WSU Vancouver’s community engaged scholarship reaches international audience

Faculty members from WSU Vancouver displayed their work around community engaged pedagogies at the Engagement Scholarship Consortium International Conference in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 10. Presenters were Mike Berger, School of the Environment; Caitlin Bletscher, human development; Gunjan Gakhar, biological sciences; and Johanna Phelps, English, faculty lead for community engaged pedgagogies and research.

All are part of WSU Vancouver's newly established Community Engaged Scholars program - a partnership between WSU Vancouver and the Center for Civic Engagement at WSU Pullman. CES aims to increase community engaged learning and civic engagement through pedagogy and curriculum design. Over the last two years, 11 faculty have completed the program, adding 13 new community engaged course offerings at WSU Vancouver.

Community engagement efforts are led by Thabiti Lewis, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, and Narek Daniyelyan, assistant vice chancellor for strategic partnerships, and are part of goal 2 and goal 5 of WSU Vancouver's strategic plan. "In higher education it is essential that we craft curriculum that matters to students and communities. We also understand the importance of scholarship for our faculty. This project marries all those objectives well," Lewis said.

"WSU Vancouver is committed to providing an educational experience that fosters civic mindedness, is relevant to students and helps solve problems for community partners," Daniyelyan added. "The Community Engaged Scholars program helps meet all of these objectives, and it was rewarding to display our campuses' progress in this area on an international stage."