The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee for the Department of English will hold a Spring Speaker Series event at noon Friday, March 4 via Teams.
“Civic and Community Engagement: From Practical to Academic Applications” will feature Alexandra Cenatus, assistant director of programming and public engagement from the University of Florida, and Dr. Laura Gonzales, assistant professor of digital writing and cultural rhetorics from the University of Florida.
The speaker series is free and open to undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff, and administrators.
This event will focus on approaches to community engagement and inclusion at and beyond academic institutions. In this conversational dialogue, Cenatus and Gonzales will invite participants to consider how various approaches to, and definitions of community engagement are fostered or limited at academic institutions. Sharing experiences from their own community engagement work with multiple communities in local and transnational contexts, the presenters will share how they navigate and challenge institutional constraints to community engagement. The presentation will include:
- Definitions of various approaches to community engagement;
- Experiential knowledge about building community-university partnerships; and
- Practical strategies for fostering community engagement through justice-driven models.
Those with questions, or who need special accommodation can email engeqdiversity@ilstu.edu.
