Engaged Learning Forum Series

The Engaged Learning Forum advances the Institute for Social Concerns’ approach to practicing Catholic social teaching through community-engaged research, teaching, and learning by gathering learning communities that connect campus and community experts around social concerns. The Engaged Learning Forum gathers all types of engaged scholars to promote all types of engaged scholarship. Forums welcome community partners, students, staff, and faculty. Presentations vary in their appeal from addressing the curious novice to providing advanced learning for people experienced in academic community engagement, such as alums of the Community Engagement Faculty Institute and Community-Engaged Learning Coordinators. They happen in person and online, wherever the spirit calls us to gather!

Forums take many forms, including, but not limited to:

highlighting a model of exemplary work (e.g., an engaged department or community-engaged course),
sharing engaged research/scholarship in progress for feedback,
providing awareness around a developing campus/community issue,
launching/celebrating a relevant book through a scholarly talk,
showcasing the results of/work in progress funded by Community Impact Grants,
analyzing engaged learning experiences, and
showcasing a community-based scholar whose work expands local knowledge and/or skills.

Our goal is to provide a regular series of robust conversations that gather interested and active engaged scholars and practitioners!

Upcoming Events

Motels4Now: Housing the Chronically Homeless in Dignity

March 31, 2022 | 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | Geddes Hall Coffee House

Sheila McCarthy, PhD, Program Coordinator, Motels4Now

For many years, housing has been a persistent challenge in South Bend. Come learn from the center’s Community Fellow, Sheila McCarthy, Ph.D., about her work with Motels4Now, South Bend’s only low-barrier shelter. Motels4Now uses the Housing First approach, an effective, evidence-based, low-barrier approach to housing the most vulnerable. Its trauma-informed approach targets people who are the most difficult to house, who have been living on the streets for many years, suffering with mental illness and addiction. Motels4Now is rapidly ending chronic homelessness in South Bend as early as next year. Working in concert with other agencies and housing providers, the program moves toward a day where all are housed in dignity.