2025 Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) Faculty Institute Virtual Plenary Panel - What’s Next for Community-Engaged Learning? Charting the Course for Transformative Change

The Centre for Community Partnerships (CCP) invites you to attend the 2025 Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) Faculty Institute, What’s Next for Community-Engaged Learning? Charting the Course for Transformative Change. The CEL Faculty Institute is an annual event that brings together CEL instructors from across the University of Toronto to share and learn from each other about effective strategies for CEL teaching, informed by the latest research and on-the-ground experience. The two-part event will take place over two days, the first featuring a virtual plenary panel and the second, an in-person day at the University of Toronto St. George Campus. This year’s Institute will offer an opportunity to reflect on 20 years of CEL at U of T, and to further our collective critical thinking about the future of CEL. 

As the University of Toronto community marks the 20-year anniversary of the Centre for Community Partnerships and celebrates 20 years of innovative and impactful community-engaged learning collaborations between faculty, students, staff and community partners, this panel will invite us to consider what comes next for community-engaged learning. The five panelists, who have decades of experience as community-engaged learning scholars and practitioners, will gather to reflect on the future of community-engaged learning, including what we might expect in the pedagogy and practice over the next 20 years in ever more challenging contexts. How can we envision a more transformative approach to our pedagogy and partnerships? What challenges and opportunities are on the horizon for CEL as a practice? How can CEL help us to collectively respond to the multiple crises of our times? 

Panelists: 

• Patti H. Clayton, Ph.D., Independent Consultant, PHC Ventures, Practitioner-Scholar-In-Residence, North Carolina Campus Engagement (NCCE), Senior Scholar, Institute for Community and Economic Engagement, University of North Carolina at Greensboro  

• Tim K. Eatman, Ph.D., Inaugural Dean, Honors Living-Learning Community, Professor, Department of Urban Education, Faculty Affiliate Department of Africana Studies, School of Arts and Sciences-Newark, Center for Security, Race and Rights, School of Law, Rutgers University-Newark 

• Tania D. Mitchell, Ph. D., Associate Provost for Community Engagement, Professor in Counseling, Higher Education and Special Education, University of Maryland   
  
  
• Dan Sarofian-Butin, PhD, Professor, Department of Education and Community Studies, School of Education & Social Policy, Merrimack College 
  
  
• Randy Stoecker, Ph.D., Independent Community Development and Knowledge Mobilization Consultant, previously Professor, Department of Community & Environmental Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison 

Photography, audio and video recording may occur throughout this event. Therefore, by attending 2025 Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) Faculty Institute Virtual Plenary Panel, you hereby authorize the University of Toronto to take your photograph, video and/or record your voice and grant the university all rights to these sounds, still or moving images in any medium for educational, promotional, marketing, advertising or other such purposes that support the mission of the university. If you do not consent to this, please email Rebs Lee at rebs.lee@utoronto.ca.

We strive to create accessible event spaces that suit the needs of all attendees. Are there any accessibility considerations we can address for you in advance of the session? Please email Rebs Lee at rebs.lee@utoronto.ca.  

U of T faculty are invited to join us for our In-person Faculty Institute on Tuesday, April 29.