Case 2. Aligning Civic and Community Engagement with PBL
A Civic and Community Engagement Value Proposition
My discussion reflects my previous work at College of the Canyons (COC), where I served as faculty director of COC’s Center for Civic and Community Engagement (CCE) and aligned project-based learning (PBL) with the mission of the Center. The CCE began in 2015 resulting from a Bringing Theory to Practice grant. As its director, I drew heavily on my early experiences in the classroom as a sociology instructor, specifically teaching Introduction to Social Problems and engaging students in service learning. I understood the importance of getting students involved in addressing local, national, and global social problems and drew from C. Wright Mills’ argument that individual problems often reflect larger social issues or “wicked problems.” As faculty director, I purposely initiated a paradigm shift that moved service learning to PBL and engaged students beyond the traditional trappings of service learning by transitioning the focus of student work from hours to impact, individual to team, problem to solution, observation to action, and local to global. This change also encouraged students to examine their personal interests while examining course content and applying it to a real-world context.
The centralization of PBL never existed at COC until the establishment of the CCE. By this time, campus staffing issues and risk management mandates restricted student participation in service learning and the program waned. PBL provided a paradigm shift that encouraged student participation in problem-solving without requiring off-campus visits or meeting hour requirements at community sites. In fact, collaboration between community partners allowed for direct in-class visits that provided full student-partner design of class projects. Students engaged in PBL found themselves working in teams, while recognizing their passions, abilities, and talents. In addition, they were acquiring important workforce needs like communication, presentation, and networking skills, not emphasized through a traditional curriculum. CCE’s work with PBL also played a role in the revision of COC’s 2023-2026 Strategic Plan by providing a section dedicated to civic and community engagement as practiced through PBL. In addition, the CCE’s emphasis, as well as the college’s recognition of the importance of PBL, were instrumental in COC receiving the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification, making it the only California community college in the state’s history to apply and receive the classification.
political turmoil and the unexpected retirement of the chancellor, as well as the loss of administrative support for the CCE, the faculty director retired. Unfortunately, new leadership intentionally dismantled positions, programs, and centers supported by the chancellor, including the role of faculty director and the work of the CCE. Nonetheless, throughout its duration, the CCE facilitated scores of professional development events, trainings, and presentations, as well as engaged four teams in WPI’s PBL Institute. This also included holding a 3-day training with PBL Works, assisting with a day-long COC P3BL (problem, project, and place-based) symposium, and inviting PBL speakers as part of The Way Forward grant that launched the California Community Colleges’ Success Network virtual Civic Dialogues 4-year speakers’ series.
PBL became central to the proposed value proposition with the creation of the CCE and its focused mission to promote a new pedagogy beyond service learning. PBL provided the next phase of service learning, since the core mission of the CCE was to address social issues through problem-solving, not volunteerism only. Up to this point, student engagement stressed hours of service, not examples of impact for social change. This transition from service learning reflected the interests of the faculty director, as well as the chancellor’s commitment to align college outcomes with community needs. At the same time, the CCE worked to establish new, as well as to re-establish old, community partnerships and encourage greater faculty involvement. Working directly through CCE’s Partnerships for Listening and Action by Communities and Educators and Engage the Vote Action Teams, students emphasized the issues of affordable housing, food insecurity, and psychological well-being, as well as increased campus and community involvement in participatory democracy. This included working with the office of the Los Angeles Registery County Clerk to establish COC as an official vote center.
The PBL/Civic Engagement value proposition is important for the changing face of higher education since it can increase and sustain public approval, as well as increase civic participation. The proposition is especially important for community colleges, since they represent their local communities and rely heavily on community partnerships. This includes working with local businesses, organizations, and non-profits, as well as gaining institutional support through financial contributions. Most community colleges are struggling with low enrollments, budgetary cuts, dismal transfer rates, and leadership crises, resulting in a lack of public confidence. In addition, most administrators, faculty, and students are concerned most urgently with job attainment rates, minimizing the importance of larger social or civic concerns.
This explains why career education remains significantly funded in community colleges while understanding social issues, recognizing social responsibility, and emphasizing social well-being throughout the curriculum is underfunded. While the promotion of job skills is common, along with advancing job placement, civic learning is little discussed. This holds true for non-career educational courses taught through discipline-specific parameters that fail to connect civic learning with subject matter. As a result, students often sit passively in classes, listen to lectures, and read texts while failing to engage actively in civic life, participate in community problem-solving, or partake in democratic engagement. The intentional focus on civic learning and building civic identity remains ignored.
Although PBL received attention in multiple campus and community publications and played a significant role in receiving the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification, PBL was never used as a marketing narrative, but rather as a project-based initiative that provided students with the means to engage in real-world problem-solving. In fact, projects highlighted in publications never reflected marketing purposes only. One reason this situation prevailed was because work of PBL originated through the CCE, and the director worked to ensure commitment to academic excellence, no matter what the discipline. The director, however, clashed with her immediate supervisor regarding the mission and vision of the CCE, as well as the role of PBL to focus beyond career education. As a result of their ideological differences, the director quickly assigned to a new supervisor who welcomed her broader-focused perspective, as well as her commitment to general education.
Partnerships for Listening and Action by Communities and Educators
During her time at COC, the faculty director received seven Bringing Theory to Practice grants. In 2019, Bringing Theory to Practice’s director, Dr. David Scobey, reached out to the faculty director to see if COC would like to participate in his newly received Mellon Foundation project entitled Partnerships for Listening and Action by Communities and Educators (called PLACE locally). As a result, COC was the only community college to participate in this multi-year nationwide grant project that included multiple university partners. The faculty director served as the project’s campus lead. Along with her faculty co-lead, they built multiple cohorts of students who addressed campus and community issues of affordable housing, food insecurity, and psychological wellbeing. Community partners also joined the collaborative and helped to move forward initiatives and projects, all of which took place during COVID. Unfortunately, few faculty chose to get involved, since they were struggling with the demands of the pandemic; however, for those who either worked with Partnerships for Listening and Action by Communities and Educators or implemented PBL in their classes, civic and community engagement through PBL remained active.
Over the course of the grant and thereafter, Partnerships for Listening and Action by Communities and Educators students talked to students and learned of their struggles to secure housing, afford food, and address the challenges of psychological wellbeing. In addition, these students worked directly with local non-profits to understand how these issues were also affecting the larger Santa Clarita Valley community. Students worked with campus departments to facilitate change for their peers. In addition, campus and community members also described their thoughts on these issues, and their images captured by an activist-inspired Los Angeles artist and featured in an art exhibit. In addition, Partnerships for Listening and Action by Communities and Educators members collaborated with the Santa Clarita Housing Committee; and, through its work, the group was able to encourage campus administrators to move forward a housing feasibility study conducted by an external housing firm. As a result, presentation of a housing plan was made to the campus, which gained initial support.
The chancellor secured $62 million from the state, and the student housing project was one step from breaking ground when, unfortunately, a well-orchestrated and strategically timed climate survey initiated by the academic senate and campus unions proved detrimental. Political pressure resulted in the retirement of the chancellor, as well as the replacement of three out of five Board of Trustee members who, under the direction of an interim president (who was dismissed “for cause”), cancelled the housing project and returned the funds to the state.
Partnerships for Listening and Action by Communities and Educators provided one of several signature COC PBL-themed projects. Additional work continued through the CCE, as the Partnerships for Listening and Action by Communities and Educators and ETV Student Action Teams formed. The director also applied for and received 32 semester-long fellowships for students in these two programs from 2020-2025 from LEAD California, formally California Campus Compact. In sum, students contributed artwork, designed podcast interviews, organized candidate forums, facilitated student food and hygiene drives, constructed a non-profit video series, created a Know Your Candidates vote guide, and collaborated with Los Angeles County to establish COC as an official vote center.
Although several students received small stipends, most students volunteered their time (without grades) to participate in a project they deemed important. The Partnerships for Listening and Action by Communities and Educators project, as well as ETV, was not about external rewards, but about internal ones. Students benefited personally from their work by working in teams, identifying their talents, and contributing to the public good. They learned communication, organizational, and networking skills while highlighting their interests, talents, and skills in a safe, equitable, and collaborative environment.
Greater awareness of campus and community challenges emerged from the work of the CCE. PBL projects provided students with the means to explore social issues more deeply and, in most cases, from a local perspective. This work helped students gain a better understanding of their communities, as well as develop a deeper connection to their home, their community, their place. Because most community college students remain residents of their local community, this work invested students in fostering the wellbeing of their community. They used their skills developed through PBL to address lived experiences confronting their families, neighborhoods, and communities. Students remained personally vested in finding solutions to problems and will remain committed to the public good. PBL projects have connected students to outside groups, providing networking opportunities for both students and organizations, while encouraging local groups to engage with the college. Interest in local issues demonstrated acts of participatory democracy and resulted in investment in civic action, including voting, volunteerism, running for office, and participating in organizations.
Future Dreams for a Just Value Proposition
Changing the current value proposition would result in a paradigm shift, both within higher education and society. The benefit of a college education must stress more than career development and financial success. It should also identify personal moral and ethical values that recognize and address social concerns affecting “we,” not just “me.”
Coursework that includes a practicum-based component can connect abstract concepts to real world contexts. Experiential pedagogies can emphasize the importance of participatory democracy and civic engagement to ensure community well-being. Higher education needs to include civic engagement demonstrated through PBL as an institutional and class/degree requirement. Faculty also need to realize the importance of educating for democracy and understand that their disciplines play a role in advancing the public good. Greater emphasis on mentorships, internships, and community collaborations should prevail. Faculty will see the importance of this work when assisting students with personal statements, letters of recommendation, and experiences with community partners. This shift will emphasize giving back to our communities, focusing on long-term social impact rather than short- term financial gain. Such a shift will recognize student perspectives and encourage collaboration between community and campus.
The Limits of Institutional Legitimacy
Community colleges serve their local communities, while campuses demonstrate institutional legitimacy through community approval and student enrollment. Return on investment results from the community college aligning its values with the needs of the community, whether focused on workforce or transfer. These values require more than financial gain alongside students’ contribution to the public good. Convincing students, administrators, parents, employers, and policymakers that higher education has an obligation to engage in civic engagement and advance social responsibility for the public good would require a change in basic assumptions in higher education. And these assumptions are encoded in institutional structures and practices. For example, institutional metrics used for funding would need to center around civic and community engagement.
Unfortunately, in COC’s case, faculty were the most resistant to welcoming civic engagement through PBL. The idea of incorporating real-world problem solving into classes to advance a strong civic identity fell flat. The majority of faculty, especially during and after COVID, did not want to engage in any work they deemed “extra,” “unneeded,” “unpaid," “not part of my job,” or outside their discipline. The need to include PBL in tenure and promotion work is essential and is the best way to increase student involvement in addressing community problems. Many faculty remained reluctant to think outside the box and consider the benefits of PBL, much less the connection of their classroom assignments to civic engagement, because they did not see it reflected in their resources or rewards. The administration neglected to support faculty in piloting PBL courses.
The scaling of PBL at COC seems unlikely since the retirement of the faculty director, the abolishment of her position, and the closure of the CCE, as well as the loss of the former chancellor’s support. As a result of these changes to the sustaining champions, the likelihood of retaining the Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement in the future is slim. The earlier proponents of PBL and civic engagement no longer exist, leaving advancement from new leadership questionable. New leadership neither prioritizes civic engagement nor PBL nor intentionally welcomes community partnerships. And although alumni rave about past PBL experiences, the local champions of civic engagement and PBL no longer exist. Without them, the initial results that impacted the community and got students involved in civic work.