Siena’s annual Engage for Change regional conference connects local community engagement practitioners, including faculty, students, and community organizations, to share best practices across institutions and methods for advancing their work in the Capital Region.
At the June 10 conference, morning sessions were held virtually, and after lunch attendees shut down their laptops and headed out into the community for in-person visits at the sites of several community engaged projects.
Sarah Toledano, assistant director of Siena’s Center for Academic Community Engagement (ACE), said the key takeaways for attendees were tangible strategies for furthering community engagement and diversity, equity, and inclusion work within their respective institutions.
“It was important for the Siena community to talk with colleagues across the region about real-world examples of their community engaged work,” said Toledano. “As we reemerge from COVID, it was nice to be reminded that working in community is sometimes awkward, challenging, frustrating, but worth it for the experience.”
Presentations included strategies to create antiracists classrooms, develop more equitable food assistance programs, build sustainable partnerships and more, plus “tool sessions” to work on hard and soft skills for community outreach.
David Harris, Ph.D., president of Union College gave the keynote address “Creating Institutional Changes in the Area of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion on Campuses.”
Oluwatosin Oluyede ’21 and Edwin Conor Graham ’21 collaborated on a social cohesion study with Vera Eccarius-Kelly, Ph.D. professor of comparative politics, which they presented.
Oluyede said her group started their research at the Refugee Welcome Center in Albany’s West Hill neighborhood in the summer of 2020.
“Social cohesion is the ability of a community to get along and address issues that are seen as important to the entire neighborhood,” she said. “People need to see each other as neighbors, otherwise there is no community to develop.”
In their paper, the team explored reasons for a lack of community in the under-resourced West Hill and what could be done to address it.
“When people get to know each other, they can break down stereotypes and work together to build trust, and advocate for their needs,” said Oluyede.
“Engage for Change was a fun and interesting conference to participate in,” said Graham. “I enjoyed sharing our work from this past year, but what I found even more exciting was the interesting projects of everyone else at the conference. I also very much enjoyed Dr. Harris' keynote address. His is a unique story and it was powerful to hear it firsthand.”
The community sites visited were the Refugee Welcome Center in Albany’s West Hill, a walking tour of Albany’s South End, Bike-A-Toga in Saratoga Springs, and art and community development sites in Schenectady.