On Nov. 13, the Brandeis community members gathered together to attend the fourth annual COMPACT Community Engagement Pathways Panel. The Samuels Center for Community Partnerships and Civic Transformation — otherwise known as COMPACT — aims to bring members of the Brandeis community together to work collaboratively with each other and community partners in order to create a more “just, equitable, and sustainable world.”  

The Community Engagement Pathways Panel specifically hopes to show the community possible next steps to get involved with community partners. The panel was composed of 10 faculty and staff, all of whom are dedicated to furthering COMPACT’s mission of making the world a better place and helping students on their journey. 

In a Nov. 13 interview with The Justice, one of the Samuel Scholars Peer Mentors, Elizabeth Ford ’27, who was heavily involved in the planning of this event, explained how faculty and staff “come and talk to our students and anyone else in the Brandeis community who wants to come about different pathways they can take at Brandeis through each of these departments and programs to really make the most of their time.”

The panel was moderated by Prof. Sally Warner (ENVS), the new director of COMPACT, who began the event by noting that the panelists came from a wide variety of departments on campus. Warner expressed that this event aims to facilitate networking for all involved, “obviously, the goal is for students to learn, but also hopefully there can be some cross campus networking that happens as well among the panelists who are here,” she stated.

Ian Roy ’05 introduced himself as the executive director for design and innovation at Brandeis. His team runs a number of labs on campus, including the “MakerLab for physical prototyping,” the automation lab, used for “electronic prototyping,” the digital scholarship lab and the engineering classroom facilities. Roy explained that “really, we can help you with any of your design projects if you’re doing community engaged projects.” 

Additionally, Roy is teaching a class called Leadership and Social Impact Innovation, which is a Board Fellow Class where 10-20 students are placed on boards of local non-profits and engage in projects related to the organization they are matched with. 

Lisa Zeidenberg, one of the University’s librarians who focuses on research, explained that the library helps promote community engagement through their Researching Waltham guide. Zeidenberg stated that in addition to these resources, the library “can help you to explore nonprofits in your field of interest … we have a database called Foundation Directory Online … and you can use that to find nonprofits in your interests.” Zeidenberg also noted that there are COMPACT interviews uploaded to the library website. 

Peter Rojas is the director of the Brandeis Intercultural Center. He talked about new initiatives at the ICC that focus “on developing our ICC leaders in different intricacies in terms of leadership, leadership style and how to manage what it means to be a leader.” One way Rojas is implementing this development is through a collaboration with the Center for Spiritual Life and the Gender and Sexuality Center. The three departments come together and host events called Be Curious Dinners, where faculty, staff and students come together to “talk about topics that are cliché at the dinner table that you’re not supposed to talk about.”

Rojas connected Be Curious Dinners to community involvement, saying, “our next step for this upcoming semester is inviting community partners to come and have dinner with us,” which would provide “an opportunity for students to kind of network with those individuals and hopefully create a better opportunity to bond and hopefully get internships or jobs out of that.”

Director of the GSC Jamie Wire was the next introduction. Wire explained that, “our primary way of having community engagement opportunities for students is through our student worker program, known as the “Pride Reps,” who are highly trained in peer education and deliver workshops to the Brandeis community on topics such as, “Intro to LGBTQ allyship, What is the gender identity spectrum? Exploring intersectionality, [and] Queer history.” 

Additionally, Pride Reps “do a lot with community building events, so they participate in the planning and execution of the events of the GSC hosts. They’re also encouraged to collaborate with campus partners on events and things like that,” Wire added.

The Christian Chaplain at Brandeis, Karl LaClair, introduced himself next and talked about the Center for Spiritual Life’s Peer Engagement Coordinators, who are “student workers who work with different faith communities on campus, [and] help bring awareness to kind of interfaith initiatives on campus.” Furthermore, the Center for Spiritual Life can generally help “anybody who’s interested in being a leader in any particular faith or religious tradition.” 

LaClair also brought up Conversations that Matter, which is another way students can get involved on campus. These conversations are structured as a “program where you talk about not particularly religious issues, but kind of bigger general philosophical issues around life.” 

Prof. Charlotte Powley (LGLS) and David Weinstein are the assistant director of research and the assistant director respectively at ENACT: The Abraham Feinberg Educational Network for Active Civic Transformation. Weinstein explained that the “key focus of ENACT is engaging with the state legislative process.” ENACT is a national program, which means that “getting involved also helps you get this national network of people who are involved in this work.” 

ENACT also has opportunities to get involved through classes. Students who take certain classes are eligible to apply to be an ENACT student delegate, who have the opportunity to support ENACT’s mission. Weinstein explained that students can get involved by applying for the ENACT education and advocate grant, “which is an opportunity for up to $500 in funding for an event.” Weinstein is also a part of VoteDeis, “which is a nonpartisan coalition of faculty and staff and students supporting voter registration [and] voter engagement.”

Powley elaborated more on the ENACT classes, particularly highlighting some of the classes she teaches. For instance, Powley teaches a class called “Gender, Justice, and Legislation” in the spring. She recommended students taking ENACT cources if they would like to get civically involved. As another way to get involved, Powley mentioned a new internship opportunity called ENACT Corps, where students participate in an internship for eight weeks during which they continue to meet with Powley and a cohort of students for support.

Prof. David Sherman (ENG),  head of the English department, introduced himself next. Sherman is a part of the Brandeis Educational Justice Initiative, which is “a higher [education] in prison initiative.” As he described it, the program is “faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates who collaborate on offering educational opportunities for people who have been impacted by the criminal justice system.” 

Additionally, Sherman pointed to a few classes that are taught at Brandeis that further this mission and discuss the topic of incarceration. For instance, Sherman is teaching a class called “Literature in the Age of Mass Incarceration” in the spring. 

Assistant Director at the Hiatt Career Center, Calvin Chu, introduced himself and discussed Hiatt’s mission, detailing, “a lot of what we do [at Hiatt] is helping students identify what their passions are and be inspired by those things and those interests.” Chu talked about how it’s challenging to balance passions with finances when finding the right job or internship. 

Chu explained that “one of the things that we’re really proud of is that we have what’s called a WOW [World of Work] fellowship,” which students can apply to “for thousands of dollars to cover expenses during … summer internships.” 

Last to be introduced was Prof. Rachel Kramer Theodorou (ED), who talked about opportunities to gain a license in pre-k to 12th grade teaching. She talked about the education department at the University and the opportunities it provides. Theodorou highlighted community engagement by saying, “I think all of our classes are community engaged,” but she specifically mentioned her class called “Waltham Speaks, Multilingualism and Advocacy and Community,” where all students are required to have an internship. 

Faculty and staff answered questions on themes such as advice and opportunities. Each panelist shared pieces of advice surrounding how to start getting involved in the community. For instance, Theodorou suggested that students consider whether they are the right fit for a certain opportunity “before [they] talk to the partners, because [the] partners are busy professionals doing their hard work.” 

Roy suggested that events are a valuable, oftentimes “low-barrier” way of getting involved and it’s helpful to find a “time and a place that works for you to learn more.” On the topic of balancing different commitments, Wire noted that students should always try to prioritize a “self-care element,” which she said is different for everyone. Sherman advised thinking “about what you’re doing next semester now.” Chu spoke about prioritizing your time and how “knowing your why is really really big” and suggested not just doing what friends are doing. Powley brought up the “simple and basic” advice of checking emails regularly. 

Panelists also talked about the value of networking. Sherman explained that “networking is a series of genuine one-on-one conversations.” As panelists gave their advice and shared their knowledge, LaClair summarized the purpose of the event by saying, “all of these people in this room want to be a resource specifically for you as students.”

As the event wrapped up, panelists shared next steps, fliers and Quick Response codes with attendees to help students take the first step in getting involved with the community and make the world a better place.