Nine Complete UW Community Engaged Faculty Institute Program

Nine University of Wyoming faculty members recently completed the inaugural Community Engaged Faculty Institute program.

The institute is designed to align with UW’s recent Carnegie Foundation designation as a “community engaged” campus. The institute provides faculty with a road map to create or redesign courses that integrate service learning and community engagement at UW.

“Each session had a different focus, such as how to identify and work with community partners to promote mutually beneficial learning goals and relationships,” says Erin Olsen Pueblitz, director of community engagement within the Office of Engagement and Outreach. “We were impressed with the projects each faculty member worked on over the semester. Students will greatly benefit from these courses by applying their academic knowledge to hands-on experiences where the community partner serves as a co-educator.”

The Office of Engagement and Outreach; Malcolm Wallop Civic Engagement Program; Stewart Family Enrichment Fund; and Service, Leadership and Community Engagement (SLCE) office helped coordinate the program.

The 2023-24 Community Engaged Faculty Institute cohort members were represented from the following departments and schools:

-- Ahmed Abdelaty, Civil and Architectural Engineering and Construction Management.

-- Melanie Armstrong, Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources.

-- Dan Fetsco, Criminal Justice and Sociology.

-- Jenny Ingwerson-Niemann, Animal Science.

-- Rosemary McBride, School of Teacher Education.

-- Elizabeth Minton, Management and Marketing.

-- Meagan Ricks, Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources.

-- Bénédicte Sohier, Modern and Classical Languages.

-- Jenifer Thomas, Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing.

Faculty projects included infusing service learning into a wide range of course content, including soils and concrete; World Languages Day; criminal justice internship program; online asynchronous advanced marketing management; facilitation of health prevention programs; applications in equine reproduction; capstone in environment and natural resources; community programs in agricultural education; and a course on program planning, design and delivery.

“The variety of new courses representing seven UW colleges will create exciting new service and community engagement opportunities for students across campus -- two central goals of both the Stewart Family Enrichment Fund and Wallop Civic Engagement Program,” says Jean Garrison, a professor of international studies and political science.

Richard Raridon, assistant director of SLCE; Shelby Kennedy, SLCE senior project coordinator; Janel Seeley, executive director of the Ellbogen Center for Teaching and Learning; Dilnoza Khasilova, assessment/SoTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) specialist of the Ellbogen Center for Teaching and Learning; Anna Cramer, United Way of Albany County executive director; and Josh Watanabe, Laramie Interfaith executive director, were major supporters of this year’s institute.

For information about the 2024-25 Community Engaged Faculty Institute application process, email Olsen Pueblitz at olsenek@uwyo.edu.