Wishing you peace, love, and joy this holiday season and throughout 2022.
- Montana Campus Compact Team
NETWORK NEWS
Coming Soon: Community Building Institute
The Community Building Institute will return on February 1-3 & 8-9, 2022. Registration is now live.
In 2020-2021, 125 participants from Montana, Wyoming, Minnesota, and Maryland engaged with this multi-day series of webinars!
CBI educates AmeriCorps members, graduate students, and campus & nonprofit staff about how to meet community needs in collaboration with community stakeholders.
Staff, faculty, and administrators with a Montana Campus Compact affiliate campus should use the code ‘montana’ to receive discounted registration.
Students at Montana colleges can register for free. For more details contact bowe@mtcompact.org
Omiah serves at Dawson Community College with Dawson’s Promise. With faculty member and former AmeriCorps service member Courtney Wuethrich at college fair for high school students.
November 29, 2021 | 5 mins read
Why Not? A Journey Of Autonomy
By Omiah Mitchell
These past two years have been unlike anything I have ever experienced before. My mind would have never been able to conceive what has occurred in this world during these past two years. At first, it was wonderful to rest and just be still. Then, life quickly became a mundane redundant routine.
Wake up. Shower. Log in to zoom. Log off. Sleep. Repeat.
I began asking myself, “Is this really what life is going to be like?” “Is this all there is?” These supposed formative years were condensed into something that I was neither ready nor prepared for. This led me to sit down and look inward. I came to the realization that I had no idea who I was or what I wanted to be outside of the title of “student”. I was flying through life by the seat of my pants with no clue or plan of what was going to come next.
All the alone time in my dorm during COVID truly made me reflect on all aspects of my life. Most decisions I have made have been for others, not for myself. I needed to figure out who I was outside of the margins of “student”. Being confined to such a small space for so long opened my eyes to how much I haven’t done and the myriad of things I have yet to see. I promised myself after graduating undergrad that the next big decision I made would be for me and no one else.
A few weeks later, I applied for MTCC AmeriCorps. To be honest when I applied I was just thinking “why not?” I had no thoughts of what I would do or how I would react if I got the position. So upon hearing that I got the service position, I had no clue what to say or who to tell first. How does one explain to their family that has been in the same state for generations that you are going to move across the country for a year to do community service?
A food service worker in the Howard/Suamico School District uses locally sourced ingredients to create salads for school children. Courtesy Of David Lee Schneider/AmeriCorps
December 14, 2021 | 3 mins read
AmeriCorps Farm to School program is a win-win for farmers, schools, and the community
Wisconsin is fortunate in that its farmers and ranchers are excellent producers of agricultural products spanning the five food groups, which all happen to land on the supply side of the economic interaction.
This becomes especially important in the supply and demand picture as state school districts are experiencing increased demand for agricultural products to feed students, staff, and families. Many districts say products are in short supply or hard to find at all, forcing menus to change daily thanks to gaps in the supply chain.
According to Laura Rowell, Director of School Nutrition for the Howard/Suamico School District; “last-minute menu changes occur regularly and more often than ever before in all school nutrition departments across the country. Our job is to do the best we can to provide proper nutrition for students on a daily basis"
Rowell says menu substitutions can range from the full entrée switch to a fruit or vegetable.
"Our main concern changes day to day and week to week. We are preparing by working closely with our primary vendor, expanding the number of vendors we purchase from, over-communicating, and being creative with our storage space," she said.
The Newman Civic Fellowship recognizes and supports community-committed students who are changemakers and public problem-solvers at Campus Compact member institutions. Fellows are nominated by their president or chancellor on the basis of their potential for public leadership.
Through the fellowship, Campus Compact provides students with training and resources that nurture their assets and passions and help them develop strategies for social change. The year-long program, named for Campus Compact founder Frank Newman, includes virtual learning opportunities and networking as part of a national network of engaged student leaders and an optional in-person convening.
We view the Newman Civic Fellowship as a core component of our strategy to build a national network of engaged student leaders who can support one another in building transformational partnerships between campuses and communities.
Nominations must be submitted by February 1, 2022.
MTCC, in partnership with the Governor's Office of Community Service and Reach Higher Montana has announced the opening of the 2022 round of Youth Serve Montana Scholarships.
These $1200 scholarships are awarded to incoming college freshmen, current high school seniors, who have completed at least 50 hours of volunteering in the prior 12 months and who plan to attend an MTCC Affiliate campus.
A Better Way Forward: Innovation with Equity at the Center
March 29-31, 2022 | Online
Compact22 is Campus Compact's all-virtual 2022 national conference. It is the largest and most inclusive national conference focused on the role of higher education in building healthy communities and fostering a just and equal democracy.
Sessions explore topics such as civic engagement, community-engaged research, civic- and service-learning, institutional change, university-community partnerships, and more.
Compact22 provides resources, professional development, networking opportunities, and inspiration to community engagement professionals, engaged faculty, community partners, student civic leaders, and campus senior leaders to help them create the positive change we seek.
"If we get back to normal we will have failed. We come together to imagine a better way forward, mobilizing the power of higher education to drive innovation, build connections, and create a new normal centered in equity and justice."
Campus Compact’s 2021-2022 national webinar series
Campus Compact’s National Webinar series returns for 2021-2022 with more to support and inspire you. Topics touch on issues of relevance to faculty, staff, students, and their partners in education and community building. Be sure to tune in to each session for information, tools, and resources to help you in your work.
Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in New York City
by Andrea Elliott
The riveting, unforgettable story of a girl whose indomitable spirit is tested by homelessness, poverty, and racism in an unequal America—from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Andrea Elliott of The New York Times.
Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)
by The Darkness
"Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)" is a single released by British hard rock band The Darkness. The single was released on 15 December 2003, to fall in with the UK Christmas Number One Race, ultimately finishing runner-up. The track was later included on a "Christmas Edition" of their debut studio album, Permission to Land, issued in some areas of Europe on 22 December 2003.
Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement - The mission of the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement is to serve as the premier peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal to advance theory and practice related to all forms of outreach and engagement between higher education institutions and communities.
Journal of Service-Learning in Higher Education - The Journal of Service-Learning in Higher Education is an online, international, peer-reviewed journal for the dissemination of original research regarding effective institutional-community partnerships. Our primary emphasis is to provide an outlet for sharing the methodologies and pedagogical approaches that lead to effective community-identified outcomes.
Partnerships: A Journal of Service-Learning and Civic Engagement - Partnerships recognizes that successful engaged learning depends on effective partnerships between students, faculty, community agencies, administrators, disciplines, and more. The articles in this peer-reviewed journal focus on how theories and practices can inform and improve such partnerships, connections, and collaborations.
Podcasts
Campus Compact Podcast - Bring higher education community engagement on the go with Compact Nation Podcast! Tune in bi-weekly for conversations with leading community engagement professionals and discussions of new research and innovative work in the field.
Hidden Brain - Hidden Brain explores the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior and questions that lie at the heart of our complex and changing world.
The Way Forward - The Way Forward features conversations between an array of academic leaders and faculty innovators. The conversations range from visions of engaged, "outside-in" universities committed to their communities, to proposals that center "wicked problems," not disciplinary 101's, at the heart of general education, to stories of successful institutional transformation in the face of fiscal, racial, and health crises.
Stuff You Should Know - If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime, and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Resources and Toolkits
Benefits of Civic and Community Engagement Primer - The Primer on the Benefits and Value of Civic & Community Engagement in Higher Education, was created by the NC Campus Compact Community of Practice, Inquiry & Learning (COPIL). COPIL is comprised of practitioner-scholars interested in being part of the ongoing inquiry that is helping to establish promising practices of civic and community engagement and to build a knowledge base around it.
Campus Compact Knowledge Hub: Community-Engaged Teaching and Learning In the Time of COVID - Campus Compact’s Fusion Course aims to provide critical training and support for faculty as they adapt to online teaching and offers instruction for how to integrate community engagement methodologies into existing curricula to improve the quality of course delivery and foster student engagement.
Civic Action Plan Library - Civic Action Plans from Campus Compact’s 30th Anniversary Action Statement initiative. We are consistently updating the CAP Library as new plans are submitted, so check back often to view the bold approaches our member campuses are taking to further the public purposes of higher education.
Community-Based Global Learning Collaborative - Through a network of educational institutions and community organizations, The Collaborative advances ethical, critical, and aspirationally de-colonial community-based learning and research for more just, inclusive, and sustainable communities. The Collaborative is hosted in the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship at Haverford College, and funded through member contributions.
Daily Chatter World Newsletter - Campus Compact is proud to partner with DailyChatter to provide independent, non-partisan, global news for free to our member institutions. We hope that this daily newsletter provides a deeper understanding of global issues and inspires more nuanced conversations about what’s happening in the world around us.
Virtual Volunteer Resource Collection - To help students, we have compiled a collection of virtual volunteering opportunities – this resource includes non-profits, search engines, news articles, research papers, videos, and software links.
Training
Campus Compact Virtual Dialogue Training - Campus Compact is pleased to share this offering for faculty, community engagement professionals, and others interested in using the deliberative dialogue method as an educational tool for building student capacity to engage in thoughtful, constructive, and critical discussions of public questions.
YouTube
Campus Compact Webinar Series - Campus Compact’s webinars take the great and varied work happening on the ground around the country and bring it straight to your desk.
TED Talks - TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment, and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages. Meanwhile, independently run TEDx events to help share ideas in communities around the world.
Story to Share? Send it to Us!
The MTCC Network Office wants to share your good news! Especially those pieces related to campus-community partnership, civic engagement, service-learning, volunteerism, and democracy.
Email your story ideas, or ready-made pieces to Pete Buchanan at buchanan@mtcompact.org to get them included in the monthly newsletter, regularly seen by education and community leaders across Montana.
