Community-Engaged Learning (CEL)

Consistent with USF’s mission and vision, Community-engaged learning (CEL) courses will align with the essential dimensions of community-engaged learning:

• Purpose - The course should guide students to develop civic competencies while addressing some issue of the public good.
• Relationships - Community engagement activities and student learning opportunities should be shaped in collaboration with community partners and students should see relationship-building with community members as an essential expectation of the course.
• Process - The course should include multiple opportunities for students to critically reflect on their experience and for community partners to provide feedback.
• Form - Courses may take many different forms based on the academic discipline, department learning outcomes, and community-identified priorities, and should focus on the quality of engagement over quantity of hours in community (though a minimum of 20 hours is required).

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Students will:

• Analyze the dynamics, strengths, and priorities of a group, community, or environment with which students engage
• Examine an environmental or social justice issue, including its root causes, impacts, intersections with other issues, and possible solutions
• Analyze one’s own and others’ beliefs, values, social identities, and world views and their implications for how one defines and contributes to the common good