Serve in Place: Community-engaged learning during COVID-19
Supporting Partnerships in Changing Times
March 2020
By Anna Sims Bartel, aws4@cornell.edu, Associate Director for Community-Engaged Curricula and Practice, Einhorn Center
The heart of community-engaged learning is partnership. We are all hearing a lot about what’s going on with faculty and students on campus. But what about your partners? Teachers, scholars and researchers who partner with community need to behave in ways that build trust even in hard times … some say that hard times show us who we really are. Partners may agree. So:
Here’s an informal template for supporting your partners and partnerships under these changing circumstances. Check in with them by Zoom or phone.
- How are you doing? [really listen to the personal as well as the professional side of what they’re saying.]
- How is your organization holding up? Are there changes to how you are doing things?
- What are your concerns? How is this change going to hurt or slow your programs? Is there anything we can do to fix that?
- What are your hopes? Can we adapt our original plan? What else might be possible? How can we be helpful remotely? What can we create with/for you?
- Do you have what you need to collaborate remotely, if that’s what we choose to do? [Hardware? Software? Connectivity? If not, is there funding that can be found or shifted to provide it? Can software be accessed through CIT, e.g.?]
- What kinds of products could students generate that would be of value to you and would still advance their learning?
- Grant research (using Cornell Library’s online resources) or grantwriting
- Reports, summaries and analyses
- Policy briefs, persuasive arguments, legal preparation
- Data sets or analyses
- Videos, documentaries, TedTalks, vlogs
- Articles, op-eds, blogs
- Maps, concept maps, network maps, system maps
- Pamphlets, guides, manuals, how-tos
- Presentations, exhibitions, demonstrations…
Please reach out to us with any additional ideas, questions or concerns: einhorncenter@cornell.edu.
And remember: we also host a Canvas site with community-engaged learning resources and the Cornell Community-Engaged Educators listserv — please email Anna Bartel if you don’t have access and would like it. And remember: you can share resources directly to the listserv yourself! We love that. Hang in there. Be well.