Summary
Our Values
Community, Learning, Equity, Collaboration, Compassion, and Justice
Our Mission
To connect Mason students and faculty with community to support student learning and the development of civically engaged and well -rounded scholars committed to positive social change through partnership with community.
Our Vision
By embedding community and civic engagement into academic and co-curricular experiences, we will equip students with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to:
- Understand themselves as agents of change.
- Identify and disrupt racist practices.
- Work collaboratively towards positive social change.
Source: CECiL website
OnAir Post: CECiL – Community Engagement and Civic Learning
About
Source: Mason Impact Website
A Mason Impact + CECiL experience provides students with the opportunity to make connections between multi-disciplinary knowledge and community change, to understand their role as citizens of the world, and to act to address challenging global problems in partnership with the community.
In an MI + CECiL experience students should engage in:
- Application of theory, skills, or knowledge into community contexts
- Exploration of ways of working towards social change
- Place and issue education to understand community and root causes
- Critical reflection on their community engaged experience
Student projects in an MI + CECiL course or co-curricular experience may come in many forms, some example project types include:
- Community engaged learning and research projects
- Capacity building efforts like volunteer management, program development, curriculum development, fundraising, and communication projects
- Community organizing, activism, and advocacy efforts
- Participation in political processes, policy making, and public governance
The learning outcomes for a MI + CECiL course:
- Understand knowledge creation: Students will understand how knowledge is generated and communicated, and how it can be used to address questions or problems in disciplines and in society.
- Engage multiple perspectives: Students will be able to identify and negotiate multiple perspectives, work collaboratively within and across multiple social and environmental contexts, and engage ethically with their subject and with others.
- Investigate a meaningful question: Students will use inquiry skills to articulate a question; engage in an inquiry process; and situate the concepts, practices, or results within a broader context.
- Complete a project: Students will design and carry out an individual or collaborative project that explores an original question, seeks a creative solution to a problem, applies knowledge to a professional challenge, or offers a unique perspective. Students engage deeply in this original work.
- Communicate and share outcomes: Students will communicate knowledge from their project through presentation, publication, or performance to an audience beyond the classroom.
Welcome statement
Welcome to the George Mason Office of Community Engagement and Civic Learning (CECIL). Whether you are a student, community partner, faculty or staff member, our hope is that this website is an important tool to help you learn more about the range of programs, campus partners, and initiatives that demonstrate Mason’s dedication to community engagement and civic learning.
Formally launched in 2021 as part of Mason’s Quality Enhancement Plan titled “Transformative Education through Anti-Racist Community Engagement”, the CECiL Office seeks to provide opportunities for members of the Mason community to engage in intentional, meaningful, and reciprocal collaborations with community organizations. Some of these opportunities may take place in the context of an academic course through community-based learning, others may be through co-curricular programs like Civic Fellows, Engaged Summer, or Mason Votes. All CECiL programs are designed to deepen student and faculty engagement with community-based organizations and civic learning connected to Mason’s broader goals around anti-racism and inclusive excellence.
Since its founding, George Mason University has committed to graduating engaged and well-rounded scholars who are prepared to act, and our newly launched CECiL Office is an embodiment of that commitment. Our CECiL team is here as a resource to help you explore civic and community engagement, identify ways to get involved with issues you are passionate about, and to connect those passions with academic and career interests. We look forward to learning and collaborating with you across campus and in our communities.
In partnership,
Kristen Wright
Director, Office of Community Engagement and Civic Learning
Shauna Rigaud
Associate Director for Student Programs, Office of Community Engagement and Civic Learning
Cara Snider
Program Manager for Engaged Learning, Office of Community Engagement and Civic Learning
Source: CECiL website
What is Civic Engagement?
Civic engagement is the collaboration between Mason faculty, staff, students, alumni, and the community for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge, resources and service in the context of partnership and reciprocity.
Mason’s broad definition of civic engagement is intended to include the various ways our students, faculty, and partners collaborate to enact positive social change in their communities.
Two resources that inform our definition of civic engagement: Pathways of Public Service & Civic Engagement from Stanford University and the Social Change Wheel from Minnesota Campus Compact.
Critical Reflection
The Four C’s of Critical Reflection is one of the core components of community-based learning as they bridge in class learning with service experiences and encourages students to think critically about root causes, applications of their service and class material, power, privilege, and their role in society.
Continuous
Reflections should be ongoing and regular. They should be expected as a regular occurrence by students in the course.
Connected
Reflections should be connected to the academic learning outcomes of the course. Theories discussed in the classroom can and should be translated to real life.
Challenging
Reflections should urge students to think in a different way, ask different and difficult questions, and to get out of their comfort zone. Reflections should create dissonance and give students an opportunity to think differently about the issues, themselves, and the community.
Contextualized
Reflections should occur with context in mind. Relate reflections back to current affairs and the experiences students are involve in through service.
Principles of Partnerships
Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) developed a list of Guiding Principles for Authentic Partnership that serve as a foundation for developing campus-community partnerships.
- The Partnership forms to serve a specific purpose and may take on new goals over time.
- The Partnership agrees upon mission, values, goals, measurable outcomes and processes for accountability.
- The relationship between partners in the Partnership is characterized by mutual trust, respect, genuineness, and commitment.
- The Partnership builds upon identified strengths and assets, but also works to address needs and increase capacity of all partners.
- The Partnership balances power among partners and enables resources among partners to be shared.
- Partners make clear and open communication an ongoing priority in the Partnership by striving to understand each other’s needs and self-interests, and developing a common language.
- Principles and processes for the Partnership are established with the input and agreement of all partners, especially for decision-making and conflict resolution.
- There is feedback among all stakeholders in the Partnership, with the goal of continuously improving the Partnership and its outcomes.
- Partners share the benefits of the Partnership’s accomplishments.
- Partnerships can dissolve, and when they do, need to plan a process for closure.
- Partnerships consider the nature of the environment within which they exist as a principle of their design, evaluation, and sustainability.
- The Partnership values multiple kinds of knowledge and life experiences.
Pathways to Public Service and Civic Engagement
Mason is a member of Stanford University’s Pathways of Public Service and Civic Engagement Working Group.
The Pathways, describing how we can contribute to the common good, pathways intersect, demonstrating the interdependent nature of working toward social change.
There is no one single path and people move in and out of these pathways over time and in different contexts.
The Six Pathways
- Community Engaged Learning and Research: Connecting coursework and academic research to community-identified concerns to enrich knowledge and inform action on social issues.
- Community Organizing and Activism: Involving, educating, and mobilizing individual or collective action to influence or persuade others.
- Direct Service: Working to address the immediate needs of individuals or a community, often involving contact with the people or places being served.
- Philanthropy: Donating or using private funds or charitable contributions from individuals or institutions to contribute to the public good.
- Policy and Governance: Participating in political processes, policymaking, and public governance.
- Social Entrepreneurship and Corporate Social Responsibility: Using ethical business or private sector approaches to create or expand market-oriented responses to social or environmental problems
Web Links
Faculty Resources
Source: CECiL website
CECiL creates, enhances, and coordinates partnerships for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge, resources and service. Our office can assist with all aspects of community based learning courses.
Create a Community-Based Learning Course
- At the beginning of the semester, either the instructor or the students will provide a Community Based Learning Agreement Form. This form is intended to foster a good initial discussion about the expectations of the project and the intended learning objectives.
- Mid-semester your organization will be contacted to confirm the student(s) are meeting the expectations of the planned project.
- At the end of the semester, the primary supervisor of the student(s) involved will be asked to complete an evaluation form. This information helps students assess their performance and helps faculty with continual course improvement.
- If the project was a positive one for you, and the course is offered again in the future, the process can continue its cycle again in subsequent semesters.
Forms Overview
When students will be working on-site with a community partner, some paperwork is needed to assure that the students, instructor and community partner have the same understanding of the nature of the project. This paperwork is not necessary when students work off-site on a deliverable for the community partner (e.g. designing a donor database or new website). Any tours or site-visits should appear in the course syllabus, no further paperwork is necessary.
Other Considerations
- Work can be completed onsite or in a remote setting depending on the project
Community-Engaged Research
CECIL pushes for institutional funding and support for community-engaged research and scholarship. We can help you with your research partnership with a community group.
Reaching Out
The Faculty Learning Community on Community Engaged Research and Scholarship (CEnRS) conducts mutually beneficial research and scholarship with the community. We define it as collaborative and democratized knowledge creation that shifts traditional concepts of power.
This concept includes stakeholders who are closest to or most affected by issues, problems, programs, policies in the research process.
This work includes research being conducted in a community and research directed by a community, an approach that builds on equity, justice, and peace.
In this case, it’s oriented toward positive social change.
CEnRS also advocates for increased institutional funding and support for community-engaged research and scholarship.
Course Designations
Learn more about getting your course a Mason Impact course designation
Faculty members can apply for 3 different types of community and civic engagement course designations through Mason Impact:
CL (Civic Learning): Courses that incorporate civic learning into readings, assignments, or discussions throughout the course. Civic Learning includes knowledge, skills, and commitments to interact effectively with others and both participate in and improve their communities and the broader society.
CBL (Community-Based Learning): Courses that have a community-based learning or service-learning component where students engage in meaningful service connected to their course learning objectives and that respond to community identified needs
MI+CE (Mason Impact Civic Engagement): Courses that engage students in the process of asking and answering an original question in partnership with a community organization
Students
Become part of CECIL by working with your community to become a leader, take a course that makes a change, and collaborate with your surrounding communtiy all while receiving funding.
You can:
- Become a Bonner Leader
- Find a local community partner to volunteer
- Enroll in a Community Based Learning course
- Collaborate with a regional organization
- Apply for funding
By participating in community and civic learning experience you have the opportunity to:
- Expand your professional network. This experience could provide contacts and professional references, and increase career opportunities. You might also be able to join a professional organization or gain an internship.
- Connect your career interests with social justice issues. Gain experience in a field of interest and learn how your profession can contribute to meaningful change.
- Increase your professional skill set. Improve your communication and organizational abilities, learn how to work as part of a team, how to plan, and how to listen to and center community voice.
Community Partners
Source: CECiL website
Students who participate in community-based learning are not only committed to service as part of their academic requirements, but they are also engaged in meaningful reflection and academic learning that deepens their connection to the service.
If your organization is interested in hosting students for semester-long service opportunities connected to an academic course, please email Kristen Wright, Director of Civic Engagment.
In a community-based learning course, the instructor, student, and community partner work together to match course learning objectives with agency service needs.
- In some cases the instructor and community partner co-create the service project and present it to students in the course
- In other cases, the learning objectives are established by the instructor and student, then fine tuned through a discussion between the student and community partner.
We encourage all community partners to view their role as co-educators in the community-based learning course. Your expertise and experience provide critical learning for students about the practical applications of their academic learning and ethical implications of working with communities.
