Community Learning in the Curriculum

Academic year 2003-04 was a banner year for CLI, with a total of 34 courses incorporating a community learning component.  This is the most ever offered at Trinity.  According to the Office of Institutional Research, in 2003 half of graduating seniors had taken one or more CLI courses. 

CLI is moving more deeply and centrally into the College's curriculum.  For example, the newly redesigned Hispanic  Studies major will feature a required course called Hispanic Hartford, which will involve students in a variety of community-based projects.  Senior seminar students in the new Environmental Science major will undertake a community learning project, and courses with a community component are required for Educational Studies majors.  Community learning has also been embraced by special curricular programs: the InterArts Gateway Program incorporates a community project in a required course, and the Tutorial College encourages and supports individual, academically relevant community projects throughout the year.  Both the Human Rights and Health and Human Rights Programs have, since their inception, incorporated community learning into their courses.  The Community Action Minor, approved in 2000, combines classes in theory, method, and application within concentrations on the arts, community development, democratic and public theory, environmental studies, public health, or social movements and social change.             

During academic year 2004-5, courses with community learning components will once again be flagged in the course listings to make them easier to find.  In addition, CLI will join with other units on campus to sponsor a series of lectures and workshops on themes ranging from creating products for community groups to doing advocacy and communicating with public audiences. 

Brainstorming Lunches:

The Community Learning Initiative continues to host Brainstorming Lunches open to all faculty who are interested in discussing past, present, and future CLI courses. These sessions are lively and informal, allowing faculty to explore new ideas, proclaim successes, and discuss problems. Brainstorming Lunches for this coming semester will take place on October 4th and December 2nd.

Grants:

CLI awarded seven course development grants this year.  They went to Anne Lambright, Gustavo Remedi, Gail Woldu, Michael Heaney, Naogan Ma, Thomas Thornton, and Clare Rossini.  CL grants will be available again next year.  For more information about future grant opportunities contact Elly Jacobson at x4275 or Jim Trostle at x2564.

Collecting information:

CLI staff continued holding student focus groups during the academic year to discuss specific concerns and interests about community learning.  CL faculty nominated students from their courses to participate in these groups.  The students provided concrete and helpful suggestions, including the importance of making CLI course opportunities more widely known.   

Student evaluation forms were received from almost all CL courses, and copies were returned to all faculty who submitted them.  The Office of Institutional Research is analyzing the past three semesters of student evaluations and consulting with the CLI Advisory Group to design some new evaluations. 

Trinity faculty and CLI staff continue to meet with Learning Corridor faculty and administrators to discuss strengthening the partnership between the campuses. The discussions have yielded further collaborations between Trinity and the Learning Corridor. Small grants were announced on both campuses to underwrite collaborative projects, and a number of jointly designed projects have taken place ranging from art shows to robotics competitions.