About Us

CCESL (Suite 22)

Monday: 9:00-4:30
Tuesday: 9:00 - 4:30
Wednesday: 9:00 - 4:30
Thursday: 9:00 - 4:30
Friday: 9:00-4:30

AmeriCorps (Suite 6) Fall 2012 Hours

Wednesday: 8am-4pm
Thursdays: 9am-12pm
Fridays:8am-12pm

The Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning (CCESL)

CCESL leads the campus in embracing the University of Denver's commitment of "being a great private university dedicated to the public good." Our mission is to educate, engage, and equip the campus community to accomplish tangible, public work that improves the lives of people in our communities. We value the public good, inclusive excellence, and, as part of higher education's civic mission, building community capacity and engagement.

What makes us unique?

The CCESL staff works with students, faculty, on-campus partners, and the community through a community organizing framework. Community organizing is about people working together for systemic social change. It is about developing collective self interest by working with others and taking action on issues the community cares about through true democracy, where the power is with the people.

Community organizing is not about the short-term mobilization of bodies, protests or rallies. It is about achieving long-term change through building powerful, public relationships; influencing and negotiating with government, corporations and institutions; achieving direct representation; and holding decision makers accountable to the people through public action.

We are committed to developing active citizens as identified in our student learning outcomes.

Our Goals

Learning:

We will develop students into engaged citizens who actively participate in the public life of their communities;
We will provide curricular and co-curricular opportunities for DU students to learn and work in communities.

Scholarship:

We will write, publish and present our work to regional, national, and international audiences;
We will support faculty in community-based learning and public good scholarship efforts at DU;
We will connect university stakeholders with efforts that address critical community issues.

Community:

We will convene faculty, students and staff around critical community issues; increase and deepen public good scholars and service-learning capacity;
We will provide opportunities for DU students to produce real, tangible work with people who are different than themselves.

Visiting CCESL

We are located at 2050 E. Evans Ave. in Driscoll South, Suite 22. Metered visitor parking is available in the Evans parking structure at High Street and East Evans Avenue, adjacent to CCESL.