WHAT IS "ARE YOU COMMUNITY ENGAGED?"
Help us write the story about UTA’s work with the community!
Did you know the UTA Strategic Plan, Shared Dreams Bright Future, has an intentional focus on community?
Join us as we launch our new sustainable initiative to enhance and elevate community engagement at UTA!
WHAT IS COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT?
Community engagement is collaboration between institutions of higher education and their external communities (locally, regionally, nationally, and globally) in a context of partnership and reciprocity for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources that contributes to the public good. (Source: American Council of Education, Elective Classification for Community Engagement)
HOW DO YOU BECOME COMMUNITY ENGAGED?
- Since spring 2020, UTA architecture students and faculty have been engaging with the Joppa resists to find out what they prioritize in a community center. Joppa, a historically neglected neighborhood, with the help of community engagement from UTA is now in the process of raising fund to make their new community come to life.
- UTA CAPPA class is building affordable homes for older residents in effort to combat rising market rental prices and the fixed income of senior citizens. Brad McCorkle, adjunct assistant professor of architecture and adviser in the design/build program praises the importances of these efforts
“This project combines what students have learned in the classroom with practical, on-the-job experience in designing
and building something that will answer some senior living challenges like finding affordable housing options,”
Here are examples of how you can be community engaged. If your experiences align with these, please report them to us. If you want to learn how you can become community engaged, check out the resources under the quick links or contact us.
WE NEED TO KNOW…ARE YOU COMMUNITY ENGAGED?
We know that UTA faculty and staff collaborate with community partners through service learning, campus-community volunteerism, service on nonprofit boards and committees, collaboration on grants, and more. Think about your community engaged activities over the past year, how your work fits within the goals of the strategic plan, then REPORT you service learning projects; student internships; your work on community boards, grants projects and programming with community partners, and other reciprocal partnerships HERE.
If you have any questions or comment email areYOUengaged@uta.edu.
The Center for Service Learning is the hub for community engaged data collection for the university.
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Faculty Community Engagement Stories
Through incorporating a service learning activity into his courses, Professor Geoff Campbell is helping to fill the gaps in news coverage in the Arlington area and giving his students the opportunity to add published news articles to their resumes. Students in three of his courses work on stories that deal with the Arlington community.
“Despite sitting in the middle of a Top 5 media market, Arlington lacks sustained coverage,” leading Prof. Campbell to launch his initiative, The Arlington Sentinel, in Spring 2022. This publication provides journalism students with experiential learning opportunities in community journalism. “I thought we could create something that would provide students with learning experiences that allowed them the opportunity to gain published work while also providing coverage of a largely ignored community,” says Prof. Campbell. In Fall 2023, the initiative expanded to incorporate television broadcast students into the Sentinel family. Students, under the direction of Dr. Vinicio Sinta and Professor Julian Rodriguez, produce weekly newscasts in both English and Spanish.