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Community Engagement Certificate


Leadership for Social Change

The program empowers students to take the lead and have a meaningful societal impact through a project designed and implemented alongside a community partner, with the support of a faculty mentor. It offers a robust academic training for students interested in understanding systemic problems, recognizing and pursuing opportunities for change, working collaboratively, and taking thoughtful action. Certificate students leave the program as civic leaders, equipped to become the next world-changers.


Community Engaged Learning and Career Development

Over two semesters, students will complete a capstone project while working with and in a community. Each capstone project includes significant community input. Students gain highly valued professional skills such as project management, leadership, collaborative communication, responsibility and response-ability, and commitment. Students finish the certificate equipped for nonprofit leadership, community organizing and activism, creating social impact at private sector firms, city/state/national government, or becoming social entrepreneurs.

Students who complete the Community Engagement Certificate will have the knowledge, skills, values, and confidence to create more just, equitable, and sustainable communities. By participating in the certificate program, you will be able to:

  • Demonstrate a more complex and nuanced understanding of the root causes of
    systemic inequities;
  • Demonstrate an increased understanding of the legitimacy of community knowledge—
    recognizing the needs and strengths of a community, as defined through the lens and
    experiences of that community—and how it complements academic knowledge;
  • Demonstrate interpersonal competency skills such as leadership, ability to work
    collaboratively, problem-solving skills, and professional and ethical conduct;
  • Promote wellbeing, healing, and hope through meaningful connections that create a
    shared sense of purpose and meaning.

The Community Engagement Certificate requires the completion of 21 credit hours, and is open to all undergraduates and all majors at the U of U. There are no specific admission requirements.


Students interested in this certificate should contact Gaelle Perrier, Student Programs Manager.


Certificate Resource Quick Links

 

Certificate Checklist

Click here for pdf file

 

Elective Course List

CLICK HERE for pdf file

 

Certificate Interest Form

CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT

Student Course Planner & Certificate Requirements


The Community Engagement Certificate consists of 21 credit hours of course work with a minimum of 15 credits in designated community engaged learning (CEL) courses. A student must earn a “B” or better for all requirements.


  • BENN 2030: Introduction to Civic Leadership
    • Poverty, hunger, illiteracy, air quality, and access to healthcare are just some of the issues facing our communities. What are the root causes of these issues? Where do we even begin to address these large and complex challenges? This course will 1) introduce you to the theoretical preparation necessary to engage in community work; 2) guide you through learning, discussions, and reflections on the power of collaboration and community movements; 3) facilitate an introspective understanding yourself, your privileges, your identities, your talents, and your power to create positive change in the world; and 4) help you dive into a community engaged learning project that addresses an important community need.
    • Fall Semester: Class meets Wednesday from 2 to 5pm

 


  • May count toward general education or major requirements
  • Listed as CEL in the course schedule

  • A course on community organizing, policy development, advocacy, activism, social entrepreneurship
  • Must be approved by certificate program director

CLICK HERE FOR Elective Course List


  • A course that will further prepare the student for the capstone; can include a research methods course or a writing for research course
  • May count toward general education or major requirements
  • Must be approved by certificate program director

CLICK HERE FOR Elective Course List

Both courses required; courses must be taken in sequence

  • BENN 5825: Community Capstone Methods*

* Prerequisites: BENN 2030 or BENN 2020 and one course on a strategy of social change

    • In this course, students enrolled in the Community Engagement Certificate program will develop and leverage their civic values, skills, habits, and awareness, to meet genuine community needs in their own unique community engaged capstone project. Students will learn tools and strategies to help build capacity so that individuals, families, and neighborhoods can thrive. Students will engage in mutually beneficial partnerships with faculty members and community organizations to design innovative solutions to issues facing their communities.
  • BENN 5929: Community Capstone Practicum**

** Prerequisites: BENN 5825 and upper division elective

    • Students enrolled in the Community Engagement certificate and/or Bennion Scholars program will participate in a practicum experience to enact a community-engaged project, research, and/or programming. Building upon knowledge and experience gained from prerequisite courses, each student will engage in mutually beneficial partnerships to implement innovative approaches to issues facing their communities. Students taking the 3 credit course commit to working on their project for 50 hours and those taking the 6 credit course commit to working on their project for 100 hours over the semester.

 

 


LEARNING OUTCOMES


Theory, Concepts, Critique, and Engagement; Academic and Community Knowledge

Students who complete the Community Engagement Certificate will be able to:
  • Demonstrate knowledge of the roles and responsibilities of an applied researcher and understand the politics and history of doing research and engagement in diverse communities.
  • Demonstrate a more complex and nuanced understanding of the root causes of systemic inequities (structural, political, social, economic, and environmental).
  • Critically analyze how their own assumptions, biases, privilege, or marginalization inform their understanding of social and environmental justice issues and how their positionality impacts their community engagement.
  • Demonstrate an increased understanding of the legitimacy of community knowledge—recognizing the needs and strengths of a community, as defined through the lens and experiences of that community—and how it complements academic knowledge.

Creative and Critical Thinking, Communication, Interpersonal and Intercultural Competency

Students who complete the Community Engagement Certificate will be able to:
  • Demonstrate critical reflection and metacognition skills using diverse reflective modes from multiple vantage points; examine community challenges and make connections among community engaged experience and contextual factors.
  • Demonstrate interpersonal competency skills such as leadership, ability to work collaboratively, problem-solving skills, and professional and ethical conduct.
  • Demonstrate intercultural competency skills such as the ability to cross cultural boundaries and engage diverse perspectives to examine social and environmental issues.
  • Demonstrate research skills such as the ability to identify, critically analyze, and synthesize insights around systemic inequities from multiple cultural perspectives; demonstrate a working knowledge of quantitative and/or qualitative theories and principles as applied to community change.
  • Demonstrate professional communication (written and oral) skills that are respectful, bi-directional, and culturally sensitive; ability to demonstrate critical listening skills that help generate common ground with those from other positionalities.

Civic and Social Responsibility Beyond Self


Students who complete the Community Engagement Certificate will be able to:
  • Clearly articulate an increased sensitivity of responsibility and commitment to the public purpose of their chosen discipline.
  • Demonstrate values of social agency and the moral and political courage to take risks to achieve a greater public good.
  • Clearly articulate the social realities and life choices available to different individuals and communities.
  • Clearly articulate the connection between one’s actions and beliefs and the well-being of communities and society overall.

Putting knowledge, skills, and values into practice

Students who complete the Community Engagement Certificate will be able to:
  • Enter, participate in, and exit a community with sensitivity toward systemic injustice and privilege.
  • Design, enact, and embody personal and professional strategies, policies, and practices that work toward creating greater equity and justice in diverse community contexts.
  • Promote wellbeing, healing, hope, motivation, and social agency through meaningful connections to self and others creating a shared sense of purpose and meaning.
  • Practice integrative learning by creating knowledge through campus-community partnerships.

 


To schedule an academic advising appointment


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BENN Courses

All BENN courses are Community Engaged Learning (CEL) designated


Community Engaged Learning (CEL) courses offer community-based experiential learning to all students at the U. There are 100+ CEL designated courses each semester that provide learning both in and outside the classroom, working with a community partner to address complex social and environmental challenges.

The Pathways to Community Engagement course will serve as a foundational introduction to the myriad opportunities individuals have to participate as active citizens. Students in this course will explore and examine the history and key tenets of community engagement, develop an understanding of civic competencies, and participate in community-engaged learning experiences.

Poverty, hunger, illiteracy, air quality, and access to healthcare are just some of the issues facing our communities. What are the root causes of these issues?  Where do we even begin to address these large and complex challenges? This course will 1) introduce you to the theoretical preparation necessary to engage in community work; 2) guide you through learning, discussions, and reflections on the power of collaboration and community movements; 3) facilitate an introspective understanding yourself, your privileges, your identities, your talents, and your power to create positive change in the world; and 4) help you dive into a community engaged learning project that addresses an important community need. Together, we will explore the challenges facing our communities, the Social Change Model of Leadership, and develop the civic competencies needed to make a meaningful contribution to a better world.

In this course, students enrolled in the Community Engagement Certificate and/or Bennion Scholars program will develop and leverage their civic values, skills, habits, and awareness, to meet genuine community needs in their own unique community engaged capstone project. Students will learn tools and strategies to help build capacity so that individuals, families, and neighborhoods can thrive. Students will engage in mutually beneficial partnerships with faculty members and community organizations to design innovative solutions to issues facing their communities.

Students enrolled in the Community Engagement certificate and/or Bennion Scholars program will participate in a practicum experience to enact a community-engaged project, research, and/or programming. Building upon knowledge and experience gained from prerequisite courses, each student will engage in mutually beneficial partnerships to implement innovative approaches to issues facing their communities. Students taking the 3 credit course commit to working on their project for 50 hours and those taking the 6 credit course commit to working on their project for 100 hours over the semester.

 

Last Updated: 8/13/24