STEM Reaches the Community

“That is the basis of service-learning and community engagement, having a strong

partnership.” Dr. Qualls and the rest of the STEM faculty have been very successful in
educating their students over the years, but the professors within this department have begun
questioning how they can incorporate service-learning into their classrooms. Dr. Jeremy Qualls,
SST Director of Academic Planning and Resource Science and Associate Professor at Sonoma
State University led a workshop for professors in the STEM department to give insight on how to
engage the STEM program with a community partner.
Dr. Qualls touched up on topics such as creating more internship opportunities for
students, leading service-learning projects, and finding a community partner. Although he used
a few of his own examples to explain these cases to his fellow professors by sharing his own
experience with creating a community partnership and running a service-learning project with
SSU students. Dr. Qualls encouraged his fellow professors to establish a stable relationship
with their students and with their community partner by being an opportunist, recognizing good
fits, and understanding that their students may not always be easy to cooperate with during
service-learning projects. He also recommended allowing their community partner to take part in
the process of planning projects in order to strengthen the relationship.
Although I am not part of the STEM department, I enjoyed this seminar because it
showed the importance of engaging students with the community and how it is continuously
becoming more vital to professors and their students. There were a couple of professors who
have never done service-learning with their students and a couple who had more experience, so
it was interesting to see this department engage with each other over ways they can reach the
community as well. Dr. Lares, a fellow professor in the Chemistry department was very attentive
during this meeting and asked for more ways she can engage students, and the others gave
insight on what is the most beneficial for them. I hope to see more professors come together to
brainstorm ways to connect students to the community.
Caption: Some of the community engagement tactics Dr. Qualls had suggested