CeL Articles

Building a Strong Foundation for Community-engaged Learning at Texas Tech

October 2025

Over the past year and a half, the Office of Outreach & Engagement has been diligently working to develop and advance Community-Engaged Learning (CeL) across the university. CeL is designed to create opportunities for faculty and students to connect academic learning with real-world impact. Aligned with national university standards, this initiative emphasizes sustained, collaborative, and reciprocal partnerships with community members, positioning Texas Tech to deepen its societal impact through teaching and scholarship. 

A great deal has been accomplished in a relatively short period. In Spring 2024, the university paused the development of new Service-Learning course designations, allowing existing courses to continue while creating space to build a more comprehensive framework for Community-engaged Learning.

By Fall 2024, a pivotal step was taken with the creation of a Faculty Fellow position dedicated to laying the foundation for CeL at the university level. Dr. Mellinee Lesley was selected for this role, bringing a wealth of experience in engaged scholarship and a longstanding commitment to Service Learning at Texas Tech.

“I saw the call to become a faculty fellow and to be in charge of Community-Engaged Learning, along with a few other initiatives,” Lesley said. “I looked at it and thought, I could do this. I really valued engaged scholarship and service learning.”

As Faculty Fellow, Lesley played an instrumental role in shaping the CeL initiative. Her leadership focused on creating a more intentional, in-depth approach that emphasizes sustained collaboration and the central role of community partners in the learning process.

Recognizing her vision and expertise, the university appointed Lesley as Associate Vice Provost for Community-Engaged Learning, Outreach & Engagement at the end of 2024.

Faculty Affiliates: Building Expertise and Leadership

In Spring 2025, the inaugural Faculty Affiliates Pilot Program launched, bringing together nine competitively selected faculty members from across colleges to learn how to design, assess, and study CeL practices in their teaching.

“These are the people who are going to study their practice—not just teach a CeL class, but really research it and look at the impact,” Lesley explained.

Faculty Affiliates are expected to:

• Work closely with community partners
• Mentor future CeL cohorts and take on leadership roles across campus,
• Champion CeL in their departments and colleges,
• Use approaches like the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning to examine their methods, work closely with community partners, and
• Develop new scholarship from their community-engaged teaching.

The pilot has revealed both opportunities and challenges. For example, many faculty found it difficult to measure student learning over time through clear outcomes and to study their own teaching practice. In response, the TLPDC will offer future workshops on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning to support faculty in refining and publishing about their teaching.

New CeL Courses and Transcript Designation

The next significant milestone is scheduled for Spring 2026, when four CeL courses are set to launch. Developed through the pilot program, these courses represent the first wave of CeL offerings at Texas Tech.

A significant development is the approval of CeL transcript designation. This new designation is meaningful as it advances two major institutional priorities: Texas Tech’s pursuit of both the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification and AAU status, while also delivering meaningful benefits to students. With this designation, CeL experiences will be formally recorded on student transcripts, indicating to employers, graduate schools, and communities that students have engaged in meaningful, reciprocal learning experiences beyond the classroom. This transcript designation recognizes CeL as a formal skill set, an important differentiator in students’ educational journeys and professional futures.

To support the growth and quality of CeL courses, the Office of Outreach & Engagement will hire a Professor of Practice to ensure proper documentation and transcript integration for all CeL-designated courses.

Future Plans

After the pilot wraps up, CeL will expand through a tiered faculty development structure:

• CeL Faculty Affiliates Cohort (Spring annually): A small group of faculty who will act as scholars and leaders of CeL on campus.
• Workshop Pathway: Shorter, efficient workshops for faculty who want to adapt existing courses into CeL courses.
• New Faculty Pathway (Fall 2026): A third pathway for faculty new to CeL who wish to have their courses designated without taking on the leadership and scholarship components of Faculty Affiliates.
  This tiered model will provide multiple entry points for faculty, ensuring that CeL grows steadily and sustainably across disciplines, a driving goal for Lesley.

“I want to see it grow and become a really strong foundation. I want to see faculty studying it and developing scholarship from their community-engaged learning practices. But also, I really want to see students having very successful experiences and to feel really connected to something larger than just getting a degree so they can get a job.”