Centering community partners and the relationships that sustain learning.

The Community Partner Spotlight is a new feature created for and with our community partners. It highlights relationship-based learning and the shared work that happens when community partners, students, and faculty learn alongside one another. By telling these stories, we hope to make visible the expertise community partners bring to teaching and learning, and to reflect the long-term impact of sustained, reciprocal partnerships.

A shared moment of wonder: Dean Fox (right) and Charles House community member Jouko pause to watch the solar eclipse together outside Charles House.

For over two decades, Duke's Death & Dying service-learning course partnered with roughly 20 community sites across Durham. At Charles House, executive director Dean Fox watched students become team members. At Duke Hospice, volunteer manager Carolyn Colsher trained students to be present without trying to fix. Both saw what's possible when community partners shape learning—and when relationships become the work.

This story is part of Duke Service-Learning's Community Partner Spotlight series, centering the voices and expertise of community partners who co-create learning with Duke students in SLCE courses.

Email us at servicelearning@duke.edu