Preparing for Equitable and Respectful Engagement
Community Engagement Preparation
At the Morgridge Center for Public Service, we understand the power of community engagement as a tool for learning and relationship building. However, we also realize that to be best prepared for equitable and respectful engagement takes some work.
We offer a range of resources to help support students, staff and faculty strengthen their understanding of community engagement and learn strategies and dispositions that can lead to mutually beneficial projects and partnerships.
Online Modules
Consider assigning students up to four separate community engagement preparation modules. These modules, detailed more below, are designed as self-guided courses that engage students in reflection, readings, knowledge checks and more to explore the content. Each module takes somewhere between an hour to an hour and a half to complete. Hosted through Canvas, these modules can be easily added to your course page as an assignment. We can also work to provide you with reflection and follow-up materials to better integrate the modules into your course.
Module #1: Intro to Community Engagement
Articulate your own motivations for and understanding of community engagement
Analyze how one’s approach to community engagement can impact the community
Compare various principles of community engagement
Module #2: Community-based Research
Gain an understanding of the principles and practices developed through community-based research
Strengthen relationship building skills for working with communities
Explore the variety of methods for Community-based Participatory Research
Module #3: Engaging with Community
Articulate the role of relationships in community engagement and identify dispositions that contribute to positive relationship formation
Identify the various considerations that should be applied prior to entering, engaging, or exiting communities
Examine the opportunities for and barriers to engaging in equitable partnerships
Reflect on opportunities to maintain engaged on a social issue after completing a community engaged experience
Module #4: Contextualizing Community
Build skills for learning about communities and community organizations
Reflect on the connection between positionality, knowledge construction, and intellectual humility
Develop an understanding of cultural humility and self-awareness and how those concepts impact community engagement
Consider how systemic and institutional issues may impact community outcomes and experiences
Interactive Workshops
Request an interactive workshop for your course that can be facilitated by the community engagement preparation manager or one of the community engagement education interns.
The workshops, listed below, typically last an hour and half and are intended to engage your students in meaningful discussion about activities to strengthen their understanding of and approach to community engagement.
Intro to Community Engagement
Articulate your own motivations for and understanding of community engagement
Analyze how one’s approach to community engagement can impact the community
Compare various principles of community engagement
Entering, Engaging, and Exiting Community
Understand how to analyze a community partner’s mission, history, and context and how those factors inform engagement
Contrast different principles of community engagement and define their own principles
Apply active listening and relationship building strategies to their engagement
Explain the importance of sustainability as it relates to community engagement
Power and Positionality
Engage in self-awareness and reflection activities
Understand how histories of academic community engagement shape engagement today
Explore strategies for power-sharing in partnership work
Mapping Madison
Grounded in asset-based approaches to community engagement, this workshop provides students an opportunity to develop their sense of place within Madison by exploring some of the neighborhoods, assets, and topics that make our city unique.
Special Topics
Our interns and staff are also equipped to facilitate a number of other sessions on topics such as, critical reflection, active listening, virtual engagement strategies, and more.
Let us know if you have a specific idea you want to explore.
Pathways of Public Service
There are many ways to make an impact on the world. This workshop explores multiple opportunities for UW students to get involved with their community, such as volunteering, voting, philanthropy, and more. This workshop provides students space to reflect on community engagement and the Wisconsin Idea.