Beyond the Circle: Community Education Connects Institutions and the Surrounding Community

Posted on 02/01/21 in Community Education

You might already know that UCI’s Department of Community Education (CE) serves over 10,000 learners annually across the region through its community education programs; but after almost fifty years serving the neighborhoods surrounding the Circle, our mission has grown to include more than our programs. The Community Education team serves as an important connector between nearby schools, families, and the institutions and organizations that have valuable learning resources to share; we’re building an ecosystem for year-round informal learning and increasing UCI’s impact on neighborhood youth, all through the vibrant arts and culture resources available in University Circle and beyond.

Circle Partners Education Collaborative

Collaboration is nothing new for the CE team. UCI’s school programs have an almost fifty-year history of utilizing the cultural institutions of University Circle to offer learning experiences to students throughout the area. Through the Early Learning Initiative and others – like Linking Education and Discovery, UCI’s school field trip program and Circle Scholars, our after-school program for 7th and 8th graders – we’ve worked with our member institutions to bring highly-valued programs into the schools surrounding University Circle and to the region at large.

But in recent years, the education team has worked to broaden that collaboration beyond our individual programs. The Circle Partners Education Collaborative, or CPEC, convenes the education teams at cultural institutions and non-profit organizations city-wide to learn about issues that affect institutions and learners throughout the city. By sharing and promoting the best practices in informal learning, all CPEC participants can benefit from UCI’s efforts.

CPEC tackles everything from the benefits of trauma-informed teaching to the impact of an inquiry-based approach to learning, so that its members are better prepared to meet the needs of teachers and students while providing the best possible experience for their visitors. CPEC also serves as a collective voice for large and small cultural institutions throughout the city that provide educational programming of all types. With a focus on removing barriers to participation, this collaboration serves as a valuable tool to promote equity and expand access to educational programming.

UCI’s Focus Schools

As part of our 2018 strategic plan Forward Together, UCI began work to strengthen relationships with the neighborhoods surrounding the Circle. For CE, that took the form of our six focus schools, all within two miles of the Circle. Those relationships have grown, through special programs, professional development for teachers, opportunities for students like free skating at The Rink at Wade Oval, and more. Our focus schools are also a valuable source of information, helping to ensure that our programs respond to the unique needs of the surrounding neighborhoods.

The CE team communicates regularly with teachers, principals, and other school support staff, and frequently attends community and school-parent organization meetings. We have learned so much from these conversations that they have grown into a parent advocacy group, which will advise UCI as future programming plans develop. UCI has partnered with the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development to implement a study of those school communities that includes both focus groups and the analysis of available data to assess the needs of the schools’ communities on multiple levels. All of this information helps the CE team provide experiences that reflect the needs and experiences of our nearest neighbors, and builds partnerships with community members.

‘Your Community’ Summer Programs

This outreach has identified a need for summer programs that are accessible and culturally relevant, particularly in the conditions created by COVID-19. The public health crisis has also left local institutions and community-based organizations without venues to offer the programming and performances that would normally take place. UCI’s Community Education Department has created a summer program to meet the needs of both organizations and the community.

In the summer of 2021, UCI will present Circle Explorers, a 6-week camp experience and YEA! Saturdays – Youth Education and the Arts, a 6-week Saturday experience for students in the neighborhoods adjacent to University Circle. Circle Explorers will focus on culture and innovation, sustainability and stewardship, and health and wellness with an emphasis on social-emotional learning, while YEA! Saturdays will provide performance and learning opportunities for students interested in the arts.

Both will provide opportunities for almost 40 cultural and educational partners to showcase their work. The programs will focus on the needs of youth in the Hough, Glenville, St. Clair-Superior, Buckeye-Shaker, and Fairfax neighborhoods, though YEA! Saturdays will be open to the public.

A Collaborative Approach that Benefits All

All of UCI’s summer youth programming will engage our partnerships with arts, culture, and educational organizations, and build on relationships with neighborhood schools that are based on decades of school-year programming in the area. The collaborations formed through CPEC and other outreach efforts will enable UCI to leverage the knowledge and expertise of almost 40 large and small organizations and advocate for valuable summer opportunities for opportunities for families.