From September 1 to October 7, 2011, UBC will host a series of conversation on UBC’s Place and Promise commitment to Community Engagement, and we’d like to know what you think.
In addition to providing feedback online, we will be holding a series of public forums, or Community Conversations, as we’d like to call them, on issues related to Community Engagement.
A Community Conversation is a public forum held to address discrete elements of Community Engagement and is designed to inform the development of UBC’s Community Engagement Strategic Plan. We’d like for you to attend and share your thoughts on selected topics.
Feedback generated from these conversations will contribute to the development of the Community Engagement Strategic Plan.
Schedule of Community Conversations
Unless otherwise noted, all meetings will take place in the Lillooet Room of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.
| Date | Time | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| September 15 | 3:00–4:30 pm | Community Engagement and Private Sector Partners |
| September 20 | 3:00–4:30 pm | Defining service |
| September 22 | 3:00–4:30 pm | Public Policy as a form of Community Engagement |
| September 27 | 3:00–4:30 pm | Use of Campus Venues |
| September 29 | 3:00–4:30 pm | Staff Engagement |
| October 4 | 3:00–4:30 pm | Working with non-profit and volunteer sector partners |
Participation is free. Everyone is welcome to attend.
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Congratulations to all who contributed to the UBC Community Engagement discussion paper.
It hits the nail on the head with this sentence (p. 6): “Community engagement is about the relationship with community as partner as opposed to audience.”
The spirit of this summary statement could perhaps be more strongly reflected throughout the paper– for example, by changing “The two most prominent forms of community engagement at UBC are educating students and undertaking scholarship” to something like “Through community engagement, UBC becomes a centre of learning where people in different social roles learn from each other and generate knowledge together.”
Perhaps the paper could also be strengthened by noting the potential for inter-university collaboration in: i)learning from each other’s community engagement experiences; ii) undertaking meta-assessments of international ranking systems that disregard community engagement as an essential feature of a good university.
“Community Engagement” is a laudable endeavor, but have the ethical issues for research using humans subjects been considered? In all research I have conducted in which human subjects were observed, surveyed or interviewed, I have been required by the university to submit findings to an Ethics Review Committee. This has been consistent in Canada and the UK. Ethical guidelines were provided by each university and approval was needed before the research even commenced.
Has this issue been addressed in Community Engagement projects at UBC? Thanks to anyone who can offer insight.