Applications Open for the Spring 2025 Staff Certificate in Civic Engagement
The OSUN Civic Engagement Initiative invites all OSUN staff to apply for a Spring 2025 professional development opportunity in civic engagement. Beginning in Spring 2025, staff at OSUN partner campuses can apply for an 8-week professional development opportunity in civic engagement. The OSUN Staff Certificate in Civic Engagement cohort will meet once a week for 8 weeks in 90-minute sessions during Spring 2025. The dates for the program are February 19 - April 16, 2025. By the end of the course, participants will be able to design, implement, manage, and evaluate civic engagement programs in their university and connect their project with the university’s strategic plan.The certificate program is for staff and administrative members across OSUN institutions who are interested in developing programs and activities that support the university's third mission. Universities have traditionally perceived education and research as their main missions and dedicated their core resources to building and supporting excellence in these areas. Recent decades have seen a growing focus on the “third mission” of higher education as well: impacting the universities’ immediate social and economic contexts, serving communities and addressing broader societal needs, locally, nationally, and globally. Civic engagement is increasingly the focus in universities’ internal strategic planning and external partnerships, as well as a factor that significantly influences on their curricular, pedagogical and research agendas.
Universities direct resources to new types of activities that include volunteer programs, student-led programs, community-based learning, access programs, action research, and life-long learning opportunities. Civic engagement can provide students with unique learning environments that give them a sense of agency while allowing them to learn with and from community actors. In addition to serving the needs of local communities, civic engagement programs provide new opportunities for students to acquire the skills, knowledge, and attitudes needed to understand social dynamics in the society, contribute to real-life analysis and problem solving and become engaged citizens. Finally, it provides institutions the opportunity to become civic actors in their own right.
This certificate offers its participants an opportunity to:
- Develop a systematic understanding of the principles and challenges of civic and community engagement.
- Share and enhance expertise on policies, planning, resourcing and implementation of relevant programs, be they student-led or institutionally based.
- Develop a project plan for their institutions depending on stage of development of institution/role
- Learn from good practices by case studies, networking and mentorship led by OSUN’s civic engagement coordinator community of practice.
- Elaborate and refine the ideas, formats and practicalities of existing or new programs and collaborations in the area of civic and community engagement
Deadline to apply is Wednesday, January 15
Cross Reference: Application,Civic Engagement, Opportunities,Civic Engagement
Deadline: January 15, 2025