About the Center
Mission and Guiding Statement
The Center for Community Engagement (CCE) oversees, facilitates, and supports community-centered High Impact Practices (HIPs) such as Community Service Learning, Academic Internships and Community-Based Participatory and Action Research as well as other campus-community projects, events and initiatives focused on student success and aligned with CSULB’s Beach 2030 vision and goals identifies, builds and strengthens the institutional infrastructure needed to support, scale, and sustain programming that advances student success across CSULB and advances the Public Good in the communities we serve.
The Center for Community Engagement enriches the educational experiences of students by:
- Serving as a facilitative partner and resource for students, faculty, staff and community members in strengthening community capacity;
- Promoting shared community-based participatory research and planning; and
- Building social and political capital through the coordination of community and civic engagement, effective service learning and reciprocal community collaboration.
The Center for Community Engagement (CCE) represents an expansion of the former Community Service Learning Center (CSLC), which was established in 1998 as a special project of the Center for Faculty Development to institutionalize Service Learning at CSULB. In the past three years the CCE has brought in over half a million dollars in grant funding to support community engagement.
Education
- Promote K-16 initiatives and academic success through after-school programs and faculty development.
- Foster community-based participatory research that enhances community education and improves the local quality of life.
Students
- Focus on connections between CCE, student organizations and student services to promote community and civic engagement.
- Support and promote student leadership, mentoring and student recognition of community engagement.
Communities
- Promote participatory citizenship at all levels of society.
- Facilitate and participate in campus-community forums that focus on issues of shared concern and create partnerships for problem-based service learning, research, and creative activities.
Our Four Pillars
We enrich students’ educational experiences, providing high-impact practices through programs in:
A high impact teaching approach utilizing community-based experiential learning to connect theory and practice through critical reflection. It emphasizes learning through community service activities that are fundamental to course outcomes and provides benefit to students as well as community partners by promoting sustainable campus-community relationships that enhance student learning and address community-identified needs.
Service learning (SL) integrates and enhances both community services and academic instruction, engages students in responsible and challenging community service, and emphasizes active learning in different environments.
It is an opportunity for community groups, organizations and agencies to develop reciprocal partnerships with faculty, staff and students to address significant community issues.
In the process, students begin to develop an ethic and spirit of service and civic engagement.
Students participate in SL as a fundamental part of an academic course, which places an equal value upon students' integrative learning and upon service that addresses significant community-identified needs.
Students tie their SL experiences together with classroom learning through guided critical reflection.
A high impact learning experience that engages students in meaningful internship opportunities that integrate knowledge and theory learned in the classroom with practical application and skills development in a professional setting. Internships give students the opportunity to gain valuable applied experience and make connections in professional fields.
A partnership approach to research that equally engages the university and community organizations. Each participant contributes their expertise, with shared responsibility and ownership, to integrate the knowledge gained with actions to improve the well-being of the community. (Israel, Schulz, Parker, and Becker, 1998).
The CCE provides various resources to support the development and implementation of community-based participatory research (CBPR).
Recognizing the complex nature of issues facing the community, we seek to bring community resources together with faculty and campus resources across various disciplines.
We utilize CBPR strategies through new and existing networks and partnerships. See a map of our community partners.
The goal is to conduct research with the community that is both sustainable and transformational rather than simply on the community. Such research should make significant contributions to the community as well as to a discipline or to interdisciplinary studies.
Authentic collaborations between CSULB and local, regional, national and global communities for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.
Contact Us
CCE-Admin@csulb.edu
Prospective students and requests for general CCE program information, events, and fiscal issues
CCE-SL@csulb.edu
Service learning Faculty, Student, and Community Partner questions, including S4 troubleshooting
CCE-Internships@csulb.edu
Academic Internships Office general questions
Center for Community Engagement Office Phone
(562) 985-7131
ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF
| NAME | TITLE | CONTACT |
|---|---|---|
| Dr. Juan M. Benitez | Executive Director | Juan.Benitez@csulb.edu |
| Mitra Baghdadi | Associate Director | Mitra.Baghdadi@csulb.edu |
| Isabelle Garcia | Office Coordinator | Isabelle.Garcia@csulb.edu |
SERVICE LEARNING STAFF
| NAME | TITLE | CONTACT |
|---|---|---|
| B'Jon Jones | Community-Engaged Programs Coordinator | Bjon.Jones@csulb.edu |
| Vacant | Community-Engaged Programs Assistant | CCE-SL@csulb.edu |
| Dr. Kara Miller | Faculty Fellow (Spring 2025) | Kara.Miller@csulb.edu |
| Dr. Sara Taylor | Faculty Fellow (Fall 2024) | Sara.Taylor@csulb.edu |
ACADEMIC INTERNSHIP STAFF
| NAME | TITLE | CONTACT |
|---|---|---|
| Michelle Chang | Director, Academic Internships Office | Michelle.Chang@csulb.edu |
| Kristal Domme | Internship Program Assistant | Kristal.Domme@csulb.edu |
| Dr. Beth Manke | Senior Faculty Fellow | Beth.Manke@csulb.edu |
Visit Us
We are located in the Academic Services Building (AS) 127 situated besides CSULB Library.
The Center for Community Engagement and Staff Offices are located on the first floor of the building opposite to ATS.
