The Civic Action Plan of Bunker Hill Community College reflects the next level of community engagement that the College aspires to. With approximately 4,000 students participating in curricular and co-curricular programs that provide a combined total of 18,500 hours of service to the greater Boston community, and nearly 50 faculty using community engagement as a teaching practice within 150 courses as of Fall 2016, it is clear that community engagement remains a vibrant part of the BHCC experience, one that serves the College's vision to invest "in the social and economic well-being of its communities."
In the last three years, the College has seen a confluence of four related developments: (1) the emergence of Cultural Institutes that has increased the emphasis on culturally responsive practices through the use of place-based local-global community engagement; (2) approval of the College's Institutional Learning Outcomes; (3) the designation of the College as an Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPISI); and (4) the awarding of a Title III AANAPISI special focus on Asian American and low-income students. These developments allow the College to now be well-positions for creating a Civic Action Plan that focuses on further developing place-based local-global community engagement activities that are also culturally responsive and cognizant of the wealth that diverse cultures bring to the College.
Riding on the emerging context and momentum provided by the above developments, BHCC's Civic Action Plan aims to achieve five major objectives within the next four years:
- Develop an initial baseline of courses that are currently infused with place-based local-global learning;
- Develop a signature model of place-based local-global learning and culturally responsive practice by leveraging the objectives of the AANAPISI grant and collaborating with faculty to infuse highly enrolled general education courses with place-based local-global learning activities;
- Design other co-curricular activities that promote engaged local and global citizenship;
- Develop a plan to assess local-global learning for both curricular and co-curricular experiences; and
- Disseminate learned best practices to the College's internal and external stakeholders through presentations at state, regional, and national conferences.
The outcomes of the Plan are anticipated to primarily change institutional culture; assessment of the outcomes will focus on:
- Elements of professional development provided for faculty and staff;
- Students' successful completion of general education courses infused with place-based local-global learning activities;
- Deepening of the College's community partnerships within specific neighborhoods and populations served; and
- The development of faculty-led international service learning opportunities for students.
Finally, the implementation of the Civic Action Plan will be marked by very close collaboration between the staff of the College's Office of Community Engagement and the different teams of the AANAPISI grant. Through this Civic Action Plan, we reiterate our commitment to Campus Compact's Action Statements that seek to:
- Empower students, faculty, staff, and community partners to co-create mutually respectful partnerships in pursuit of a just, equitably, and sustainable future for communities beyond the campus -- nearby and around the world;
- Prepare students for active lives of engaged citizenship, with the motivation and capacity to deliberate, act, and lead in pursuit of the public good;
- Embrace our responsibility as a place based institution, contributing to the health and strength of our communities -- economically, socially, environmentally, educationally, and politically.