The Tidewater Project’s Community-Engaged Learning Faculty Fellows
Christopher Newport University’s Center for Community Engagement, in partnership with the Bonner Foundation, is pleased to announce The Tidewater Project, a Community Engaged Teach and Learning program to promote community-engaged learning (CEL) in a myriad of forms (i.e., service learning, community-based research, engaged scholarship, etc.). Each year, the Tidewater Project supports a cohort of faculty fellows in creating or modifying individual courses to include community-engaged learning, emphasizing courses that engage students in community-based research, capacity-building, and/or social action projects aimed at building resilient and sustainable communities. Participating faculty fellows will receive a stipend for their involvement in meetings and course development work, which culminates in courses with community-engaged learning components. Additionally, faculty will work closely alongside community partners to ensure that materials align the goals of the community with appropriate learning outcomes.
The Tidewater Project’s Faculty Fellows Program is designed to:
- Support faculty in their integration of effective high-impact educational practices;
- Engage faculty in developing and deepening reciprocal community-campus partnerships and projects tied to their courses, teaching, research, and service;
- Provide faculty with a supportive community in which they can learn and apply engaged teaching and learning practices and pedagogies;
- Provide institutional and national recognition for faculty involvement and other benefits (such as stipends, professional development, publishing opportunities, etc.)
We especially invite faculty and/or faculty teams to consider creating or modifying individual community-engaged learning courses to include community engagement components, emphasizing courses that engage students in community-based research, capacity-building, and/or social action projects.
Applications are due by March 14, 2025.
Who is eligible to apply?
The program is open to any faculty member (adjunct, instructor, lecturer, and tenure-track faculty) or teaching staff in all departments. A team of faculty members could apply together if they co-teach a course or teach the same course alternatively. Teams of faculty members will split the full stipend.
What are the benefits of participating?
Faculty who participate will receive:
- The opportunity to be a part of a professional learning community to exchange ideas and seek intellectual support from colleagues
- A stipend of $2,000 to modify an existing course or to develop a new course that integrates a community-engaged learning component
- On-going support from the Center for Community Engagement staff to develop and teach the course (i.e. workshops and help with course design, community partnership development, transportation, reflection, etc.)
- Institutional and national recognition (such as through the Center for Community Engagement website and the Bonner Foundation website, campus awards, newsletters, reports, etc.)
- The opportunity to showcase community-engaged learning course materials during the final Tidewater Project Showcase
What are the commitments expected from the accepted faculty members?
Participating faculty will be expected to:
- Participate in an institute with workshops at the start of the cohort (three day institute at the beginning of summer).
- Participate in six meetings over the course of the year.
- Agree to be listed as one of The Tidewater Project Faculty Fellows in the Center for Community Engagement at Christopher Newport University and for the Bonner Foundation.
- Design (or redesign) and teach a community-engaged learning (CEL) course by Spring.
- Agree to provide course materials for community-engaged learning course repository
- Participate in Showcase
- Agree to participate in program assessment
