Bonner Center for Community-Engaged Learning, Teaching, and Research

The Bonner Center for Community-Engaged Learning, Teaching, and Research helps students connect their academic, career, and co-curricular interests through community engagement. Across its programs, the Bonner Center brings together students, staff, faculty, and community partners to promote student learning, advance scholarship, and respond to community-identified goals and needs. Core program areas include:

• Bonner Scholars Program, a national community-service scholarship program
• Ninde College Access Program, a college access program for middle and high school students in Oberlin City Schools
• Community-Based Work-Study Program, which allocates at least 20% of the institution’s federal work-study budget for eligible students to work with local nonprofit and public sector partners
• America Counts and Reads programs, which hire, train, and place students to provide math and literacy tutoring in Oberlin City Schools and afterschool programs
• Ethical Community Engagement workshops, which are in-class workshops offered in academic courses to prepare students to engage ethically with community organizations that they work with in their courses and co-curricular activities
• Partnering with faculty to incorporate community engagement into classes and research. This includes the Community-Based Learning Course Incubator, an intensive workshop to support the development of new community-based learning courses

Other opportunities include Winter Term projects, funding for student-community partnerships, and car rentals for transportation to local organizations.