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Civic Learning

Blog about the scholarship of engagement through universities working with communities

Tag: Public engagement

With universities under scrutiny during Covid-19, here is an insight into how we are serving our communities

Posted on May 10, 2020 by Mark Charlton

With universities under great scrutiny to demonstrate how they serving their communities during the Covid-19, I thought this would be a good time to talk about the work currently being undertaken at De Montfort University, Leicester. 

Many commentators have been quite vocal in the higher education sector media during the lockdown, calling for universities to demonstrate their value to their cities and regions.  These posts have largely come from a national leadership perspective so I just wanted to share experiences of helping to create a truly civic response from a local practitioner perspective. 

On Friday, I tweeted this: 

I wanted to try to capture the work (that I am aware of) undertaken in the past few weeks by the university towards supporting the city of Leicester and beyond in the pandemic.

Recently the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement posted a useful and thoughtful piece on its website saying universities are: “…reconsidering the importance of engagement. Whilst engagement needs to adapt too, its importance in the current climate could not be clearer”. As my primary role for the university is public engagement, these words really resonate. 

Public engagement at DMU has always been a high priority. The pandemic has given DMU the opportunity to rethink how we connect with our communities, but more importantly it allowed staff and students to do meaningful work for the good of our city in a time of real need. Admittedly, my tweet on Friday did not do this justice so I want to expand on that.

Yes, there’s been a lot of time talking on Teams, but there has also been a lot of time spent doing, making, volunteering, promoting and sharing. For myself and the public engagement team at DMU, it has been some of the busiest times of our careers. It has also been a rewarding time, allowing us to interact with so many staff who have come forward, willing to play a part in the university’s response.

Rethinking engagement in our communities

It has also allowed us to rethink engagement in our communities, switching events online where we can. I believe some of this work will shape the future of community engagement, sure we want to go back to the tried and tested human interaction but we have seen how online and streaming activities are a far greater tool than were ever appreciated before (ask Joe Wicks…) I can’t hope to capture all the good things DMU has done so far but I can highlight some of the public engagement activities that I have been involved in so far that go towards answering some of the questions raised earlier about value of universities and civic responses.

Mobilising volunteers

From the outset of the coronavirus outbreak in the UK, DMU was immediately able to mobilise a team of 200+ staff and student volunteers willing to work with local community groups on relief responses including delivering food and medicine and checking in on vulnerable people.

DMU staff member Laura Rowe volunteering at E2 Beaumont Leys

There is already a huge volunteering ethos at DMU and new partnerships and approaches to volunteering (e.g. phone calls to vulnerable isolated people) will stay with us into the next academic year and beyond.

Personal Protective Equipment

The university, through its Faculty of Health and Life Sciences has a long-standing close-working relationship with the city’s NHS services. Some immediate responses saw a supply of 200 nurses to the city’s hospitals and donations of kit and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) strengthening existing relationships.

Staff from the Arts, Design and Humanities and Computing, Engineering and Media faculties then began 3-D printing PPE to NHS specification:

Dr Karthikeyan Kandan, senior lecturer in Mechanical Engineering with a 3-D printed mask

Distribution Centre

Hundreds have now been produced and delivered. Concurrent to the 3-D printing of PPE, the university has worked in partnership with 3-D Crowd – a charity formed by DMU alumni, to create a distribution centre in a university building to source and deliver vital kit to hospitals and care homes.

This is in full operation and has taught us a lot about repurposing a space and working collaboratively at speed.

Arts Clubs

One of the success stories of public engagement pre-lockdown was the development of a network of arts clubs for young people across Leicester. Since the pandemic, the public engagement team has worked with the artists to create online arts sessions and keep the creative sessions running.

This is something that we may seek to continue post-lockdown to connect more communities with the arts clubs.

Working to ‘build back better’

Another key initiative we are leading is how to after the pandemic and support key organisations and community groups to survive and thrive by developing new projects, research and ideas that set out a recovery plan for the city in the short, medium and long-term. More than 70 academics have been meeting online to discuss potential ways forward. I believe this could pave a way to new forms of public engagement post-Covid-19 and we work with communities at grass-roots level to co-create projects for the initiative.

Public Engagement in Research moving online

Public lectures, seminars and talks by PhD students and academics are moving online in the short-term with public engagement staff working with Events specialists to create interactive sessions through software like Microsoft Teams. This is already presenting opportunities for targeting interest groups and local communities to participate, as well as developing International reach.

With universities under great scrutiny to demonstrate how they are interacting, serving their communities, coronavirus has created opportunities to respond in new ways and demonstrate impact. From the work undertaken at DMU, like those mentioned here, it has also allowed us to try new forms of engagement and develop of new partnerships at a time when working with communities and partners was at risk of being severely reduced.

Tagged community, Higher Education, Public engagementLeave a comment

An unbroken chain of commitment that gives hope to victims of human rights violations

Posted on November 17, 2017June 17, 2019 by Mark Charlton

I have gone 28-hours without sleep. I was awake through the coldest night of winter so far with many other hardy souls from De Montfort University, Leicester, to demonstrate our solidarity with victims of breaches of human rights worldwide with a 24-hour vigil.  I was willing to deprive myself of sleep and do this is because I believe that being civically and politically engaged is a crucially important attribute all students should learn and develop. Secondly a vigil is really interesting and entertaining, a place where views of different people from a variety of disciplines can come together and pull ideas apart and put them back together again and develop understanding. Finally, I believe that an outdoor vigil that lasts 24-hours is symbolic. It shows an unbroken chain of commitment that gives those suffering violations of human rights hope that there are good people out there who want to make the world a better place. 

Continue reading “An unbroken chain of commitment that gives hope to victims of human rights violations” →
Tagged Civic Participation, Higher Education, Political engagement, Public engagement, student activism

Public Engagement Blog: Proaction Cafe creates debate about what Smart City should look like

Posted on May 12, 2017June 17, 2019 by Mark Charlton

Using waste ground coffee to grow mushrooms, create a make-do-and-mend culture and find ways to stimulate a ‘sharing economy’ were at least three ideas for a ‘Smart City’ I didn’t see coming. They were given to me at Leicester’s first Proaction Café at the LCB Deport. I was asked to host a table at the event and seek a solution to my challenge – in my case consulting people on what does Leicester as a Smart City mean to you? It is part of what hopefully be a series of Proaction Café’s in the city led by Leicester Interchange. Billed as ‘Idea Generation’, the event invited people to come to support others to generate ideas on how they can address social issues that affect the lives of Leicester’s residents. Around 30 people joined the session and they were invited to choose which subject they would like to contribute to from the five table hosts at the event.

Continue reading “Public Engagement Blog: Proaction Cafe creates debate about what Smart City should look like” →
Tagged Leicester, Public engagement, Smart City

Public Engagement blog: The Why, Where, How, When and Who of academic blogging

Posted on May 7, 2017June 17, 2019 by Mark Charlton

Welcome to this lightning guide to the benefits of blogging at De Montfort University’s Research Conference for Doctoral and Early Career Researchers entitled: Your Research Journey: The challenges of writing. I have a blog that I update when I can. Often it is as a result of doing literature reviews or writing articles and experiences as I pursue my PhD. There is also other stuff on there I like to share – family history, travel and random ideas to get off my chest. As I only have ten minutes I just want to give you some key points about blogging that will hopefully inspire you. I am Head of Public Engagement at DMU so it is important that I encourage all staff and students to deploy a variety of methods of sharing knowledge. Once such was of reaching out and sharing ideas is blogging. Like most engagement, the benefits are usually two-fold for you and the university and your audience. Academic blogging is a valid and useful method of public engagement. It allows you share your work and ideas. Like all forms of public engagement, this can help to build trust and understanding of the work, particularly research, that takes universities, and helps to increase understanding of our relevance to, and impact, on society. That said, there are drawbacks to consider – you may get trolled for your ideas or receive critiques that perhaps you didn’t want to hear. In the main the benefits of blogging outweigh the negatives. Positive outcomes include creating new networks, contacts and building your researcher reputation.

Continue reading “Public Engagement blog: The Why, Where, How, When and Who of academic blogging” →
Tagged Academic blogging, Blogging, good ideas, Learning, Leicester, Public engagement, student experience

Public Engagement blog: Design your life in an app and define what a Smart City could be…

Posted on February 26, 2017June 17, 2019 by Mark Charlton

What is a Smart City?

Most people don’t know what a ‘Smart City’ is, and let’s face it why would they care? Even the most simplified definition, like this one, taken from Wikipedia, would switch off any man or woman in the street quicker than a dodgy smartphone battery: “A smart city is an urban development vision to integrate multiple information and communication technology (ICT) and Internet of things (IoT) solutions in a secure fashion to manage a city’s assets – the city’s assets include, but are not limited to, local departments’ information systems, schools, libraries, transportation systems, hospitals, power plants, water supply networks, waste management, law enforcement, and other community services.” If you haven’t already blown your own brains out and get the gist of it, you soon realise that this stuff is much bigger than us, so probably wont engage with it. To quote The Smiths: “It says nothing to me about my life…”  I met with my colleague Dr Lee Hadlington who sits with me and on the De Montfort University Smart City Project Board to work out how we can get people more involved in the idea, as we work on a plan to see how Leicester could be a Smart City*.

Continue reading “Public Engagement blog: Design your life in an app and define what a Smart City could be…” →
Tagged Leicester, Public engagement, Smart City

Public Engagement blog: Is austerity motivating students to volunteer in an era of tuition fees?

Posted on January 15, 2017June 17, 2019 by Mark Charlton

Here is a piece of writing that I did recently that ambitiously I was hoping to turn into a research paper and send to an academic journal. My PhD supervisors’ feedback was that the scope was too broad and I should refine it. Since that conversation, I have taken those words on board and I’m currently developing a more focused research plan, which will potentially spin-off a number of pieces of research from this initial idea. I wanted to investigate where students’ awareness of austerity is motivating them to volunteer in the new era of Higher Education tuition fees.I thought I would blog my original writing as it will prove a useful reference point as my ideas and writing develops on this subject area. Obviously I’ve made it blog friendly and cut some details around data gathering and methodology out – oh and there’s no findings! On the other hand, it does present the notion that somewhere within this subject matter, there is an opportunity for further investigation.

Continue reading “Public Engagement blog: Is austerity motivating students to volunteer in an era of tuition fees?” →
Tagged austerity, Higher Education, Public engagement, student experience, tuition fees, volunteering

Public Engagement Podcast: Working with refugees in Berlin

Posted on September 23, 2016June 17, 2019 by Mark Charlton

I was recently with a delegation of De Montfort University (DMU) students researching Berlin’s response to the huge influx of Syrian people to the city – so that we can reinvigorate a programme to help refugees and asylum seekers in Leicester, United Kingdom. During my time in the German capital I recorded the following podcast with two DMU students, Nabs and Ruth, who were interviewed with ex-Syrian refugee, now architecture student, Manar.

Tagged #RefugeesWelcome, Berlin, Public engagement, Refugees, Syria1 Comment

Public Engagement Blog: Students learning with Syrian refugees creates a powerful energy

Posted on September 3, 2016June 17, 2019 by Mark Charlton

In a gloomy, dank school gymnasium in a backstreet of Berlin I got a tiny insight into what life is like for the displaced people of Syria who find themselves trying to settle in Germany. One sports hall in the complex was turned into a makeshift community centre for children and families. Adjacent to this was the living area for up to 150 families who have come to Germany in search of a better life. In my role as Head of Public Engagement at De Montfort University, I was with a delegation of  (DMU) students researching the city’s response to the huge influx of Syrian people – so they can reinvigorate a programme to help refugees and asylum seekers in Leicester,

Continue reading “Public Engagement Blog: Students learning with Syrian refugees creates a powerful energy” →
Tagged #RefugeesWelcome, Berlin, Learning, Public engagement, Refugees, Syria3 Comments

Public engagement blog podcast: Recreating the 1960s cinema experience

Posted on July 11, 2016 by Mark Charlton

There’s nothing like a great piece of music, fashion or a movie to set the scene of the 1960s some of the most exciting and creative times in modern history. Earlier this month I was lucky enough to take part in an event in London where a group of De Montfort University staff and students recreated the 1960s cinema experience from the findings of research of more than 1,000 people sharing their memories. The research project was led by DMU’s Dr Matthew Jones and was brought to life in collaboration with staff and students from DMU’s Drama studies course.For me, it was great to see such an innovative way to disseminate research findings. This podcast was recorded at the event, held at the Picturehouse Cinema in London’s Piccadilly Circus. It features first year DMU Drama Student Sophie Dolling, Senior lecturers in Drama Kelly Jordan and Alissa Clarke and Lecturer in Cinema and Television History, Dr Matthew Jones. Read the full blog about the event here.  I hope you enjoy the podcast, if you have any questions please email me on mcharlton@dmu.ac.uk

Tagged 1960s, Cinema, Public engagement, Research

Innovative public engagement idea shares research recreates 1960s cinema-going experience

Posted on July 11, 2016June 17, 2019 by Mark Charlton

I don’t know if it was the offer of a free sherbert lemon from an usherette or the constant flashing of torches throughout the film, but, on a wet Wednesday in London, the experience of sights, sounds and colour of 1960s movie-going was convincingly brought to life by staff and students of De Montfort University, Leicester. In terms of attention to detail, it couldn’t have looked better. The Picturehouse in Piccadilly Circus, London, still exhorts the splendour of a classic cinema of yesteryear, so it was the ideal location for a group of DMU academics and drama students to take a venue back in time.

Continue reading “Innovative public engagement idea shares research recreates 1960s cinema-going experience” →
Tagged good ideas, Public engagement2 Comments

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I’m Mark Charlton, Associate Director of Public Engagement at De Montfort University, Leicester, United Kingdom.  I’m passionate about universities using Service-Learning, community-based learning, civic learning, the scholarship of engagement, learning-linked volunteering and all the other ways we describe students sharing their skills and knowledge beyond the campus. I encourage all staff and students to embed the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals into their work. I also lead the United Nations Academic Impact Initiative Global Academic Hub for SDG 16 at DMU. I am a PhD Scholar, researching the impacts of civic engagement on students’ political participation.

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