{"id":642,"date":"2017-11-14T17:56:14","date_gmt":"2017-11-14T17:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.apsanet.org\/teachingcivicengagement\/?page_id=642"},"modified":"2019-06-07T16:00:24","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T16:00:24","slug":"csu-chico","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/web.apsanet.org\/teachingcivicengagement\/additional-teaching-resources\/civic-engagement-centers-and-institutes\/csu-chico\/","title":{"rendered":"California State University-Chico"},"content":{"rendered":"

We asked the Office of Civic Engagement<\/a> to tell us the ways in which California State University-Chico<\/a> works at improving and promoting the quality of life in their community, through both political and non-political engagement.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \"\"<\/p>\n

Civic Engagement<\/strong><\/p>\n

Civic engagement at Chico State is infused throughout our curricular and co-curricular activities and supports a close relationship with both our local, Chico community and throughout our 12-county service region.\u00a0 Guiding this work is both the Strategic Plan of the University and the Strategic Plan for Civic Engagement<\/a>.\u00a0 In the Strategic Plan of the University, Strategic Priority #4 we affirm that, believing in the value of service to others, we will continue to serve the educational, cultural, and economic needs of Northern California<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Added in the spring of 2016, our University Strategic Plan emphasizes CSU Chico\u2019s,<\/p>\n

“belief in the importance of civic engagement for both individual fulfillment and the institutional commitment to serving the public good, we will educate generations of civically engaged, informed, and active students. We will engage students, faculty, staff, and community members through curricular and co-curricular experiences that actively involve them with the communities and the issues of the North State and beyond.”<\/p>\n

Informed by the Strategic Plan of the University, a Strategic Plan for Civic Engagement was developed in the spring of 2016 with campus and community stakeholders to further drill down the work with action and evaluation targets.<\/p>\n

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Students as Civic-Minded Graduates<\/strong><\/p>\n

Borrowing from the exemplary work of Indiana University \u2013 Purdue University Office for Community Engagement<\/a>, Chico State seeks to produce civic-minded graduates who have a foundational knowledge of what it means to be a member of a community coupled with a commitment to democratic participation. \u00a0The civic-minded graduate is the nexus where a student\u2019s academic learning, community experiences, and identity overlap.\u00a0 We foster this in the classroom, through co-curricular activities, and opportunities for students to grow into their sense of identity as participants in a democratic society.\u00a0 While often these three components of a civic-minded graduate are separate spheres, we are working on new and innovative ways for them to intentionally overlap as to further the understanding of their important connections.<\/p>\n

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Faculty as Teacher\/Scholars<\/strong><\/p>\n

Faculty at Chico State have been supported to assume the role of teacher\/scholar.\u00a0 Developed by Boyer (1990), the teacher\/scholar model suggests an abandonment of the tension of teaching versus research and instead encourages a broader definition of scholarship which encompasses four separate but overlapping functions: the scholarship of discovery; the scholarship of integration; the scholarship of engagement; and the scholarship of teaching and learning.<\/p>\n

Recently our work has been largely around supporting faculty to explore multidisciplinary teaching and community engagement.\u00a0 We are also interested is furthering faculty work on community-based scholarship both in our local area and across the rural North State.<\/p>\n

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Rural Partnerships<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rural Partnerships group was formed by University staff and faculty who are involved in initiatives with rural communities in our service area, or who are interested in pursuing this type of work. The group is led by Ann Schulte, Faculty Fellow for Rural Partnerships<\/a>, and regularly meets during the academic year to gather and share information, build rural partnerships, and discuss opportunities for collaboration in continuation of service to north state communities. The mission of this work is to leverage Chico State students, staff, and faculty in reciprocal and interdisciplinary partnerships around the self-defined issues of the North State communities<\/p>\n

Three goals serve this mission:<\/p>\n