The Center for College and Community Engagement
Pursue a purposeful life.
At Alma, transformation happens in the classroom and in the community. Find purpose, deepen your connections and be a part of building a just and sustainable world.
Founded in 2021, the Center for College and Community Engagement (3CE) offers you opportunities to engage, learn and grow in partnership with the local community. You might mentor local youth, serve meals at the Community Cafe or support ecological restoration during an Alternative Break. In the classroom, you’ll deepen your understanding of social justice and civic engagement through your coursework. In doing so, you’ll learn how to be an agent of change, empowering you to pursue a purposeful life.
Community Engagement
At Alma, we promote a scaffolded approach to community engagement. You’ll participate in direct service during your first year, focusing on food security, education, housing, environmental stewardship or diversity, equity and inclusion.
In your second and third years, you’ll dig deeper into the issues you’re addressing, bringing your learning into the classroom. You’ll graduate with the skills necessary to create sustained, impactful change.
Alternative Breaks
Alternative Breaks allow you to learn about social justice issues while engaging in direct, hands-on service in regional and global communities.
Alternative Breaks span a broad range of themes, issues and locations. You might assist with conservation efforts at Joshua Tree National Park and then volunteer to maintain local trails and nature areas. You could join mid-Michigan partners working to alleviate food insecurity or travel to support disaster relief efforts.
No matter what your interest is, there is an Alternative Break opportunity for you!
Community-Engaged Learning
In community-engaged courses developed by Alma faculty in collaboration with 3CE, you’ll dive into fundamental civic questions and examine sustainable solutions and explore how we can better meet societal needs.
You’ll explore topics like public advocacy and environmental stewardship. And you’ll build skills like research, volunteer management and program development, preparing you for a lifetime of leadership.
Internship and Job Opportunities
Through 3CE-sponsored internships, you’ll apply everything you’re learning in the classroom and community to build capacity for a local nonprofit or agency.
You’ll gain insight into how community organizations function and develop problem-solving, critical thinking and communications skills that will equip you to make an even greater impact.
Academic Service Learning
Academic service learning courses include meaningful community service, a clear connection between course objectives and service activities and structured opportunities for reflection for the enhancement of academic learning. Many courses include a service learning component, and you can register for these courses through the standard registration process.
Through academic service learning courses, Alma College students serve the community in a variety of ways. Here are just a few examples of students providing service locally and globally:
- Teaching poetry to elderly residents and prison inmates
- Designing curricula for community programs
- Administering aerobic exercise and strength training programs to senior citizens
- Volunteering for Habitat for Humanity
- Hosting a Spanish Story Hour at the local library
- Supervising after-school programs
- Assisting with child immunization programs
- Participating in service experiences in Honduras, India, Jamaica, Mexico, and Poland
Turn Your Passion into a Profession
With your service learning experience, you can enter a variety of graduate programs and find a career related to your experiences, as well as volunteering in the communities around you. Alma College service learning alums have gone on to:
- Study public policy at the University of Chicago, environmental law at Vermont Law School, and medicine at Michigan State University
- Teach around the country
- Direct public environmental agencies
- Provide health services in understaffed rural and urban areas through National Service Programs