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
Living with Climate Change, a Student-Led Learning Series
Connect with students from across campus in five separate events culminating in an Exhibition of climate change-related art, a Roundtable Cafe and lunch, and a Field Trip centred around the question of how you live with climate change and the various ways we can work together during these times.
The Students in Community: Changemakers and Solution Innovators Summer 2022 Program is In Progress!
Students in Community: Changemakers and Solution Innovators ProgramCommunity & Student Projects Awarded Funded by CEWIL Canada and coordinated by the Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) Office 43 undergraduate & graduate students are currently engaged in...
Summer Community-Engaged and Field-Based Learning Support Program
Applications due on a rolling basis from May 30 – July 27, 2022. Apply sooner rather than later as funding is limited and applicants will no longer be accepted once the funding limit has been reached, which may occur prior to July 27.
Spectrum of Engagement
The Spectrum of Engagement illustrates the levels and types of engagement and the corresponding levels of reciprocity between students, instructors and community members. The level of engagement is negotiated between students, instructors and community partners according to their needs, expectations, and capacity.
Spectrum of Engagement Examples
Inform
Example: Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps discussing the urban food system with students in the Growing Community Class.
Consult
Example: Students studying Comparative Electoral Systems joint with local political organizations to host community outreach events around electoral reform in BC.
Involve
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
Example: Anthropology students learning about Indigenous cartographies and ethnographic mapping through collaboration to protect ancestral sites with Hul’qumi’nun elders and Parks Canada.
Co-create
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.