Conference Agenda

We live in a time marked by uncertainty: conflicts, polarization, pressure on public institutions, and budget constraints that make universities more cautious about engagement. While education is expected to prepare students for complex societal challenges, it can also retreat into safe and familiar spaces. Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) is therefore more important than ever, bringing together students, educators, and communities to engage with real-world issues.

CEL helps students engage with these challenges and develop competences such as critical reflection, perspective-taking, and dialogue across differences1. However, while much attention is given to students, far less is paid to what educators need to sustain this work. Many educators engage in CEL because they believe that higher education should serve society and contribute to wider societal well-being. However, geopolitical developments, institutional pressures, uncertainty, and polarization also affect teachers and CEL practitioners on a personal level. The issues addressed within CEL courses can challenge their own sense-making of the world.

This workshop creates space for educators to reconnect with the values that motivate engagement in CEL in times of uncertainty and personal dilemmas. Drawing on transformative learning2, it emphasizes critical reflection on assumptions in response to disorienting experiences. Engaging with uncertainty in this way is also central to adaptive expertise, enabling flexible and thoughtful responses to complex, real-world situations3. The goal of this workshop is to support participants in reflecting on their motivations for engaging in CEL, considering their own positionality and reconnecting with their underlying values, while sharing inspirational practices and struggles (Goal 1), and to explore how challenges can be reframed as opportunities for creativity, collaboration, and growth (Goal 2). To achieve these goals, the workshop is designed as an interactive session combining individual reflection, small-group dialogue, and plenary exchange. Participants will first reflect on their personal motivations for engaging in CEL. This is followed by structured sharing of experiences, explicitly engaging with multiple perspectives and dialogue across differences.

Through these activities, participants gain clarity about their motivations and values in relation to CEL, alongside insights into how others navigate similar challenges. By engaging educators in reflection on their positionality, uncertainty, and multiple perspectives, the workshop fosters democratic competences such as critical thinking, empathy, and respectful dialogue across differences4. It also serves as a starting point for ongoing reflection, with potential continuation in a working group.