A College of Greater Impact

Cedar Crest nEXt

Center for Art and Community Engagement

Collaboration for Urban Teaching and Learning

Diversity and Inclusion

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Cedar Crest nEXt

Aspiration & Impact

Cedar Crest nEXt is a programming, repository, and communications initiative that guides students through a set of shared curricular and co-curricular experiences that can be personalized to reflect an individual student’s goals and ambitions. It will help the College communicate the specific value and advantage of a Cedar Crest College education to prospective students and also enable students to communicate the value and effect of their Cedar Crest College education to prospective employers.  The program organizes student activities into five categories:

• EXperience: Internships, externships, community service
• EXpedition: Study abroad
• EXemplify: Health and wellness activities
• EXposure: Professional research/presentations and networking
• EXcel: Leadership opportunities

The Merit platform produces hundreds of press releases based on student accomplishments that go to hometown newspapers and local legislators. Students may choose to link their Merit pages to LinkedIn or Facebook, creating more positive publicity for the value of a Cedar Crest education. In teaching students to talk about the impact their various college experiences have had with employers, students should be more prepared to enter a job interview.

Key Components

• Use of Merit platform to create student portfolios and inform public of student accomplishments
• Development of nEXt Scholar program to recognize exceptional student achievement

Progress

Implementation Launched

Center for Art and Community Engagement

Aspiration & Impact

The Center for Art and Community Engagement will encompass a studio center and programming focused on the integration of Papermaking, Book Arts, Printmaking, Creative Writing, Literacy, and Digital Media. As an outreach and engagement model, the Center will align with community partners in support of art advocacy and civic engagement initiatives set forth by the College. The Center will benefit and serve students of Cedar Crest College through course curriculum and community engagement projects while providing outreach through community schools, assisted living facilities, centers for adults with disabilities, refugee programs, and other potential partnerships. The establishment of this center will allow the Art Department, in conjunction with other programs on campus such as New Media and Creative Writing, to deepen and extend community outreach, to underserved populations in particular.

Key Components

• Artist/Writer in Residence Program
• Programmatic outreach to community partners such as schools and assisted living facilities
• Production of art works through hands-on workshops

Progress

Implementation Pending

Collaboration for Urban Teaching and Learning

Aspiration & Impact

As educational reform initiatives continue to evolve, the mission of educating our young people must become a community effort. Collaboration between K-12 schools and higher education can provide an opportunity for a unique and productive partnership. These innovative arrangements create roles, relationships, and responsibilities for all participants and focus on outcomes that are beneficial for all partners as the partners share a deep understanding of the value of the community’s school system. The cooperative roles and expectations for each member of the partnership are specifically defined, aligned with the expectations of the other members and are clearly articulated at the beginning of the partnership. In this initiative the Education Department will form a strong collaboration with a PreK-5 Elementary School in an urban setting. The cooperative arrangement will transform teaching and learning for all members of the partnership. The partnership will develop mutual goals and improve teaching and learning for all participants. This initiative will provide needed resources to urban teachers to provide them professional development. It will provide an important research opportunity for our own faculty and students in the area of effective teaching in urban schools.

Key Components

• Instructional coaches and workshops for teachers at urban schools 
• Education students will be involved in collecting data for research on teaching in urban schools

Progress

Implementation Pending

Diversity and Inclusion

Aspiration & Impact

Cedar Crest currently has the most diverse student population of the six schools in the Lehigh Valley Association of Independent Colleges, with 37% of our students being non-white.  However, our staff and faculty have a striking lack of diversity, with 1% of faculty and 4% of staff representing people of color. The Diversity and Inclusion initiatives will address the major recommendations made by the 2015-2016 Diversity and Inclusion Task Force in four major areas: 1) Campus Life and Student Affairs, 2) Curricular and Co-curricular and Academic Affairs, 3) Employment and Staffing, and 4) Community Relationships. The impact of this initiative will include: improvement in the campus climate for diversity and inclusion, a diversification of the College curriculum, an increased percentage of faculty and professional staff of color employed by the institution, and innovation grants that address equity-minded outcomes for our students.

Key Components

In order for Cedar Crest College to build an equitable, diverse, and inclusive learning environment for our students this initiative will provide

• Human resource training
• Employment and academic development needs

Progress

Implementation Launched:

• Training modules launched May 2018:
• “Our Cedar Crest College Diverse Community”
• “Cross-Cultural Communication”
• “LGBT 101 and How to Support Transgender Students”
• Additional faculty and staff training for engaging international students, Safe Zone, difficult conversation, and intergroup dialogue facilitation.