Colorado College, Colorado Springs
Partnership for Civic Engagement
Certificate (or Thematic Minor) in Civic Engagement
http://www.coloradocollege.edu/civiceng/
http://www.coloradocollege.edu/servicelearn/philosophy.asp

Unique:

The Partnership for Civic Engagement integrates public work into academic scholarship to promote the common good and cultivate social responsibility in our student body. By forging strategic, long-term partnerships between the college and its local, national, and international communities, they develop large-scale collaborative projects that provide students with a continuum of opportunities, facilitating leadership development and preparing students to be active citizens. Primary focus on community based learning. Offers a course called, "In Our Backyard: Social Justice in the Southwest" where students enroll in a yearlong extended format course where they live together. As a group, they acquire civic skills, develop methods of self-governance, and engage in their local and regional communities through service learning projects. Affiliated projects include: The Student Venture Partnership Program, Coffee Conscious Spring Break, No More Deaths/ No Más Muertes, New Voters Project, and Election Protection. Faculty and staff are currently exploring options to create a Certificate or Thematic Minor in Civic Engagement; via faculty grants and building a co-curricular program.

Website Features:

Opportunities for students, faculty, community members, a center for service learning, and programs such as Immigrant Integration and Local k-12 Schools. Describes increased community involvement, various affiliated student led projects, various available scholarships and award, stages of service closely aligned with the Bonner Foundation, as well as other key information regarding the program.

Program Objectives:

1. To actively engage students with academic theory in real world situations;
2. For students to acquire civic competencies and skill sets;
3. For students to be empowered and gain a sense of social responsibility;
4. To promote innovative and effective pedagogy from faculty;
5. To increase student motivation and offer transformative learning experiences;
6. To contributed to the development of future leaders while simultaneously benefiting from such leaders knowledge, skill, and enthusiasm.
7. More on the program’s philosophy: http://www.coloradocollege.edu/servicelearn/philosophy.asp

Structure/Governance:

The Colorado College Partnership for Civic Engagement coordinates the Bonner Leaders Program. The Bonner Leaders Program is being weaved into two programs: the Living -Learning Community and a new, college wide, federal work-study community service program. The Colorado College Partnership for Civic Engagement is actively exploring the creation of a civic engagement certificate program or thematic minor focused on civic engagement that will include participation in the living-learning or work study programs. The Partnership for Civic Engagement encourages and supports faculty interested in using Community Based Learning (CBL) pedagogy. Community-based learning (sometimes called service-learning) is experiential education that simultaneously promotes student learning and meets community needs, and is thoroughly integrated into students' course work. Community-based learning includes class projects that draw upon student's and faculty's intellectual expertise to clarify and begin to seek solutions to problems facing the community. These classes can require student internships in community organizations, course fieldwork within a community context that encourages students to reflect on and refine theoretical ideas provide feedback to members of the community, and opportunities for students to teach – and learn – about their major discipline in off-campus settings. Currently, the program is getting a community service federal work-study option and developing a second year component.

Relationship of Program to Institution’s Mission

The program fulfills the college’s core value to ‘encourage engagement and social responsibility at local, national, and global levels,’ as well as serving visible leaders in the local communities to model civic values for students.

Foundational Pillars:
IN PROGRESS

The certificate (or thematic minor) in civic engagement at Colorado College is in the beginning stages of development. The program will be integrated with co-curricular courses. The program will be intense where students work 10 hours per week in community based service optional arrangements. The program will be multi-year; and the timetable will complement the two-year Bonner Leader program. The program is working on a developmental and sequential approach, which will start with an introductory course and culminate with a capstone course. The program will focus on community engagement and service, and politics/public policy areas of interest will be covered. A poverty course will be required for the certificate program. There will be global aspects in the course material and it is undecided if the program will offer direct international experience.

Program/Course Architecture:
A Lead In Course – In progress
Poverty Courses – In progress
International Exposure – In progress
Full Time Internship – In progress
Capstone Seminar – In progress

Specific Courses of Study:
IN PROGRESS 

1. Required Courses
A. SW 185: In Our Own Backyard: Social Justice in the Southwest
The course brings an academic component to the Mathias community's shared experiences of residing, working, and engaging in community service and activism together. As such, course aims to help achieve the program's overall goal of enriching integration between intellectual, social and community lives. Social Justice in the Southwest focuses on a historic Colorado community, the town of Leadville, by examining its local, regional and global relationships, including those to Colorado Springs and the lives of students living in Mathias Hall. While Leadville and Colorado Springs are locales quite different from one another, they also share important linkages. Like Colorado Springs, Leadville forms part of the Arkansas River watershed, has a history tied to mining and other extractive enterprises, and increasingly relies upon tourism and outdoor recreation, while continually seeking greater economic diversification. Examination will elaborate connections and contrasts between these two communities, with the notion that the comparison deepens contextual understandings of each, as well as the interrelationships that could be found between any two communities in the same region.

2. Students are required to engage in the residential community in Mathias. This living-learning community will explore issues of self-governance to include discussions surrounding drug, alcohol and tobacco use and other issues of community climate management with a goal to develop and uphold a community charter. Students will learn skills to confront and address negative behavior and resolve conflict.

3. Students are expected to participate in a 2-day orientation retreat before first block and participate in co-curricular programs throughout the year (Leaders in Service Program and Sophomore Jump). These events are designed to enhance your skills as a leader both on campus and in the broader community. They also help the community assess its success and provide a space for dialogue concerning the interaction of members within the community. Students are required to have Community Based Learning experience in Colorado Springs.

4. Students will choose from two different options in the spring semester: 1) Public Achievement (see full description of PA below) at Wasson High School: LLC students will work with a small group of 9th grade students (in Teen Choices & Challenges class and an Academic Literacy class) one afternoon per week for 90 minutes and reflect after each session together as they coach a small group of students through the process. 2) The Lincoln Elementary Community School (see full description below): This year, Colorado College will support the school to create evening programs for families. Possibilities for evening work for LLC students include: Speaking 1:1 with parents about community resources (housing, food, utilities, etc); Supporting elementary students (some English Language Learning students) who are struggling academically; Working with adult ed classes (topics determined by family interest); Providing otherwise unavailable extracurricular opportunities for students

5. Electives & Discilplines
A. In progress

Learning Outcomes for Students:
A. To experience the integration of theory and practice in solving problems important to the local community.
B. To learn skills of self-governance and apply those skills to students’ living environments.
C. To develop skills and competencies.
D. To create opportunities for peers to benefit from one’s learning and insights.
E. To develop leadership and mentoring skills.
F. To have unique opportunities to interact with faculty outside the traditional classroom environment.

Strategies for Bonner Connection

Role of Service: Bonner Leader Program requirement; Service Learning Collective http://www.coloradocollege.edu/servicelearn/collective.asp

Student Leadership:

Colorado College is currently working with the Bonner foundation to establish a two year Bonner Leaders Program at the college. The program components will include: participation in the Living Learning Community, service work with a local community agency, an international community based learning experience, an extended format course focused on global and local civic engagement, and a monthly reflection session focused on vocational discernment.

Community Partnerships:

Community based learning presents an opportunity for faculty of every discipline to use innovative, effective pedagogy to achieve curricular goals. CBL cultivates the intellectual skills that serve as the backbone of a liberal arts education: critical thinking, problem solving, complexity of understanding, and high level abstract processing. Furthermore, CBL experiences often provide a “real world” context through which students critically interpret assigned readings and become co-creators of academic knowledge. Finally, because CBL courses encourage rigorous academic reflection on theory in practice, they make scholarship relevant to students' daily lives and increase student engagement in fundamental course concepts. http://library.ppld.org/CommunityConnections/agencies