CONTACT:
Office of the Provost
610-466-6666 Ext. 3397
Center for Art and Community Engagement
Collaboration for Urban Teaching and Learning
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:
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
Progress
Implementation Launched
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
Progress
Implementation Pending
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
Progress
Implementation Pending
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
Progress
Implementation Launched: