Bringing It #20: Grant Announcements and Partner Work

Dear friends,

We hope that you are finding time in the summer to rest, refresh, and breathe; we’ve have too, in Texas, the Delaware shore, and the Adirondack mountains. It has also been exciting to work on the launch of our PLACE Collaboratory with our partners in Los Angeles, Greensboro, Baltimore, and Newark. Stay tuned for more news on that important venture.

Congrats to Brown University on Its AMP Grant  

You may remember that we have offered AMP Grants–available to institutions that already received funding from BTtoP–for new activities that amplify, disseminate, and increase the public reach of previous work. The grants range from $500 to $3000, and they were originally awarded on a rolling basis. While the grant cycle has closed, we hope to be able to continue supporting this important dissemination work with a new round of AMP Grants in the coming academic year.

We’re excited to announce our final AMP Grant awardee:

• Brown University will partner with Ivy+ Consortium, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education. Building on a 2014 Seminar Grant, this project will produce briefs for the Scholars Strategy Network with the intention of reaching higher education stakeholders to make accessible and share research on community engaged scholarship, organizational change, diversity, inclusion, and equity.

Grantee Spotlight: The Western New York Service-Learning Coalition (WNYSLC) 

As you may remember from David’s “Call to Community,” BTtoP has placed a particular emphasis on inter-institutional collaboration as a strategy for educational innovation. It’s exciting to see that same idea at work in The Western New York Service-Learning Coalition (WNYSLC), one of our previous Campus Dialogue grantees.

WNYSLC is a collaboration of colleges, universities, and community organizations “committed to sharing resources, knowledge, and practices related to service-learning and community engagement in an effort to strengthen reciprocal campus-community partnerships to promote student civic-responsibility.” The Coalition hosts training programs, service learning conferences, community partner programming, and networking events. In March of this year, it held its “Unlocking Impact: Keys to Successful Partnerships” conference, featuring a keynote on equity in community engagement work by our friend Marisol Morales of Campus Compact.  The event attracted faculty, staff, students, and community partners from within and beyond the WNYSLC network. Buffalo State College student, Brianna Sprole, had this to say about the conference:

In attending the WNYSLC conference I was personally inspired by the breadth and intention of community engaged learning in higher education as a whole, and more specifically in the Western New York Region. I was surrounded by an incredible cross section of individuals who care deeply for community and for education, and felt as though I had “come home” to a place I never existed. Professionally, I came to recognize the underlying values and ideology of the practice of service learning, student civic learning, and the importance of the incorporation and implementation of those into my own personal practice.

We are proud to have supported WNYSLC, and we hope you will join us in celebrating its good work as it continues to promote student civic engagement. Congrats!

What We’re Learning From Our Partners: Campus Compact’s Community Colleges for Democracy 

We’d like to take a moment to praise the work of Campus Compact’s Community Colleges for Democracy (CC4D). This network is “dedicated to preparing community college students to be informed, active, and mobilized leaders in our democracy.”  CC4D, in partnership with Campus Compact, offers webinars, civic learning action plans, the Newman Civic Fellowship, a Community Engagement Professional Credentialing program, individual consultations, and a newsletter for those interested in taking up this crucial work. To learn more about CC4D and to subscribe to their newsletter, please click here.

As BTtoP works more and more with community colleges, we are delighted to amplify and learn from the work of CC4D.

With thanks for all you do,

Caitlin, Mercedes, and David