Community-Engaged Learning (CEL)

Students must complete 4 units of Community Engaged Learning  (CEL) course work, typically via one 4-unit CEL class, to meet the graduation requirement. For courses across the curriculum to receive the Community Engaged Learning (CEL) designation, the course must have been approved by the CEL Committee as meeting the CEL learning criteria outlined.

The Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) requirement MUST be completed at USF.

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

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

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Students will synthesize community and classroom experience to:

• 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.