Community Engagement

Snake Safety Talk at UTM Pagoh

UTM Pagoh Safety and Health Committee in cooperation with the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (PERHILITAN) conducted a Snake Safety Talk on September 17th, 2019 in conjunction with UTM Pagoh Safety and Health Campaign 2019.

Service Learning and Field Work Workshop for Social Work Lecturers of Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit (SSUS), in Kalady, Kerala, India

In March, Dr Shanti Chandran from Language Academy, FSSH had her first leg of the Service Learning workshops that was triggered by her keynote address at the International Academic and Practitioner Conference ‘Positive Thoughts, Positive Impacts and Positive Social Work: the wherewithal of hope?’ in December 2017, at Kathmandu City, Nepal (read more here)

Her first stop was to the Department Of Social Work at Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit (SSUS), in Kalady, Kerala, India. Here, she was appointed as a resource person for a two-day workshop on Service Learning and Field Work for social work lecturers from SSUS as well as colleges in various parts of Kerala.

On the 25th of March, she had her first session for staff of social work of colleges from the Southern region of Kerala, and held at the SSUS campus. Her sessions included an introduction to service learning as a teaching and learning pedagogy, the reflective component of service learning, assessment rubrics and, importantly how service learning could enhance fieldwork practicum of social work postgraduate students and the reporting of their community experience. The session ended with a sharing of experience and Q&A.

Service Learning: Building Smart Partnership across Disciplines

On 27 March 2019, Dr. Shanti Chandran continued her Service Learning workshop further up north to the state of Karnataka, to Udupi, where Manipal Academy of Higher Learning, globally known as Manipal University is situated. The session was organised by the Centre for Continuing Education and Interprofessional Development (CCEID), for lecturers from various departments including disciplines such as medicine, business, architecture, optometry, etc. Her talk, entitled ‘Service Learning: Building Smart Partnership across Disciplines’ highlighted the best practices of Service Learning, and how this framework could enhance community engagement projects undertaken in various disciplines and especially about bridging the gap between university and society through a network of smart partnership support system.