August 4 guidance from email from Meredith Hein and Bailey Clark:

Good Afternoon Colleagues-

We hope this note finds you and your loved ones well during these challenging times. If you are receiving this note, you are currently slated to teach a Community Engagement designated course for the upcoming Fall 2020 term. In an effort to best support your Fall CE Courses moving forward, we have gathered some resources, tools, and readings to best assist you as we plan for multiple forms of instruction. As you assess your courses and plans, our hope in sending this note is to also offer some support, grace, and ideas pertaining to the CE components. As I am sure you are each aware, many of our partner organizations are also facing extreme challenges around COVID, racial justice, and the constant changes while also making every effort to support vulnerable populations. It continues to be our goal to support their greatest needs.

The Center for Leadership & Community Engagement looks forward to supporting your service-learning work in the fall. Teaching a CE course is equally challenging and rewarding, especially given the unprecedented challenges facing our communities as of late. The Center for Leadership & Community Engagement is committed to supporting your courses by sharing best practices, connecting you to potential partner organizations, and providing financial support when feasible. Additionally, our team has been conducting needs assessments with nonprofit organizations throughout the summer to identify new needs resulting from COVID-19. Our team is also working collectively with other areas on campus that facilitate off-campus student engagement to develop appropriate policies, recommendations, and documentation (waivers, MOU’s, etc). We are also working closely with other colleges and universities to determine what will be best for our students, our campus, and the greater community. What’s most important to acknowledge is that we are going to be very very flexible in the coming year. Things will inevitably change, and courses slated to be CE may have to remove the Designation for the semester, and we understand that. Our hope is that this communication will allow each of you to consider the unique possibilities that comes with teaching a (F2F, virtual, and hybrid) CE Course. Our team is also equipped to facilitate virtual experiences should that be of interest to you.

Our hope is that you will consider joining us remotely on Thursday, August 20th for one of two Fall '20 CE Faculty Drop In Sessions from (12-1 p.m. or 5-6 p.m.) via WebEx (https://rollins.webex.com/meet/mhein).

We ask that you please take some time to read everything below to best assess how to move forward.

Updated Standards for Fall 2020 CE Courses (Changes are italicized)

Recognizes and addresses a need identified by the community (campus, local, regional, or global)
Meets course objectives and demonstrates a clear connection between the community activity and the course content (theory to practice)
Involves structured ongoing student reflection
Involves collaboration with a community organization/agency virtually or in-person that is committed to a reciprocal partnership between service and learning
Allows the community partner to share virtually or in-person in classroom dialogue, discussion, and scholarship (when appropriate) including reporting feedback, service project results or research
Involves a minimum of 15 hours of direct or indirect service/research with the community organization/agency remotely or in-person
Involves assignment(s) in which students share their experience with the class community, the community organization/agency and address a plan for active citizenship beyond the course virtually or in-person

Guidelines for Off-Campus Student Engagement

As mentioned above, we are partnering with other departments on campus to develop guidelines for all Off-Campus Student Engagement for the Fall Semester. Please note that these are in DRAFT form, but our hope is that they will be added to the College Covid-19 FAQs and communicated across campus. We are encouraging virtual off-campus engagement if and when learning outcomes can be successfully achieved in that format. Again, below is still in DRAFT form

These guidelines apply to Rollins-sponsored off-campus student engagement in Central FL including, but not limited to, volunteering, community-engagement courses, immersions, internships, job-shadowing, course-related field trips, and student organization and fraternity/sorority activities.
To minimize risk to our campus community and to the off-campus communities and organizations hosting our students, all departments should encourage virtual off-campus engagement whenever learning outcomes can be successfully achieved in a remote format.
The College will permit in-person engagement off-campus when learning outcomes are best achieved through an in-person experience as long as the following conditions have been met:

The sponsoring department communicates expectations to host organizations that they follow current CDC and OSHA guidelines. If a contract or memorandum of understanding is executed with a host organization or vendor, these expectations should be included in the contract. (Example – Soon to Come)
The sponsoring department shares current campus policies and health practices with host organizations so that they may make an informed decision about hosting Rollins students (See Rollins College Health and Safety Guidelines Attachment)
The sponsoring department notifies participating students of the expectations communicated to host organizations and the current CDC and OSHA guidelines; participating students will acknowledge receipt of this information and agree to follow CDC guidelines to minimize risk to themselves and others.
Participating students must sign the Domestic Participant Travel/Trip Waiver and Consent Form available in Foxlink OR a program-specific waiver that also addresses health risks associated with pandemics. (This has always been a practice)

If a decision is made for the College to shift entirely to a virtual mode, all off-campus engagement will also be virtual (allowing time to transition in cases of active engagement)

Transitioning to Remote Acts of Service-Learning and Community Engagement

If you have yet to do so, we’d suggest reaching out to your partners and connect with them about the possibility to work remotely through acts of indirect service. Many may not even be aware of the opportunities that your course(s) and students could fulfill. Some examples are below:

Grant research/writing
Researching policy and developing issue briefs
Writing articles for newsletters
Posting on social media
Generating marketing materials
Calling donors or volunteers
Developing curriculum for programs
Inputting data from surveys
Creating content for volunteer trainings
Mentoring or tutoring
Virtual storytelling or story-listening
Data Collection and interpretation
Facilitating virtual campaigns or philanthropic events
Attending meetings virtually via FaceTime, Skype, WebEx, etc.

We recognize and acknowledge that this may not be a possibility with every partner organization. That being said, we will work with each of you individually and understand the need to be flexible. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us if your original partner is no longer able to accommodate your needs, as we have many organizations that have identified needs. Another option that we’d like to encourage is partnering with an organization that focuses on virtual-based volunteer needs. Through our partnership with the Bonner Foundation, we have found that one such organization is: Catchfire. Campus Compact also recently highlighted Omprakash. Omprakash is an online platform that highlights opportunities around the world for students to engage with the global community through volunteering and internships. There are no fees for individual students to apply to participate in an experience through their network of partners. Partners are vetted by the non-profit.

Resources/Readings/Tools for Community Engagement Courses

We’d like to encourage you to think creatively about how this work could look differently.

Please review the attached recent report that the Edyth Bush Institute for Philanthropy & Nonprofit Leadership commissioned to identify the impacts of COVID-19 on NPOs in Central FL.
Attached, please find two Checklists that will help you proactively plan for your course and with your community partner.
In the field of Community Engagement and Service-Learning, our main professional organization is Campus Compact, and over the last few months they have collectively prepared a resource page that we hope have found to be tremendously helpful. Please take a moment to explore Engagement in the Time of Covid-19
Our colleague, Nancy Chick, Director of the Endeavor Center has shared with us two additional possibilities on how to engage with the community. These might be options to explore depending upon the content of your course:

Bringing in a guest speaker: Invite a guest speaker to join your virtual class session. (Links to an external site.)
Taking students on a museum or archive tour: Virtual Tours & Fieldtrips

We are committed to continuing to explore additional readings/assignments/facilitations that could replace the direct in-person service components. An additional attached resource is this collection of community engagement activities that can be facilitated in digital classrooms. These are adapted from Student Development and Social Justice: Critical learning, radical healing and community engagement. Palgrave McMillian, 2017 by Tessa Hicks Peterson, Ph.D, Associate Professor of Urban Studies, Director of Critical Action + Social Advocacy (CASA), and Director of the Office of Consortia Academic Collaborations (OCAC) at Pitzer College.

Standard CE Pre-Semester Updates

We appreciate all the work you do to make these experiential learning opportunities possible. Here are a few standard pieces of info that we share each semester:

Financial support: You’ve gone through a lot of work to receive your CE designation, and so we’d like to honor those efforts! We have funds available for each course to support your community engagement component. If you have items you’d like to purchase using that money (supplies, speaker fees, resources, etc.), please work with us in advance to accommodate your request. Please get all budget items approved prior to spending/purchasing.
Transportation options: We recognize that some of you may still be working on-site with community partners, and thus have questions about transportation. At this time we are still assessing the feasibility of whether we can utilize the JUMP buses and practice appropriate social distancing. Please give us grace as we figure this out. Again, since we are encouraging remote service, we hope that the need for transportation will be limited.
Risk Management: You will want to make sure that the appropriate waivers are signed for off-campus engagement of any sort. These waivers can be found utilizing Foxlink and sent to students in advance. I will send along the detailed directions for waivers as we near the semester.
Classroom Presentations about CE Courses: If you would like, CLCE can send a team member to your course (Virtually or In-Person) to talk about CE Courses, connecting this work to their majors, or facilitating various workshops on various topics around “What is Service,” Civic Engagement, Leadership Development, Rollins Commitment to Service, Social Change/Movements, etc. Let us know what you would like us to cover and we can come to your course, we have quite a few developed workshops that may deeply support and enhance their CE experience! Please contact me as soon as possible, so we can chat through options.
Plan for assessment: We will continue to gather the information to best assess student learning as it pertains to civic and community engagement. At the end of the semester we will need 20-30 minutes of class time to administer our CE Course Survey to your students, so please plan accordingly. A member of the CLCE team will be in attendance to provide students with an online URL (with a paper option) which can be completed in approx. 20-30 minutes. The results from your individual classes will be sent to you after the close of the semester – the survey does go through the IRB process, so you will be able to use this data for any future presentations. The aggregate CE Course data is shared with the administration. We evaluate the survey on an on-going basis, and I am attaching last semester’s tool. If there are any updates made between now and the start of the semester, I will be sure to send it out. The current survey includes a question designed to elicit responses about deep student learning within the course. Our hope is that you can prepare students to answer this question thoughtfully before we come to administer the survey. Responses to this question will be evaluated on the attached rubric for civic engagement. That question is as follows: How has your experience in this course affected your understanding of your role in creating positive social change in your community? If you can include this question intentionally in final reflections/papers/presentations, we would be able to gauge the information we are hoping to collect.

We are consistently soliciting feedback on how to best gather information for this particular piece and the overall CE assessment tool. We welcome any ideas or suggestions if you feel we can better assess the students by reworking this question or others. Ultimately, we need your help to show student learning and growth in the area of civic engagement! We are always here to support the development of this work and learning and will check in mid-semester to see how things are going!

CE Mentoring Program: For those of you teaching a CE course for the first time or others that may be interested, you have the opportunity to participate in the CE Mentoring Program. We will match you with a CE Faculty Fellow within the next month to give you another resource beyond our office. We’ve asked all mentors to be available for 3 meetings – 1 towards the beginning of the semester/semester before as you work on your course, 1 during the semester as your CE work is more fully developed, and 1 final meeting after your wrap up your course. If you are interested in being connected to a mentor, please respond to this email!

Our hope is that each of you can provide us with a CE update by August 28th . We are requesting that you send us a brief description of your anticipated project(s) and the community partner organization(s) you will be working with this fall, as well as any anticipated needs (i.e. supplies). We will continue to communicate with you regularly and send updates as they become available. Please don’t hesitate to reach out should you need anything. Thank you again for all that you are doing to support our campus and community at this time.

Wishing you and your loved ones a happy and healthy summer.

March 13 guidance from email from Meredith Hein & Bailey Clark:

We hope this note finds you well, and recognize this is a challenging time. Many of you have reached out regarding the CE components of your courses, and in an effort to best support your inquiries, we are reaching out to all faculty teaching a CE Course this semester.

As each of you assess your courses and move them to remote instruction, we’d like to offer some support pertaining to the CE components. Please keep in mind that many of our partner organizations will also face extreme challenges in the coming weeks as they support vulnerable populations. It continues to be our goal to support their greatest needs.

What we’d suggest is to reach out to your partners and connect with them about the following:

- To lessen the impact of COVID-19, Rollins College has made the decision to move to online instruction for the remainder of the semester. As a result, students who live on-campus must move back home by next Friday, March 20.
- As such, students (even those who live locally) will no longer be able to volunteer in person.
- Are there possibilities to work remotely through acts of indirect service? Some examples are below:
  - Grant research/writing
  - Researching policy and developing issue briefs
  - Writing articles for newsletters
  - Posting on social media
  - Generating marketing materials
  - Calling donors or volunteers
  - Developing curriculum for programs
  - Inputting data from surveys
  - Creating content for volunteer trainings
  - Attending meetings virtually via FaceTime, Skype, WebEx, etc.

We should recognize and acknowledge that this may not be a possibility with every partner organization. That being said, we will work with each of you individually and understand the need to be flexible. Additionally, we are working to explore additional readings/assignments/facilitations that could replace the direct service component. We are also closely following what other institutions are doing, and will be working to develop a resource to share outwardly next week. We also want each of you to explore the idea of lowering the percentage of the final grade related to CE and upping the content percentage as a last result should any of the ideas above not work out. Our hope is that each of you can provide us with a CE update so that we can keep track of partner involvement during this closure by 3/25. We ask for your flexibility at this time, and encourage you to also communicate this with your students regarding any syllabus/CE changes.

We will continue to communicate with you regularly and send updates as they become available. We are also looking at hosting a meeting for all of us (probably over WebEx after Spring Break – stay tuned. Please don’t hesitate to reach out should you need anything

In solidarity,

Meredith & Bailey

March 20 guidance from email from Meredith Hein:

In an effort to best support your Spring CE Courses moving forward, we have gathered some resources, tools, and readings to best assist you as we transition to remote instruction. As each of you assess your courses and move them to remote instruction, we’d like to offer some support pertaining to the CE components. Please keep in mind that many of our partner organizations will also face extreme challenges in the coming weeks as they support vulnerable populations. It continues to be our goal to support their greatest needs. Our hope is that the items below will allow each of you to consider the unique possibilities that come with virtually teaching a CE Course.

In the field of Community Engagement and Service-Learning, our main professional organization is Campus Compact, and over the last week they have collectively prepared a resource page that we hope will be helpful as you navigate the shift to online instruction - specifically as it relates to community based teaching. Please take some time to visit that resource at your convenience.

Our colleagues at Portland State and IUPUI have also developed two excellent articles with some great suggestions for CE/S-L alternatives during a time of social distancing.

If you have yet to do so, we’d suggest reaching out to your partners and connect with them about the possibility to to work remotely through acts of indirect service? Some examples are below:

- - Grant research/writing
  - Researching policy and developing issue briefs
  - Writing articles for newsletters
  - Posting on social media
  - Generating marketing materials
  - Calling donors or volunteers
  - Developing curriculum for programs
  - Inputting data from surveys
  - Creating content for volunteer trainings
  - Attending meetings virtually via FaceTime, Skype, WebEx, etc.

We should recognize and acknowledge that this may not be a possibility with every partner organization. That being said, we will work with each of you individually and understand the need to be flexible. Another option that we’d like to encourage is partnering with a organization that has virtual-based volunteer needs. Through our partnership with the Bonner Foundation, we have found that one such organization is: Catchfire.

We’d also like to encourage you to think creatively about how this work could look differently. Our colleague, Nancy Chick, Director of the Endeavor Center has shared with us two additional possibilities on how to engage with the community. These might be options to explore depending upon the content of your course:

- - Bringing in a guest speaker: Invite a guest speaker to join your virtual class session. (Links to an external site.)
  - Taking students on a museum or archive tour: Virtual Tours & Fieldtrips

As we indicated in one of our previous e-mails, we are continuing to explore additional readings/assignments/facilitations that could replace the direct service component. Attached is a collection of community engagement activities that can be facilitated in digital classrooms. These are adapted from Student Development and Social Justice: Critical learning, radical healing and community engagement. Palgrave McMillian, 2017 by Tessa Hicks Peterson, Ph.D, Associate Professor of Urban Studies, Director of Critical Action + Social Advocacy (CASA), and Director of the Office of Consortial Academic Collaborations (OCAC) at Pitzer College.

Our team is also equipped to facilitate virtual experiences should that be of interest to you. Our hope is that you will consider joining us next Tuesday, March 24^th for a WebEx Connect session titled: How To Do This Work (CE) Remotely from (3-4 p.m.) via WebEx (https://rollins.webex.com/meet/mhein). Please RSVP HERE so we can plan accordingly.

Finally, we also want each of you to explore the idea of lowering the percentage of the final grade related to CE and upping the content percentage as a last result should any of the ideas above not work out. Our hope is that each of you can provide us with a CE update so that we can keep track of partner involvement during this closure by 3/25. We ask for your flexibility at this time, and encourage you to also communicate this with your students regarding any syllabus/CE changes.