Community Engagement 101

Towards more just teaching and collaborating

Community Engagement 101 is a curricular research project and a proposed introductory curriculum for faculty and TA/Teaching Fellow graduate students across The New School (TNS) who incorporate external engagement or partnership as a part of their syllabus. The curriculum hopes to fill a known gap in the teaching and learning of an institution that so explicitly claims an interest and strength in engaging with external communities in an ethical and equitable manner. As a part of this curricular research project, the team produced in-person and remote workshop modules at various lengths, developed an online asynchronous course accessible for teaching staff at the New School, and various resources available to the public on the Collaboratory website. The online course, “Foundations: Teaching and learning frameworks for Equitable Community Engagement”, launched in Spring 2025 with a 10-day intensive in June 2025.

The Community Engagement 101 project team is Evren Uzer (PI), Cynthia Lawson Jaramillo, and Michele Kahane, with contributions from Angelica Calabrese, Soraya Barar, Anupama Krishnan, Masoom Moitra, Callan Hajosy, Maanasa Sivashankar, Fareeha Shah, and Delaney Connor. The New School faculty, students, alumni, and external partners have contributed to the content and assessment of the project’s output. The project is funded by the Innovation in Education Fund (2019, 2021, and 2023), Student Research Assistant Fund (2019-2025, and Praxis Fund (2025) from the Provost’s Office, The New School, and supported by The New School Collaboratory.

Here, you will find some of the resources that we have developed, including:

Research summaries
Faculty presentations of their courses and community engagement experiences
Case studies of community engagement from various contexts
Faculty and practitioner reflections on community engagement.
Resources to adapt to your classroom, such as sets of reflections and prompts to consider before developing community-engaged courses
Collected readings and resources on facilitation and anti-oppression pedagogy