'You really feel like you’re participating in something bigger than yourself'

‘Students often start my course believing they won’t be able to do much. At the end, they realise that what they’ve done is of great value to an organisation and for their own development. As a lecturer, it’s great to see that change.’

So says Jocelyn Ballantyne. Together with Marijke Huisman, she is involved in the course Doing community- based research in the Humanities. In this course, students work together with organisations they have chosen themselves to tackle social issues, and they learn about the social relevance of their degree programme. There is no doubt whatsoever that students learn a lot from this, but what about the teachers?

The information wasn’t in the archives, but simply in boxes at the back of the bookstore.

‘The information wasn’t in the archives, but simply in boxes at the back of the bookstore.’

The community-based approach has led to new insights for Marijke, a historian. ‘We did a project together with Savannah Bay, the first feminist bookstore in Utrecht. I was looking for information about the opening, but the Utrecht archive had nothing about this. Finally, I realised that I could simply find it in the store itself, in unsorted boxes in the office in the back. But it did exist! That really opened my eyes to the issue of bias in the archives.’

Community Engaged Learning also brings a wider perspective for academics. ‘It has really broadened my horizons. New perspectives, a new way of looking at my teaching, new inspiration through cooperating with the partners,’ recounts Jocelyn. ‘What’s more, my network has grown much bigger. A former student is now a board member of an organisation with which I hope to cooperate. That’s exciting, and also very fun. You really feel like you’re participating in something bigger than yourself.’

We need to relate more to the experience and perceptions that new students bring with them.

‘We need to relate more to the experience and perceptions that new students bring with them’

What do Marijke and Jocelyn hope for the future of Community Engaged Learning? ‘That our teaching in the degree programmes relates more to the experience and perceptions that first-year students bring with them. They begin their studies precisely because they’re so enthusiastic about the community aspects. People decide to study history because they’re interested in mummies or are following the news about statues being pulled down. It’s actually kind of weird that we let go of all this so quickly.’

‘Of course, the traditional approach shouldn’t disappear either, you also need to deal with the core concepts and methods,’ adds Jocelyn. ‘But lecturers think that students immediately grasp the relationship between theory and the community, and that’s not the case. As a university, we need to approach this much more explicitly, and a good way to do this is through Community Engaged Learning. Ideally, this will become something for which we no longer need special emphasis, but where the community aspect is simply embedded in what we do.’