Book Talk with Deepa Iyer, author of We are the Builders!

Join us at the С»Æ贫ý Southeast Library for a book talk with author, Deepa Iyer! Come learn about her new picture book, !

Deepa will engage in conversation with educators and С»Æ贫ý students, staff, and faculty around the themes of the book (social change & belonging) and how to utilize the book to introduce those same concepts to young children/readers.

The first 40 people in attendance will receive a free copy of the book (limit of 1 copy per household)

The book is available to  (physical copy and e-book options)!

About the Book

At a time when the world is so overwhelming, many of us – regardless of our age and experience – may not know what to do. is a new picture book about how we can all get involved in our communities by playing different roles. Written by Deepa Iyer in warm, inviting rhymes with vivid illustrations by Romina Galotta, We Are The Builders! is a gentle introduction for children (and their caregivers) to finding your place, helping each other, and changing your community.

• Publication date: September 2024
• Written by: Deepa Iyer
• Illustrated by: Romina Galotta
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• ISBN: 978-1665932431
• Age range: 3-7 years old
• Themes: Community Building, Belonging, Social Issues, Activism & Social Justice
• More info:

This event is sponsored by the Office of Civic Leadership Development and the Community-Based Learning Program in collaboration with the С»Æ贫ý Library.

About the Author

is a writer, strategist, and lawyer. She is currently the Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives at , where she builds projects, resources, and narratives around transformative solidarity practices.

Join us in reading . This recent publication encompasses current literature, practices, and practitioners’ experiences around curricular community engagement.

Together we will:

• Build solidarity and strengthen connections with colleagues.
• Gain new perspectives on community engagement, including framing and grounding the work, best practices, institutional support, and more.
• Articulate the value of community engagement as a high-impact practice that is transformational for students, faculty, and the communities we live and work in.
• Develop ideas that enhance our teaching and learning.
• Discuss how we can tackle the challenges and concerns of integrating CBL into our classes.

About the Book

This timely book addresses assumptions and challenges inherent within community engagement as a catalyst for developing students’ sense of civic responsibility at a time of rampant social polarization.

Promoting academic development and life skills through the high-impact practice of service-learning, the book explores a new ecological framework for reflecting on and improving practice. This book describes new models such as the #CaliforniansForAll College Corps, offers advice on coalition building, and presents the narratives of community-engaged professionals and faculty, offering a sense both of tensions inherent in this work and examples of initiatives in local contexts. Chapters primarily reflect on what action is required for fulfilling our public purpose and what’s holding us back.

This book provides guidance, examples, and benchmarks for best practices in community engagement that are particularly relevant to this time of crises and unrest and will be relevant to community-engaged professionals, higher education faculty, and college administrators.

С»Æ贫ý Students, Staff and Faculty are invited to join in a casual book club, reading Deepa Iyer’s .

During Spring Term, the book club will provide multiple opportunities for deeper discussion around Iyer’s Social Change Ecosystem Framework. Participants are welcome to attend as their schedule allows. Free copies of the book will be mailed to registrants (while supplies last).

About the Book

Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection, Deepa Iyer’s heartfelt offering to individuals and groups seeking to initiate or deepen their actions in service to social change values. Relying on two decades of work supporting social movements, Iyer introduces a new approach called the social change ecosystem framework, which includes a map of ten roles, from visionary to storyteller to disrupter to experimenter, as well as practices to identify values and strengthen our social change ecosystems. Over the past three years, people and organizations around the world have used the framework to respond to the pandemic, express solidarity during the uprisings against anti-Black racism, and support multiracial coalitions struggling for reproductive rights, immigrant and refugee protections, and climate justice.

Social Change Now goes well beyond presenting ideas and frameworks. It’s also a practical guide that contains detailed descriptions and real-world examples, reflection prompts (with room to write responses), and accessible tips that can immediately be put into action. Social Change Now is a resource that will accompany individuals and organizations not only in times of crisis, but throughout their lifelong social change journeys to build connected communities and equitable systems in our world.

Spring 2024 Fair @ Southeast

Learn how to get involved in your community on and off campus. Participating agencies will share information about their volunteer opportunities and community resources. Some agencies also have internship and job openings! Prizes for students who come to check out the fair!

Tuesday, April 16

10am-2pm
Southeast Mt Tabor Great Hall (Inside)

Participating Community Organizations

• С»Æ贫ý CLEAR Clinic

Winter 2024 Fair @ Sylvania

Learn how to get involved in your community on and off campus. Participating agencies will share information about their volunteer opportunities and community resources. Some agencies also have internship and job openings! Prizes for students who come to check out the fair!

Wednesday, January 24

10am-2pm
College Center Building (Inside)

Participating Community Organizations

• Rose Haven
• Sabin CDC

Fall 2023 Fair @ Cascade

This fall’s fair will be held in conjunction with the Week of Welcome Involvement Fair at Cascade! Learn how to get involved in your community on and off campus. Participating agencies will share information about their volunteer opportunities and community resources. Some agencies also have internship and job openings! Prizes for students who come to check out the fair!

Wednesday, October 10

Held in conjunction with the Week of Welcome Involvement Fair
10am-2pm
Cascade Library Quad (Outside)

Participating Community Organizations

• С»Æ贫ý CLEAR Clinic
• С»Æ贫ý Gateway to College & Yes to College
• Sabin CDC

Give your students the opportunity to learn more about themselves and the course you’re teaching by partnering in a unique way with the Learning Garden. Each student who participates will be introduced to the essential human practice of seed-saving and connect this with relevant concepts such as sovereignty, nutrition, beauty, statistics, horticulture, and more. Building on this foundation students will be guided through the research process necessary to discover their own personal connections to seed saving through cultural documents and/or interviews with living seed savers.

At every step, faculty and students will be supported by the learning garden coordinator and the program coordinator for community based learning at С»Æ贫ý. Together, we will work closely with students, facilitating district-wide connections if needed, to ensure student success and the timely completion of deliverables.

Students who successfully complete a Seed Story project will be invited to apply for a year-long, paid internship working with the Learning Garden and select Community Partners. During this year-long commitment students will elect two of their culturally significant plants to grow at С»Æ贫ý for seed, while collecting seed stories for our project partners. As a capstone to the year’s work students will share seeds with Community Partners and bring the seed stories back to share with the С»Æ贫ý community using a method that compliments their initial presentation.

Faculty from any discipline who are interested in this pilot year of the Seed Story Project are invited to register . Funding will be available for Instructors who work with CBL Faculty Coordinators to develop curriculum modules around Seed Stories projects.

As you prepare for the upcoming Fall 2021 term, the CBL Program has provided this . Here is a brief snapshot:

For Instructors who want to offer in person community engagement

The Community-Based Learning Program will be supporting a limited number of instructors who choose to offer in person community engagement activities as part of a CBL assignment/project. Instructors who responded to our survey and expressed interest in offering in person community engagement activities, will be receiving specific invitation/information about setting up their Fall courses for Community-Based Learning.

For Instructors who will only offer remote community engagement

Instructors may continue to offer remote community engagement activities that do not include any face-to-face interactions. In order to maintain a low risk of exposure to COVID-19, students must not be in direct or close contact with individuals outside of their immediate household. If this applies to your Fall plans, please complete this .

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or concerns! As always, if you need assistance with developing your CBL component, the CBL Faculty Coordinators are available for individual consultation.

From Resilience to Black Liberation: Uprooting Systems of Inequity

Saturday, January 23rd, 2021
10:00am to 3:15pm
(Registration Opens: January 8, 2021; more details for breakout sessions and art/performances will be posted as Community Partners are confirmed)

About

MLK Racial Justice Campus Collaborative is a group of 2- and 4- year college and university campuses and community partners that seeks to create programming that centers the history and narratives of Portland’s Black community during, and around, Martin Luther King Day, the only national holiday committed to a Black leader. The work of the Civil Rights Movement is far from over, our goal is to support community-based programming that centers ongoing narratives of Black activism, creativity, and liberation.

The 2021 Portland MLK Racial Justice Campus led by Campus Compact of Oregon includes: С»Æ贫ý, Lewis and Clark, Mount Hood Community College, Portland State University, Reed College, and University of Portland.

Typically we end each Academic year by gathering to celebrate and recognize our Community of Practice. This year, we wanted to find a way to do that while we are working and learning remotely. We’ve put together a to highlight the efforts of our Faculty, Students, and Community Partners. This slide deck does not come anywhere close to replicating the joy and camaraderie of our in person celebrations. It is simply a way to recognize our individual and collective efforts during this unprecedented time.

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended every aspect of the way we teach, learn, and engage in community. We know that it takes very intentional work to develop and integrate community-based learning. There are always external factors that make implementation “messy,” challenging, or, for many instructors this Spring, nearly impossible. Yet, there were many faculty who pivoted to virtual CBL – in part because of their strong relationships with community partners and/or previous online CBL projects/assignments!

To all of our С»Æ贫ý Faculty, we want to reiterate that the effort it takes to prepare a high impact community-based learning assignment is never time or energy wasted. While the output may vary from term to term, the path to get there is still worth taking. We hope you can see it as an opportunity to unravel an old garment and reweave your own teaching philosophy and practice into something that fits you now, in this moment. Engaging in this kind of inner and outer work requires us to be critically reflective with ourselves and the education systems with which we work. This is meaningful and important work that must be prioritized.

The CBL Program will continue to support you and offer opportunities for professional development. We are re-envisioning what community-based learning at С»Æ贫ý needs to be in order to truly acknowledge and address the systemic inequities that have a disproportionately negative impact on our BIPOC students, faculty, staff, and communities. We hope you will join us during the 2020-2021 academic year!