Community Engagement
Trinity College defines community engagement as collaboration between the College and its broader community for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources. Community engagement aims to generate positive impact by enriching research and creative endeavors; enhancing teaching and learning; and addressing critical societal issues (adapted from the Carnegie Foundation, 2011). Engagements are co-created with community partners, a term that refers to any local, national, or global individual or organization that partners with students, staff, faculty, or the College as an institution (adapted from Stanford University’s Principles of Ethical and Effective Service). At Trinity, partners in our home city of Hartford are particularly important. In pursuing community engagement, Trinity aims to uphold the following principles:
- Mutual Benefit: Design reciprocal exchanges of knowledge and resources that benefit both community and campus constituents, building trust through sustained relationships.
- Mutual Respect: Respect the knowledge and strengths of diverse communities, especially in our city of Hartford. Promote an assets-based view of community contexts, rejecting ideologies of saviorism.
- Justice: Actively confront forms of oppression, including racism and classism, reflecting on differing historical experiences of power and privilege.
- Equity: Promote sustained College financial investment in community engagement and equitable access to campus space. Compensate community partners for their time and expertise as co-educators.
- Accountability: Generate flexible opportunities for reflection, feedback, and evaluation among all participants, including owning up to and repairing damage from missteps.
Creating this definition
In 2022, the Urban Engaged Learning (UEL) faculty group consisting of the Directors of the Center for Caribbean Studies, Center for Hartford Engagement and Research, Center for Urban and Global Studies, and Smart Cities Lab in cooperation with the Chief of Staff and Associate Vice President for External Affairs, developed principles for an institutional statement on community engagement. Trinity’s Center for Hartford Engagement and Research (CHER) employed these principles to develop its guidance on ethical and effective community engagement. That document was informed by both the UEL process and CHER’s 2021 evaluation, which included over 80 interviews with community partners, faculty, and students, followed by two dialogue events including over 100 campus and community participants – and was finalized through feedback from CHER’s community advisory board and community learning faculty with further input from the UEL group.
Faculty members of the UEL who developed this definition include: Dario Euraque and Eric Galm (Center for Caribbean Studies), Abby Fisher Williamson (Center for Hartford Engagement and Research), Garth Myers (Center for Urban and Global Studies), and Davarian Baldwin (Smart Cities Lab).