CAMPUS PROFILE

(Loudonville, New York) 

The Center for Academic Community Engagement (ACE) at Siena College launched year two of the Community Engaged Faculty Academy (CEFA). CEFA established pathways for faculty growth and development in community engaged teaching, research, and mentorship. This initiative implemented a three-tiered developmental pathway for faculty:

• Faculty Fellows (teaching, research, and 10 mentorship)

• Emerging Leaders (publishing and connecting/contributing to the growing body of CE literature), and 

• Advocates (influencing campus climate and reward structures, mentoring other faculty, and building significant work in the community)

Faculty Fellows mentor Bonner Service Leaders’ signature work and Non-Profit Excellence and Transformation (NExT) Services consulting team projects, receive training and development to assist in conceiving of and implementing community engaged course design, and lead the Summer Project Incubator (SPIn) collaborative research teams. These multiple tier-one entry points offer faculty diverse and flexible access to this work and builds their confidence in their ability to establish and grow partnerships, engage students as leaders, and develop interdisciplinary work in response to community identified needs. 

Emerging Leaders will add to the discipline through publication of research and pedagogical insights. This group works as a cohort learning community to explore and contribute to the growing body of community engagement literature and best practices. This focused pathway of leadership through publishing helps faculty build confidence, enhance their community engaged persona, and develop as a cohort of community engaged practitioners. The group formed in the first year has continued to meet and support each other in publishing work related to community engagement as well as the scholarship of teaching and learning.

They added one new cohort this year focusing on antiracism, racial justice, and equity through InterGroup Relation (IGR) course development. IGR has already been successfully implemented at Siena to develop change strategies on campus and will provide an excellent training platform for faculty and students who want to work with nonprofits who focus on racial justice as well as help our Bonner sites move toward racial justice frameworks. The IGR cohort held its planning meeting in February 2021 (32 in attendance) and plans a two-day training in June with space for 28 attendees. They hope to run an IGR train the trainer program in August 2021 for an additional 28 attendees. The summer is dedicated to building the cohort of faculty and administrators who have participated in the experiential portion of the program. From there, they will build on their work during the upcoming academic year to train a smaller cohort in the course design process. Finally, either as part of the course design programming or as a new group, they will explore how to adapt the racial IRG focus to other contexts such as interfaith, gender, international status, and political views. 

Faculty Advocates will champion community engagement work making it more prevalent and respected across campus and will explore CE literature related to structural support for CE work. This tier will focus on building mentorship skills, exploring methods for creating structural change, and becoming change agents in the communities served. They will be adding this team in on the Field Leader meetings as part of the Bonner Learning Community Initiative and use these meetings to implement a small-scale strategic initiative. They will be scheduling meetings with Tim Eatman and Paul Schadewald. Additionally, as part of our annual review of ACE’s Certificate in Community Development, they will engage this group in a discussion about how to identify courses to include in our certificate. 

CEFA initiatives are aligned with our center’s three strategic goal:

1. Increase our public presence (dissemination, publication, social media)

2. Advance the institutionalization of Racial Equity and Racial Justice 

3. Deepen ACE Partnerships 

1.Increase our public presence (dissemination, publication, social media) 

All ACE programs will focus on increasing publications and presentations 

Bonner Service Leaders 

• All Bonner capstone students will submit at least one application to present at a conference or one article for journal publication 

• Their WV course faculty (first year trip) will increase opportunities for students to submit writing from this course for publication 

• Establishment of ACE Social Media team to disseminate information about programs, research, and work in the community on all of our social media sites. 

NExT Services 

• NExT team will complete transferrable resources about the publication process and disseminate her own research.

• NExT students will be asked to complete communication plans which will work to increase communication between all parties at NExT and deepen the bonds between the faculty mentors and the students. 

• Assistant Director will grow a network of nationwide programs similar to NExT and will have networked with at least five programs similar to NExT Services at Siena College during this year. 

SPIn 

• The Refugee Voice Project team has developed a number of articles for publication and applied for funding to increase the impact of their work.

  • Refugee Voice SPIn students (and winter scholars) Rosella Hren and Michael Averill submitted an article titled "Shaping Transnational Identity: How Sports and Recreation Serve as Sites for Integration" to the Gettysburg Social Sciences Review. (Under review since early March).

  • SPIn Team Co-Leaders Vera Eccarius-Kelly and Alison Schaeffing have submitted an article titled "Digital Storytelling: Refugees Disrupt Stereotypical Narratives in West Hill" to Collaborations: A Journal of Community-Based Research and Practice. (Under review)

  • Alison Schaeffing and Vera Eccarius-Kelly collaborated on two separate mini-grants ($2,000) that have been submitted to the Imagining America Foundation. Both applications are for projects in collaboration with the RWC during summer 2021. Alison Schaeffing is the PI for a project related to strengthening institutional collaborations between colleges and nonprofits (Sage Colleges & Siena College with the RWC) and Vera Eccarius-Kelly is the PI for a project related to digital narratives with women refugees from Pasto-speaking Afghan communities and Mulenge-speaking Burundians and Congolese. IA will notify the applicants in mid-April if they are selected for a project. 

• The Black wealth initiative published a report summarizing the work of two community forums and their future plans for the market

2.Advance the institutionalization of Racial Equity—Racial Justice

Much of ACE’s programming and curriculum will be centered around racial justice and equity—they kicked off this theme during Summer Gear-Up 2020 and refreshed their training during Winter Retreat 2021. They have weaved in these DEI trainings throughout the academic year. CEFA supports these efforts through mentoring, leadership development, and advocacy on campus. 

Bonner Service Leaders 

• Work with Admissions and Siena’s Presidential Actions Officer to recruit more students of color to Bonner (and campus) 

• Bonner "Do the Work" initiative (expanded to our NExT and VISTA program in the winter intersession), continued conversations on DEI at Winter Retreat, and working to identify ways to bring the initiative to campus (facilitating privilege walks, co-hosting conversations on campus, identifying connecting this work to the larger Capital Region community) 

• Developing partnership with YWCA and supporting their efforts to focus on racial justice in programming and events 

NExT Services 

• During recruitment periods, NExT Assistant Director and students will work with affinity clubs on campus to encourage students of diverse backgrounds to join NExT. 

• The NExT Program will focus throughout the academic year on how their work impacts communities of color. 

• During the Winter Session, the NExT Assistant Director will be reconstructing assignments and curriculum to directly discuss issues of social justice, professional development, personal development, and community engagement. This will be assessed with the creation of a revamped syllabus and course outline that details which ACE Learning Goal and NExT Pillar each training meets. 

SPIn 

• Developed two projects with a racial justice focus: Black Wealth in the South End and Social Cohesion between Black, Brown and Refugee neighbors. While other projects touch on issues of race, racial justice is front and center in these two initiatives. They engaged 4 faculty, 12 students and two partnering organizations. Note, these projects are place-based in nature. 

• They focused on creating more racially diverse teams in SPin. The racial justice projects primarily had students who represented the demographic they were “studying” (5 or 6 in Black Wealth and 4 of 6 in Refugee) 

• We added more trainings to the program on race and allyship that were well attended and had great participation. 

3.Deepen ACE Partnership 

ACE is assessing their partnership model to enhance their work in the community and support transformational efforts. ACE has engaged in much cross programmatic work to build partnerships across ACE programs. These discussions have been very fruitful and have deepened and transformed partnerships with a number of new and returning organizations such as: The Cohoes Connect Center (Bonner, VISTA), Boys and Girls Club of the Capital Area (Bonner, VISTA), Refugee Welcome Center (NExT, SPIn), Friends of Recovery NY (NExT, Bonner), and AVillage/South End Night Market (SPIn, NExT, Bonner, VISTA).

Bonner Service Leaders 

• Implement new model of building and engaging with Capstone partnerships, focusing on creating transformational work in these partnerships

• Thoughtful inclusion of faculty as capstone mentors and meaningful connection/relationship building between faculty and community partners 

NExT Services 

• NExT will conduct an ongoing assessment of its partnership model. The NExT Assistant Director will conduct assessment for feedback from partners during midterms (Oct / Mar) and finals (Nov / May). Assistant Director will also work with a VISTA Leader from October to February to assess partnership across the Center more broadly. 

• NExT Students and Assistant Director will create a coordinated communication plan to assess what NExT does. This will include how to explain NExT in the context of on campus recruitment, how to explain NExT to potential partners, and how to explain NExT on your resume. 

SPIn 

• By focusing on place-based engagement, they have been able to grow projects and partnerships organically and in ways that creates space for student-centered project design. Their work with the West Hill neighborhood for SPIn is a prime example of how place based work opens doors for multifaceted projects. It started off as a partner/issue based project focusing on refugee work and the Refugee Welcome Center. One of the students noticed issues with social cohesion between black/brown and refugee neighbors. She was able to develop the project as a NExT fellow, build a winter research team, further develop the project in the spring semester at NExT and is planning for summer SPIn research. In this current semester this NExT project has engaged two Bonners and multiple new neighborhood partners. 

• While not completely in line with the center goals, the SPIn program has enhanced partnership across campuses. Three of the projects involve faculty from different colleges coming together to engage in participatory research.