Save the date for our 21st ACLC Retreat:

Community: The Structure of Belonging

October 18-20, 2023

This year, we are looking forward to once again meeting in person at our annual retreat in West Hartford, CT. We hope to see you there!

Click Here to see our 2023 Retreat Agenda.

Thank you to everyone who made our 2023 retreat a success! Click Here to see the Materials from our 2023 Retreat Workshops/Learning Exchanges!

Keynote:

Presented by Dr. Sandra Enos, Ph.D.

Building that village: Strategies and Practices for Creating Community and Engaged Learning

We often hear that it takes a village to raise a child but we hear less about how these villages are created and sustained. It takes a village to fully educate our students. What makes a community a village that cares for all of its members? How do we create communities that advance learning and engagement? How do we not only build those communities for our students but help teach them how to build those communities and foster belonging? This presentation will share research and strategies for building community and enhancing student learning across several dimensions. These strategies can be used in and out of the classroom.

With twenty years experience in community organizing, public service and nonprofit leadership and another twenty in academia, Sandra Enos, PhD has enjoyed a career in corrections, child welfare, public administration, higher education, and social entrepreneurship. She earned a PhD from the University of Connecticut at age fifty, focusing on service-learning pedagogy. She published widely in the field of public and civic engagement and serve at the Director of the Integrating Service with Academic Study Project at the national office of Campus Compact. Her research interests are in criminal justice, examining race, gender and incarceration. She is the author of Mothering from the Inside: Parenting in a Women’s Prison (SUNY Press) and The Pedagogy of Social Change: Service-Learning and Social Entrepreneurship in Higher Education (Palgrave) which will be published in Chinese later this year. She teaches courses in Creativity and Aging, as well as playing in community bands and being a member of an improvisational theatre group. She founded social enterprise, Giving Beyond the Box, which curates gift boxes featuring products with social impact. She is the recipient of several awards for community services and engaged teaching. She is also manages a blog called Delight/Awe and other things.