Center for Community-Based Learning
Wofford’s Center for Community-Based Learning (CCBL) is the primary coordinating structure for advancing campus-wide community engagement, supporting Wofford’s strategic vision of “preparing superior students for meaningful lives as citizens.”
- We institutionalize civic engagement at Wofford – defining, clarifying, codifying, assessing and championing it. We meaningfully connect it to other institutional imperatives such as rigorous liberal arts, multiculturalism, student success and social justice. We do this through developing, with input from across the campus, shared Wofford civic learning outcomes, through active participation in relevant conversations across the institution and through our contributions to the national conversation on civic engagement and social impact.
- We cultivate high-quality community partnerships. We do this through a collective impact model that invites community members and organizations into authentic, trust-based, communicative partnerships with Wofford, complete with common agendas, shared measurement systems, and mutually reinforcing activities. We seek to create what Ernest Boyer (1998) called, “a special climate in which the academic and civic cultures communicate more continuously and creatively with each other.”
- We facilitate faculty development, support and resources for community engagement. We do this through our Arthur Vining Davis Foundations Civic Engagement Taxonomy, our Civic Learning Fellows program, our Community-Engaged Faculty Fellows program and other resources to support faculty in developing and deepening community partnerships.
- We facilitate student developmental and integrated civic learning and their meaningful contributions to society through community partnerships. We do this through sponsoring an interdisciplinary, metacognitive reflection series that invites students to integrate and reflect on their civic learning across semesters, disciplines and years; through serving as advisors and connectors for student-led service organizations; and through orienting new students to Wofford’s emphasis on community stewardship and community partnerships, facilitating their involvement in our local community.
