Community Engagement and the Covid-19 Pandemic
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Organization: Vernon Press
Vernon Press invites book chapter proposals to be included in a forthcoming scholarly volume on "Community Engagement and the Covid-19 Pandemic" edited by Tawnya Azar, Ph.D.
Community-engaged (CE) teaching is not a new concept; however, in the past several years, it has experienced a new emphasis as is evident by the changes to institution mission statements as well as the allocation of institution resources to support faculty development in CE teaching and support CE coursework and research.
The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic forced many faculty to pivot to an all-online instruction model, impacting community-engaged teaching and research in both predictable and unexpected ways. Community partners, faced with a similar struggle to serve their communities with restrictions on face-to-face interaction, were often too overwhelmed to work with higher education volunteers. Legally, universities could not ask students to risk their health with face- to-face community engagement. In fact, the number of CE courses decreased dramatically in 2020 and 2021 because of the unique challenges they faced during the Covid-19 pandemic.
At the same time, the pandemic presented some CE faculty with new opportunities for community-engagement. Some responded swiftly to the immediate needs of the local, regional, or national community with which they worked, taking advantage of the affordances of digital technology or capitalizing on the issues that the pandemic itself created or exacerbated.
The goal of this edited collection is to capture this incredible work (of pivoting and innovating) in community-engaged teaching. With a primary focus on community-engaged teaching in higher education, this collection will explore how faculty, students, and community partners adapted their work during the Covid-19 pandemic. We invite proposals for essayistic and empirical chapters that address but are not limited to the following questions / topics:
What challenges did the Covid-19 pandemic pose to your existing community-engaged teaching?
How did you pivot your CE course to work around the restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic?
What new opportunities for your community-engaged teaching did the Covid-19 pandemic present?
What support, if any, did your institution offer your community-engaged teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic?
For what reasons did you persist in teaching CE courses under the difficult circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic?
How did your students respond to the challenges and opportunities of working on community-engaged projects during the Covid-19 pandemic? How did this affect their learning outcomes?
How did your community partners adapt to the restrictions and challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic? How did these adaptions affect your relationship with community partner(s)?
https://vernonpress.com/proposal/192/17fb9cd8de1fef9bc0dc1e8686288e17
Tawnya Azar