Faculty Resources

Community Engagement Class Designation

Designating a course as community-engaged is an opportunity to align your teaching with meaningful, real-world impact while advancing student learning outcomes. Faculty interested in pursuing a community engagement designation are encouraged to approach the process as both a planning and partnership effort, grounded in best practices for reciprocal, community-based learning. 

The Center for Community Impact and Office of Experiential Learning both offer support to help faculty in the course development and designation process. 

  • For support around conceptualization, community-engaged pedagogy, and developing community partnerships, please contact Dr. Jacqueline Yahn, CCI Faculty Fellow: yahnj@ohio.edu
  • For support regarding course designation processes, please contact Courtney Kessel, Director of Experiential Curriculum Integration: kesselc@ohio.edu

Faculty interested in developing a community engaged courses are also strongly encouraged to participate in the Community Engaged Scholars Program, a professional development program.

There are two types of course designations for community engaged courses at OHIO:

C-Courses

Service learning at OHIO is structured experiential education linked to a course that intentionally supports student learning and community-based organizations equally. The CCI assists faculty in the development of Community Engagement courses (C-Courses). For a service learning class to be designated as a C-Course, it must meet the following criteria:

  • Is based on collaboration and mutual benefit for faculty and community organizations
  • Serves the common good
  • Has service embedded in the course curriculum
  • Requires at least 20 hours of structured, intentional work on a community-engaged project
  • Requires reflections that link experience to academic material

Faculty interested in developing a Community-Engaged Course must login to GivePulse with their OHIO email and password and fill out the proposal form found here: https://ohio.givepulse.com/survey/take/Eu7hdDb5UzY2Hk3JPQTo 

Your proposal form will be reviewed by the the CCI and Office of Experiential Learning. When approved, you will be issued an endorsement letter that can be uploaded into OCEAN. 

If you have any questions while filling out the form, please contact the CCI at communityimpact@ohio.edu.

BRICKS Learning & Doing

An additional course designation demarcating a community engagement component is the General Education Bricks Learning & Doing designation, with a community engagement attribute. This designation is less rigorous than the full C-Course designation, and is a great starting point for instructors interested in integrating community engaged elements to their course. 

Connecting with Community Partners

The CCI can connect faculty with local experts, organizations, and agencies in the field to boost connection, create context, and inspire creativity in the academic environment.. Contact us directly to find out more about the variety of resources and opportunities available to Ohio University faculty on all campuses.

Community Partner Database: Browse OHIO's listing of affiliated community partner organizations on GivePulse. GivePulse allows you to filter by cause, or issue area, and you can also expand your search by zipcode to find partners in the platform beyond our existing network.

Community Partner Experts Directory  Local experts may be able to serve as guest speakers, provide field-based experiences, co-design field trips, or partner through community-based research. This directory is a great place to start if you are looking to add a community-engaged component to your class!

Project-Based Engagement Matching

The Center for Community Impact is piloting a new system to help faculty connect with community partners for project-based opportunity matching by sharing course needs to a master listing and inviting partners to submit real-world project ideas aligned with your learning goals. Built within GivePulse, this process functions similarly to a request for proposals (RFP), creating a structured and transparent way to source meaningful, course-aligned projects from the community.

Through this system, faculty post a brief “call for project proposals” outlining the scope of the course, desired project types, timelines, partner obligations, and any relevant parameters (e.g., student skill level, group size, deliverables, or community impact focus). Community organizations can then browse active calls, assess alignment with their needs, and submit project ideas for consideration.

To submit a proposal to solicit projects for your class, please login to GivePulse with your OHIO email and password and complete the form here: Submit your Class to Project-Based Engagement Opportunities | Ohio University

This approach is designed to:

  • Expand access to diverse, community-identified project opportunities
  • Ensure stronger alignment between course objectives and partner priorities
  • Streamline the process of identifying and vetting project ideas
  • Support equitable and reciprocal partnerships by inviting community voice early in the process

Faculty retain full discretion in selecting and shaping projects that best fit their course. The Center can provide guidance on drafting your call, reviewing submissions, and facilitating partner communication to help set projects up for success.

Questions? Please reach out to communityimpact@ohio.edu.

Resource Library

Access our Community Engagement resource guide at University Libraries for key organizations and scholarly articles.

Access Campus Compact, the nation’s higher education association dedicated to campus-based civic engagement, for a wealth of information and resources including program models, sample syllabi and assessment tools.

Visit our GivePulse page for information on upcoming workshops, trainings, and events!