Community-engaged Courses

Faculty

Graduate and undergraduate courses can be designated as community-engaged through an approval process managed by the Graduate Council and Baccalaureate Council, respectively.

Once implemented, students will be able to see community-engaged course designation in MyNIU and in the graduate catalog and undergraduate catalog.

Paths for Community-engaged (CE) Course Designation

Faculty must first complete this application to apply to have a course designated as community engaged for a section or for the course. A committee of faculty and staff review the applications for section level and course level designation.

Section-level Designation

If the section is approved, the designation will appear in MyNIU for the next semester that the course is offered only.

Course-level Designation

In addition to the application noted above, faculty must also submit a course change proposal through the curriculum platform. Course-level designation requires all instructors who teach that course to meet the criteria as a community-engaged course. It would remain designated in MyNIU until such time as the department requests to remove that designation. The deadline for the course change proposal follows the university curriculum deadlines for publication in the next academic catalog.

These courses will be evaluated on a three-year cycle, so the community-engaged designation can be removed if the course no longer adheres to the requirements.

Designation Requirements

All community-engaged designated courses must include all course components, identify and assess student learning outcomes and submit student assessment results. We will solicit feedback from community partners.

Course Components

To be designated, courses must include the following four components:

• Evidence of working with a community partner (nonprofit organization, business, campus partner, government entity, etc.) Campus partners do not replace working with a community partner external to NIU.
• Students are engaging with issues relevant to the community partner, integrating theory with practice.
• The engagement is intentional and has mutual benefit for the community partner and the students.
• Students use guided reflection to identify and explain their learning and growth as a result of the experience.

Learning Outcomes

To be designated, the course must include at least one learning outcome in two of four Community Engaged Learning Goals (knowledge, skills, disposition, participation) and the instructor must describe how each learning outcome will be assessed in the course. These student learning outcomes should also be included in the course syllabus.

Please review our Community Engaged Learning Goals rubric for more information. VALUE rubrics for each of the 10 learning outcomes are available from the American Association of Colleges and Universities.

The course syllabus should also state that the course is designated as community-engaged so students can understand the expectations of working with a community partner.

Assessment

When submitting a course for designation, the instructor will provide details about how assessment and feedback will be gathered from students. Student assessment data on the selected student learning outcomes will be reported at the conclusion of each semester that the course is offered.

We will also solicit feedback from community partners at the conclusion of each semester that the course is offered. Community partner feedback will be reported to the Baccalaureate Council.