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Faculty Resources

Overview Alternative Digital Credentials Non-Credit Successful Communities Collaborative Digital Content Captioning Support Regular and Substantive Interaction

Online Program Development & Delivery

Successful Communities Collaborative

Faculty Best Practices

Begin communicating with the project point person before the beginning of the semester to start building your relationship and scoping the project. Starting off on the right foot is key. The SSCC director will help you connect.
Make expectations very clear both to the point person and your students at the onset.
Share dates for tours, calls, meetings and presentations with the SSCC team as early as possible so that they can handle the logistics for you and your students.
Have your students communicate with the point person frequently. We recommend coordinated bi-weekly calls or emails with questions or updates on progress. Making this a requirement is also recommended. We also recommend appointing designated student communication liaisons to minimize duplicate communications.
Support your students - many students lack experience working with community members in this capacity and can find themselves out of their field of expertise. Keeping an open line of communication for them to air their grievances or ask questions is essential.

Resources & Documents
Procedural Information
Expense Reimbursement Form
Report Template
Power Point Template
Creating Effective Work Group

Frequently Asked Questions

What is SSCC?

SIUE Successful Communities Collaborative (SSCC) is a cross-disciplinary program that supports one-year partnerships between the University and communities in Illinois to advance local resilience and sustainability based on community-identified environmental, social and economic issues and needs. Our mission is to connect Illinois communities with the students and faculty of the University.

How does SSCC work?

SSCC selects a single partner community (generally a city or county) through a competitive application process. Working with administrative staff and stakeholders in the selected community, the collaborative helps identify 10–15 projects that will advance local resilience and sustainability based on community-identified needs. Each project is connected with one or more key courses at SIUE that can provide research or technical support and move the project forward.

For communities SSCC provides innovative strategies to move community-identified, high-priority sustainability goals forward. Communities often face limited resources to explore sustainability and quality of life questions. SSCC seeks to reduce those obstacles by linking existing graduate and undergraduate courses at SIUE to explore innovative solutions to community-identified projects

Who can participate?

This program is for faculty (including adjunct faculty and lecturers) at any Southern Illinois University Edwardsville campus who:

teach an existing graduate or undergraduate course
are interested in assisting a local community with a high-priority project designed to advance local sustainability and resilience
would like to incorporate a real-world project into their course—either as part of an existing assignment that has an applied-learning, service-learning, or community-engagement component, or in place of an existing assignment that requires students to work on a “hypothetical” project or problem

Participation in the program is completely voluntary, and participating one year does not commit anyone to a subsequent year (although most faculty choose to remain involved).

I already have students in my courses work on community-based service-learning projects with partners or clients. Why should I link my course with an SSCC project?

We applaud the fact that many faculty already require that students in their courses work on community-based or applied-learning projects, and recognize that faculty can solicit such projects on their own. Our goal is not to supplant these efforts, but we believe SSCC does offer a different model for how to engage community partners. One significant benefit of this model for faculty is that SSCC provides logistical support for projects throughout the semester, making it much easier and more efficient to incorporate a meaningful community-based project into your course. In addition, SSCC is scaled for impact. The program is focused on a single community for an entire academic year, which allows for a much deeper and more sustained collaboration. By linking your course with an SSCC project, you connect your students to a larger, longer term effort that will have a visible impact in the partner community.

What is the time commitment?

The time commitment for both instructors and students can be more than a typical lecture-based course. Faculty who want to incorporate a meaningful community-based project into their courses, however, save time by working with SSCC because the SSCC team develops the partnership, lays the groundwork for scoping feasible course projects, and nurtures the University-community partnership by providing an extra layer of support for all involved.

What are the benefits for faculty of participating in SSCC?

Professional printing of reports, serving as evidence of faculty work for annual review, promotion, and tenure.

Staff support, by providing assistance for your service or applied learning activity.

Publicity with campus and local media to share your course successes and ensure you receive recognition for the good work you and your students are doing in the community.

Meaningful work for students, which is more likely to engage your students by solving real-world problems that may result in active solutions.

Public relations exposure from both internal and external communications outlets.

Networking and relationship growth within the community for future partnerships and high-impact projects.

How do students benefit from participating in an SSCC-linked course or project?

For students, participation offers the rewarding opportunity to apply disciplinary concepts and tools learned in class to real issues in a regional community.Involvement in the program improves oral presentation skills, reasoning skills and teamwork skills. These are all valuable competencies for a post-graduation career.SSCC projects involve being hands-on with the community partners. This will require a significant time investment. It is a much different experience than the predictability of attending classes and studying textbooks. Although a roadmap is set in place at the beginning of the project, the dynamic nature of the project will lead to some alterations and delays in the timeline. It is advisable to plan for unexpected detours along the way. The effort you put into this project is significant but will pay off in the end.

What is my responsibility as a faculty member participating in an SSCC project?

Faculty can choose to connect an entire course (i.e., a capstone, lab, or design studio), or an existing class project assignment within a course, to an SSCC project, based on what works best for their particular course and curriculum. As a faculty participant, we ask that you:

incorporate at least one classroom activity or assignment focused on a city-identified project in which students interact with, and present their work to, city staff;
supervise and/or review student work to ensure high-quality, professional deliverables;
allow SSCC to do a brief, 10–15 minute classroom presentation describing the program early in the semester to students working on SSCC projects;
share with SSCC staff the names and email addresses of students in your course working on SSCC projects so we can communicate with them directly when needed;
maintain regular and timely communication with SSCC and the community partner as needed throughout the project to ensure a collaborative working relationship;
assist SSCC with obtaining digital copies of all student deliverables at the end of the semester; and
help SSCC to identify a high-achieving student in your class with whom we can contract after the semester has ended to create a summary report and/or poster.

What is my course deliverable?

Typically, the course deliverable to the community partner includes the final reports or papers students turn in for a grade on the assignment, as well as a class presentation of their key findings and recommendations. Depending on the nature of the course and the project, SSCC may also contract independently with a student in your course after the semester ends to produce a summary report of the best designs, solutions, and products generated by your class, and/or to design a poster summarizing the project for display at our annual End-of-Year Celebration. SSCC is ultimately responsible for providing the community partner with digital and hardcopy versions of all deliverables, and will post these materials on the SSCC website.

Do I need a background in community resilience or sustainability to participate in SSCC?

No, your expertise in your discipline and the work of your students can help our community partner meet their community resilience and sustainability goals whether or not you have a background in these areas, or explicit course content focused on resilience or sustainability. For instance, a course project that provides recommendations that could lead to financial savings, staff efficiencies, or increased resident access to city services all support SSCC’s goal of contributing to the sustainability, resilience, and overall quality of life of our partner communities.

If you wish to incorporate sustainability or community resilience frameworks or concepts into your course curriculum, SSCC can provide assistance and connect you with other campus resources as needed.

Are there opportunities to develop a new course?

Although SSCC’s primary focus is on redirecting classroom assignments and activities that are part of existing courses to meet the needs of our community partner, we are always available to work with interested course instructors and with staff

How do I get involved?

There are many ways to get involved:

Let us know you’re interested! Contact SSCC to find out more or to share your ideas.
Check out the list of projects identified by our current partner community to see if there are connections with a course you’re teaching.
Meet with SSCC staff to connect with partner community staff and develop your course project.
Attend our annual SSCC End-of-Year Celebration to see examples of projects that students have completed in other courses and get ideas for how your own course might participate in future years.