UVic Learn Anywhere
Virtual Centre for Student Learning
Community-Engaged Learning
Community-Engaged Learning is a reciprocal, mutually beneficial partnership between community, faculty and students. You can make a vital impact on the community by contributing your skills, enthusiasm and knowledge. Community also plays a vital role in enhancing your learning experiences by guiding you through real-life projects that directly relate to your studies
What is Community-Engaged Learning?
Community-Engaged Learning is a reciprocal, mutually beneficial partnership between community, faculty and students. You can make a vital impact on the community by contributing your skills, enthusiasm and knowledge. Community also plays a vital role in enhancing your learning experiences by guiding you through real-life projects that directly relate to your studies.
How can I participate?
There are several ways to integrate CEL into your course-work:
Community Service Learning
- Volunteer in unpaid community service addressesing community needs and reflect on the experience in a for-credit course
- This option typically involves starting in the classroom (4 weeks), followed by volunteer service (7 weeks) and ends with a 2 weeks reflection in the classroom
Field Experience
- Immerse yourself in an on-site work experience relevant to your field of study (generally 1-3 weeks)
- These do not require supervision of a registered or licensed professional and the completed work experience hours are not required for professional certification
- Field experience do not include: co-op, clinic, practicum and internship
Applied Projects
- Collaborate with a community partner by creating a project related to your learning objectives while also contributing to the community
- Applied projects are generally not research-based
Applied Research
- Completing a project (or work on part of a larger ongoing project) for a community partner while supporting your own learning objectives
- While applied research projects often look like literature reviews or policy analyses, these can also occur as consulting projects, design projects, or as community-based research projects
Current Opportunities
Funding Opportunity! Students in Community: StoryMapping Program Fall 2023
Funding Opportunity for Students Field Learning Experiences Funded by CEWIL Canada and coordinated by the Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) Office This program can support your learning or field experience in the following ways: $250 for you, the student up to a...
Students in Community: Engaging Meaningfully
Funding Opportunity for Student-Community Engaged Research and Projects Funded by CEWIL Canada and coordinated by the Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) Office *graduate or honours thesis community-based course self-directed study and/or creativeendeavour with...
Storymapping Program Underway!
The Community-Engaged Learning has partnered with the Map Shop in the Geography Department at UVic to offer grants to students enrolled in 2023 Geography summer field schools. Through this grant, sixty undergraduate students are receiving a grant and will be creating...
Spectrum of Engagement
Low engagement and simple reciprocity
Inform
Students interact with community partners through the exchange of knowledge
Example: Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps discussing the urban food system with students in the Growing Community Class.
Consult
Students provide research or project support for community partners
Example: Students studying Comparative Electoral Systems joint with local political organizations to host community outreach events around electoral reform in BC.
Medium engagement and average reciprocity
Involve
Students participate in community partner endeavors
Example: Psychology students work with the Centre for Autism Research Technology and Education to enhance the social and emotional skills of children and adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).
Collaborate
Students and/or faculty develop and implement mutual projects with community partners
Example: Anthropology students learning about Indigenous cartographies and ethnographic mapping through collaboration to protect ancestral sites with Hul’qumi’nun elders and Parks Canada.
High engagement and complex reciprocity
Co-Create
Faculty and community partners c0-create, co-deliver and co-evaluate community-engaged learning
Example: Archaeology Field School: Students excavating at an ancient Tseshaht First Nation settlement in the Broken Group Islands unit of Pacific Rim National Park Reserve.
CEL Media
We acknowledge and respect the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples on whose traditional territory the University of Victoria stands, and the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day.