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By Andy Steiner, from the

It’s hard to miss. The new headquarters for the Office of Scholarly Engagement (OSE) stand like a beacon in the most visible spot in Coeur de Catherine, smack dab between the Bookstore and the Information Center. With a big front window, smart furniture, and inspiring paintings of suffragists and student artwork, it’s a welcoming place for students to study, collaborate, and learn about opportunities for furthering their education through the office’s offerings. Established in 2020, OSE houses five programs for student development: Antonian Honors, Community Work and Learning, Competitive Fellowships, Global Studies, and Collaborative Research. 

OSE’s “Main Street” placement in Coeur de Catherine is intentional, explains D’Ann Urbaniak Lesch, OSE director and assistant vice president for engaged learning. “Having that very public visibility into what’s going on in that space, into how students can work there, connect with faculty and peer mentors, and get information about different opportunities has been really exciting,” Urbaniak Lesch says. 

The University has always emphasized Katies building connections to the world beyond the campus gates, and this move to strengthen the impact of OSE aligns with that ethos. The American Association of Colleges and Universities indicates that students — particularly those from traditionally marginalized communities — show higher levels of learning success through involvement in high-impact practices such as community-based learning and undergraduate research. With that in mind, increasing OSE’s visibility and impact makes sense.

Part of expanding OSE’s presence involved the creation of the assistant vice president for engaged learning role. With over 15 years of experience in the Center for Community Work and Learning (CWL), Urbaniak Lesch was the perfect person for the job, says Dianne Oliver, PhD, co-provost and senior vice president for academic programs and faculty affairs.
 

Spreading the word

While Urbaniak Lesch and her team have long collaborated with faculty to integrate OSE programming into many courses, their recent efforts have created a substantial new on-ramp for student engagement. Now, high-impact learning opportunities are embedded into the keystone class taken by each and every Katie: The Reflective Woman (TRW).

“As of fall 2022, community-engaged learning (CEL) has been built into College for Women sections of TRW,” Urbaniak Lesch says. “That’s a new curricular change, where we’re getting in front of students right away in that first-year experience course.” This change means that students, in their first semester, are participating  in hands-on projects with three initiatives that connect  St. Kate’s to the broader community:

• • Creating bowls for soup socials that raise awareness about food insecurity

• St. Kate’s/CSJ Food Access Hub

  • Working shifts at the food shelf and community garden to promote access to healthy foods

• Welcoming the Dear Neighbor?

  • Researching racially restrictive covenants on local housing deeds

Facilitated by CWL staff, along with faculty, student leaders, and community partners, these experiences reinforce classroom discussions about students’ identities, the St. Kate’s community, and social justice, giving students a sense of how OSE experiences can deepen their learning at St. Kate’s. 

This past fall, during the required weekly “lab” time that brought all TRW classes together in Rauenhorst Ballroom, first-year students learned about curricular and cocurricular OSE opportunities. More than 30 students who had already participated in OSE opportunities spoke about their experiences.

“This approach of having other students share with first-years carries stronger impact,” Urbaniak Lesch says. “Staff can say all sorts of things — but it doesn’t match the feeling of hearing something from another student.” 

Oliver says that the decision to include community-engaged learning and other OSE opportunities in TRW classes underscores the University’s commitment to community connection, helping new students build a platform of action that will help ease their post-graduation transition. 

“By putting OSE into The Reflective Woman, we are saying, ‘If this awakens your sense of justice, here are ways you can live that out,’” Oliver says. “We know how important these experiences are to our students, and we want to make the process of getting involved as easy and natural as possible.” 

Rin Kilde ’23 graduated last spring with a degree in public policy. During her undergraduate studies, she worked extensively on OSE’s 2022 community-engaged learning pilot project, coordinating student work with community partners, developing faculty resources, and visiting TRW classes to talk about CEL opportunities. She believes that time spent engaged in meaningful causes in the outside world should be a central part of every Katie’s experience. 

“This is a way for students to connect course materials to the real world and also to really increase their sense of agency,” Kilde says. “Students spend a lot of time learning about social justice issues, and end up feeling really helpless. There are all of these problems in the world, and it can feel like there is nothing to do about it.”

Community-engaged learning, she says, is an antidote to those feelings of helplessness: “It contributes to a sense of agency, of, ‘Yes, there are problems — but there are also solutions.’”

In their work with the project, Hempel and her TRW classmates dug into decades-old scanned documents. “We looked up these real St. Paul and Minneapolis area deeds that said, ‘No person of color can live in this house,’” Hempel recalls. “It was so blunt. It made me want to make a change and be more active.” 

Hempel’s deep interest in the Welcoming the Dear Neighbor? project eventually led to a student employment position at OSE, supporting in-class discussions and developing presentations that introduce TRW students to CEL: “I make them student-friendly, more engaging  to look at,” she says. 

The active advocacy Hempel has engaged with through CEL has helped shape her future plans. She sees possibilities particularly in advocacy for BIPOC community members, perhaps in child protective services or housing advocacy.

Above all, she says, “I would encourage everyone — no matter your skin color or background or economic status — to open your eyes and make a change.”

Hempel also studied abroad in Namibia and South Africa for the January 2024 term.

When she returned to St. Paul, Aguilera took to TRW classes to educate first-year students on ways to advocate for social change. Through her Community Leaders internship with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet’s Justice Office, she spoke to TRW students about the Equal Rights Amendment.  

“We talked to them about the history of the ERA,” Aguilera says of her TRW visits. “We talked about how to vote, how to make a phone call to a legislator. We also shared with them different things that are happening on campus so they can be involved.” 

Aguilera believes that the real-world exposure offered by OSE has enhanced her St. Catherine education, and readied her for a future equipped to make a real difference in the world. “I think for me it is important to be connected with wherever you are, especially in the case of an educational institution. We have to be able to go out into the world and take action. Whether it be internships, volunteer opportunities, civic engagement, that is how you have a well-developed educational experience. We are fortunate to have opportunities to be involved in all of these things at St. Kate’s.”

Aguilera is currently studying abroad in Nepal for the spring 2024 semester.

Kilde credits her own undergraduate CEL experiences with expanding her understanding of larger social issues and building relationships that continue to this day. “We like to think of community-engaged learning as mutually beneficial partnerships with organizations in the community,” she says. 

She also believes that experiences contributing to programs like the Food Access Hub, the Empty Bowls Project, and Welcoming the Dear Neighbor? help students make important connections between their academic teaching and readings and our shared world.  

Through their time with CEL activities, Katies learn that “there are many ways that people are working for good and for social change,” Kilde says. The work of community partners, she adds, “also contributes to academic goals and course objectives. A lot of the topics that we discussed in TRW are also pertinent to the social issues that these organizations address. It’s such a great way to build deeper understanding.” 

Her meaningful leadership and research experience gained through OSE and CWL will soon be published in an academic volume. Kilde, Mollie Pierson ’25, CWL director Sophie Hunt, PhD, and campus minister Zach Ludwig collaborated to write a chapter about CEL in TRW classes.