What is Community-Engaged Learning?
Community-Engaged Learning – CEL (#290) is a community-based and experiential educational opportunity aimed to enhance learning, through community engagement. In the CEL experience, students learn more about social issues, work alongside community partners, combine their off-campus learning with guided reflection under the mentorship of a faculty sponsor, and participate in critical reflection workshops with the OCEL. Students are eligible to receive either 0.5 unit (40 hours of community-based work and 30 hours of academic work) or 1.0 unit of academic credit (80 hours of community-based work and 60 hours of academic work) in the department of their faculty sponsor. The OCEL upholds the College’s commitment to providing an accessible and inclusive learning environment. Please contact the office if you need any accommodations.
The Office of Community-Engaged Learning (OCEL) aims to build long-term, asset-based partnerships with community organizations based in Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County, and the greater Hudson Valley. The OCEL connects students, community partners, and faculty community-identified projects to deepen classroom learning, build capacity at community organizations, and empower students to become active change agents in their communities.
The OCEL’s pedagogical workshops and trainings are grounded in critical community-engaged learning, which centers self-awareness and critical thinking, critical analysis skills of the root causes of social issues, and the supporting the development of students’ knowledge, tools, and agency to create a more equitable and just world.
Meet with us!
Make an appointment with Elizabeth here
Make an appointment with Jean here
Make an appointment with Sophie here
Make an appointment with Jayda here
Make an appointment with Stuart here
Email ocel@vassar.edu to set up an appointment if you cannot find any appointment slots that fit your schedule.
Land Acknowledgment
We acknowledge that Vassar stands upon the homelands of the Munsee Lenape, Indigenous peoples who have an enduring connection to this place despite being forcibly displaced by European colonization.
Munsee Lenape peoples continue today as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community in Wisconsin, the Delaware Tribe and the Delaware Nation in Oklahoma, and the Munsee Delaware Nation in Ontario. This acknowledgment, however, is insufficient without our reckoning with the reality that every member of the Vassar community since 1861 has benefited from these Native peoples’ displacement, and it is hollow without our efforts to counter the effects of structures that have long enabled—and that still perpetuate—injustice against Indigenous Americans. To that end, we commit to build and sustain relationships with Native communities; to expand opportunities at Vassar for Native students, as well as Native faculty and other employees; and to collaborate with Native nations to know better the Indigenous peoples, past and present, who care for this land.
https://www.vassar.edu/land-acknowledgment
Civic Engagement
Are you interested in learning more about voting as a member of the Vassar community? Vassar Votes is an initiative by the Office of Community-Engaged Learning to ensure everyone has the resources to participate in the democratic process. Learn more here.
Follow @VassarVotes on Instagram and Facebook to stay up to date with news and resources on the voting process.
Stay Connected with the OCEL:
Follow OCEL on Instagram and Facebook.
Subscribe to The OCEL Newsletter here.