The Daily Bulletin

Please join the Civic and Community Engagement Office for the webinar "From Pandemic to Paradigm Shift: How We Are Adapting to Meet the Evolving Needs of Our Campuses and Communities," featuring speakers Samantha de Melim, Lucas Malo, and Colby Sim from Brandeis University, on Thursday, November 18, from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. This event is presented by Campus Compact as part of its National Webinar Series and is free to members of the Buffalo State College community.

When a crisis hits, be it a hurricane or an international pandemic, students want to immediately respond; however, good intentions do not always present themselves as meaningful actions. A large group of untrained volunteers descending upon a community in crisis often creates more harm than good. It is our role to step into these spaces and bridge the gap between community partners and student volunteers. We must help guide our students in finding opportunities that allow them to safely engage, while providing meaningful support to our partners.

Learn from colleagues at Brandeis University’s Department of Community Service the ways they pivoted their operations to continue providing necessary support to their community and campus amidst a public health crisis. In this session, they will share examples of both new and adapted programs and risk management policies, challenges and successes of remote engagement, takeaways from the shift from direct service to advocacy, and lessons they learned that will change their work long after the pandemic. They will also share the ways their definitions of service and community evolved, leading them to adapt their current models and university resources to provide relevant and sustainable community support. They hope you will walk away from this session with a new perspective on community and action items to help your team not only be proactive in preparing for the next crisis, but perhaps make lasting changes to your current model of engagement.

Please register online for this webinar and any others in the series that may interest you.