Reports & Resources

Principles for Partnerships

Relationships are at the heart of collaborative work.

May 2022 | The ways we approach and engage in our partnerships matter and can affect the outcomes we hope to achieve together. This document presents a framework of overarching and operating effectiveness principles that are meant to help guide behaviour and action in partnership relationships. It is meant to provide useful guidance based on foundational values, lessons, assumptions and experience from practice, and it builds on existing evidence and literature, and it would benefit from testing, feedback and iteration to ensure relevance and effectiveness.

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SFU Community Engagement: Findings & Recommendations

An Aggregated Report Compiling Findings from Several Community Engagement Reports, Initiatives and Consultations.

March 2022 | In November 2021, SFU’s Office of Community Engagement reviewed community engagement (CE) across a number of major initiatives. 

• SFU’s Strategic Community Engagement Plan (2013)
• The ThoughtExchange exploring SFU Community Engagement (2020)
• The Community-Engaged Learning and Teaching (CELT) report (2021)
• An Engagement with Indigenous Governments, Communities and Organizations report (2021)
• SFU’s co-presentation and participation in a Canadian Pilot Cohort of the Carnegie Elective Community Engagement Classification (2018 – present)
• SFU’s Partnerships Hub Pilot Project (2020 – present)

This report presents the themes, findings and recommendations that appear consistently across these initiatives and studies, the primary purpose of which is to better understand how SFU might advance its community engagement efforts to further strengthen its learning, research and community impact mission.

Download a summary | Download the full report | Download the slide deck

Strengthening Community-Engaged Learning and Teaching at SFU

Summary Report, November 2021

November 2021 | The 2020 ThoughtExchange on Community Engagement at SFU involved students, faculty, staff and partners in online interactions about what’s working and what’s not working in our community engagement approaches and activities. The Exchange generated 600 concrete ideas, including some institutional gaps and barriers specifically related to community-engaged learning and teaching (CELT), such as limited student access to CELT opportunities and inadequate support or incentives for faculty leading CELT.

Soon after the exchange closed, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the SFU COVID-19 Response and Recovery Network formed to bring together people across the university to address the effects of the pandemic with community partners. An informal group of people engaged in CELT emerged from this network, which met monthly from May to September 2020 to discuss the role of CELT in relation to the pandemic, and ideas about what could be strengthened around CELT at SFU.

In response, a team led by Gretchen Ferguson, Associate Director (Community Engagement) and Paola Ardiles, Faculty Teaching Fellow and Lecturer (Health Sciences), undertook a research project in Summer 2020, with the support of a graduate student and a recent alumnus. The goal was to identify benefits and challenges/ gaps related to CELT from the perspective of faculty, staff and students, and to frame ideas and considerations for strengthening CELT at SFU.

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Community Engagement at SFU: What's Working Well, and What Isn't?

The SFU-wide 2020 ThoughtExchange

May, 2020 | From January 27 – February 7, 2020, SFU students, staff, faculty and alumni, together with community and institutional partners, donors, retirees and the general public, courageously weighed in on the question: community engagement at SFU – what's working well, and what isn't? Over an 11-day period, more than 600 thoughts were shared and these thoughts were rated almost 15,000 times. Thank you to everyone who participated in this important discussion.

Download the initial results report | Learn more →

Authenticity & Impact: Strengthening Community Engagement at SFU.

SFU's Strategic Community Engagement Plan

July, 2019 | In 2013, SFU’s vision and mission were redeveloped under a bold commitment to engage students, engage research and engage community. Significant progress has been made over the last six years, building on decades of deep community engagement by SFU faculty, staff and students, and with support from the community.

But a “radical campus” can’t get too comfortable, for while we clearly do a lot, there is also a lot more we can do. The purpose of this document is to take stock of where we’ve been, consider what we’ve heard and learned – from our community partners and our faculty, staff and students – and to continue the process of articulating a shared vision and purpose for community engagement at SFU that strengthens and evolves our work.

Whether you’re a current champion of community engagement or have needs that are not yet met, we are committed to working collaboratively with you to build the necessary mechanisms, resources, and supports that will keep you connected to this shared vision and that will amplify the success and impact of your efforts.

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