Resources for Faculty and Staff

Faculty and staff resources

The commitment of faculty/staff service is vital for the work that we do and the mission of our university to create a more engaged academic institution.  

ICCE provides a multitude of resources for faculty/staff for teaching service-learning and academic internship courses. 

Additionally, we provide faculty/staff with ample opportunities for engaged scholarship, community-based research and funding through our Call to Service Grants. Resources and opportunities provided by ICCE for faculty/staff are meant to aid them in service, community engagement and teaching.

Community engaged teaching

Community-engaged teaching combines academic learning with meaningful collaboration between students and community partners. Within this approach, Community Service Learning (CSL) and Community Engaged Learning (CEL) are high-impact practices that connect coursework to real-world experiences across any discipline. Student outcomes benefit the common good through direct service or projects that build community capacity.

CSL and CEL help students clarify career goals, develop work skills, foster civic responsibility, and engage with ethical issues. They also support the university’s role as an engaged institution, promote high-quality learning, and encourage faculty collaboration across disciplines.

Building on these educational practices, community-engaged scholarship extends collaboration by partnering faculty and students with communities to address real-world issues through joint research efforts. ICCE supports these initiatives by facilitating partnerships and promoting research that benefits both academia and the community.

Community engaged scholarship

Many SFSU faculty are at the forefront of leading community engaged scholarship. While there are many forms of community-engaged scholarship, community-based participatory research (CBPR) has had the benefits of evolving out of the others and being the most intentionally reciprocal. 

CBPR differs from traditional research in many ways. One of the principal ways in which it is different is that instead of creating knowledge for the advancement of a field or for knowledge's sake, CBPR is an iterative process, incorporating research, reflection and action in a cyclical process.

UEAP deadline to revise course

To ensure your course is revised by the semester you would like to implement your CSL designation, please submit your course revision on CIM (also known as Course Leaf).

Revisions are accepted and reviewed on a rolling basis up to the deadlines.

For revisions effective Fall 2026March 9, 2026
For revisions effective Spring 2027TBD (Previous year: October 6, 2025)
For revisions effective Summer 2027TBD (Previous year: October 6, 2025)

Community Engaged Scholarship and Call to Service Grants

Call to Service grants support SF State faculty and staff in developing service-learning, community-based, and civic engagement opportunities that foster meaningful student learning and advance community-identified goals. Guided by a commitment to reciprocity and mutual benefit, this initiative strengthens collaborative partnerships while supporting the scholarship of community-engaged teaching and learning.

Course Designation/CEL Initiative

In alignment with Graduation Initiative 2025, the Chancellor’s Office charged the CSU Center for Community Engagement (COCCE) to lead an effort (the Community-Engaged Learning Initiative) to improve data collection and identify the spectrum of community-engaged learning courses taking place across the CSU. As a result, the Chancellor's Office has instituted two common systemwide “attributes” (CCEL and CSL) for community-engaged learning courses.

Attribute 1: Service Learning (CSL)

Service Learning (CSL) is a specific type of community-engaged learning in which substantive community engagement and the related community partnerships are critical components of course learning, with equal focus on community impact and student learning related to social justice or responsibility. Service-learning courses may also be labeled with a variety of titles.

Attribute 2: Curricular Community Engaged Learning (CCEL)

Curricular Community Engaged Learning (CCEL) refers to courses in any discipline that have some type of community-engaged experiences and activities built around reciprocal partnerships to benefit the common good and enhance student learning.

How to Propose a CSL/CCEL Designated Course

When navigating through the procedure for a new course proposal submission, faculty can request to obtain a CCEL or CSL course designation within the university's Curriculum Inventory Management (CIM) system. 

 

[Note: Once a course is designated in CIM, it will indicate in the SFSU Bulletin as, “CCEL or CSL may be available.” CCEL or CSL designation is at the course section level every semester and is optional for faculty to teach.]

How to Revise an Existing Course (Not Previously Designated CSL/CCEL)

When navigating through the procedure for the designation of an existing course submission, faculty can request to obtain a CCEL or CSLI course designation within the university's Curriculum Inventory Management (CIM) system.

 

[Note: Once a course is designated in CIM, it will indicate in the SFSU Bulletin as, “CCEL or CSLI may be available.” CCEL or CSLI designation is at the course section level every semester and is optional for faculty to teach.]

How to Record CSL Hours

Faculty will be able to enter their students' service-learning (SL) hours through the Faculty Center via the SFSU Gateway account.

See Where Your Course Falls in the CEL Spectrum

Use the CSU Community Engaged Learning Tool (CELT) Survey (instructions with the CELT link listed above)

Manual Tracking of Hours

If your course instructor prefers and/or provides you the option to track hours manually and have your site supervisor verify and confirm, we have drafted an excel template (formatted to print on one page and hours are formulated to total). 

 

Note: Students do not need to submit a copy of this manual timesheet to ICCE.

Publishing Engaged Scholarship

There are many places faculty can get published in higher education service-learning and community engagement journals.  Check this list of available opportunities for faculty to publish. This list of journals focus on community-based research, civic engagement and experiential pedagogies can assist faculty in publishing articles on service-learning and resources. 

 

Meet our ICCE Faculty Ambassadors

Faculty Ambassadors help faculty integrate community-engaged learning by offering course support, workshops, resources, consultations and project coordination, while reviewing proposals and evaluating initiatives.

Aritree Samanta

Office Hours Monday 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. via Zoom Password: 785838