Faculty

Learning in Action for the Common Good

We provide faculty members at Middlebury with support and funding to incorporate community-connected learning projects and pedagogy into their classrooms. Our work with faculty helps to create spaces within the classroom and beyond for students to deepen their civic knowledge and practice civic skills, while engaging with big questions about who they are and how they show up with others. 

We create and sustain meaningful, ongoing, and reciprocal community partnerships that provide critical context for student learning. CCE staff build connections among community organizations, students, faculty, and staff that promote Middlebury’s educational mission while furthering the development of positive and sustainable communities.

Benefits to Students

• Community-connected teaching, learning, and research allow students to place their learning in context, seeing first-hand how their academic inquiry connects to real-world problems and opportunities. The Center for Community Engagement (CCE) applies and supports best practices in community-connected teaching, learning, and research. We support learning in action for the common good.
• Gain experience by placing their learning in context, seeing first-hand how their academic inquiry connects to the problems and opportunities of the day.
• Build skills and the understanding of how those skills translate from the classroom, to the community, and ultimately to their work in the world.
• Generate new knowledge and questions that inform and sharpen their academic pursuits here at Middlebury, and as lifelong learners and citizens

Benefits to Faculty

• Experienced staff educators who partner with you to develop and design community-based learning opportunities that align with course learning outcomes.
• Pedagogical resources for building course components that optimize community-connected teaching, learning, and research, and reflect best and current practices in experiential learning.
• Broad networks and connections in local, national, and global contexts. Our staff draws on extensive existing and emerging relationships with and among a range of sectors that connect across academic disciplines.

How We Support Faculty

We support faculty in developing community-connected learning through:

• Advising: 

  • One-on-one advising consultations to discuss best practices, community partner relationship development, and appropriate scope and scale.
  • Experienced staff educators partner with faculty to develop and design community-based learning opportunities that align with course learning outcomes. We can also provide pedagogical resources for building course components that optimize community-connected teaching, learning, and research, and reflect best and current practices in experiential learning.
  • CCE staff can also assist faculty in building connections and networks in local, national, and global contexts. Our staff draws on extensive existing and emerging relationships with and among a range of sectors that connect across academic disciplines.

• Community-Connected Learning Project Assistant (CCLPA) program

  • We lead a Community-Connected Project Assistant Program to train project assistants to support faculty members incorporating community-connected work in their courses.

    The positive learning potentials of community-connected project-based learning (CCPBL) require highly collaborative leadership by those in instructional roles, reflective processes for students that allow for meaning-making and connections to other learning experiences and knowledge of social structures, and the support of students’ development of civic leadership skills. Community-connected project-based learning requires additional support for community partnership relationships and logistics, in addition to an awareness of best practices for working with diverse others.

    PAs can help provide instructional and logistical support for the students in courses as they execute projects developed by faculty and community partners.

• Middlebury Liberal Arts in Action (MLAA) platform

  • MLAA is a new web-based platform that aims to facilitate reciprocal relationships with community partners within the context of Middlebury classes and research programs. MLAA provides community partners the opportunity to share project needs and ideas, and for faculty to share details of courses and research programs looking to incorporate community-connected work.

• Community Engagement at the Language Schools

  • CE@LS is a cohort-based internship opportunity through which bilingual students facilitate collaborative, community-connected projects that bring together Language School students and community-based organizations and/or educational partners in a language-immersive environment.

• Academic Outreach Endowment (AOE) grants

  • Academic Outreach Endowment grants provide financial support to both faculty and students for community teaching, learning, and research across all disciplines and are administered by the Center for Community Engagement. Learn more about Academic Outreach Endowment Grants.
  • Academic Outreach Endowment grants provide financial support to both faculty and students for community-connected teaching, learning, and research. AOE grants support projects across all disciplines and is administered by the Center for Community Engagement. Grants are awarded a maximum of $3,000 and typically range between $1,000 and $2,000. Recipients may have the opportunity to give public presentations detailing their projects. Learn more about Academic Outreach Endowment Grants

Learn more about how the CCE supports faculty in this work here. 

Unsure Where to Start?

We can help! Sign up for a 30-minute Find Your Place meeting with a CCE staff member, and we can talk with you about your options to incorporate community connected learning into your class or research. Sign up for a meeting!