York’s Community Engagement Community of Practice (CoP) welcomes anyone working with external communities in their scholarship, teaching, or professional role, or anyone with an interest in building community engagement at York.
The first meeting for this academic year will be held virtually on Nov. 8, from 9:30 to 10:30 am. oneline through Zoom.
The Community Engagement CoP is a space where York staff and faculty members can connect with colleagues to share and exchange information about critical aspects of community engagement work. Community engagement describes the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.
The Community Engagement CoP provides opportunities to: network with others across the University that are involved in community engagement work; support capacity building and skill development; enable peer learning; and, create opportunities for collaboration.
The CoP meets at least once per term with the aim of allowing people to meet and interact around topics of shared interest related to community engagement. These sessions foster a greater understanding in several areas, including but not limited to strategic priorities in community engagement, scope of community engagement roles across campus, good practices in community-campus engagement and identifying core values in community-campus engagement.
The Nov. 8 session will focus on community engagement trends across the country by sharing the CoP’s involvement in a national pilot project with the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification. The session will offer learnings and next steps as a way to strengthen community engagement practice as an institution. There will also be a follow-up from the CoP’s summer reflection session as it works to determine its activities this year.
For more information, or to join the email list, contact any member of the steering committee below:
- Lorna Schwartzentruber, associate director access programs and community engagement, Office of the Vice Provost Academic, lornas@yorku.ca;
- Byron Gray, manager, York-TD Community Engagement Centre, byrong@yorku.ca;
- Michael Johnny, manager, Knowledge Mobilization Unit, Office of the VPRI, mjohnny@yorku.ca; or
- Shawna Teper, assistant director community and government relations, Office of the President, steper13@yorku.ca.