Nestled in Lehigh University's Bethlehem campus is a dynamic “hub” at which the university's faculty, staff and students are encouraged to form community partnerships in order to become engaged, active citizens through learning and research projects. Dr. Sarah Stanlick founded the Center for Community Engagement in 2015 after a year of multidisciplinary discussion regarding areas and opportunities to grow Lehigh's sense of public purpose.
Still serving as the Center's director, Stanlick says her objective is “to increase our capacity as students, faculty and staff to live as active citizens, and for unique talents—from our first-year engineers to our seasoned anthropology professors—to see themselves as agents of change.” Just in the last year, there has been tremendous growth in establishing the Center's presence as a connector, according to Stanlick. She says, “We are here to move from doing ‘for' the community to doing ‘with' the community.”
Stanlick's continued dedication to the Center's outreach operations has galvanized university-community partnerships. With her leadership, both staff and students are encouraged to directly take concepts from service-learning classes and pursue involvement with community-based research projects in order to take on societal challenges.
There have been connections made with local agencies to provide research and asset-mapping support. Students concentrating on human rights have created community dialogue groups examining inclusion and diversity. Student-athletes have implemented programming with a local school for after-school leadership development and community empowerment activities. Also, faculty members are exceedingly involved, from working with the DaVinci Science Center on educational outreach to long-term partnerships with local nonprofits like St. Luke's Community Health Department.
Witnessing the formation of a healthy, thriving community made up of individuals who care is the most rewarding aspect of Stanlick's job. She says, “I have the benefit of having a professional position that aligns well with my personal mission of meaningful, reciprocal and humble community engagement.”
Her days are an eclectic variety of academic obligations, such as teaching a course in the morning on the Internet's impact on social change to meeting about the Center's Mountaintop experiential learning and economic development initiative to ending the day with a Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania's Take the Lead event. Outside of her job, Stanlick works with the Lower Saucon Environmental Advisory Council to help preserve the natural beauty of the Lehigh Valley and, most notably, she works with a local refugee resettlement agency, Lutheran Child and Family Services, by promoting and supporting their efforts to welcome “our new neighbors,” she says.
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