Above: Twenty-nine faculty and staff from ACM colleges attended a conference in Chicago supporting community-based learning. Photo by Timmy Samuel
The Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) held an in-person conference on September 26 and 27 in Chicago that focused on supporting impactful learning that member colleges facilitate outside of the traditional boundaries of their campuses. Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Developing and Sustaining Community-Based Pedagogy at ACM Campuses saw 29 faculty and staff members from 10 ACM colleges engaging in extensive discussions, information-sharing, and cross-campus collaboration to establish and enhance community-based learning initiatives at ACM institutions.
“I’m so glad that I’m here,” said Susan Sanning, the associate dean and director of civic education and innovation at Grinnell College. “Gatherings like this contextualize my work so that it’s reenergized.”
A wide range of community-based learning initiatives were represented at the ACM conference. For example:
- A long-running fieldwork and student teaching program at Lake Forest College has education majors work with children from diverse backgrounds in Waukegan, Illinois. The practicum’s social justice and anti-racism focus provides future teachers with important experience building culturally responsive skills. At the same time, an under-resourced school district sees energetic and talented college students showing up for local kids.
- Beloit College’s Impact Beloit is a concept embedded across academic departments. It encourages undergraduates to contribute to the vibrancy of the city of Beloit, Wisconsin while they complete their classroom studies and build career readiness.
- The Prison Learning Initiative (PLI) at Coe College uses reentry simulations, a book donation project, and a performance and presentation series to encourage students and community members to think deeply about the impacts of incarceration on people exiting prison and returning to society. The PLI aims to support these citizens and their families, while also boosting safety for all community members and reducing harms from crime and incarceration.
The American Association of Colleges and Universities has identified community-based learning as a high-impact practice—an approach that empowers undergraduates to connect more deeply with academic studies and develop skills they will use in postgraduate careers. Researchers have found community-based experiences help learners improve problem-solving, communication, and teamwork across differences.
“One of the challenges for the liberal arts is this preconceived idea that a major or a discipline equals a career,” Sanning observed. “Community-engaged learning starts to help students recognize that disciplines are lenses and skills for problem-solving, but they don’t necessarily determine exactly what you’re going to do.”
September’s conference was the third and final phase of a multi-year ACM effort called Collaboration to Institutionalize High-Impact Practices in the Liberal Arts, which began in 2021. Previous phases focused on developing and fostering effective practices across our consortium’s fourteen campuses and providing grants for collaborative, community-based work. The project received generous support from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations. One of the foundations’ program areas funds evidence-based work at higher ed institutions that emphasize liberal arts undergraduate studies.
ACM engaged two national experts to facilitate conversations about participants’ progress in expanding community-based learning initiatives at ACM colleges: Lynn Murray-Chandler, the executive director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Assessment and Learning at Clark University, and Paul Schadewald, a leader in civic engagement who spent more than two decades at Macalester College before joining Bringing Theory to Practice to work on new models for higher ed.
Katie Rodgers, an associate professor of sociology who co-leads the Prison Learning Initiative at Coe College, expressed appreciation for the feedback she and her colleagues received on the PLI’s work, and for the fresh research the experts shared with conference attendees.
“I think the thing that was most beneficial for me was the time dedicated to taking a deep dive with my teammates, surrounded by people who are super knowledgeable and experienced,” Rodgers said, praising the valuable contributions of Murray-Chandler, Schadewald, and others she networked with.
Rodgers went on to describe how, in her experience, learning that engages students with their local communities is often transformative and helps undergrads understand how to put their liberal arts studies to work benefitting the greater good.
“Getting off-campus really opens their eyes in ways that just reading about things cannot,” Rodgers said. “I think it builds skills that then they take with them when they leave college. They have a deeper level of knowledge about social issues, they have a deeper set of skills around civic engagement, interacting with people who are different than them, communication – I think all those things are beneficial to a community because each student is more prepared to be an engaged member of a community.”
Brian Williams, the vice president for strategic initiatives at ACM, said it was “such a joy” to be a part of a gathering focused on serving students in effective, exciting, and meaningful ways.
“There is a certain rare chemistry that happens when ACM brings faculty and staff together to share insights and strategies,” Williams said. “The conversations about best practices related to community-based learning were no exception.”
Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Developing and Sustaining Community-Based Pedagogy at ACM Campuses also featured a presentation by Nancy Chick of Rollins College. Chick, a leading expert on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), described ways ACM faculty and staff can document the impact of community-engaged learning through presentations and publications.
This fall, Chick will lead a virtual course, supported by additional funds from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, to provide ACM faculty and staff tools to design, conduct, and disseminate SoTL projects. This offering is at capacity, but ACM is accepting applications for a waitlist. Contact [email protected] for more information on joining the waitlist.
