Building Community, Leading Change
Community is important at UMass Amherst. It drives us to fulfill a major part of our mission: to conduct “research and public service that advance knowledge and improve the lives of the people of the commonwealth, the nation, and the world.” Similarly, we know that maintaining a positive and nurturing community on campus is critical to the success of our students, both in the classroom and beyond.
UMass students have long been recognized for their engagement with the local community and communities across the commonwealth as volunteers, mentors, and advocates. Through several programs and initiatives, the Office of Civic Engagement and Service-Learning (CESL) brings together impassioned students and incorporates community work with studies, deepening their education by preparing them for lives of active engagement.
What are the Benefits of Service Learning?
Service-learning provides interactive opportunities that allow students to apply classroom knowledge to real-world challenges and, in many cases, to foster a deeper understanding of course material. It’s this transfer of ideas that sets service learning apart from volunteering. It cultivates essential skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication while instilling a sense of civic responsibility and personal growth through community engagement. For students with their sights on pursuing careers that make a difference—for instance, through jobs at nonprofits or foundations, in politics, or in corporate social responsibility—gaining these attributes in college prepares them for success.
"Students apply [service learning experience] to whatever workplace they find themselves in," says Deborah Keisch, director of CESL's Community Scholars Program (CSP). While students who participate in CSP and other forms of service learning come from a wide variety of majors, "they are passionate about social change." Keisch explains that, on occasion, there is a direct match between a student's career ambitions and their community work. "One of my former students... was passionate about public health and wanted to return eventually to work in her hometown of Lawrence, Mass.," recalls Keisch. In addition to partnering with the Amherst Survival Center, where she became the first student board member, that student earned a 4+1 accelerated master's degree in Public Health. After graduation, she went on to become the director of a food pantry in Lawrence where she was "able to negotiate an excellent salary based on her experience," according to Keisch.
Read About Service Learning Student Experiences
Collaborating with Community for a More Just World
CSP is an academic community engagement program that brings students together with community organizations throughout western Massachusetts and sometimes beyond to explore possibilities to implement change for the better.
Over the two-year program, CSP fosters deep relationships between students and organizations working for worthy causes in the local community. Through ongoing collaboration, Community Scholars contribute to meaningful projects that engage policy, political mobilization, grassroots organizing, action research, and/or advocacy. This work leads to three valuable outcomes for students, who learn to:
- translate thought into action through meaningful social change projects that engage policy, political mobilization, grassroots organizing, action research, and/or advocacy.
- collaborate with community members, facilitate reciprocal access to and from community and university resources, and collectively build capacity for change.
- build a classroom learning community where compassion and care are central to work and knowledge-building.
“Students take four consecutive courses in the program,” explains Keisch, “so I’m constantly thinking about what they need to grow into the next semester and the next year.” Keisch—whose involvement in the program dates back nearly 20 years when she was a PhD candidate in anthropology—has directed CSP since 2017. The curriculum she developed allows her to form deep relationships with students as they move through the program. “I am committed to relational teaching,” Keisch emphasizes.
Community Scholars at Work
Nisha Sabnis
Major: Public Health
Community Partner: Abortion Rights Fund of Western Massachusetts
Growing up in an Indian household, Nisha Sabnis says topics like abortion and sex carried a stigma. "I witnessed firsthand how detrimental lack of open communication and education can lead to confusion and isolation," she says, explaining how this experience drew her to the cause of reproductive justice. "Reproductive justice has core values that extend beyond just the right to have children or not to have children. It also is defined by the right to affordable healthcare, comprehensive sexual education, affordable housing, food security, economic justice, etc. Doing this work has aided me in shaping my understanding of the importance of public health and my role in this field post-graduation."
Maurice Powe
Major: Psychology and English
Community Partner: Gardening for the Community
Looking back on his childhood in the predominantly white town of Longmeadow, MA, Maurice Powe recalls his only Black teacher in middle school—Ed O'Gilvie—as having a big impact on his education and worldview. So when he joined the Community Scholars Program and hopped on a Zoom call to meet community partners, he was surprised to connect with Liz Wills-O'Gilvie, Ed's wife. Maurice learned about Wills-O'Gilvie's work for food justice and security in the city of Springfield. "Springfield is a pretty significant food desert. People don't really have access to healthy food," says Maurice, emphasizing that organizations like Gardening the Community are important because they grow and provide access to fresh produce. "Working in the community challenges you to think critically about everything," Maurice observes.
Marielsa McBride
Major: Cultural Anthropology (with a minor in Education)
Community Partner: Western Mass Showing Up for Racial Justice
"I'm passionate about Land Back," says Marielsa McBride, referring to the global movement that seeks to return Native lands to Indigenous peoples and dismantle systems of oppression and white supremacy. Locally, that meant working on behalf of the Hassanamiso Nipmuc Band to help facilitate the potential rematriation of Lampson Brook Farm in Belchertown, MA. "Anthropology has at times had a very dark history as a field of study," Marielsa notes, pointing to the field's problematic past. More recently, the field has transformed. "Now, we want to conduct community-engaged research and be studying culture and people in a non-exploitive, non-extractive way that actually helps and supports the communities that we're learning from," she explains.
Three Ways to Find Community
According to Keisch, the benefits of CSP can be divided into three buckets: the classroom community, the curriculum, and the community beyond campus.
“The community that’s built in the classroom is one of the most important things students take away,” explains Keisch. Discussions of issues of social change often prompt students to share their own experiences, backgrounds, and thoughts on current events leading them to develop meaningful connections. “Within the [large university] that is UMass, they have this small cohort of folks that they are together with for two years,” which provides community scholars with an important and grounding sense of belonging.
Then, there’s the course content. Through a scaffolded curriculum, Keisch and the community scholars explore the root causes of inequality and oppression through case studies while exploring their own social identities. In the second year, this ladders up to what Keisch calls “specific frameworks for change,” which are built around policy and community organizing. Students study cases related to labor organization, Indigenous Land Back movements, prison abolition, and the farm workers' movement, to name a few.
The third area is community work. Throughout the program, students are matched with organizations or movements in western Massachusetts—and sometimes beyond—focused on specific engagement areas. Based on the causes important to them, students work in groups of four to six with organizations that focus on issues related to reproductive justice, abolition, land and climate, and mutual aid.
Turning Vision into Change
The Community Scholars Program supports students in carrying out the work of social change. To Keisch, this means equipping them not only with skills but also with the ability to envision change and, together with other people, build more equitable spaces and communities. “I want students to leave the program feeling inspired and like they know how to work toward change.”
Applications for the Fall 2025 cohort of UMass Community Scholars will open in January 2025.
Learn More about how to Apply to the Community Scholars Program