Cultivating Connections for Community Engagement

This Community of Practice aims to foster regular opportunities to:

Connect those at the UW who practice, support, or are interested in community- engaged research and learning��Learn about and from community engagement efforts across the university��Contribute ideas and perspectives for building the university’s capacity for community engagement

Our Time Together Today:

1 - Overview of findings and next steps for building capacity for community engagement through data

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2 - Small-group work sessions on community engagement priorities, led by Funded Community Engagement Leads

Please share in chat: your name, UW role, and a highlight of a recent community-engagement activity that you participated in (professionally or personally)! 

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Tri-Campus Community Engagement Working Group

Community Engagement Leads

The University of Washington acknowledges the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip and Muckleshoot nations.�

The University of Washington Bothell acknowledges the present and ongoing occupation of the ancestral homelands and traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples. The University of Washington Bothell was built upon, and still occupies, the traditional shared lands and waters of the Muckleshoot, Snoqualmie, Stillaguamish, Suquamish, and Tulalip Nations. We recognize the Indigenous peoples and Nations of this land as its original stewards and caretakers.

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The UW Tacoma community acknowledges that we learn, teach, work and live on the ancestral land of the Coast Salish people. In particular, our campus is situated on traditional lands of the Puyallup Tribe of Indians. We recognize that this is a difficult and painful history, and we understand we must play an active role in remembering, not just what happened to Indigenous communities; post settlement, but also the rich history that existed long before colonization. This land acknowledgement is one small act in an ongoing process of honoring the past while working together with local Tribes to build a more inclusive and thoughtful community.

Land Acknowledgements

Initial Priorities for Tri-Campus Community Engagement Infrastructure

1. Develop community engagement best principles and blueprints in alignment with diversity, equity, and inclusion
2. Support or incorporate community engagement in campus-scale strategies and planning
3. Address fiscal policy/process barriers to community engagement
4. Improve data collection (tracking, mapping, documentation) and analysis (assessment, evaluation) of community engagement
5. Support faculty and staff community engagement by developing and expanding resources for professional development, promotion and tenure, and other supports  
6. Grow student community engagement training and professional development opportunities
7. Build appropriate tri-campus institutional efficiencies and coordination of community engagement to center the benefits to community partners

Improving data collection and assessment of community engagement

Working Group assessed possibilities for community engagement data system/s to be shared across all campuses, including:�

• Existing systems that track or assess community engagement, within and among campuses�
• Specific needs for community engagement data systems�
• Potential platforms�
• Prioritizing with respect to project goals
• Catalyzing community engagement
• Tri-campus capacity-building
• In alignment with Carnegie results & campuses’ priorities

Our process:

• Synthesized existing materials (Carnegie, strategic plans, etc.)�
• Surveyed UW stakeholders
• Representatives across major units, ~90 people
• Community of Practice participants, ~200 people
• 54 responses�
• Participated in demos of potential platforms

Existing campus-wide community engagement data systems

• EXPO
• Bothell and Seattle campuses
• Manages undergraduate curricular community engagement
• Internally developed in 2008
• Cannot handle current portfolio, nor scale to UW Tacoma�
• Collaboratory
• Tacoma campus
• Documents community engagement activities�
• Various systems within units, centers
• What ones are you aware of?

Community engagement could be catalyzed by a tri-campus approach to:

• Tracking and managing relationships with community partners
• Mapping community engagement activities across many variables
• Documenting efforts of individual students, faculty, staff, and partners
• Exploring and connecting potential partnerships
• Evaluating community engagement activities�
• 🡪 A tri-campus community engagement management system (to track AND manage curricular AND other engagement activities)

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Next steps for a tri-campus community engagement management system

• Work with UW and community partners to co-develop a sustainable plan for a tri-campus community engagement management platform�
• Undertake an RFP, RFI, or other process to vet and identify the most appropriate platform�
• Work with UW and community partners to pilot, evaluate, and scale the platform

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Your ideas here!

• What data about UW’s community engagement would help you or your community partners?�
• What data platforms could/should a CE system connect with or otherwise leverage? �(e.g., SAGE, Canvas, Tandem…)�
• What other questions or ideas have come up for you?

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Small-Group Working Sessions

1. CE Principles and Blueprints in alignment with DEI: Learn about UW’s current definition of CE and provide input on how it can be improved.
2. Incorporating CE into Strategic Planning: We would like your feedback on what you’d like to see in a community engagement strategic plan toolkit.
3. Fiscal Barriers to CE: Please share your experience with fiscal barriers (e.g., funding, administrative barriers) and pain points when collaborating with community partners, and solutions (e.g., processes, personnel) to address them. 
4. Faculty and Staff CE Professional Development: What does community engagement professional development mean to you in your field/unit, and what could the institution do to help you prioritize community engagement professional development opportunities.
5. Student CE Training: Help us add to our tri-campus map of existing student supports and/or trainings related to community engagement. This will help us understand assets, identify gaps, and imagine new resources.