Community of Practice

A community of practice is a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do, and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.
– Etienne Wenger-Trayner

For the past several years, the community-engaged scholarship team at the Haas Center for Public Service has convened an ad hoc network comprising representatives from units across the university that have a shared interest in forging strong community partnerships for teaching, learning and research. The 2012 Study of Undergraduate Education at Stanford (SUES) made recommendations for campus innovations that expand the options for community engaged learning. As the implementation of these recommendations began, the group continued to coalesce to broaden the discussion of community-engaged scholarship and to better coordinate and enhance community engaged learning opportunities.

This community of practice strives to achieve the following goals:

• Foster collaboration and communication between different units on campus involved in service-learning and community-based research;
• Advance our shared understanding of community-engaged scholarship and share resources for effective practice;
• Identify and implement innovations that enhance service-learning and community-based research practice, particularly those that:

                1) Improve student learning through service-learning and community-based research
                2) Improve community outcomes through service-learning and community-based research;

• Expand awareness and recognition of service-learning and community-based research as a means for transforming teaching, learning, and research.

2014-15 Community of Practice

• Jorge De Luna, Office of Community Health
• Deland Chan, Urban Studies
• Nadia De Leon, Center for Comparative Studies of Race and Ethnicity
• Suzanne Gaulocher, VPUE Director of Community Engaged Learning–Health
• Mary Hofstedt, John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities
• Carol McKibben, History
• Katherine Preston, Human Biology
• Thomas Schnaubelt, Haas Center for Public Service/VPUE
• Luke Terra, Associate Director of Community Engaged Learning–Education
• Sarah Truebe, VPUE Director of Community Engaged Learning–Environmental Sustainability