff a semester-long cohort experience focused on interdisciplinary exchange and deeper discussion of community engagement (CE) in practice. Through discussion, activities, building relationships, and sharing resources, participants develop skills, knowledge and connections to advance their CE work at U-M and beyond.
Participants commit to attend all scheduled meetings and complete light preparation in advance of each meeting. Participants are welcome to apply for a CoP in concurrent semesters to continue their cohort experience across the academic year. The CoP focus varies each term.
2024-2025 Communities of Practice
This community of practice focuses on sharing approaches, activities, assignments, and assessments that community-engaged practitioners use to prepare their undergraduate and graduate students for community engagement. What skills and competencies do students at different levels need to do equitable community-engaged service, research, and course-based projects? Last year, our Winter ‘24 Community of Practice began a repository of student preparation assignments and activities, work that we will continue to build on this Fall. Participants will be asked to share and demonstrate their own practices for preparing students.
This cohort experience is designed especially for those with some previous experience in community engagement. Those newer to community engagement may also join to learn things they can take back to their own community-engaged work.
- Application Deadline: Friday, September 13, 2024
- Open to faculty (tenured, tenure-track, lecturers), admin/staff, post-docs
- Meeting Dates (four Fridays from 10am-11:30am EST):
- Friday, September 27, 2024 - in person
- Friday, October 18, 2024 - in person
- Friday, November 1, 2024 - in person
- Friday, November 15, 2024 - in person
Information about the Winter 2025 topic and dates coming soon.
- Dedicated time to reflect, learn and further develop your community-engaged pedagogy, program planning and research practices
- Develop interdisciplinary connections with community-engaged colleagues
- Share resources, address challenges, receive feedback & offer strategies
- Prepare for and deepen your community partnerships with Ginsberg Center support
- Discuss critical issues in the practice of community-engagement at Michigan, including the dynamics between U-M and communities in SE Michigan, Washtenaw County and Detroit.
- Access support from Ginsberg staff around community-match-making, course or program design, data and evaluation, and publishing CE scholarship
- Join a cohort community for participants to develop connections and to build off of prior discussions in meaningful ways.
- Become a Ginsberg affiliate, a trusted Ginsberg partner with opportunities to advise and participate in future Ginsberg programming and gain recognition through awards and storytelling.
Read about faculty and staff from across the university who have participated in our community of practice cohorts.
How to Join
- To apply for our Fall 2024 cohort, complete the application by Friday September 13th, 2024
- Applications for Winter 2025 will open in November 2024
- For questions about this program or the application, [email protected]
Fall 2023: Power & Partnerships
This community of practice focuses on building a robust consciousness of power relationships in university-community partnerships. Participants will encounter foundational concepts in equity-focused community engagement and share perspectives on the ways that power relationships share community engaged research, teaching, and partnerships.
This cohort experience is designed especially for those new to community engagement and early career practitioners. Experienced participants may also join to build relationships and share perspectives.
Winter 2024: Preparing Students for Community Engagement
This community of practice explores critical issues in the preparation of undergraduate and graduate students for community engagement (CE). What skills and competencies might we be responsible for developing in our students before they interact with communities through our teaching, research, and programs? How will we support our students in developing skills through CE experiences while honoring the priorities, labor, and knowledge of local communities?
Participants will explore key principles for preparing students for CE and share strategies for making your commitments to community partners legible to your students and in your plans.
