Community Partners
Service Learning partnerships bring students, faculty, and community organizations together to create real impact. By collaborating with Cal Poly, you’ll gain fresh perspectives, expand your organization’s capacity, and help prepare students to become future leaders — all while addressing needs that matter most in your community.
Overview
Service-Learning students are different from other volunteers as their work with you is part of their academic curriculum (i.e., a class they are enrolled in).
There are learning objectives connected to these students' work with you. When you work with service-learning students, we strongly encourage you to collaborate with the faculty teaching the class to ensure students’ learning objectives correspond to their work to meet the needs of your organization.
Ideally, Cal Poly faculty and community partners collaborate as co-educators in various aspects of course planning and design (e.g., learning outcomes, readings, preparation/orientation of students, reflection, assessment), and together they identify how the community project can enrich student learning and add to the capacity of the organization in meeting community needs. The value of the partnership to both community and student learning is shared with students. Not all of these elements of an ideal reciprocal collaboration are required for a meaningful partnership. The first step is to get involved as a community partner.
Become a Community Partner
Please contact Mr. Brad Kyker at the Center for Service in Action to initiate the process of formally becoming a Community Partner.
If you would like to connect with a faculty member to discuss potential SL projects as you are in the process of formally becoming a Cal Poly community partner, please reach out to the faculty liaison for SL, Dr. Anurag Pande. Dr. Pande can help connect current and potential partners in appropriate academic departments and courses that best fit your organization's needs.
Partner Awards
During the Spring term of each Academic Year, the Learn by Doing Good Awards recognize members of the campus community demonstrating excellence and distinction in leadership and engagement on campus, as well as faculty, staff, students, and community partner agencies for off-campus contributions to the quality of life in San Luis Obispo County and their spirit of civic engagement.
Two awards that recognize our community partners are as follows:
| Award | Awarded To | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Outstanding Campus-Community Collaboration | Non-Profit or Governmental Agency and Cal Poly Department or Program |
A dual award jointly awarded to a community partner and a Cal Poly program or department who have collaborated to offer a unique experience for students and the community.
For example: - CP World Languages & Cultures Dept. and Pacheco Elementary School - SLO Food Bank and the CP Food Pantry |
| Outstanding Community Partner | Non-Profit or Governmental Agency | A non-profit or governmental agency that has formed a fruitful partnership with Cal Poly and provided exceptional service opportunities on several levels for the Cal Poly community. |
If you are interested in being nominated or nominating a community partner, please reach out to Mr. Brad Kyker.
Featured Community Partners
A list of featured community partners can be found here.
Contact Us
For more information and for providing suggestions on desired resources, please don't hesitate to contact Dr. Anurag Pande (Faculty Liaison for Service-Learning)
