Emily Schnee | Engaging Students in the Community of College, Department of English

This course is designed to turn community college students’ attention and engagement inward on the college experience through the curricular redesign of elements of a Composition I course and the student development course to which it is linked through a first-semester learning community. Students are introduced to the college campus and community and, through a semester-long series of participatory activities, engage in reflection on what it takes to be a successful college student. Though community engaged teaching and scholarship often seeks to promote students’ connection to off-campus communities and concerns, this course explores the possibilities and challenges of pedagogical and curricular innovation to increase student engagement in the community of college. Rather than tapping into the wider world beyond the classroom, this counterintuitive approach to civic engagement pulls students inward and binds them to our shared college community as they pursue that elusive end goal of a degree. To this end, students learn from the experiences of other first generation college students, dialogue with more advanced KCC students about their educational challenges and successes, participate in a campus-wide scavenger hunt to learn about key offices, programs, and supports at the college, and set goals for their college education and develop concrete strategies for meeting them.