A proud project team
The Community-Based Education (CBE) Program is a unique opportunity to address current challenges in our community. Students are matched with local organizations to assist with research, planning and other community development projects for course credit. Projects are usually 50 to 220 hours per-student in length.
CBE project examples: Impact assessments, waste audits, manual production, program evaluations, scientific studies, workshop design, business and event planning, literature reviews, and development of marketing and promotional materials.
The CBE Program is designed to:
- Assist community organizations with community-based research and other services that otherwise might not be completed.
- Provide students with experience in their fields of study and enhance future employment prospects.
- Increase co-operation and partnership between Trent University and the broader communities it serves.
The program compliments established curriculum across all Trent University departments and courses. Projects take place in the context of academic courses including theoretical, reading and field courses. While students are completing these projects they are also meeting course requirements. This also means community organizations benefit from the additional expertise and guidance offered by Trent University’s faculty. Depending on the size of a given project, a student would complete it as an assignment within a regular course, as a separate course, or as a thesis.
Community hosts are encouraged to contact TCCBE staff with their project ideas (see above notice box for the next project proposal deadline).
Similarly, faculty members are encouraged to contact TCCBE staff if they want to integrate CBE projects into their course curriculum.
See our list of CBE projects currently underway to get a sense of what a CSL project looks like.
If you are interested in a shorter student-involved project (i.e. 10-20 hours per student) please see our Community Service-Learning Program. If you have a multi-year project idea that might potentially involve faculty, please see our Strategic Research Initiative.
Roles and Resources:
The Community-Based Education program fulfills a community-defined need for a common point of contact with the University and provides an extensive community development network for students and faculty wanting to work with local organizations. Host organizations involved in the program provide supervision, facilities, services and materials. Participating instructors provide academic supervision, grade students’ work and support students in a manner consistent with other university courses. Students receive innovative leadership and career-building experience while applying theory to practice in local community settings. TCCBE and U-Links Centre for Community-Based Research (service provider in Haliburton County) develop new projects and support those underway, provide resources and contacts, and facilitate communication among all participants.
TCCBE and U-Links each maintain resource libraries that include reference materials about local community groups and initiatives, past projects, community-based research, and service learning.
