The Office of Community-Engaged Learning’s Elizabeth Cannon and Zoë Markwalter presented at the 2024 International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE) Intersections Conference. They traveled to the University of San Diego’s Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice and shared their presentation on “Pedagogical Innovations through Community-Engaged Coursework and Compensation of Community Partners as Co-Educators.”

This presentation, focused on their ongoing efforts leading the Mellon Foundation-funded Community-Engaged Intensives in the Humanities (CEIH), explored innovative learning opportunities that complement traditional courses by extending beyond the classroom and responding to place-based, community-identified projects and inquiries.

Intensives and the CEIH initiative have allowed for a radical re-imagination of how curricular initiatives can support high-impact learning experiences, while simultaneously creating justice-centered relationships with community organizations. The Office of Community-Engaged Learning (OCEL), which oversees the CEIH grant, created a framework and set of practices to support community-engaged coursework through centering community partners as co-educators. By situating community experts as thought partners alongside academic leaders, CEIH-funded courses created transformational learning opportunities for students to better understand experiential knowledge, critical inquiry, and the assets of our local community.

The CEIH grant has provided faculty with the opportunity to explore relationship-building with community partners and co-create curricula and has enhanced Vassar’s commitment to the necessary structures needed to support robust and intentional community-engaged coursework within the liberal arts.

Through their presentation, Elizabeth and Zoë joined with a diverse network of scholars from across the globe in support of IARSLCE’s mission, which is to promote the development and dissemination of research on service-learning and community engagement internationally and across all levels of the education system.