The benefits to a local government manager of engaging in a university partnership are numerous and may include the ability to utilize students as volunteers, recruit students as interns, gain assistance or expertise through faculty and student-assisted research, and access campus buildings for community-based events. This article, however, will focus exclusively on building partnerships to address a community need through classroom-based community-engaged learning opportunities. 

From a local government partner standpoint, this enables a local government partner to understand what is needed to co-create and support a successful community-engaged learning course. The deliverables are meant to strengthen the partnership, develop a meaningful learning experience for the students, and deliver an end-product that is both meaningful and useful for the instructor, student, and community.

Before proceeding further, a common definition of what community-engaged “learning” means is necessary. The University of Northern Colorado describes community-engaged learning as needing to meet the following four conditions^[1] . The first requires educational strategies that are woven into the course objectives, and those course objectives are learned by working on projects with the community partner. The second requires any classroom skills to be put into practice within the community being served. Third, civic involvement and academic coursework need to be combined in a way that benefits both the student and the community. Fourth, students are perceived as adult learners, meaning they will work in a professional capacity with the community partner. 

To better understand what motivates and drives professors and instructors to engage in community partnerships, one needs to recognize the benefits of community engagement from a university perspective. Yamamura, E.K. & Koth, K (2018) found that over the past four decades, a community engagement movement has arisen on colleges and university campuses across the United States, “fueled by a desire to better educate students while positively contributing to communities” (p. 6). 

In fact, on a system level, many universities, including Indiana University, have emphasized the importance of community engagement. According to the IU website, the 2030 strategic plan consists of three core pillars, one of which is “Service to the State.^[2]” This pillar focuses on building partnerships, commitments, and engagements that are meant to strengthen the vitality of Indiana, the nation, and the world. 

The benefits of community-engaged learning go beyond a system-wide approach, offering direct benefits to students and faculty in the following manner:

Table 1: Benefits of Community-Engaged Learning for Students and Faculty[3]

Instructors interested in implementing community-engaged learning should also possess a fundamental understanding of their university’s capacity to support such efforts. For local government managers, this is equally important, as faculty involvement might be constrained by such factors as course format, length of course, or instructional modality. 

For instance, a local manager seeking to collaborate with a nearby university to conduct portions of in-person community engagement of a strategic plan may encounter limitations if the only courses that the university teaches are in an asynchronous and online modality. However, the university could still play a valuable role in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of community feedback after the in-person community sessions have concluded.

As Welsh, M. (2019) notes, additional factors that faculty at a university may consider before accepting a community-engaged learning element into the classroom include:

• Understanding the institutional history of the context and landscape around community engagement within their existing institution.
• Assessing the capacity of both instructor and student to contribute meaningfully, which could involve the expertise of the professor and student (i.e., Are they undergraduate or graduate level students? Will the class equip them with the necessary skills, or do they already possess them to complete the project?)
• Identifying courses that could naturally align with the community-engaged learning project and could the learning objectives from the CE project be easily incorporated into the overall learning objectives of the course.

Once all these factors have been considered, the next step is for the instructor and the community partner to meet to co-create the class and course deliverables. 

This closing section highlights some of the next crucial steps or “takeaways” that an instructor may follow to ensure the course is intentional in its ability to serve the client, students, and partners: 

Partnership formation and engagement 

• Listening to your partner's needs and establishing a set of mutually acceptable outputs and deliverables. This could include co-creating a “theory of change” to identify the methods by which you will achieve your course deliverables.  
• Creating an MOU with your partner to outline each other’s roles and responsibilities, while also identifying tangible deliverables at the end of the project.

Course design

• Develop the syllabus to include a service-based learning component, with the expected outputs and deliverables. Align the course goals with the community engagement component.
• Build out a detailed workbook with clear instructions for the community-engaged learning project for the students to be able to follow.
• Develop self-reflection and assessment assignments around the experiential service-based learning project.

During the course

• Conduct progress or mid-point check-ins with the client to ensure the student's work is in alignment with the client.  
• Conduct progress or mid-point check-ins with the students and conduct self-reflection and assessment assignments to ensure the students are meeting the learning objectives of the course.

Post course 

• Conduct an evaluation of the service-based learning project from both the students and the partners.
• Engage with the partners after the course is complete to assess and reflect upon the success of the project and partnership. 

In conclusion, understanding what is involved at the university level to co-create a successful university partnership and community-engaged learning course will hopefully help to create a better learning opportunity for the students, and create outcomes that are more meaningful for the local government partner. The goal is to create a stronger and more enduring partnership between local government and the university. 

 About the Author

Mitchell Berg, Ph.D., is a clinical assistant professor with the Paul H O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington.