About

What Is Community Engaged Learning?

Community Engaged Learning (CEL) is an academic program at Millsaps College that enables students to partner traditional classroom content with practical application in the community. Through mutually beneficial partnerships within the Jackson Metropolitan community, students cultivate their identity as lifelong learners and active citizens. While Millsaps has always fostered students’ involvement in the greater community, the CEL program officially became part of the academic program in 2002.

CEL projects range from traditional community service models to mentoring opportunities between our students and community leaders in the non-profit and private sector worlds. As an integral piece of the Millsaps experience, CEL encourages students to discern the ways in which their community serves them and to envision their own unique contributions as active, engaged citizens.   CEL not only enhances student learning, but encourages awareness of our community partners and the crucial contribution that they make to the Jackson Metro area.

What makes CEL unique at Millsaps?

Millsaps College is located in the heart of the capital city, a crossroads for culture, public policy and education. This location provides unlimited opportunities in the midst of a thriving metropolitan area educating students on the complexities of urban issues. In 2013, the college prioritized community engagement as part of the strategic plan “Across the Street and Around the Globe.”

Who Does It?

Everyone! CEL classes are taught within all disciplines of the college including Biology, Education, Religious Studies, History, Psychology, English, Business and Communications. Students in CEL courses have earned regular credit hours while writing business plans for local businesses, working with elementary students on early literacy skills, and conducting science workshops for Jackson Public Schools.

Other CEL projects have given students the opportunity to tutor Sudanese refugees, work in afterschool programs, conduct market research, and contribute to public history events. CEL coursework at Millsaps underscores the critical connection between learning and doing, giving our students the knowledge and experience to be lifelong citizens, whether they are in their hometown or across the world.

Courses

Division of the Sciences

Child Development in Context: Managing Classrooms to Support the Development of Self-regulation (EDUC 3280)
Community Partner: Lester Elementary
Students design and implement strategies to foster child self-regulation in classrooms at Lester Elementary. The course examines the role of social context in child development with special attention to the ways in which classroom practices can reproduce or disrupt the inequities associated with poverty.

Human Development in Cross-Cultural Perspective (IDST 1000)
Community Partners: various organizations that serve human developmental needs
Human Development in Cross-Cultural Perspective examines continuity and change in individuals across the lifespan, including development in the physical, cognitive, and social domains.  Emphasis is placed on development as a context-bound process: a process which examines how factors external to the individual interact with those within the individual to shape the course of development. Students will spend time volunteering at an organization or agency that serves human developmental needs in some way.

Clinical Practice (EDUC 4500)
Community Partner: various public and private K-12 classrooms
Clinical Practice is an intensive field-based semester designed to connect theory and pedagogical best practices with K-12 classroom teaching experiences.

Early Literacy Development I (EDUC 3100)
Community Partner: Spann Elementary
EDUC 3100 teaches students the foundations of literacy instruction.  Importance is placed on research-based classroom instruction and assessment and targeted interventions for those reading below grade level. Literacy is multidimensional; it includes listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing, and visually representing in a variety of settings.

Senior Seminar/History and Systems II (PSYC 4912-01)
Community Partner: the students as a group will have to choose their specific engagement site
Connecting psychological concepts to the real world, students will therefore better understand psychological principles as they apply to everyday or extraordinary human interactions while serving the community. Students will create a proposal for service placement outlining the psychological principle they are investigating and the community partner with whom they will work.

Instructional Design, Implementation, and Management (EDUC 3200-01)
In this course, students are introduced to research-based methods for the design, implementation, and management of instructional contexts.  Students will design goals and objectives, explore various models of teaching, and interact with numerous templates for managing large and small groups. Students will be learning “in the field” by observing and assisting in K-12 school classrooms.

Field Research in Reading (EDUC 3850)
Community Partner: Brown Elementary School
Field Research in Reading offers licensure candidates the opportunity to explore the field of Education with emphasis on at risk readers in K-3 classrooms. Candidates provide literacy enrichment for students with low reading/language skills. Students enrolled in this course provide literacy skills enrichment at Brown Elementary School.

Crime and Prisons (SOAN 2750-02)
Community Partner: Henley-Young Detention Center, various speakers
Using a sociological perspective to examine the nature of crime, the creation of crime and criminals, and our past and contemporary penal system, students will develop a mentoring program. They will make direct connections with juveniles currently in the system, the legal aspects of crime, and crime and mental health. Through these connections and discussions, students will have the opportunity to understand crime and prisons as situated in the larger economic and political contexts.

Campaigns and Election (PLSC 3000)
Community Partner: various campaign organizations
The course allows students to examine campaign organization, fundraising and communication, standard grassroots campaign techniques, and both new and emerging technologies during a critical election year. Students will examine the political campaigns and the electoral process from the perspectives of practitioners such as political professionals who manage and work on campaigns, the activists and donors who help power them, the candidates themselves, and the voters who are charged with making the final decisions at the ballot box.

Division of Arts and Humanities

American Art (IDST 2400-01/ARTH 2760)
Community Partner: Lewis Art Gallery
This course examines important works of American art from the colonial period through the early 20th century paying close attention to social, political and cultural contexts. Through investigating the unique character and construction of the United States, we will address issues such as modernity, gender, capitalism, urbanism, identity, and class.

“Ko’ox Boon”—Let’s Paint! (ENGL/COMM/SOAN)
Community Partner: Ko’ox Boon
Part of the Millsaps Yucatan semester, students will work with the non-profit Ko’ox Boon in the pueblo of Yaxhachen, to create dialogue between community members across culture, race, age and language, which will manifest innovative, multicultural solutions to social problems. Ko’ox Boon suggests that these conversations are best had when communicating through art and community betterment. Students will work with the community to carry out projects in the newly developing community center, Casa YAXHA.

Environmental Ethics (PHIL 2120/PEAC 2750)
Community Partner: Two Run Farms and Garden Farmacy
In this class students will study approaches to the idea of “environment” and will be introduced to debates surrounding ecological issues.  These include:  climate change, food ethics, animal issues, ethics of sports hunting and environmental-scarcity triggered violence. Students shall have an opportunity to work at the Mississippi Food Network to engage with the issues covered in the course.

SPAN 1010
Community Partner: Latin Fest
This course continues to introduce students to basic Spanish grammar and vocabulary with emphasis on oral proficiency. Students will practice all semester, including hosting a weekly Spanish film series. In addition, students will engage with the local Latina community at Jackson’s annual Latin Fest.

Ventures

“Can We Promote Literacy Through Artistic Means?” (FYCS 1010-11)
Community Partner: The Purple Word Center for Book & Paper Arts, Brown Elementary
Through the art and content of book arts, this course will serve as a cross section between studio art, community engaged practices and literature.  This is considered a studio art course, with a broader interest and attachment to the community.  The class will meet every Thursday afternoon at Purple Word Center for Book & Paper Arts to print letterpress, print relief blocks, bind books and to work with the children in Midtown.  As we discuss readings, collaborate with one another and with residents of Midtown, and create artistic works, we will ask such questions as: Can relatively small gestures have a lasting impact on a child’s desire to read?  How do we know what works in Midtown?  Our ultimate problem to be solved is: how do we promote literacy through artistic means in Midtown? ,

Is Peace Possible? (FYCS 1010-06)
Community Partner: MS Department of Archives and History, International Museum of Muslim Culture, Henley-Young Juvenile Justice Center
The goal of this course is not to solve the problem of violence, but to have students clarify their views about the extent to which peace is possible. The course will explore incidents of violence as well as methods for replacing violent means of solving conflicts with peaceful means.

Why Do Americans Hate Politics and What Can Be Done About it? (FYCS-1010-09)
This course examines the factors leading to the rapid deterioration of trust for our governing institutions and the growing reluctance among citizens to participate in the political process. These factors include ideological polarization and hyper-partisanship, statutory efforts to make voter registration and participation gratuitously difficult, and the implementation of policies that undermine the economic mobility and long-term security for an increasingly large number of citizens.

What Does Heritage Have to Do with History? (FYCS 1010-12)
This course will explore the relationship between heritage and history as those terms apply to current debates surrounding the Confederate battle flag, Confederate memorials and other symbols that represent heritage to some and hate to others.

Community Partners

Millsaps cares about each of our students and supports their career planning and mental health needs. Our Center for Career Education guides our students through career options, whether it’s graduate school applications or connecting with a prospective employer before graduation. In addition, we offer mental health services through counseling, and our Chaplain is available to help you with your spiritual needs—no matter your affiliation.

Jackson Public Schools

Brown Elementary

  • Murrah High School
  • Brown Elementary
  • Lester Elementary

Other Partners

Mississippi Department of Archives and History