Marquette hosted a community engagement symposium called “Six Pathways to Public Engagement” Nov. 12 in the Alumni Memorial Union.

The event focused on gathering around the six pathways that were identified by the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University, according to Marquette’s website.

These pathways highlight opportunities and activities that influence the public good: direct service; policy and government; social entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility; community engaged learning and research; community organizing and activism; and philanthropy. 

Dan Bergen, executive director at the Office of Community Engagement at Marquette, worked closely with the community engagement symposium board to develop the vision for the event. He said it was the fourth annual engagement symposium and was hosted by a collective comprised of different offices and departments on the Marquette campus, such as the Office of Service Learning and Office of Public Affairs.

“The symposium was an opportunity for Marquette to continue to deepen our relationship with the city of Milwaukee,” Bergen said.

He added that the event was a way to pursue social justice for many people from different sectors across the city such as people from the business sector, nonprofit, government, higher education and K12 education, he said.

“All the different sectors of the city were able to come together at the event and have conversations about different aspects of community engagement and the work they’re doing with one another to address pressing issues in the city,” Bergen said.

Bergen said the event was open to anyone who wanted to attend, such as residents of the city, local activists, Marquette students, Marquette faculty and staff, and faculty and staff from other higher education institutions. 

Gavin Luther, the managing director of UniverCity Alliance at University of Wisconsin-Madison, was a presenter at the event. Luther said his role at the event was to showcase an initiative at UW-Madison where there are opportunities to potentially partner with Marquette University. The initiative connects local governments with resources at UW-Madison. He said there might be resources at Marquette such as courses to do an engaged learning project.

Luther said the point of his presentation was to educate people about the model and see if there might be potential for collaboration between partners in the room and himself.

The purpose of the event was to “raise awareness of the different community engagement efforts that were going on at Marquette and across the region,” Luther said.

He said it was meant to showcase, highlight and celebrate community engagement efforts happening across the region and hopefully create a networking opportunity where more partnerships could be created between people inside and outside of Marquette. 

Trina Van Schyndel, who works at the Center for Community-Based Learning, Leadership and Research at University Wisconsin-Milwaukee, was an attendee at the symposium. She said she enjoyed the event’s inclusivity.

“Marquette University is the host and it’s really nice to have another university in the city that’s putting on a large community engagement focused event that helps bring together different people from across the city of Milwaukee who are really interested in the work of community engagement,” she said.

Van Schyndel said that this was her third year attending the event and it was a “great place to hear the really good work that people are doing in the city of Milwaukee.” 

This story was written by Matthew Choate. He can be reached at [email protected].