Community Engaged Learning (CEL) Faculty
Choose from the CEL options below...
What is Community Engaged Learning (CEL)?
At its most basic, CEL involves students, faculty and community partners working together to apply knowledge in authentic settings in order to address community needs while also meeting instructional objectives. CEL enhances and deepens students' understanding of an academic discipline by facilitating the integration of theory and practice. This high impact teaching method provides students with experiences that develop life skills, with opportunities to engage in critical reflection, and with the intellectual space to understand and contribute to the public purpose of their chosen major or discipline. It is a strategy, a process, an experience that involves both action and reflection.
Click here for 2-Page CEL information sheet
Community Engaged Learning
- Meets instructional learning objectives through course content, faculty-structured service, engagement, and critical reflection and is meant to prepare students to be civically responsible members of the community.
- Generates and applies academic knowledge in a community-based setting; student service and engagement address the needs of the community as identified through mutually beneficial collaboration with community-partners.
- Helps our University anchor itself in the public square by providing meaningful connections between our teaching, research, and service, and the issues our community is grappling with everyday.
Three Core Traits of a CEL Class
- Course design incorporates community engagement to facilitate and/or enhance student learning
- The course identifies learning outcomes that address both academic understanding and community needs identified in partnership with the community
- Reflection is utilized throughout the course to enhance learning, understanding, and broader connections to society
CEL Learning Outcomes
- Develop and apply the abilities needed to influence positive community change including research skills, project management, leadership, critical thinking, communication skills and/or intercultural competence
- Increase their awareness of and reflect on the interconnectedness between individuals, society, and public policy
- Develop habits related to ongoing community engagement
- Articulate an increased sense of responsibility and commitment to the public purpose of their chosen discipline
- Enhance awareness of their sense of place in and ownership of community issues, especially issues of diversity, justice, environmental sustainability, and/or equality.
- Further develop professional life skills: showing up, being reliable and punctual, keeping colleagues “in the loop”, maintaining project deadlines, etc.
CEL Course Designation Details
University of Utah faculty may apply to have their courses designated as community-engaged learning (CEL) in the schedule of classes. Identifying courses in this way is beneficial for you and your students. Among other things, the CEL designation:
- Helps students see that they are enrolling in a CEL course when they register.
- Introduces students to the idea of community-engaged learning before they attend class on the first day.
- Brings greater visibility to the practice of community-engaged learning at the University of Utah.
- Provides data to track these courses and identify the faculty and students who engage in this meaningful practice.
- Enables the Bennion Center to document the benefits of this pedagogy to students, the community, and faculty, and report those benefits to administrators, community partners, donors, and others.
Applications and syllabi are reviewed by the Community Engaged Learning Course Designation Committee.
Materials must be submitted online by the following dates for consideration: March 1st for Fall classes, October 1st for Spring classes, and February 1st for Summer classes.
CLICK HERE FOR CEL Course APPLICATION
CEL Funding
CEL-designated classes automatically earn funding to recognize their value and also the extra effort it may take to provide deeply engaged learning opportunities. Funds are transferred to programs and departments after the Office of Budget and Institutional Analysis (OBIA) completes its calculations. The additional funding must be reinvested in your community-engaged learning program. Some of the legitimate uses include:
- Paying an honorarium to a community partner for working with a CEL class or group of students.
- Paying the parking for a community partner who comes to campus to talk with a CEL class.
- Paying background checks for students (it is now a requirement if students in CEL classes are working with children under the age of 18).
- Paying for a semester-end party/open house, which could entail CEL presentations by students to community partners.
- Reimbursing a faculty member who teaches CEL courses for associated expenses (e.g., mileage, if the individual has regular meetings with community partners; meals, if the individual has a lunch meeting with a community partner; supplies, if the individual needs to purchase software or books).
Special Considerations for CEL Courses
Is your CEL course an Online Course? If students will be completing more than 6 hours of required community engagement outside of the state of Utah, the University is required to seek authoriation from each state where the work occurs. Please contact Katie Sexton at the Curriculum Administration's State Authorization office to initiate the authorization process. 801-585-7490.
The University of Utah has adopted a Safety of Minors Policy (1-015) to help ensure that all minors who participate in University programs have a safe and meaningful educational experience. This policy also applies to all community-engaged learning courses that have interactions with children under the age of 18. Read the details about the required steps.
CEL Designation Review Process
The Bennion Center’s Community Engaged Learning Committee oversees the review process for both new CEL designations and 5-year reviews of CEL designated courses. Applications are reviewed according to criteria described in the attached rubrics. In addition to meaningful community-based learning, the CEL Committee is looking for robust CEL-related learning outcomes, evidence of reciprocal dialogue among faculty and potential community partners, and consistent reflection opportunities to contemplate broader societal issues related to the discipline.
In addition to the above described review processes, the CEL Committee advises the Bennion Center’s Leadership Team on strategic matters related to CEL instruction campus-wide. If you are interested in serving on the CEL Committee, please contact Amy Sibul.
Questions? Contact Andi Witczak, Associate Director of CEL or Amy Sibul, Assistant Director of CEL
CEL Teaching Assistants
Having a CEL TA can help to facilitate a consistent community-engaged learning experience for students enrolled in the course and community partners. If awarded, your CEL TA can support your teaching in these ways:
- Articulating the purpose of community-engaged learning to students and community partners.
- Helping prepare students and community partners to work with each other.
- Assisting faculty with identification, coordination, and communication with community partners throughout the semester.
- Providing ongoing communication, technical assistance, and problem-solving for both partners and students.
- Developing and/or assisting in developing the plan for reflection and assisting with reflection activities.
- Coordinating community partner evaluations.
Students who serve as CEL TA's receive a financial award based on class enrollment and availability of funds. For qualifying classes with <25 students, a $900 award for a 0.75 CEL TA. For qualifying classes of 25-74 students, one full-time CEL TA position is funded at $1250. For classes larger than 75 students, multiple CEL TA positions can be funded on an as-needed basis as funds are available.
Application Due Dates
Applications are due by July 15 (for a Fall semester class), November 15 (for a Spring semester class), and March 15 (for a Summer semester class). Successful applicants will be notified within two weeks of application deadlines. Awards are contingent upon the availability of funds, and will be distributed during the first two weeks of the semester awarded.
Please review the eligibility criteria, below, then use the online form to submit your application for a CEL TA award.
Contact Andi Witczak or Amy Sibul if you have questions.
Click here for CEL TA Application
Eligibility
For Faculty: 1) instructors interested in developing a community-engaged learning course by “test teaching” it, and 2) instructors who teach a CEL-designated class may apply for a CEL TA award.
For Students: Instructors may select an undergraduate or graduate student for their CEL teaching assistant. Prior community-engaged learning coursework is highly preferred, but not mandatory. The Bennion Center also can help you identify a student to serve as your CEL TA. In this case, preference will be given to students in the Bennion Center Scholars Program, which helps undergraduates apply their academic knowledge to community issues.
Please note: FERPA regulations require that undergraduate students who serve as TA's and grade student work must complete FERPA training prior to grading. See the below link for more information and access to the online training:
https://registrar.utah.edu/faculty/ferpa-resources.php.
Program Support for CEL TA's
CEL TA's will be given access to a Canvas course that provides support resources for their position as a mentor to students and a point of contact for community partners. Topics addressed include: an exploration of the definition of CEL; guidance on engaged learning in higher education; key elements of critical reflection; and supporting mutually beneficial and collaborative community partnerships.
Additional Resources
- "Providing Peer Mentors through a Service-Learning Teaching Assistants Program"
- This article, by Erin Burke Brown, Lynn E. Pelco, and Sabrina Hise (Virginia Commonwealth University), discusses success stories at VCU and elaborates on ways that its TAs "have helped students understand the broader context of their educational experience and how it shapes the communities in which they live."
CEL Learning Outcomes
SCH CEL Funding
New CEL Courses
Reflection Activities
Example Syllabi
Relevant Articles
- Coming Soon!
Additional Links
- Coming Soon!
CEL Faculty Awards
The University of Utah is committed to community engaged scholarship and research. Faculty are invited to apply for the following awards recognizing research, excellence in the classroom, and passion for strengthening communities through learning, scholarship and advocacy.
Public Service Professorship
This significant award is designed to help a faculty member strengthen community-engaged learning experiences and opportunities tied to civic engagement, and also foster stronger partnerships with the local community.
Recipient of the 2021 Public Service Professor Award:
2021: Milad Hosseini-Mozari, Professor in the Multi-Disciplinary Design (MDD) Program,
College of Architecture and Planning
Professor Hosseini-Mozari will utilize this award to launch an innovation hub between the MDD Program and the International Rescue Committee (IRC). It will be a collaborative space where digital access and increased tech literacy will be supported for a community that has historically experienced inequity in technological access. Professor Hosseini-Mozari comes from the community of focus, as an immigrant himself, and will serve as a bridge between students and refugees to build technological know-how and amplify immigrant voices resulting in meaningful benefits to the immigrant community.
Distinguished Faculty Service Award
Dr. David and Susan Jabusch generously donate $1,000 to the non-profit community organization of the award winner's choice.
Recipient of the 2021 Distinguished Faculty Service Award:
2021: Cathleen Zick, Professor in the Family & Consumer Studies Department, College
of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
During her 39 years of teaching and scholarship at the University of Utah, she served as Director of the Masters in Public Policy Program, the Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Science, and as Department Chair of Family and Consumer Studies. As her nominators shared, Professor Zick’s “integration of research, service, and teaching has provided real and long-lasting relationships” for students and community partners alike. She prioritized investing her “formidable skill set to engage with students, local communities and national stakeholders to improve the lives of those around her in sustained and important service”. It is clear that many citizens of Utah and students at the University of Utah benefitted from her decades of meaningful research and community engagement.
Annual Dates of Deadlines
- CEL Applications:
- Fall semester - March 1st
- Spring semester - October 1st
- Summer semester - February 1st
- CEL TA Applications:
- Fall semester - July 15th
- Spring semester - November 15th
- Summer semester - March 15th
- Faculty Award Nominations/Applications:
- January 31st
CEL Faculty Workshops, Town Halls, & Next Practices Retreat
For Faculty interested in learning more about Community Engaged Learning (CEL) pedagogy, and the CEL designation process. This is the ideal opportunity for new and experienced faculty alike to explore methods for teaching through community engagement and to learn about the benefits of a CEL designation for your class.
The next workshop date is TBD.
If you’re interested but cannot attend, please email amy.sibul@utah.edu
CEL Faculty Lunch & Learns
- Pending info
CEL Faculty Learning Community Discussions
- Pending info
National & Regional CEL Conferences
- Pending info
The Community Research Collaborative (CRC)
The Bennion Center proudly supports and encourages quality community-based research (CBR). We want community members and academic researchers to work together in powerful partnerships to uncover, understand, disrupt obstacles as well as excentuate the assets that will lead to more healthy, inclusive, resilient, and just communities.
We want to employ CBR to:
- Translate scientific knowledge into practice
- Support organizing and movement building
- Impact policy
- Guide community and economic development
- Foster learning and personal transformation
- Build trust with communities harmed by past research
- Improve organizations
- Strengthen communities
- Enrich our understanding of the world
Our communities struggle with deep-rooted inequities and global challenges that defy simple answers. CBR is a powerful way to address these challenges by harnessing our collective knowledge, data, and resources.
This report, produced by the U's Community Research Collaborative, offers guidance for both community-based and campus-based practioners and anyone who wants to engage in quality collaborative CBR to strengthen their community.
The U's Community Research Collaborative is composed of researchers, organizers, activists, scholars, educators, and community leaders, who work together to advance quality participatory and action-oriented community-based research. The group and its products are supported by University Neighborhood Partners and the Bennion Center.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL REPORT ON CRC GUIDELINES
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