- What is Community Engagement?
- About us
- Past Initiatives
- COVID-19 Community Resilience Network
- Network reflections and recaps
- February 3-5, 2021 – Presenting at the 2021 International University Social Responsibility (USR) Summit
- December 2nd - SFU’s role in transformational change
- November 25 - Addressing the issue of women academics falling behind
- November 18 – the colonial nature of current systems of research and evaluation
- November 4 - Precarious instructors in the post-pandemic academy
- October 28 – A conversation with Happy City about building back "Main Street"
- October 14 – What's at stake in BC's upcoming election? A conversation with Frances Bula
- October 7 – Hosted dialogues
- September 30 – Radical inclusion with Ele Chenier
- September 23 – Hosted dialogues
- September 16 – Antifragility and resilience
- Community-university response to COVID-19
- Network reflections and recaps
- Canadian Pilot Cohort of the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification
- COVID-19 Community Resilience Network
- Grants
- Stories
- Food Security
- Warren Gill Award
- Subscribe
Strategic Priorities
SFU’s Office of Community Engagement works to support and advance the practice of community engagement at SFU. Consistent with our first strategic priority (below), we know that community engagement has a rich and growing academic tradition of research, teaching, and scholarship that places it firmly within the academic mission of the university.
Consistent with SFU’s Strategy, we also know how effective community engagement can be for addressing key global challenges, advancing EDI and Truth & Reconciliation, making a difference for BC, and enhancing student, staff, and faculty experiences of working and studying at SFU.
That’s why we love community engagement.
We feel privileged and humbled in our responsibility for supporting and advancing it.
We are guided by five long-term strategic priorities:
- Advancing the practice and recognition of community engagement as a method of learning, teaching, and research at SFU.
- Advancing the field of community engagement at SFU, in Canada and beyond.
- Increasing, expanding, and strengthening SFU’s ability to build equitable, sustainable, and mutually beneficial community partnerships based on respect and reciprocity.
- Increasing SFU’s readiness and ability to respond to pressing regional needs with its community partners.
- Demonstrate and showcase community engagement’s intrinsic ability to address systemic inequities and advance action on EDI and Truth & Reconciliation.
How we work
We like to work collaboratively and are willing to partner with all university units, campuses, faculties, departments, centres, community groups, and stakeholders across a diverse variety of work, including:
- developing or refining strategy and strategic community engagement initiatives;
- serving on committees, advisories, networks, and communities of practice;
- mobilizing internal advocacy and education for community engagement supports;
- building and supporting community-university partnerships and programs;
- administering grant funding opportunities for students, faculty, and staff;
- advising on communication strategy and tactics for community engagement that align with and advance SFU's commitments to EDI and Truth & Reconciliation;
- developing frameworks for the respectful evaluation and measurement of community engagement;
- communicating and celebrating community-university successes.
Our programs
We run numerous recurring initiatives and programs out of our office. Please check out our programs page to learn more.
The office has been a certified Gold Sustainable Space since 2018
In our approach to becoming a Gold Sustainable Space, we knew we had to honour the diversity of people in our office: everyone comes from different histories and we often hold differing beliefs and commitments about what environmental sustainability looks like in our lives.
We held a number of full office consultations where we “took the temperature” of how people were feeling in this process. This surfaced key questions and criticism of the Sustainable Spaces project, itself, and we committed to open dialogue with SFU’s Sustainability Office to address those concerns.
They were incredibly responsive, and our specific questions received honest and excellent answers. But more importantly, our own process became one centred on dialogue – opening up space for different voices. This, in turn, has shaped our continued commitments.
We believe that sustainability is a practice, not a certification. But we’ve learned that a certification process is an incredible way to strengthen our current practice. Thank you SFU Sustainability Office!