Cathleen McGrath

Final Reflection

The past year has been one of rebuilding connections as we move into a new phase of adapting to life and work in a pandemic context. More than ever we can see how interdependent we are as scholars and community members. Community-based learning proved to be especially challenging during Covid as we were unable to be physically present in the very communities where many faculty had been working for years. Staff members from the  Pam Rector Center for Service and Action worked tirelessly with faculty throughout the pandemic to ensure that faculty and students were still able to connect, at least digitally with community organization by connecting us with directors, volunteer coordinators and others. From Spring 2020 until this semester, faculty, students and community organization members worked to maintain our connections while also managing some of the most demanding challenges of our work lives.  

I had the good fortune to be able to create a space in 2022 for faculty members to regroup and consider how we could best reconnect with their community partners and best serve our students and community moving forward. In Spring of 2022 I joined Daveon Swan, Associate Director Community and Academic Engagement and Deanna Cooke, Director BCLA Engaged Learning to create a Zoom event where faculty who had been teaching community-based learning courses came together to explore how to make the most of partnerships with community members.  We all agree that the most successful community-based learning happens when we partner with members of community organizations to co-create learning opportunities for students. We also recognize that our community partners are working in their own context with their own demands. The Pam Rector Center for Service and Action can help facilitate relationships with our community organization partners that allow us to structure our teaching relationship to be most beneficial to all parties. For instance, we noted that community organizations do not run on a semester calendar. But, we often teach CBL courses only once a year for one semester. We started a conversation around how we can continue relationship even when we are not teaching the same course each semester.  

In the Fall of 2022 with followed up with “Coffee and Conversation,” an open house at the Pam Rector Center for Service and Action. We created a gallery walk of information about CLB and the resources offered by CSA. We invited faculty and staff to drop in to see what is going on at CSA and grab a coffee and stay for a quick visit or a longer conversation. We wanted to encourage informal interaction among faculty and introduce them to the many resources provided by the Pam Rector Center for Service and Action.  Our final program for Fall 2022 was a lunch event hosted at the CTE. Daveon Swan and I collaborated to introduce faculty to the background of community based engagement as pedagogy. We shared the history of engaged learning by discussing the perspectives of Dewey, who highlights the important role of experience in education, Friere, who makes a lasting mark on the conversation by showing how awareness of context is necessary for education, and finally Boyer, who highlights the particular role of universities in responding to the needs of society. We explored the unique contribution to CBL that is provided by Ignatian perspectives on education. We trace the ideals of community-based learning back to the Ratio Studiorum of 1599 where Ignatius and his companions developed ideas of learning for the sake of justice, recognizing the importance of Vita Activa - engagement with the community. We reviewed the calls of Pedro Arrupe, S.J. and Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J. who reminded us in the 2000s that at the core of Ignatian education is the goal of educating students to go into society and work for justice. We presented models of design for CBL courses and encouraged faculty to build learning outcomes that connect CBL to the learning goals of their particular course. 

Finally, through our engagements on Zoom, informally in person and formally through in-person presentation we have offered the invitation to all LMU to explore CBL more fully. We have promoted interpersonal connections that we hope will support more development and refinement of CBL moving forward. We believe that we have introduced faculty to formal and informal resources that they may draw upon to support their CBL pedagogy.  

Through my work with the Pam Rector Center for Service and Action I have learned more about the interests of both community partners and faculty in developing CBL courses. I see more clearly that a long-term mutually beneficial relationship between a faculty member and a community organization leader is likely to lead to a more positive student experience and a more positive outcome for the community. I was once again humbled and heartened to see the support that LMU faculty provide to each other. This has been such a demanding time for all faculty and yet we all took time to work together to explore how we can make CBL more effective for everyone.  

I believe that the continued support and optimism of Karie Huchting as director of the CTE has been critical to my success through this program. I believe that it is a long-term project to engage faculty in CBL. This is most likely true for many project undertaken by CTE Faculty Fellows. My suggestion for the CTE Faculty Fellow program would be to continue to engage previous year’s fellows. Perhaps have an annual reunion lunch, or reach out in some regular interval to keep previous year’s fellows engaged.