Community-Engaged Teaching and Research is supporting nearly 60 service-learning courses across multiple colleges and departments at the University in the Spring 2023 semester. Some of these courses are seeking community-based partners with specialized interest and shared goals – community partners can explore the information below and submit to our Request for Partnerships if you are interested in collaborating with one (or more!) of these courses. If you are open to multiple types of engagement based on the opportunities below, please email Chelsea (CETR Program Manager) at c.lauder@northeastern.edu so we can work together to think through possibilities.
Climate and Environmental Justice
Coding for Digital Storytelling
Students in this course could build and exercise digital storytelling skills by telling stories about groups impacted by, or involved in, climate change actions. Community partners could engage with the students and faculty members in a variety of ways and should have some focus (central or not) on climate change.
Environmental Studies Capstone
This course enrolls graduating students and acts as a summative experience to their undergraduate experience. Environmental science and environmental studies students have multiple tracks to choose from in their undergraduate semesters and this course brings together all students to form interdisciplinary problem-solving teams around topics related to environmental science and environmental studies. To understand the context of these topics in community, this course matches students with an organization to produce recommendations toward solving an “environment science” problem.
Chemical Engineering Process Design
Upper-level engineering students enrolled in this capstone experience are interested in collaborating with organizations to for engineering process improvement. Examples could include: environmental testing, such as air quality or water quality, developing indoor gardens or water saving devices like grey water recycling, or designing solar hot water heaters to save on electricity costs.
Health Education and STEM-based Programming
Public Health and Nutrition
Students in this course can engage with partners around public health topics and nutrition education. Some possibilities include public health asset-mapping or creation of nutrition materials. Examples of past partnerships can be found here.
Inquiries in Biology
Student in this course can support, lead, and/or create stem-based enrichment with a focus on biological concepts. Students will work in small groups to create and/or implement stem-based programs. Examples of past partnerships can be viewed here.
Advanced Writing for the Health Professions
Advanced writing students can create public health materials around relevant topics to community members. The topics and format of materials can be decided alongside the community partner and organizations are asked to provide feedback to students to ensure that the materials are representative of the audience. Example material created in previous partnerships can be viewed here.
First Year Engineering
We work closely with a number of first-year engineering courses and related student-run clubs to lead robotics and design challenges with youth. While we have a limited number of courses and students, we are able to connections to other stem-based programs.
Communications, Marketing, and Media
Consumer Behavior
Students in this course create a marketing strategy around a community partner goal. This could be a fundraising campaign, annual event, or other communication-based goal. Partners will be asked to attend the first class to provide a 5-minute project overview, attend two mid-semester project meetings with student groups to answer questions, attend final project presentations and provide feedback. Partners should also be available to the students via email and suggest opportunities for students to survey, interview, or observe members of the organization and/or the community that the organization serves.
Marketing Research
Students in this course produce a marketing research report. Partners will be asked to make connections to a provided audience so that students can collect and analyze data in order to identify trends and provide recommendations.
Marketing and Society
Students in this course create a marketing strategy around a community partner goal. This could be a fundraising campaign, annual event, or other communication-based goal. Both this course and consumer behavior operate very similarly with regards to partner interaction – but present content differently to the students themselves. Organizations should have a goal in mind and be willing to work with students to provide insight and feedback on their projects throughout the semester.
Research for Media Strategy
Students conduct some aspect of research around a community partner goal, relating to communication and media. This could look like leading focus groups, distributing surveys, or other data collection toward understanding trends and making strategy recommendations.
Policy, Community Development, and Urban Planning
Participatory Planning Methods
Students in this course conduct a robust analysis and develop a plan to support organizations tackling a “complex problem”. The final deliverable of the course would provide organizations with a stakeholder and asset analysis, outreach strategy, and research on landscape of issue. There are many types of projects or questions that can be approached with participatory planning methods – partners who are trying to work across stakeholders or develop neighborhood strategies may be a good fit!
Techniques of Policy Analysis
Students in this course produce policy recommendations for organizations who have programs or work that may be affected by local or state policy. Organizations do not need to be policy-orientated themselves, but rather have an interest in understanding how policy influences their work.
Techniques of Program Evaluation
Students in this course work with organizations to produce program evaluation plans. Students do not conduct an evaluation, but rather provide the tools for partners to implment an evaluation strategy.
Direct Engagement & Volunteer Support
Multiple Courses – looking for 200+ direct service placements
A common format of service-learning courses is when students engage on a regular (weekly or bi-weekly) basis with community-based organizations and their stakeholders. Each semester, we are looking to place 200+ students – with a variety of backgrounds and interests with local Boston organizations OR to support remote volunteers roles across the world. If you have existing volunteers roles you are looking to fill, please submit those requests to our Request for Partnerships and we will match you with one or more courses with available students.