Grant broadens Bonner Center's opportunities

With a $250,000 grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement staff will create a national model for universities to provide faculty with multiple pathways to connect with local communities through community-based teaching and research.

In the past, the CCE has been able to take eight faculty members each year into a community where they learn the model for teaching a community-based learning course, Terry Dolson, the CCE community-based learning manager, said. Community-based learning courses have been developed in multiple academic departments because it is a model that can be applied to many different subjects, Dolson said.

With this grant, the CCE will be able to deepen and expand its program, said Sylvia Gale, associate director of the CCE. Gale said the program had provided many professors with a strong introduction but she wanted the grant to provide the opportunity for faculty, students and community partners to collaborate on research.

Gale said the CCE wanted to create more pathways for faculty who were interested in connecting with the community through teaching or research.

Faculty members who use community-based learning as a pedagogy provide students with high-impact learning where students are engaged in seeing how theory and practice come together, Gale said.

The CCE applied for the grant last May and heard they had received the grant this past March, Gale said.

William Keator, vice president for programs at the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, said the quality of a liberal arts school was critical to the evaluation of the application.

As a part of the final step in the application process, Keator visited the university to evaluate the institutional culture. He met with several students to discuss their liberal arts education.

Keator said people tend to define the liberal arts by discipline but the reality is that the liberal arts is a way of thinking and approaching issues. This is what Keator looks for in students when he evaluates a university, he said.

"It was very clear to me in evaluating the University of Richmond that it already had one of the best engagement programs in the country," Keator said. "It has taken advantage of its location and developed a strong program that will become even better."

Carlos Valencia, director of community-based learning for the Latin American and Iberian Studies department, has found that the program opens doors for his students, allowing them to have a relationship with Richmond community organizations, such as Crossover Clinic and Bon Air Elementary.

"After the course, many students express desire to continue their volunteering because they have formed beneficial and enriching bonds," Valencia said.

The community organizations also consistently give positive feedback about the university students who volunteer at the sites, he said.

The three-year grant will give the university time to grow and expand upon the program that currently exists, Gale said.

Contact reporter Madeline Small at madeline.small@richmond.edu