A group of McMaster staff, faculty and community partners are standing in a brightly lit room in L.R. Wilson Hall, holding up their fingers as they count off their breaths.
Led by two presenters, they raise their arms and stretch their legs, and suddenly they feel a little more connected to each other — and to the morning of learning ahead.
The moment of movement was adapted from an initiative called Homework Circle run by community organization Empowerment Squared. The exercise, led by the organizations’s education coordinator Lindsay Richardson and McMaster postdoctoral fellow Emily Scherzinger, was part of a presentation and panel discussion at McMaster’s first Community-Engaged Teaching and Learning (CETL) Day.
Organized by the Office of Community Engagement at McMaster, the event brought together faculty, staff and community partners to share and celebrate achievements in experiential and community-engaged education — that is, teaching and learning in collaboration with community partners and groups outside the university.
Attendees had a unique opportunity to learn from instructors and community members who have worked together on innovative courses, such as CMTYENGA 3E03: Community Engagement in Practice, a collaboration with Empowerment Squared; and CityLAB Hamilton, an innovation hub that brings together student, academic and civic leaders to co-create a better Hamilton.
“There’s a lot of great work happening at McMaster in the field of community-engaged learning; we wanted an opportunity to showcase some of that work,” said Sarah Whitwell, Educational Developer at the Office of Community Engagement.
‘I am because we are’: Undergrad inspired by innovative community engagement course
The course gives students practical skills while they learn culturally responsive approaches to engaging with newcomers to Hamilton.
More than homework
Students in CMTYENGA 3E03 learn about providing educational support for newcomer and equity-deserving communities, then apply that learning as volunteers with Empowerment Squared’s Homework Circle.
Homework Circle offers valuable academic support, but also focuses on building resilience, mindfulness, and self-confidence.
“By sharing best practices and innovative teaching methods, we can hopefully inspire other educators to bring community into the classroom in equitable and sustainable ways,” Whitwell said.
“CMTYENGA 3E03 is a particularly exciting example because the course has been co-developed from start to finish with a community partner.”
For the McMaster students, applying their classroom learning in the real world drives home the value of community-engaged teaching and learning, and demonstrated ways to strengthen ties between McMaster and the Hamilton community.
“It wasn’t until I started working with the more profound complexities of mentorship [that I realized] that community work is not necessarily about helping, but about listening, learning, and struggling with hard truths regarding power, identity, and structure,” one student’s feedback from CMTYENGA 3E03 said.
Jay Carter and Raffaella Morrello from CityLAB Hamilton offered practical insights on how to incorporate a CityLAB challenge into experiential or project-based courses.
Engaging with CityLAB Hamilton
The second panel of the day featured CityLAB Hamilton, a hub that works with municipal staff to identify challenges within the community, then connects those staff members with instructors and students who spend one or two terms developing tangible solutions.
While instructors are often familiar with CityLAB Semester-in-Residence, an immersive 15-unit program for undergraduate students, not everyone is aware that any course can incorporate a CityLAB challenge. These address a wide variety of subject areas, making them suitable for nearly every discipline.
At CETL Day, Jay Carter and Raffaella Morrello from CityLAB Hamilton offered practical insights on how to incorporate a CityLAB challenge into an existing experiential or project-based course.
CityLAB offers a unique opportunity for students to put theory into practice, and instructors can benefit from having access to community insights on real-world problems.
Expanding community-engaged teaching and learning
In the past four years, the Office of Community Engagement has rapidly expanded its CMTYENGA course offerings: Nearly 600 students are currently enrolled in nine CMTYENGA courses.
“One of the real treats for me in my work over the last 10 years … has been to watch the expansion of community-engaged teaching and learning on this campus,” said Karen Balcom, academic director of Community-Engaged Teaching and Learning at McMaster.
Students are increasingly aware of the generational change and injustice happening around the world, and they come to McMaster with the goal of effecting real-world change. The Interdisciplinary Minor in Community Engagement provides an opportunity to imagine a different, brighter world.
Community-Engaged Teaching and Learning Day complements the Office of Community Engagement’s annual Community-Engaged Research Day, which will be held on March 26, 2026. This event includes the celebration of the Community-Engaged Research Awards.
Currently, McMaster has launched the search for the next academic director of the Office of Community Engagement. Applications and nominations for the academic director position are anticipated to open in the coming weeks, with opportunities for campus and community input throughout the process.