We hosted our CEP and Presidents’ retreat at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, at the beginning of June. Our team greatly enjoyed the two days of deep engagement with a group of 20 attendees. We invited participants to reflect on their experiences at the retreat. Here Jermaine Singleton, English professor and Director of Community-Engaged Learning and Research at Hamline University, shares his perspective of coming to the retreat with some specific goals in mind.
[Attending the retreat] has helped me think deeply—and differently—about institutional change.
I arrived at Seed Coalition’s retreat for member presidents and community engagement professionals in Des Moines with a few articles of clothing in my carry-on and a single question: How do I integrate and scaffold three community-engaged research consortia across and beyond the disciplines—integrating curricular and co-curricular learning—in ways that are community-sourced and -structured across two academic years? As requested, I did my homework and came prepared!
Before arriving, I had recently learned that I had been awarded an innovation grant to ensure our efforts are community-sourced and structured. So I was looking forward to input from Seed Coalition staff members toward developing a structured yet agile community-engaged research framework. However, there were no experts at a podium ready to share insights I might apply. Not one! Within the first 10 minutes, I figured out the main ingredient in the secret sauce: the retreat was designed to unearth fruitful insights lying dormant within and between the participants. The questions were carefully framed and scaffolded to help us unearth and apply embodied knowledge—individual and collective. What’s more, the process was stimulating without overwhelming and reflective in ways that pushed us in and out of the echo chambers many of us brought to the experience.
Since leaving the retreat, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about how to operationalize experiential learning from an “asset-based perspective.” If community is our biggest asset, we’ll need to get better at mining this resource through creative approaches to institutional citizenship. For me, the notion of “citizenship as both a noun and verb” is no longer a theory. Balancing the rights and responsibilities of citizenship in ways that pursue the aims of DEI (without focusing on representational politics) is something I’ll try to lean into more deliberately. I’ve come to appreciate that leaning into institutional citizenship in ways that center and prioritize outward-facing program delivery will be key to sustainability of my home institution. No doubt, community engagement provides the perfect opportunity to do more—programmatically and administratively—by changing how we approach teaching and learning in our classrooms. In turn, programs can build out from the ground up. This is a more organic method for breaking out of (and integrating) our disciplinary silos—in name and practice.
This retreat provided a training ground to help participants find traction beyond the platitudes. The questions we ask are more important than the answers because the former keeps us on the balls of our feet. The opportunity has helped me think deeply—and differently—about institutional change. One way to ensure that we strike a balance between business-as-usual operations and innovation is to invoke Black speculative inquiry: What must we let go of or shift as we prepare for a future that does not exist? The retreat provided the perfect space for this reflective practice. It’s important to take a few things off our plates so there is plenty of room for upskilling. As the late Octavia E. Butler reminds us, if we plan to shape change, we’ll need to change shape. These days, our program delivery methods are just as impactful as our institutional structures. It’s time to step beyond the body politics our institutions have inherited from the hierarchy of human value and put the right people in the right places—then support them, genuinely, when they are there. One can have all of the agency in the world, but it means nothing if one has no access and, moreover, authentic support. One of the participants made a comment I’ll never forget: “The value of community engagement is relational before it becomes quantifiable.” I’m so appreciative of this rare opportunity and the community I found therein.
Many thanks to Jermaine for his insight and inspiration. We are optimistic that your takeaways will prove fruitful in the coming academic year, and hope they spur ideas for our readers here.
Jermaine Singleton
Professor of English
Director of Community-Engaged Learning and Research
Hamline University
