Conferences

When possible, OCEL leverages funds to provide faculty and staff with professional development opportunities related to engagement. These are chances for faculty and staff to present their own scholarship, network in the engagement space, and learn best practices to bring back to their own departments and units!

The OCEL team traveled to Washington D.C. in October 2023 to attend the 28th annual Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) conference. This year's conference was themed "Resilient Campuses, Resilient Cities" and included programming related to democratic evaluation, DEI, the economic impact anchor institutions, student success, and more. A highlight from this year's conference was hearing from keynote speaker Dr. Nasser Paydar, Assistant Secretary for Post-Secondary Education with the U.S. Department of Education.

The team had the privilege of networking with staff and leadership from other higher education institutions doing similar work, i.e. Collaboratory, the Carnegie Engaged Campus Classification, etc. They are excited to bring back newest best practices in the field to continue making community engagement a priority on campus.

This year, OCEL presented their poster entitled "Institutionalizing Engagement: The Power of Serendipity and Hard Work". OCEL is proud to support UM-Dearborn's standing as a CUMU member institution.

In October 2023, the OCEL team attended the Outreach and Engagement Practitioners Network (OEPN) pre-conference workshop at the annual Engaged Scholarship Consortium. It was great meeting with other community engagement practitioners from higher education institutions from across the country! The team heard the latest from Campus Compact, the National Charrette Institute, and several other scholars in the field. Thank you, Michigan State University for hosting this year's consortium!

In October 2022, the OCEL team traveled to San Diego to attend the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities' annual conference. OCEL supports UM-Dearborn's membership in the coalition, allowing faculty and staff to access the latest best practices, scholarship, and other advancement opportunities specific to urban higher education institutions that CUMU provides. 

This year's conference will include community experiences, panels, roundtables, and other activities addressing this year's theme: The Essential Role of Urban and Metropolitan Universities.

Take a look at the latest issues of CUMU's own academic journal, Metropolitan Universities, which covers an array of topics relevant to urban and metropolitan universities.

In September 2022, OCEL sent two UM-Dearborn faculty members to the Engagement Scholarship Consortium and the Emerging Engagement Scholars Workshop at the University of Georgia. Professor Amny Shuraydi (Criminology and Criminal Justice) and Professor Wessam Elmeligi (Arabic, Arab American Studies, and Middle East Studies) represented UM-Dearborn at the conference.

With this year's theme of "People, Purpose, and Passion", participants could hear from editors in their field, learn about emerging engaged research, and discuss the future of engagement in higher education institutions.

ESC and EESW were affirming experiences for Professor Elmeligi. He reflected, The consortium made pathways to engaged scholarship easier to understand. It feels like this group is actually reshaping how we approach and view engaged scholarship!

Here are some fantastic resources from the event:

• Theoretical Frameworks for Engaged Teaching and Learning (Welch and Plaxton-Moore)
• Strategies for Publishing Your Community Engaged Scholarship (Doberneck)

In June 2022, OCEL sent Jean Song (Director of the Mardigian Library), Professor Daniel Davis (Linguistics), and Professor Kyongson Park (ESL Education) to the Summer Intensive on Community Engaged Scholarship at Michigan State University. This 5 day event equips participants with tools to build meaningful partnerships, evaluate their engaged work, and promoting engagement in their own institutions. After attending, Jean hopes to catalyze library resources to energize engaged faculty resources.

View similar virtual and in-person engagement learning opportunities from MSU's Office of University Outreach and Engagement.

In May 2022, OCEL supported the University of Michigan-Dearborn as they hosted the bi-national State of the Strait conference in our very own Engineering Lab Building. This year's conference focused on improving the health of the Detroit and Rouge rivers. Experts in the field, Bill Pringle (Detroit Historical Society), Jennifer Tewkesbury (MI EGLE), Scott Cieniawski (US EPA), and more served as panelists and presenters in the conference.

Read the 2023 State of the Strait report.