Modeling Community Engagement in an Undergraduate Course in Psychology at an HBCU

Undergraduate education builds an appreciation for sociocultural diversity, fosters civic engagement, and develops socially responsive students through community engagement (Bowman, 2011; Katz, DuBois, & Wigderson, 2014; Schlehofer & Phillips, 2013). Numerous universities across the United States integrate community engagement in mission statements, across departments, and in various plans of study (Braskamp, 2008; Jongloed, Enders, & Salerno, 2008). Research suggests undergraduate programs in psychology recognize community engagement as a useful pedagogical tool for students to gain applied research experience and frame a variety of health, education, and other social issues (Elias, 1993; Kretchmar, 2001; Stoloff et al., 2010). The subfield of community psychology has always emphasized community engagement, using the community as a system to target prevention and social action (Dalton & Wolf, 2010; Nelson & Prilleltensky, 2005).

According to the Society for Community Research and Action (Division 27, American Psychological Association), a broad principle in community psychology is working collaboratively with communities and their members to diagnose challenges, understand needs, and develop an action plan to address them (Dalton & Wolf, 2010; Nelson & Prilleltinsky, 2005). Community psychology at the undergraduate level provides students with the opportunity to embed research and activism within community systems, across organizations, the government, and in localities. Unfortunately, a majority of community psychology programs in the United States exists at the graduate level with only a few offered at the undergraduate level (Society for Community Research and Action, 2015). A recent review of undergraduate psychology programs conducted by Stoloff et al. (2010) indicated only 14% of undergraduate programs offered topical courses in community psychology. Of these programs, there is no clear evidence on the percentage of these courses offered at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

HBCUs have a long-standing history of responding to the social needs of their communities by providing training and social mobility primarily for African Americans in the United States. HBCUs were established at a time when traditionally White universities denied admissions to African Americans (Wenglinsky, 1996). HBCUs graduated teachers, doctors, nurses, and other professionals to respond to the needs of a newly freed population and provide services within a highly segregated context (Walter, Jewell, Griffin, & Wolf, 2007; Wenglinsky, 1996). Moreover, HBCUs played a critical role in community organizing during the Civil Rights Movement and implementing programs targeted at distressed communities. Despite this history, a dearth of literature exists on the ways in which HBCUs infuse community engagement into the undergraduate learning environment—specifically within the discipline of psychology and subfield of community psychology.

HBCUs share a goal with many of their peer institutions, to prepare graduates to address the social challenges facing the 21st century (Braskamp, 2008; Meyers, 2009). The surrounding communities of many HBCUs indicate significant disparities exist across health, education, and economic indicators. For example, the neighborhood selected for this course had a median household income lower than the national poverty rate and the majority of residents held only high school degrees. These larger social challenges have led the American Psychological Association (2012) to recognize community engagement as a critical practice in promoting diversity awareness and social responsibility in undergraduate education. This article aims to provide a model of an undergraduate course in community psychology at an HBCU and highlight benefits and challenges in course design.

Course Goals

To date, HBCUs remain an underrepresented context in framing pedagogical strategies for community engagement—specifically in undergraduate psychology education (Henderson & Wright, 2015). Winston-Salem State University’s Department of Psychological Sciences developed an Introduction to Community Psychology course as one of several course requirements in the Counseling, Community, and Health foundation. Traditionally, students could elect to take a “field” course in the psychology paradigm but the course did not integrate research or required significant collaborations with community members outside client or supervisor roles. Although the first community psychology course was offered in spring 2014, the community psychology faculty member’s involvement in a Community-Based Participatory Research Learning Community led to a course redesign that infused student experiences with a local neighborhood revitalization project. The course introduces undergraduate students to the theories and principles of community psychology and experiential learning experiences. Relevant course objectives include (a) increase student knowledge on systems that promote social inequality, inequity, and marginalization; (b) increase student knowledge in research in the field of community psychology; (c) increase student knowledge in advocacy and ways to promote social justice and change; and (d) increase student knowledge in research practices that integrate collaboration and participatory methods. In spring 2015, the semester-long course consisted of 3-contact hours a week and various field trips within the local neighborhood.

Course Composition

The course is a 3,000-level course and open to upper classmen majoring or minoring in psychology. In spring 2015, 18 undergraduate students enrolled in the course and 78% were juniors and seniors. The majority of students in the course were female (88%) and the average age was 20 years. The demographics of the course reflect the HBCUs student enrollment, 88% self-identified as Black/African American, 5% European American, and 7% self-identified as Hispanic or “Other.”

Course Description

The Introduction to Community Psychology course includes critical dialogue, reflection, and experiential learning. Critical dialogue aimed to foster a didactic exchange between students and faculty on a variety of topics. In a 1-hr session, 3 times a week, students read the assigned text and articles in the course and are encouraged to bring in outside research and other sources of information into the dialogue. Students had to generate one unanswered question from the assigned readings and these questions guided dialogue primarily between students. The course emphasized daily writing, where students completed short reflection papers on the assigned readings at the beginning of each class. Each paper required students to reflect on the content and their own positions of power and privilege. Experiential learning became a tool to give students practical experiences of challenges and issues facing the local neighborhood community (e.g., marginalization, immigration, crime, etc.). For example, one course session required students to design a plan of action around reducing youth vandalism in the neighborhood by identifying root causes to the issues and partners needed to implement an action plan. Students used knowledge from the neighborhood to identify partners and solutions such as providing after-school programming to address the defined problem (Savery, 2006).

Community Engagement Component

The neighborhood selected for this course is less than 7 minutes from the university. The university-affiliated Community Development Center (CDC) received funding from the city government to plan a neighborhood revitalization project that included an action plan for residents and business owners. The CDC collaborated with faculty at the university and a regional community development organization to facilitate planning meetings and project goals. To meet the larger needs of the project, the course required students to attend a minimum of three neighborhood meetings with residents at the CDC and complete a minimum of 20 community service hours with an agency or organization providing services to residents. The first meeting provided an opportunity for students to meet with a local member of the Neighborhood Association, a resident who lived in the neighborhood more than 20 years, to learn the history of the neighborhood and gain a perspective of its needs. The two remaining meetings required students to interact with more than 125 residents at the CDC and facilitate discussions on challenges and problems facing their neighborhood. During these sessions, students were encouraged to write down their observations and listen to various stories about the neighborhood. Students were required to use data gathered from observations and stories to inform two major assignments in the course, the historical analysis and sense of community project. Students also had to complete a community reflection paper at the culmination of their course experience.

Historical Analysis

The historical analysis required students to examine neighborhood changes (e.g., population, businesses, employment, etc.) over time using digital and archival data (e.g., websites, digital archives, etc.) and conduct interviews with neighborhood leaders and residents (Gardner, 2006). Students completed papers demonstrating neighborhood changes across several decades. Papers provided an analysis of how economic and social shifts (e.g., changes in industry, neighborhood membership, etc.) influenced human development and current challenges in the neighborhood. The historical analysis presented a snapshot of the vitality of the past and a “sense of identity” for the neighborhood for the revitalization project.

Sense of Community

The sense of community project required students to work in groups to identify how the neighborhood represented the four elements outlined by McMillan and Chavis (1986), membership, influence, integration and fulfillment of needs, and shared emotional connection. Students canvased the neighborhood taking pictures of various settings, businesses, interviewed residents, and facilitated smaller meetings with residents and local youth. Students reviewed a summary of resident concerns from the second neighborhood meeting and small group sessions with local youth to demonstrate neighborhood membership and shared emotional connections. Their final project included a short media video (Sense of Community, 2015) and paper summarizing the four elements. The sense of community media projects was able to articulate a virtual community for the neighborhood that included improved parks, cleaner neighborhoods, sidewalks, and so on. Neighborhood residents viewed the final media project at the CDC at the end of the semester and were able to envision the strengths and assets of their neighborhood.

Community Reflection Paper

The community reflection paper required students to reflect on several critical areas in their community service experience to include changes in their attitudes and knowledge, principles in community psychology, and their own points of privilege. Students were also required to accompany the paper with a complete service log and letter from the organization verifying their experience. Students volunteered with the CDC and helped in volunteering for community gardening events and facilitating discussion groups with local residents. Some students worked with local community centers to provide tutoring and organizing programs. Some students participated in handing out meals to families and residents in the area through local churches. These experiences allowed students to obtain informal observations on life in the neighborhood and challenge their attitudes about residents. Letters from various organizations indicated the presence of students and resources provided were highly beneficial in serving the needs of residents.

Benefits and Challenges

There are some benefits and challenges when designing an undergraduate community psychology course. One major benefit was evident in the change in student perspectives in using psychology as an applied discipline in bridging university knowledge and resources to a local neighborhood. Second, local neighborhood residents began to see the constant presence of university students and were more apt to respond to students. Residents began to see how undergraduate students were invested in their neighborhood and valued their perspectives. Also, the disparities many students perceived in a neighborhood primarily comprised of Hispanic and African American residents resulted in critical reflections of their own points of privilege as members of a university community. For some students, they continued to volunteer with organizations after the end of the course.

The course also encountered some challenges throughout the project. For one, the syllabus for the course was designed specifically around the main goals of the revitalization project. The course had to meet the goals and objectives of the course as well as the larger objectives of the project—integrating residents in planning an action plan for neighborhood revitalization. Course objectives had to not only reflect learning outcomes such as critical thinking and written communication but also include principles in community psychology. Second, building relationships with the CDC and residents required commitment by the faculty. Faculty had to attend numerous meetings with residents in the neighborhood and planning members of the revitalization project. These meetings occurred in the evening and on weekends, beyond the daily work schedule of faculty. This project also depended on commitment from neighborhood residents and undergraduate students beyond their daily routine. A small number of residents and a couple of undergraduate students transitioned in and out of the project due to family commitments and their work schedule. Not all of the undergraduate students were in a position to meet the time expectations of the course. The project successfully recruited less than half of the residents at planning meetings and Hispanic residents were often underrepresented. Discussion throughout the course would debrief students on the challenges associated with participatory processes and evaluating whose voice is included versus excluded in community organizing.

Recommendations

Implementing a similar course experience to undergraduate students requires significant time devoted to building partnerships and developing course assignments. The university-affiliated CDC received funding from the city to begin revitalization efforts in the neighborhood. The CDC collaborated with university faculty who were members of a Community-Based Participatory Research Learning Community. Prior to the project, faculty in the Learning Community were in the process of identifying a community-engaged project and developing their syllabi to complete an interdisciplinary initiative. The collaboration with the CDC and university faculty became critical in designing activities and assignments for students in the undergraduate community psychology course. The course required mapping course goals and objectives to the goals of the revitalization project. For example, the data collection process for the historical analysis and sense of community project were designed to meet the larger goals of the revitalization project. Maps generated from the CDC helped the faculty to identify community organizations in the neighborhood for students to complete community service. All organizations were contacted prior to the course to solidify student placement and opportunities.

Throughout the semester, course content should build opportunities for students to reflect on their experience and evaluate the link between theory and action. The learning environment was an important space for undergraduate students to reflect on the meetings and integrate community knowledge with course knowledge. For example, one course discussion centered on citizen participation and empowerment principles in community psychology. Although community psychology emphasizes empowering community members, some students commented on difficulty in applying this method when the neighborhood meetings lacked representatives from other diverse groups (e.g., Hispanic and youth populations). The learning environment allowed students to comment on theory and discuss challenges in applying theory to the lived experience of residents. Using the reflection paper became an important assignment for students to reflect on their own privilege as well as outline the challenges of implementing community psychology principles in the neighborhood.

Course Evaluation

The university’s course evaluations indicate 89% of the students strongly agree/agree the course bridged previous knowledge to new knowledge and encouraged them to apply course-related knowledge and skills to solve problems. To assess the level in which students in the course increased civic engagement behavior, a pre–post questionnaire on civic engagement behavior (Doolittle & Faul, 2013) was administered to students in the course at the beginning and end. Similarly, students from two other general psychology courses were selected as a comparison group. Students in the undergraduate community psychology course demonstrated a significant increase in civic engagement behavior from the beginning (M = 20.50, SD = 9.04) to the end of the course (M = 33.12, SD = 4.46), t(21) = −7.27, p < .001, r = .84. Students completing the course indicated they would more likely participate in future work in the community and raise issues pertaining to social responsibility when compared to students in the two other general psychology courses. One student commented in an open-ended response:

The benefits were that we as students got firsthand experience to help change a community more than just sitting in a meeting or asking a community member a set of questions. We had to understand the history and then help make and possibly implement a plan to restore a community.

Residents and local organizations valued the inclusion of undergraduate students in the revitalization project. The work of undergraduate students in framing the historical analysis and sense of community project provided residents with a different perspective of the university. Residents began to see how students were invested in their neighborhood and responsive in voicing their needs and concerns to the planning committee.

Conclusion

Community engagement is critical to the goals of undergraduate psychology education and the missions of universities and colleges across the United States—particularly HBCUs surrounded by distressed neighborhoods and communities. An undergraduate course in community psychology offers a critical medium to foster community engagement and applied experiences in local neighborhoods and communities. The course shared provides a context for community-engaged learning experiences in undergraduate education, where both undergraduate students and a local neighborhood benefit (Katz et al., 2014; Kretchmar, 2001; Meyers, 2009). Further evaluation of the impact of these experiences on undergraduate students and neighborhoods should examine behavior over time and impact.