University Creates New Community Engagement Office

The University has announced the creation of an Office of Community Engagement. Spurred by the growth of the Bonner and Canale service internship programs in the College and the establishment of the South Cumberland Plateau VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) Program, the new office will work to meet the growing needs of students and expand the University’s relationships with other community organizations.

The Office of Community Engagement is composed of three staff members. Jim Peterman, professor of philosophy and director of Community Engagement, will continue to direct Community-Engaged Learning, the academic community engagement program, as well as the Bonner Leaders service internship program.

Nicky Hamilton, C’99, associate director of Community Engagement, will direct the South Cumberland Plateau VISTA Program and also assist the South Cumberland Community Fund to develop the capacity of community organizations to alleviate poverty. In this unique role, she will use her practical and academic training at the Clinton School of Pubic Service to help faculty and students understand how students can engage in the wide variety of facets of community engagement as a central component of their education in which they learn optimal ways of making a difference in their communities.

Robin Hille Michaels, assistant director of Community Engagement, will continue work with students through the Bonner Leaders Service Internship Program and the Canale Service Internship Program. In working closely with students and community partners to place students in community organizations, she helps Sewanee service interns develop professional skills and social understanding commensurate with the demands of their service projects.

The Community Engagement Office will work with its community partners to understand needs in the three-county area (Franklin, Grundy and Marion counties); what organizations (churches, clinics, schools) are invested in addressing those needs; what community-based research projects may assist; and how to align resources, including student internships, in support of those organizations and community-based research projects. In doing so, the new office seeks to support the University’s purpose to help students lead lives of “achievement and service” in local communities.

Given the burgeoning community engagement activity at the University by students, faculty and staff (sometimes with multiple groups reaching out to the same community organizations), the time is right to administer these community partnerships through an office that is aware of and able to monitor all of the programmatic relationships, and ensures that they are not only sustainable but also beneficial to Sewanee students and the local communities hosting them. 

The current community engagement plan and the University’s 2012 Strategic Plan envisioned the development of an Office of Community Engagement in its role in coordinating student opportunities “to learn about, and learn from, the variety of populations and their experiences, both locally and internationally. Many of the intractable problems facing the world—food security, poverty, public health, climate change and conflict—have local and global dimensions.” The opening of this office fulfills that goal.

Sewanee’s VISTA program came from a deepening of the University’s relationship to local community organizations and especially to the South Cumberland Community Fund, a co-sponsor and co-funder of this program. The VISTA program is also underwritten in part by the Jessie Ball duPont Fund. The program is also supported by a grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service.

For more information contact Peterman by email, <jfpeterm@sewanee.edu>.