sustainability – Faculty Development Tuesday Tips Archive

The Many Benefits of Community- and Civically-Engaged Pedagogy

November 28, 2023November 28, 2023 adminLeave a comment

Sent on behalf of Dr. Amy Magnus, Director of Civic Engagement, and Annie Layon, Civic Engagement Student Assistant

We start the Tuesday Tip today with a student’s voice. Annie Layon, a graduating senior, shares her experience with and desire for more community- and civically-engaged pedagogy at Chico State:

Hi there! I’m Annie Layon and I’m a Women’s Studies and Psychology student at Chico State – I’m excited to be graduating this semester! As an avid environmentalist, feminist, and activist, I’ve always been extremely passionate about environmentalism and sustainability. Yet, I’m leaving Chico State asking myself: How could my courses from all kinds of disciplines have been more intentional about helping me take what I learned in the classroom out into the world? In my 4.5 years at Chico State, civic and community engagement wasn’t a top priority in the course curriculum. However, I would have deeply appreciated the opportunity to actively connect what I learned in my classes to the world around me through community-engaged projects, civically-engaged pedagogy, and intentional opportunities to use my education to support my community. So, I encourage faculty to stay curious, ask questions, and consider incorporating community- and civically-engaged pedagogy into their courses!

The Benefits of Community- and Civically-Engaged Pedagogy

Community- and civically-engaged pedagogy marry the dissemination of academic knowledge, mutually beneficial collaborations between communities and students, and students’ application of their knowledge in a community. Courses that embed community- and civically-engaged learning as a high impact practice (HIP) prioritize both knowledge and action, helping students wield the skills and expertise they are developing to support their communities in helpful ways. At Chico State, we value the use of high impact practices (HIPs) as a key path to student success. Two stellar examples of this work on campus are the Town Hall Meeting and Center for Regenerative Agriculture and Resilient Systems.

HIPs continually demonstrate their positive impact on student retention and motivation, students’ sense of belonging and community, and their inclination toward civic responsibility. Trudeau and Kruse (2014: 25-26) articulate some of the key impacts of these approaches to teaching, highlighting their transformative potential:

“…students who participate in civic engagement are highly motivated and engaged in their learning. For some students, these experiences become formative moments in which they understand with greater clarity what they want to pursue in their working life or the kind of citizen they want to be… another important reason is that the learning which the students experience through civic engagement is personally – and socially – relevant, long-lasting, and sometimes transformative, and is thus more substantive than a lecture-discussion approach to learning.”

Taking the First Step: Support, Resources, and Future Programming

You might be thinking: “…this sounds awesome, but how will I find the time, resources, or capacity to add one more thing to my already-busy schedule?” The Office of Civic Engagement is here to help and support you! Incorporating engaged teaching and learning into your teaching routine is an approach that should be implemented slowly, carefully, thoughtfully, and with special care taken to ensure it is done ethically and in collaboration with communities. The Office of Civic Engagement, in collaboration with Faculty Development, is excited to share that we are in the process of developing new engaged teaching and learning programming that will be available to faculty starting in the 2024-2025 academic year. We will promote these programs and put out a call for applications in the upcoming spring semester, but feel free to reach out now with your ideas or questions!

Want to learn more? Check out these resources:

Alcantar, C. M. (2023). Civic engagement of Latinx students: The role of higher education institutions in serving the public good. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 22(3), 255-275.

Trudeau, D., & Kruse, T. P. (2014). Creating significant learning experiences through civic engagement: Practical strategies for community-engaged pedagogy. Journal of Public Scholarship in Higher Education, 4, 12-30.

Visit Collaboratory to see more examples of community-based research, community- and civically-engaged pedagogy, and more!

Questions?

Please reach out to Amy Magnus in the Office of Civic Engagement (ammagnus@csuchico.edu)

Our NCFDD recommendation this week is connected to civic work in the classroom: the concept of public scholarship. Writing for public audiences can be challenging after a life of academic orientation. Check out this webinar on the topic. You have to sign up for NCFDD (which you have free access to for this year) and once you do, you will have access to an incredible catalog of useful resources for your classroom and professional development.

Zach Justus
Director of Faculty Development
Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences
Google Voice/Text: 530-487-4150

Teaching Climate Change & Resilience

October 17, 2023October 17, 2023 adminLeave a comment

The main portion of this tip is brought to you by Dr. Mark Stemen, from Geography and Planning.

Over Spring 2022, 65 CSU faculty redesigned over 75 courses to include greater engagement of climate change and resilience, immediately affecting the education of thousands of students across the CSU the following year, including over 900 students on our campus alone.

The CSU Teaching Climate Change & Resilience (TCCR) Faculty Learning Community (FLC) was first offered in Spring 2022 through the Office of Faculty Development.

Since then, the FLC has been featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education and has received the Campus Sustainability Achievement Award by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), and most recently received recognition from the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

In Spring 2024 the FLC will be offered again, with the support of Chico State’s Office of the President, the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, and the Office of the Chancellor’s Innovative Teaching & Learning Programs. The FLC will be open to all 23 CSU campuses and aligns with the California State University Sustainability Policy, which “is intended to position the nation’s largest university system as a leader in the teaching and use of applied research to educate climate literate students.”

This FLC is designed with busy and burdened faculty in mind. The five sessions are only 90 minutes long, and each will help faculty step by step to easily incorporate climate change and resilience into a course they teach. Our goal is to connect faculty with a broad range of approaches and ideas, as well as resources that are well-researched, relevant, and relatable to their discipline; lots of resources. 

The five Zoom sessions on Tuesdays from 9:00-10:30 a.m.

This FLC also offers the rare opportunity to connect with colleagues across the system. The FLC will be entirely over Zoom, allowing us to organize breakout rooms based on discipline. We found when we used disciplinary breakout rooms, the sessions became more productive and transformative for faculty. As one participant remarked, “It felt like the department I always wanted. Everyone believed in climate change and they all wanted to help.”

The FLC application is due by December 15, 2023. All faculty are welcome to apply.
Additionally, we in FDEV want to point you toward a timely NCFDD resource. Many faculty have been personally impacted by the tragic situation in Israel and Gaza. In addition, many faculty are encountering conversations about this situation in the classroom. In 2020 Dr. Chavella Pittman was featured in a webinar on Preparing for Difficult or Controversial Conversations as part of their Empowered Teaching Toolkit. You have to sign up for NCFDD (which you have free access to for this year), but once you do you will have access to an incredible catalog of useful resources for your classroom and professional development.

Zach Justus
Interim Director of Faculty Development
Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences
Google Voice/Text: 530-487-4150

Teaching Climate Change & Sustainability

September 19, 2022November 22, 2023 adminLeave a comment

Dear faculty,

In an attempt to continue supporting efforts towards climate change and resilience, we are partnering this year with Jennifer Rotnem, Director of Energy & Sustainability, to approach these conversations from different and more diverse perspectives. Leading these efforts and conversations is once again Dr. Mark Stemen, who has been a tireless champion in advancing timely and challenging discussions about climate change and environmental justice. Mark is serving as Sustainability and Climate Change Faculty Fellow, collaborating with both our units.

On behalf of this team, I want to share three main updates:

A number of resources are available to you on the Teaching Climate Change & Resilience Page. Here you can access books, resources on curriculum design and instruction, and be informed about upcoming events.
Speaking of events! Mark your calendars for Dr. Britt Wray’s visit on October 13th, 6:00 p.m at ARTS Recital Hall. Dr. Britt Wray is a Human and Planetary Health Postdoctoral Fellow at the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health, and her expertise includes studying the impact of climate change on mental health, especially on the younger generations. She is the author of Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis. She has recorded a video for us that is available on the page linked above.
Lastly, be on the lookout for announcements and communication about opportunities to come together to discuss sustainability and climate change. We look forward to having a dynamic group of faculty join us! If you are interested in participating in these conversations, please let us know!

We look forward to expanding awareness about sustainability across the campus!