University Learning Community Pilot, Spring 2017

In Spring 2017, the Engaged Learning Program in the Center for Faculty Development and Excellence and the Center for Civic and Community Engagement (Campus Life) co-sponsored a University Learning Community focused on the Buford Highway Corridor, and organized around the theme of Art and Social Transformation.  The ULC was co-facilitated by the CFDE’s Director of Engaged Learning Vialla Hartfield-Méndez and the CCCE’s Director of the Community Building and Social Change Program Kate Grace. Participants included students, faculty, staff, and community partners interested in learning together how to create excellent community-campus partnerships.  The learning community identified several mutually agreed-upon projects informed by discussions, readings, and listening to each other.  These projects designed to connect to community-engaged learning courses, directed studies, and other academic activities.  The University Learning Community also explored how to use arts-based inquiry as a process to create successful community-university partnerships. As a result of this pilot University Learning Community, Emory University students and faculty are:

• mapping the linguistic landscape of a key area of the Buford Highway area, in collaboration with local residents
• collaborating with the Chamblee Library on the Living Library project in which members of the Buford Highway community will tell their stories
• working with Cross Key High School students through theater to learn to tell their personal stories effectively
• developing and implementing a participatory arts-based project for health awareness in an after school youth project at Cross Keys High School
• engaging with the Center for Pan Asian Community Services (CPACS) and Emory’s Community Building and Social Change Program to assess and strengthen Emory’s partnership with CPACS.

Building on lessons learned in this pilot program, the CFDE and CCCE look forward to collaborating on similar future projects.