About Community Engagement Fellows
Community Engagement Fellows (CEF) is a U.S.-based organization that empowers educators and community leaders to nurture engaged citizens, serve the public, and improve the Salish Sea bioregion and the planet.
Community Engagement Fellows (CEF) is a U.S.-based organization that is run through Western Washington University. The purpose of the CEF is to empower educators and community leaders to nurture engaged citizens, serve the public, and improve the Salish Sea bioregion and the planet. The CEF was created by Travis Tennessen in 2015, a geographer and community educator whose primary focus is on the evolution of human-environment systems through time. He seeks to infuse an ethic and practice of place-based learning throughout the university and the region. The CEF organization uses social and place-based learning methods to facilitate the growth of effective and durable learning partnerships across organizational boundaries that include online communities of practice, retreats, forums, tours, and workshops. Western Washington University’s Center for Community Learning has served as the convener since the program began in 2015.
Program participants and members of the Community Engagement Fellows Coalition are located all over the world. The Community Engagement Fellows Institute encourages educators and community leaders in higher education, government, non-profits, tribal/indigenous organizations, libraries, museums, and other community groups to get involved. They do so out of a belief that our societies are stronger the better we can communicate and work together across boundaries.
The goal of the Community Engagement Fellows program is to create a more rich and more interconnected educational ecosystem that is responsive to local needs and opportunities. They have the desire to help society become less compartmentalized and competitive by building pathways for integration and collaboration.
Travis Tennessen wants consumers to know that the Community Engagement Fellows is for anyone who wants to become a more skilled, effective, community-engaged educator. Fellows may include community organization leaders, government representatives, P-12 teachers and administrators, business owners, higher education faculty, staff and student leaders, and more. Learning is enriched by diversity, and it’s important to think broadly about who the educators are in a community.