The Community Engagement Steering Committee (CESC) was formed in 2017 to provide strategic guidance in the development of Carleton’s community engagement initiatives. The committee was broadly representative of those groups in the university who are engaged with the community. The Steering Committee was anchored in previous reviews of Carleton’s community engagement and informed by consultations with a broad-based set of contributors both within and outside the university.
In 2020, Carleton’s Community Engagement Steering Committee advanced our thinking through two important contributions: the development of a working definition of community engagement (CE) and a Hub and Spoke model for working together. The committee also developed a Theory of Change document that highlighted the need for organizational infrastructure and plotted a course for how to get there. These would help spark campus and communitywide discussion on how we might collectively envision what we mean when we talk about engaging with the community.