Saint Mary's College of California
EN-13: Community Stakeholder Engagement

The College has a community engagement council consisting of representatives from the College as well as from four community agencies. This council guises the community engagement component of the core curriculum. This group meets at least four times a year to help shape policy and procedures. The College has implemented memos of understanding (MOUs) at the request and advice of our community advisory board that articulate the nature of all collaborative educational partnerships to ensure parity. Each MOU is renewed bi-annually, and the renewal process includes an assessment of the partnership and areas of growth/improvement. Community partner satisfaction surveys are conducted at the end of each semester. The results of these surveys guide our ongoing community engagement practices and inform shifts in policy within our community service program (CILSA - Catholic Institute for Lasallian Social Action). Finally, a Community Engagement Committee recently was initiated on campus, whose charge is to: "serve as liaison and advocate to/for each of our respective units to advance community engagement and propose principles, policy, and procedures related to community engagement to SMC administration and governing bodies."

The College has an extensive database of community partners that is coordinated and updated on an ongoing basis. Agencies that serve the poor and marginalized populations are at the heart of the College’s mission and community outreach. Most school partners are Title I schools. MOUs include a narrative to identify, describe, and articulate the needs and/or risks associated with vulnerable populations served by the agencies.

The list of community stakeholders can be found at the following link: http://www.stmarys-ca.edu/catholic-institute-for-lasallian-social-action/community-partners/current-partners

SMC students and faculty provide an array of direct service, research, and advocacy that contributes to community partners' goals. Specific outcomes of various community engagement/service-learning courses include: providing marketing plans, cost/benefit analysis, collection/analysis of quantitative survey data used by agencies in program planning/evaluation, policy analysis/briefs, and tangible products such as creating websites, IPhone apps for museum use, curricula, training materials and videos, water and soil chemical analysis for community/school gardens, after-school programs, nutrition programs, tax form completion assistance to clients served by agencies. In fall 2015, the College entered formal relationships with three non-profits to share full-time AmeriCorps*VISTA Members. The VISTA Members work one day per week at the College and four days per week at their host community partner. In under six months, this deeper partnership has resulted in new programs being developed at each site, the strengthening of volunteer infrastructure, and initiation of additional faculty connections for service-learning and research.