Workshops & Training
We work with faculty to transform teaching and curriculum while championing hands-on learning in collaboration with community partners. Whether you are new to community engagement or have used engaged methods before, we have professional development opportunities for you.
On this page:
Spark Sessions
Spark Sessions are informal, conversational style meet ups which aim to bring people together to spark new ideas and seed new collaborations. It is an opportunity for participants to drop-in at any time to enjoy some light food and beverages while giving or getting feedback and advice around a specific topic. Each quarter will feature at least one event focused on a topic (e.g. sustainability, homelessness) and one event focused on an engagement process (e.g. critical reflection, mentoring undergraduate students).
Check out our News & Events page for upcoming sessions.
2023-2024 Spark Sessions
Formerly called Eats & Engagement. Expand the + below to view past Eats & Engagement sessions.
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Snapshots of Confinement
Co-hosted by CCESL, this Spark Session was a screening of Snapshots of Confinement, a film highlighting how these photos reveal stories of community and resilience, transforming how this dark history is understood today. It was followed by an engaging Q&A session with film participants and DU Professor Esteban Gómez.
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Minimizing Uncertainties & Mitigating Risks in Community Engagement
Participants at this CCESL Spark Session enjoyed light bites as they heard from Eric Hartman of Risk Management on gaining valuable strategies for navigating uncertainty in community engagement.
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Community-Engaged Research: Collaborating for Public Impact
This CCESL Spark Session created a space for students, faculty, and staff across campus to exchange valuable feedback and advice on conducting community-engaged research to create measurable public impact.
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Igniting Collaborations with K-12 Schools
This CCESL Spark Session created a space for students, faculty, and staff across campus to exchange valuable feedback and advice on establishing fruitful partnerships with K-12 schools.
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Engage & Connect: Community Mixer
This CCESL Spark Session was co-hosted with the Leadership Studies program and the Daniel's College of Business. Students, faculty, and staff sparked new connections with one-another and with community partners, who shared opportunities for collaborative projects that address community-identified issues.
2022-2023 Eats & Engagements:
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Creating Synergies
How can community-engaged faculty members cooperate to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects?
Held on February 15th, 2023, faculty members were invited to discuss, share ideas, and explore how to collaborate in unique ways that benefit both students and community partners; from co-teaching a course across disciplines, to teaching separate classes that tackle a common community-identified need.
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Drug Treatment Courts, Due Process, & Jail Sanctions
Held on November 3rd, this Eats & Engagement focused on drug treatment courts and was facilitated by Michael D. Sousa, J.D., LL.M., M.A., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. Drug treatment courts are specialized criminal tribunals that are aimed at providing long-term treatment services to offenders with severe substance use disorders as an alternative to prison or community corrections. But in the everyday practices of steering their participants towards living a more productive life, the jail sanctions imposed as a component of these programs may be stripping participants of their due process protections in the name of doing good.
2021-2022 Eats & Engagements:
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John Tiedemann: Creating & Sustaining Long-Term Community Partnerships
A meetup that discussed ideas, perspectives, and action step to establish ongoing, sustainable community partnerships in and outside of the classroom.
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Anne DePrince: What Does it Take? Mentoring Students Community-Engaged Work
This meetup explored reflections on mentoring student community-engaged research and creative work – from apprehension to aspirations.
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Julia Roncoroni: Dismantling the Ivory Tower - Community Partnerships to Advance Health Equity
A meetup that focused on how community partnerships can play a role in advancing health equity.
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Ozy Aloziem: Radically Reimagining Community Engagement
This meetup explored the possibilities of reimagining community engagement.
It takes a lot of creativity to imagine a world that doesn’t exist while living within the realities of a world filled with a tremendous amount of suffering and oppression. It's crucial we find ways to practice this muscle of radical imagination so that we can imagine and then create the world we’re all deserving of but doesn’t yet currently exist. The purpose of the radical imagination game is to collectively practice radical imagination so that new innovative ideas and solutions can come to light.
Communities of Practice
Communities of Practice are small cohorts of cross-campus faculty who are experienced community-engaged teachers. Each community of practice focuses on a unique theme related to community engagement, and creates space to do communal reflection, collective problem-solving, and knowledge-sharing related to that topic.
Each community of practice will meet twice each quarter to explore and reflect upon ongoing learning and challenges. At the culmination of their year together, the communities of practice will have the opportunity to share their learning with the DU community at a Public Good Celebration. The structure and format of this forum will be determined by the community of practice. Each participant will also submit a written reflection with the option to have it published in a special issue of CCESL’s Public Good Impact. Participants will receive $250/quarter.
The 2023-2024 Community of Practice application is now closed. Check back in September 2024 for the next application cycle
Learn More2023-2024 Community of Practice
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Mentoring Signature Work
This community of practice (CoP) will create a small cohort of cross-campus faculty who share an interest in mentoring student signature work that addresses DU Grand Challenges issue areas to do communal reflection, collective problem-solving, and knowledge-sharing to build leadership skills and capacity for this work. To learn more and apply, see above.
2022-2023 Communities of Practice:
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The Activist Academic
Inspired by The Activist Academic: Engaged Scholarship for Resistance, Hope and Social Change by Colette Cann and Eric DeMeulenaere, this community of practice will explore how to merge activism with academia and what it means to be an ‘activist academic’. Conversations will center critical reflection as faculty support each other in navigating difficulties, hope, and passion for change in academia. Participants will receive a copy of the book.
Facilitators:
Paula Cole, Teaching Professor, Economics
Co-Sponsors:
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Creating Synergy in Community Engagement
How can community-engaged faculty members cooperate to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects? From co-teaching a course across disciplines, to teaching separate classes that tackle a common community-identified need, faculty members across DU are collaborating in unique ways for the benefit of both their students and community partners. This community of practice will explore the specific challenges and opportunities that present themselves when we aim to create synergy in community engagement. We’ll bring together experienced practitioners and newcomers in a supportive environment as they build the community, skills, and knowledge needed to create these transformational collaborations.
Co-Sponsors:
2021-2022 Communities of Practice:
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Engaging Onward
How do we, individually as instructors and collectively as colleagues, spring forward from these tumultuous times in ways that build abundance and justice for ourselves, our students, and communities through our courses? This community of practice creates space for communal reflection, collective problem-solving, and knowledge-sharing as we navigate where our community-engaged teaching has been and where we would like it to go.
Co-Sponsors: