Letter from OCE Team

Dear Engaged Faculty,

We hope this message finds you in good health and spirits! At the Office of Community Engagement, we understand that, as we transition to virtual instruction, many of your projects, especially those with Face-To-Face components, are changing. We would like to reiterate our support for you and your students, and will be happy to help via phone or email. Please, contact one of our team members:

Julia Heinen, Interim Director of Community Engagement (julia.heinen@csun.edu)

Reach out to Julia for office-university questions, new faculty-community partnerships, or other overall questions regarding any matters related to OCE.

Danielle Spratt, Director of Faculty Engagement (danielle.spratt@csun.edu)

Reach out to Danielle for any questions about community-based learning pedagogy and community-based research, OCE grants, the annual research and service symposium (more announcements to come next week)

Svetlana Tyutina, Director of Student Engagement (styutina@csun.edu)

Reach out to Svetlana for questions about student scholars and community-based learning pedagogy for students

Pamela Palacios, Community Engagement Analyst (pamela.palacios@csun.edu)

Reach out to Pamela about S4 questions, payroll/payment questions, or other office operational issues

We are all available to talk by appointment, and here are our open office hours via Zoom as well:

Julia: Coffee with Faculty, Mondays and Wednesdays, 3:30-4 pm
Danielle: Mondays 2-3 pm; Tuesdays 11am-12pm
Svetlana: Tuesdays 11am-12 pm
Danielle and Svetlana will host a weekly “Community-Based Research, Teaching, and Learning” Zoom meeting for anyone who wishes to drop in and chat on Tuesdays from 12-1pm.
Pamela: in addition to email, you can call Pamela at 818.677.7395 as always.

We are continuing to develop the programming related to our “Connect with Community” resources—please check out the current programming and watch for an announcement early next week with further events and information.

Finally, please note that as you transition to virtual projects, you still need to have students fill out the service-learning plan and agreement in S4. We also would like to clarify that, regardless of changes in your project, your students will still need to complete the post-service survey and log their hours into S4 (and request your approval of those). This can be done at any point after the completion of the project but before the end of the Spring 2020 semester. You can find helpful guidelines for these forms on Service Learning Faculty the Canvas page. We especially recommend this short video on logging time (for faculty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU4CDac-o2o), (for students: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QOptlxdWQs).

Stay safe and healthy!
The Office of Community Engagement Team