Running Head: PLACE-BASED COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT REFLECTION

Personal Reflections of Place-Based Community Engagement Summer Learning

Karina Nascimento Saunders

SDAD 5960: Place-Based Community Engagement

Professor: Erin Swezey

Site Supervisor: Kent Koth, Executive Director, Center for Community Engagement
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Introduction

This summer I was filled with energy, purpose, and encouragement as I found myself

participating in three distinct experiences that seemed to connect my past, present, and future

career hopes together with my personal and professional development. I chose to reflect on three

experiences: attending the Place-Based Justice Institute, participating in the Social Justice

Training Institute as well as, reading and reflecting on the book Place-Based Community

Engagement in Higher Education: A Strategy to Transform Universities and Communities by

Erica Yamamura and Kent Koth (Yamamura & Koth, 2018). In the following reflection I look at

the three experiences through a simplified Examen, a reflective practice based on Jesuit spiritual

exercises that help one pay attention to gratitude, emotions, and the spiritual in the everyday

(Sheldrake, 1991). For this paper I ask the questions: Where did I found joy? Where did I find

challenge? And What about do I hope to learn more? This process allowed me to link the three

experiences and delve deeper into where I hope to engage my professional practice in the future.

Place-Based Institute

Where do you find joy and curiosity?

The Place-Based Justice Institute at Loyola gave me joy. The institute provided an

insider look at place-based work in the context of higher education. At The Pilgrimage in D.C., a

social justice center and hostel, as Program Manager I worked closely with short-term student

groups from various institutional types. I created programing experiences that focused on

learning and reflection rather than serving to push students away from the volun-tourism while

bringing greater awareness to issues of hunger, homelessness, housing, racism, and economic

injustice. Since groups stayed at The Pilgrimage for about a week, my in-person time discerning
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group needs, and creating tailored pre/post training before entering a community site, was

limited. Instead, I focused on local partnerships, and tried to build long-term relationships with

community partners, volunteer managers, community organizers, and leaders experiencing

homelessness who would interact with the visiting groups.

My role at The Pilgrimage taught me about community and student engagement, and

constantly challenged me to learn more, build more relationships, and challenge systems that

were in place. I constantly struggled with the tension between providing experiences that would

push students and adults into a deeper understanding of their own privileges and biases----while

wanting to protect the community partner and the impact a group of questioning students might

have on a marginalized population. Questions constantly filled my work---- What is the purpose

of predominantly white affluent group of high school students from rural North Carolina coming

to D.C., The “Chocolate City” and cleaning up trash in a poor black neighborhood park? How

can I ethically send a multi-generational white church group to a soup kitchen where most of the

guests are black men, if we don’t talk about the racial injustice in our city or in our country and

the systemic and personal consequences that perpetuate poverty? Should college groups

participate in the homeless immersion? How much work is needed to understand the context of

our city, the history of the places and neighborhoods and people before it’s ok to send a group of

students into the community? Should immersion trips/mission trips/service trips etc. exist or do

they cause more harm? I left The Pilgrimage with many unanswered questions but aware that I

wanted to continue working as a bridge-builder connecting community and students. I

particularly enjoyed college students and wanted to find a way to continue the work of learning,

action, reflection around issues of community and justice, but didn’t exactly know what or how

that looked and who was doing it well.

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I continued to find my way in and out of these questions around the balance of student

development and community work ever since leaving The Pilgrimage and moving to Seattle. As

Vendor Coordinator at Real Change I took on a more direct social service role but looked for

areas to continue as an educator, I revamped the Real Change Vendor Speakers Bureau, took on

college interns, and created spaces for learning and reflection with students. Now, working with

college students and studying in the Student Development Administration program I am

continuing to look for those meeting spaces of learning and community justice work. All of this

to say, The Place-Based Justice Institute is where the pieces came together. It gave me the

chance to meet other people in this little niche who are doing the work of community partnership

and student learning. People in the various schools were actually asking questions and

responding to some of the similar questions I had been asking while at The Pilgrimage and Real

Change.

The Place-Based Justice Institute is an annual summer gathering of over 20 member

schools committed to “transform higher education and our communities by deconstructing

systems of oppression through place-based community engagement” (Seattle University, 2018).

The 2018 summer gathering took place at Loyola Maryland with a focus on racial justice in

place-based work the four-day gathering gave participants a zoomed-in look at Loyola’s place-

based work, the York Road Initiative. Throughout the few days participants engaged in small

group workshops led by various leaders from member institutions, racial caucusing, community

leader panel discussions, site-visits, and intentional networking. Attending campuses were given

time to brainstorm and debrief about how the workshops applied to their home place-based

initiatives, and time to reflect on personal impact of race in their personal and professional work.
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One of the SDA Learning Outcomes is: “establishing and enhancing professional

identity” in so many ways the chance to be at the gathering of people struggling to do this work,

gave me confidence in my professional identity. In many ways I felt like I had finally found “my

people.” Many of the activities at the institute, like the community organizing walking tour of

York Road, were similar to activities I led or incorporated into my work at The Pilgrimage.

Things like: The People’s Institute, pre-workshop context to community, intentional choices

about community leaders sharing their own work, neighborhood walk, small decisions that felt

both familiar and affirming. I spent the short week getting to know as many people as possible

and hearing about the place-based work at their institutions. I was energized by learning how my

past experiences might fit into my current development as a student development professional at

a higher education institution.

I left the institute with three key personal take-aways: 1. Place-based work in higher

education can be an intersection of community engagement work and student development, an

intersection that bridges my past and current work. 2. Place-based work looks different across

institutions, and the context and history of the city and the institution, impact what the

partnership looks like. 3. This place-based justice network is a community of learning, a network

for professionals a should be utilized for sharing best practices, and potential future job

placements.

Where do you find challenge or desolation? Where did the path seem less clear?

Despite my general excitement and energy around the institute, there were still challenge.

I wondered about representation at the institute, the role of the community in teaching about

partnership, compensation and value for community leaders and educators, what institutions are

part of the community, white-dominated higher leadership roles.

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I continue to sit in the questions that look at what harm is being done by this work and

these partnerships. I wonder if universities are going about the work with the right intention and

awareness of the full spectrum of impact they are imparting. Does the community have enough

power to speak-up to the role the university is having in this work? At one session in the institute

we practiced responding and sharing about accountability. I wonder how often these

conversations are taking place and if people like me are caring too much about the student

learning outcome. In the accountability session a student of color shared her frustrations that the

office she was connected to continuously hiring white staff members despite constantly talking

about anti-racism training and the importance of people of color leading the community work in

communities of color. This was one student’s experience, but I wonder how common this is, and

what should the criteria be to work with students and community on a college campus. Should

the employee be from the partnered community and should they hold the salient identities of the

community? This again makes me wonder where I fit in and what is my community.

Where is the spirit drawing me in the future? What you want to do? What do I want to

learn more about? What do I want to learn more about?

Questions

● What does mean for me to do place-based work in a city that is still new? What place

would I have to live (part of the country) to feel like I am genuinely a part of the

community if so much of place-based work is about long-term partnership and

relationships?

● What does it mean that I really enjoy working with students and

learning/training/reflecting with students and yet still want to do community place-based

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work? Is there space for that? Does a student affairs professional have a role in place-

based work?

● Is it possible to really have a mutual partnership between university and community?

What does it look like for power to be shared?

● Where are the institutions that are naturally doing place-based work well, but don’t

necessarily call it by an official title? Where are the MSIs?

● What does it look like to want to serve/partner with community first but still see myself as

an educator/coach to students and want to be a part of the ah-ha moments where

transformation happens?

● Does place-based community engagement focus enough on anti-racist work? How is this

being centralized for both community and university stakeholders? What would my role

be to make sure anti-racist practices are first and how does that affect with who I work?

Social Justice Training Institute

Where do you find joy and curiosity?

The week following the Place-Based Justice Institute, I traveled to Springfield,

Massachusetts to attend the Social Justice Training Institute or SJTI. SJTI “provides a forum for

the professional and personal development of social justice educators and practitioners to

enhance and refine their skills and competencies to create greater inclusion for all members of

their organization or campus community” (Online, 2017). The impact of SJTI experience is hard

to define it was full of personal reflective work, and intimate conversations with others, as we all

processed the way we have been racialized in our lives. Three things I took away from the SJTI

experience include: 1. I cannot do social justice work alone, and I am not alone in doing the

work. 2. It is possible to support communities of color and centralize students of color while still
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believing in the hope that white people can change. 3. Race and ethnicity specific affinity groups

are important for personal and systemic oppression work.

A few things that brought joy and curiosity that connect to my development and

questions of discernment in place-based work are the role of the social justice educator in place-

based work, people of color spaces and leadership, leadership that pushed and challenged and a

group that believed in hope and learning. Much of the institute was very personal as we spent

hours in caucus groups talking about socialization and how our racial identities impact our

personal and professional life. This personal work seems so critical especially in place-based

work that asks us to be in the intersection of people from so many different identities and

experiences. What struck me as different at SJTI than from other racial justice trainings I’ve

attended was the intentionality of who was brought into the training--purposely making the POC

group larger, having many different levels of leadership, and people who were committed to

change. The container that was held by the group throughout the week was one where everyone

was learning and where faculty pushed all the participants into spaces of tension even asking for

direct accountability of white folks in the room. The SJTI caucus was also the first time I

participated in a Latinx specific group. The self-decided sub-group gave us a chance to talk about

our unique experiences of being Latinx, of being POC, and of working in higher education.

The institute was filled with people who were committed to the work of student

development but also the work of social justice as it connected to student learning as well as

institutional change and accountability. For me, it was a space of hope, a chance to connect with

interesting people, struggling together with the belief that students, co-workers, family members,

and institutions can change. The ability to one day be people and places united around the work

of undoing racism. The community that we built at SJTI in a short five-days gives me hope for
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the field. Through SJTI I am a stronger educator because of a deeper understanding of self. I am

beginning to recognize the ways I was socialized around race. And I have a new sense of

connection to LatinX community in the higher education field.

Where do you find challenge/desolation/where did the path seem less clear?

I left SJTI full of energy and feeling more connected to a group of people I could call on

for support, questions, and continued learning. It felt great to be connected to people but hard

because we all work in institutions across the country in different departments and contexts and

the reality of connecting on an on-going basis is difficult.

A challenge that continues to be true for me, is finding the balance between being the

educator and being the protector. When does it make sense to point out microaggressions and

teach white folks about the harm that is being done to me or to other POC and when should the

focus be on protecting POC and stepping away from the role of educating? This tension is very

present in community engagement work for me too--- what is the focus of my work? So much of

my time at The Pilgrimage was trying to teach people about systemic racism, but what was I

doing to support the well-being of other people of color? When I think about future jobs and

career paths, I still struggle with questions about who I am serving and what my role should be.

This is true in my personal life too---as a Latina woman married to a white man, I believe that I

do have a role in being an educator with family members that are often unaware of racist

behaviors towards me and others. SJTI was encouraging in that so many folks struggled with the

same issues. My SJTI cohort saw the hope and importance of their roles in higher education

balancing the need to hold space and support students of color in their identity development and

be educators of white students as they uncovered their untapped racism. I was inspired by SJTI

co-learners in the way they embodied both of these roles.

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Where is the spirit drawing me in the future? What you want to do? What do I want

to learn more about? What do I want to learn more about?

As I continue to develop hopes and dreams as a student affairs professional I know that I

deeply value social justice and racial equity work. I hope to always be in a place that is

supportive of personal, professional and organizational growth as it comes to racial equity. If I

am able to be part of a university’s place-based work I think it is essential that a racial analysis is

happening and that students who are involved in the work are also constantly training and

learning about how they show up in spaces and the impact that they have on those around them.

In an interview this summer with Gerald Ford, Associate Director for the Center for

Community Service and Justice at Loyola Maryland, (In conversation July, 2018) I learned about

the extensive racial equity training and racial caucusing Loyola leads with their student leaders

weekly throughout the academic year. I would love to learn more about what this looks like in

practice, and how other schools and programs might be able to prioritize similar training. I am

also curious about the impact of this training on the student leaders of color and white students

and how their work and desire to do place-based community engagement changes based on the

consistent racial equity work. I would love to be involved in this type of student work that

bridges student development, racial equity training, and community engagement training and

reflection.

Questions

● Should white students be going into to communities of color to “serve?”

● What does place-based anti-racism community engagement look like? How do you know

if this is happening successfully?

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● How is the community, students, larger institution impacted by consistent anti-racist

training?

● As a Latina student affairs professional what does that mean for my role in training

students in racial equity work in community engagement?

● What is the internalized message of racism in the conversations about place-based work

for community members?

● How are universities supporting POC spaces in the community?

● What does un-going anti-racism training for students and community look like? Who

should be leading these trainings? How is the impact being measured and for whom?

● What does healing in communities on and off campus look like? What is the

timeline/order of this work?

Place-Based community Engagement in Higher Education

Where do you find joy curiosity?

The book was a helpful resource for understanding the different forms of place-based

work, and how the different work functions at different institutional types. The book helped give

language to many of my questions and a larger framework to understand place-based community

engagement. I was particularly drawn to the questions in the last chapter that look forward and

point out the challenges and polarities of place-based work in practice. As mentioned, I am

curious to learn how other sectors could be connected to place-based initiatives, how MSI’s do

this work, what the role of connecting more institutions together to do place-based work might

look like. I am curious about the role of place as community changes and how the partnerships

respond to changing neighborhoods and gentrification. And, in the 50-50 proposition seeing how
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universities move to be more accountable to partners in the community. Questions from the

book that I was particularly drawn to:

● “Do the issues of power, privilege, and racism arising from the 50-50 proposition lead

campus to better connect their community engagement strategies with their diversity and

inclusion work? What are the promising practices in exploring these linkages? Which

specific practices work and which have no impact?” (p. 132)

● “How best do institutions evaluate the need to adjust or change the geographic

boundaries of their place-based initiatives?” (p. 134)

● “What are the strategies to evaluate the place-based initiatives that utilize collective

impact, particularly when the university plays a convener role?” (p. 139).

Where do you find challenge/desolation/where did the path seem less clear?

I think I am still new to the theory and practices of community-engagement in higher

education. I am curious to learn more about how different institutions go about working with and

in community locally and more broadly. The book provided specific cases of place-based

models, I am curious to learn more about these cases and future implications. How are

communities responding to this approach and how has the partnership created future dreams and

hopes for both parties?

Where is the spirit drawing me in the future? What you want to do? What do I want

to learn more about? What do I want to learn more about?

I hope to use the book as a resource as I continue to learn about different institutions

across the country. It gives me more tools too look critically at the different models of

community engagement that are being enacted across the country. I am eager to see more focus
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on the assessment and voice of community in this work. Specifically, how can the conversation

shift in accreditation and assessment so that the focus of learning and impact is shared by

community and institution?

Conclusion

As I continue in the Student Development Program and reflect on the intersections of my

past jobs, current experiences, and future hopes I know that my experience this summer with

place-based work and social justice training will continue to guide me. This reflection brought up

many of my own learnings and many more questions that will help navigate my current and

future work. I hope to continue to learn and connect with people in higher education that are

looking to better connect place and community to create mutual learning and development. The

landscape of cities across the country are constantly changing just as my personal life situation

and goals are always adapting. I am grateful for these three opportunities and hope that they will

lead to more connections with people who can be mentors that will help guide me as I discern

next steps personally and professionally.

Part of the Examen process is a call to action. As I synthesize the learning from these

three experiences my next steps can be summed up into comitment, research, and challenge. I

want to commit to getting involved locally in the place-based work either at Seattle University or

with a community partner. I want to stay connected to the SJTI family and the PBJI network for

ongoing learning about designated place-based work and ongoing research about social justice

education across the country. I hope that with a commitment to going learning will give me

courage to challenge my own involvement and commitment to community and allow me to

challenge structures at institutions that do not align with my understandings of social justice.
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References

Sheldrake, P. (1991). The Way of Ignatius Loyola: Contemporary approaches to the Spiritual

exercises (1st U.S. ed., Series IV--Study aids on Jesuit topics; no. 13). St. Louis: Institute

of Jesuit Sources.

Yamamura, E., & Koth, Kent. (2018). Place-based community engagement in higher education :

A strategy to transform universities and communities (First ed.). Sterling, Virginia: Stylus

Publishing, LLC.