Community engagement calling for contributions from across UNMC

Heidi Keeler, PhD

Community engagement is a critical part of UNMC’s mission and strategic plan. Every faculty member, staff member or student who wants to engage with community members should have the skills needed to engage in an informed, respectful way.  

To reach this goal, the UNMC Office of Community Engagement is launching the “Providing Community Perspectives Project.” This project is dedicated to creating a collaborative space to identify, collect and share community engagement resources, along with developing education, navigation and new resources needed to form trusting and mutually beneficial partnerships with communities.

“We have been asked by many across our five campuses for help in preparing UNMC members to engage with their local community,” said Heidi Keeler, PhD, assistant vice chancellor with the UNMC Office of Community Engagement. “We want to deliver this by creating this collaborative space for community engagement skills development.”

Dr. Keeler added: “We recognize that we have amazing experts and projects across UNMC that we would love to bring together for this purpose.”

This effort will proceed in three phases:

  • Identify currently available resources and collaborators and topics to further develop;
  • Connect interested learners with accessible resources and more advanced trainings offered by UNMC experts; and
  • Develop remaining education and resources not already available.

“By working together to first catalogue and then collaboratively determining best ways to develop and deliver needed resources, we are doing a service to our colleagues while also ensuring that our community partners are respected, valued and benefit from our current and future collaborations,” Dr. Keeler said.

UNMC faculty, students and staff who are interested in this UNMC-wide project can contribute by considering the following:

  • Does your office or unit offer community engagement training?
    • Is it formal or extra-curricular training?
    • Are there other community engagement resources available?
  • Were those resources developed in house or by an outside organization?
  • Were the resources developed with national best practices in mind?
  • Do those resources include the needs and preferences of local communities?

UNMC offices and units who are interested in sharing or collaborating to strengthen available resources are encouraged to reach out to the UNMC Office of Community Engagement prior to Nov. 8 to allow the project to progress to phase two. This collection of collaboratively shared resources will enable students, staff and faculty to connect with trainings to help them optimize their engagement skills.

Respondents are asked to reach out with questions, feedback and resources to the UNMC Office of Community Engagement by email at this link. Once the information is collected, the OCE will share the findings and determine phase three development needs.

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