Fall 2026 Students as Partners - Call for Faculty Participants
*NEW* For AY 26/27, the Center for Teaching & Learning is pleased to continue AND expand ourStudents as Partners program!
Our first expansion efforts are offering this program as a one-year opportunity! Over the past three years, we’ve structured this program as a one-semester opportunity. However, we’ve found that many of our participants have extended their partnerships through a one-year cycle. This change is mostly due to our student partners, who wanted to continue meeting with their partners and to see their perspectives being implemented.
*New* Community Engaged, Experiential Learning Focus
The second expansion is a collaboration between theOffice of Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship (PACES) and the CTL to support educators who are interested in creating community-engaged, experiential courses. This collaboration incorporates the complementary approaches of Community-Engaged Teaching and Learning (CETL) and the Students as Partners (SAP) framework.
Faculty in the Students as Partners Program will participate in a community of learners who engage with undergraduates/undergrads and community partners as a team to co-develop course activities:
- Attend six cohort meetings in Fall 2026 and four meetings in Spring 2027
- Work with students and/or students and community partners in the shared co-design of course modules and programs.
- Work with a paid team. Undergraduate students receive $1,200 per semester to work in a SaP team. For the Community Engaged Partners version, community partners receive $1000 stipends.
Faculty Benefits:
- Receive a $500 stipend per semester
- Develop course modules that engage student voice
- Develop equity-oriented partnerships with students; and students and community partners.
- Receive participation stipends (and work with students and partners who also receive stipends)
- Write a collaborative journal article (optional)
The call for faculty participation is open throughAugust 17, 2026.
What is Students as Partners?
Students as Partners is a collaborative pedagogical approach that pairs faculty and students to improve teaching and learning. Bovill, Cook-Sather and Felten define student-faculty partnership as a “reciprocal process through which all participants have the opportunity to contribute equally, although not necessarily in the same ways, to curricular or pedagogical conceptualization, decision-making, implementation, investigation, or analysis” (2014, p. 6-7).
In spring 2024, CTL (formerly ASSETT) launched its inauguralStudents as Partners Pilot Program with four faculty members and four undergraduate students. Since then, the program has supported over 20 faculty and staff members and 15 undergraduate students. Through this two-semester partnership, pairs worked together to incorporate the student perspective into a course, assignment, or project design. Each pair determined how frequently they meet and what the expectations are for each meeting.
What is Community-Engaged Teaching and Learning?
Community-Engaged Teaching and Learning (CETL) is a pedagogical approach with a “social change orientation, working to redistribute power, and developing authentic relationships”1. CETL values co-design through relationships of trust and reciprocity, equity-oriented partnerships, the valuation and inclusion of all partners’ knowledge and experience, and critical reflection to connect experience to learning. This approach involves high impact practices (HIPS) of collaborative projects, community-based learning, learning communities and learning about and interacting with diverse cultures and practices.
Program Compensation
All faculty participants receive a professional development non-cash stipend ($500) that can be used to support their projects, enhance their teaching practices, purchase academic technology, attend conferences, or compensate undergraduate students to provide their perspectives. Student partners will be compensated through the Students as Partners/CETL programs ($1200 per semester). Community partners compensation: Community partners may receive up to $1000 for their partnership with student and faculty teams.
Program Goals
The goals of this program are to:
- Improve teaching and learning through a shared partnership.
- Challenge deeply held beliefs about the traditional roles of teachers and learners.
- Provide spaces for equity-seeking and community-minded individuals to improve teaching and learning.
Interested faculty should be reassured that engaging students as partners does not cede power to students or invite them to tell them what they are doing wrong. Rather, it is a dialogic process where faculty (who are subject matter experts) and students (who are experts at being learners) work together interdependently, bringing their strengths to create a student-centric product.
No one partnership is the same, as the nature of each project differs from its objectives and outcomes. The Students as Partners framework encourages each project to have its own personality, objectives, and outcomes, with the goal of the final product being more student-focused. Examples of past projects can be found on theStudents as Partners Portfolio ɱ貹.
How to Apply?
To apply, by August 17, 2026. Further details and instructions will be provided soon.
Questions about the Students as Partners program, the Community Engaged Partner Program, or the application process may be directed toJacie Moriyama, CTL's Student Initiatives Program Manager. Questions about the Community Engaged Partner Program can also be directed toLisa H. Schwartz, Program Director for Design and Implementation at Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship.
Share the undergraduate student call for applications!
Please share the student recruitment announcement andapplication with undergraduate students (due August 17, 2026). You may specifically recruit students to work with you, but they cannot be currently enrolled in, or plan to enroll in, the course you will work on with them.