Skip to Main Content Skip to Footer Toggle Navigation Menu

Academic Engagement
Students in Prof. Jake Nagasawa’s course “Not Your Model Minority: Japanese Americans from Incarceration to Redress and Beyond” visited Fort Snelling in March of 2024 to explore the “Many Voices, Many Stories” exhibit focusing on Japanese Americans who were recruited during WWII to join the Military Intelligence Service Language School at Fort Snelling, often while their families were incarcerated in concentration camps throughout the US.
As part of his GEOG 277 course “Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography” during the fall of 2024, students visited the East Side Freedom Library and worked with members of the East Phillips, Minneapolis: neighborhood to build a vibrant community hub and indoor urban farm.
Students munch on freshly pulled carrots during a field visit to Common Harvest Farm in Osceola, WI with Bill Moseley’s Geography 232 class.
Students in Maria Fedorova’s Revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Union and Valeriia Witzig’s Advanced Russian courses went to the Museum of Russian Art. The Community Engagement Center helped plan the trip with support from the Project Pericles grant.

What is community-engaged learning?

Community-engaged Learning (CEL) integrates meaningful community partnerships with instruction and critical reflection that focuses on building and sustaining relationships that center community knowledge(s) and agency in order to creatively solve problems, engage community-identified needs and initiate transformative change. Macalester is a longtime leader in linking academic learning to community involvement. High quality community-engaged learning (CEL) brings forth multiple layers of learning, teaching and problem solving. Student work such as tutoring, research, analysis, or problem solving holds reciprocal benefits for the students and their community partner. Aligning learning objectives with an existing community need is a critical step in these real world, engaging learning experiences. Each semester, the Community Engagement Center strives to provide necessary resources and support for faculty who would like to embed community engagement into their curriculum. During the 2024-25 academic year, 45 professors in 24 Macalester departments offered 68 courses with community engagement components.

Interested faculty can complete the above form, and Derek Johnson ([email protected]), Assistant Director, will be in touch to assist you. Derek works with faculty to offer guidance, brainstorm, and establish or tap into partnerships with local community organizations.

Request Course Support
Project Pericles Funding

Project Pericles invites faculty at Periclean institutions to apply for two different grant opportunities for Spring 2026 courses. Applications are due internally by September 23, 2025. Funded by the Mellon Foundation and the Eugene M. Lang Foundation, these grants provide up to $4,500 to support faculty in developing or enhancing courses with civic engagement, community partnerships, and/or public scholarship. Please utilize both of the links below to complete your application.

Grant Information Application

Current Community Partners

Scholarly Resources

Faculty Resources