What's Happening in Community Engagement

Welcome to the Office of Civic Learning and Community Engagement newsletter! You're receiving this email because you are a Laker Effect Map contributor, a member of the College Engagement Liaisons Committee, a GVSU administrator, or a community-engaged staff or faculty.

Please feel free to forward this email to your community-engaged colleagues or direct them to sign up for future emails here. If you would like to opt-out from receiving this email, click unsubscribe at the very end of the email.

We are excited to communicate with you on a quarterly basis to keep you in the loop about what's happening in the Office of Civic Learning and Community Engagement at GVSU.

Laker Effect Map

The Laker Effect is the collective impact of the Grand Valley State University community on individual students, West Michigan, our state and beyond.

The Laker Effect Map showcases where this impact is happening based on the actual locations that GVSU faculty and staff maintain important partnerships and relationships in the communities we serve.

The Laker Effect Map provides GVSU faculty and staff with a new way to connect to one another in order to better serve the communities we are a part of and the students who come to Grand Valley in search of opportunities.

Check out our feature in GVNow.

Why Use It?

Make connections for you and your students with outside organizations through someone that already has a relationship with that organization.
Submit your partnerships to be recognized as an engaged Faculty/Staff while contributing to this visual representation of community partnerships at GVSU.

What's New?

Once you login to the faculty/staff member-only "private" map, you'll see the following new features.

You can also now submit images or video links to be added to your point on the map! If you have an image you'd like to be added to an existing relationship, please email it to s-beaudr@gvsu.edu.

Watch this how-to video to see how the map works

Submit a Partnership

View the map

Outdated Partnerships

Please reply to this email if you know of any relationships on the map that are no longer active for any reason.

Community-Based Learning Courses

Course sections that incorporate community engagement into the course may be formally designated as Community-Based Learning (CBL) courses through the academic departments and colleges. Community partners may include nonprofit organizations, schools, faith-based organizations, businesses, and industry.

Click the button below to learn more about how you can get the CBL designation for your course sections.

Learn More

Making Waves Initiative

Making Waves is a University initiative to create collaboration across campus among students, faculty, and staff, as well as with the community. The goal of the Initiative is to explore and investigate the many ways that water touches our lives, from being a life-force to defining GVSU in relation to the Grand River and Lake Michigan. The Initiative has the potential to clearly define GVSU: an institution providing a relevant, contemporary liberal education where theory is integrated with practice to prepare students for the challenges of our world

The broad goals of the Initiative are:

Interdisciplinary collaboration: Creating cooperative learning for students, staff, and faculty and within the community
Geographic and institutional identity: Defining characteristics of GVSU as a liberal education institution in West Michigan
Resources and activities: Synthesizing learning across disciplines, locally, globally, and with intention

Click the image below to email the MWI Leadership team about joining one of these teams.

Learn More

Big Splash Week

Making Waves has officially kicked off with a splash! Last week students, faculty, staff, and community members participated in a variety of events to launch the initiative. Check out some highlights below.

Your Water, Your Voice: Drinking Water Summit

hosted by the Center for Michigan | Bridge Magazine

What:
At this interactive session, you will hear from experts and leaders about the state of Michigan’s drinking water and how to care for our drinking water quality going forward.

When:
Thursday, October 24, 2019
5:30 PM – 8:00 PM

Where:
L.V. Eberhard Center
301 Fulton Street West
Grand Rapids, MI 49504

Tickets:
Tickets are free and available to the public. Get yours here.

Click here for more community engagement events

If you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas for this newsletter, please click reply or email Director for Civic Learning and Community Engagement, Travus Burton at burtotra@gvsu.edu.

If this email was forwarded to you, click the button below to get on the list.

1 Campus Drive
3090 James H. Zumberge Hall
Allendale, MI 49401

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