Community engagement resources
- Student Community Engagement Core Competencies and Training Resources: This resource lists competencies students are expected to develop as part of community engagement learning. It includes safety, ethics, reflection, identity, and career learning support.
- First Few Days Checklist for Community Placements: A simple guide to help students navigate their first few days in a community setting, clarify expectations, build relationships, and begin reflective engagement.
- Risk Management for Students:
Livable City Year Student Guide
What to expect from your Livable City Year (LCY) course
Participating in a LCY project can be highly rewarding. It offers the opportunity to apply the disciplinary concepts and tools you are learning in class to a real issue with communities in Washington. Students who have collaborated on LCY projects have seen many benefits such as real experience in their field and honing high-demand employment competencies like teamwork and presentations. This preparation is extremely valuable for your next step after graduation: your career. Your work will move our community partner’s projects forward, helping them make progress toward their sustainability and planning goals. Even if you feel like your contribution is small, it is significant to our partner.
Community-engaged projects come with new challenges
Because LCY projects pull the messy real world into your classroom, you might be surprised how different it is from more traditional coursework. It may require more time than you’re used to putting in, and there will be ambiguity to navigate. It will be less predictable than textbooks and pre-defined labs; this may feel confusing and seem disorganized. Your professor and your LCY project lead collaboratively developed this project and its Scope of Work in advance of the term. You have a roadmap, and it works most of the time, but plan to experience unexpected detours along the way. We know that this can be frustrating. But it is worth the effort. The following points will help you succeed:
Anticipate Complexity and Ambiguity
The transition from solving textbook problems to working on real, complex projects with no known solution is challenging. You may face real-world data limitations, and you may face a somewhat unpredictable problem-solving process. Working with ambiguity is an important skill for your future career and life in general.
Practice Creativity, Initiative, Flexibility, and Patience
Because you are being asked to work on a project for which there is no known answer, you will need to think creatively, take the initiative to ask questions, seek out a variety of resources, and be persistent in your efforts. You will also need to be flexible — the information you want may not be available.
Communicate!
Communication for your project might include your community partner (if your instructor has set up direct communication), other individuals who are internal or external to your community partner, and your instructor. Please be professional with this outreach. Be both patient and persistent. Local government and university timelines and operations are different, so communication may take longer than you are used to. Also, people are often out of the office, busy with other responsibilities, and may need multiple (yet polite) follow-up emails or phone calls.
Seek Assistance to Stay on Track
Please don’t hesitate to reach out to your instructor right away if you are encountering obstacles or need additional support. The LCY program staff is also here to help.
Past LCY student quotes
“I learned more about how to engage community partners and connect with local government. I gained much more confidence in speaking about urban topics with key community members, and in writing about them. Not only did I improve in practical application of the material for this class, my ability to analyze and apply material and research in other classes improved also.”
“A project like LCY enables one to truly appreciate the difference between theory and practice. This increases the appreciation for the research and development in the field and motivates one to think hard about making choices, decisions and policies about sustainability.”
Past LCY Partner Quotes
“Your contributions have brought new energy and ideas to our local efforts and have been especially valuable in supporting our rural community’s long-term planning efforts and growth. The depth of research, innovation, and thoughtful recommendations presented by your students and faculty have already begun to influence our planning and development strategies across a number of key initiatives.” — Susan Yirku, Executive Director Pacific County Economic Development Council (PCEDC)
“Hi Professor Rottle, I’m one of the five elected commissioners on the Metro Parks board of Tacoma. Tacoma’s gulches have long been of interest to me as wildlife corridors and connecting trails between the neighborhoods. The thought-provoking ideas posed [by your students] have given me new ways of thinking about the opportunities we have and I will pass what I took from the presentations along to the rest of the board. With our planning already underway for Ruston Way and the waterfront, I think this will provide real benefits to our team at Metro Parks for thinking about further planning. I would love to see some of these ideas be eventually opened up to public input and maybe included in master plans. Thank you, and please pass on mine and the board’s appreciation to your students.” — Erik Hanberg, Commissioner Metro Parks Board of Tacoma
(LCY is thankful to the Sustainable City Year Program at the University of Oregon for developing this guide.)
