Hello CSL colleagues -

Welcome to another term of online, project-based CSL!  

While we all know that CSL is a relational pedagogy, and that in-person is best, all of us have collectively decided that CSL is still worth it when done online.  This much is clear to me from your ongoing commitment to the teaching and learning in CSL - whether as instructors, community partners or students.  I'm pleased to say we have a slate of another 22 courses this term (and many more sections) for students to get engaged in community projects, and from which they can deepen their academic learning.  

I'm thrilled myself to be partnering this term with EndPovertyEdmonton (EPE) in our Introduction to Community-Based Research (CSL 350). Dr. Surma Das from EPE and I are teaching our students anti-poverty activism, interview based data collection and transcript analysis, and how to produce impactful research posters and blogs for EndPovertyEdmonton's package of resources. 

Best of luck for all your labour this term.   

David Peacock, CSL Director

Kristie Cheung, CSL Student Intern                                                 

I am thrilled to be the CSL Student Intern for Winter 2021. I am in my fifth and final year of my degree with a major in Marketing. During my first experience with CSL, I was grateful to be partnered with an organization in the community which allowed me to apply my knowledge to real-world settings. This led to my desire to take on more CSL opportunities in my final year. Once the pandemic is over, I am most excited to try new restaurants and to travel!

Majid Nikouee, CSL Evaluation Coordinator                                   

I am a PhD candidate at the Department of Educational Psychology in the Faculty of Education. I am glad to have joined the CSL team as the Evaluation Coordinator. This is my first experience with CSL, and I am very excited about it. When I am not working, I spend my time watching documentaries, swimming, and playing tennis.

ATTENTION STUDENTS & COMMUNITY PARTNERS!

Thinking about summer employment opportunities? The CSL Pathways program is a journey through the non-profit sector including a PAID summer internship. Students apply their CSL learnings to a professional setting and community partners receive a 50% wage subsidy. Application deadline: February 1, 2021. Questions? Contact Jill

The new year brings some very new and exciting things to Humanities 101. We just finished our 13-week course, Storytelling, that was aired over 88.5FM CJSR. It was a great success, and because there continues to be a large number of people living without secure, usable technology or internet, and because libraries, campuses and places where folks can access computers and internet continue to be closed, and because there are many people living in Edmonton who are isolated and needing communities of learning arguable now more than ever, we are airing the entire course again! Tune into 88.5FM CJSR on Friday nights from 6-7PM to join the class! You can also listen online at hum101onair.ca where you will also find lots of interesting things to explore and engage.

While we continue to air our radio class, we also embark on another first for Humanities 101! This term we have teamed up with the University of British Columbia’s Humanities program to deliver a one-of-a-kind Western Canadian Humanities 101 course. The course will include guest lectures from UofA, UBC, and Lakehead University faculty, workshops, and seminars. The course centres around two themes: 'Listening for connections', and 'What can being apart teach us about how to be together'? The latter theme highlights how Humanities 101 has always been a place that brings people who conventionally are apart, ideologically, politically, culturally, or socially, together to learn in community from each other. This term we are excited to continue learning from each other across figurative difference, and now over literal distance as we meet virtually across the city and across provinces! It promises to be an exciting term.

The Ribbon Rouge Foundation is a grassroots organization registered as a not-for-profit corporation under the Societies Act that focuses on health equity and facilitates social justice through the Arts. We serve the African, Caribbean and Black people in Alberta, by facilitating systems change, in structural and social determinants that lead to poorer health outcomes, including HIV related health outcomes in African, Caribbean, Black communities. We use storytelling, community-engaged arts and intentional meaningful community conversations to change perceptions, stir social conscience, educate the public and create positive social change. Ribbon Rouge has been a CSL partner with since the Winter 2020 term. They have partnered with CSL 100, FREN 454/554, SMO 438/637, WRS 210, and are currently partnered with WGS 102 for communications support students. 

Our CSL Partnership Coordinators, Erin, Mishma and Jay, are  hosting coffee house drop-in sessions for community partners which are recurring biweekly on Tuesdays from 3-4PM starting January 19th, and ending on April 13th. Join via Zoom.