At the College of New Jersey, all first year students complete a minimum of 8 hours of community engaged learning.  It is a graduation requirement; TCNJ wants to prepare students to be active and engaged citizens who have the interest and ability to help solve some of New Jersey's most important public problems.

TCNJ's first Community Engaged Learning day of the 2008-2009 school year was a huge success.  The College and the Bonner Center partnered with with the Heart of Camden, a non-profit housing and community development organization in the Waterfront South neighborhood.   Most of the pictures below capture volunteers working on the abandoned Star Theatre, which thrived during the silent movie days.  The goal is to turn it into a community center for kids in this impoverished area.

Approximately 40 students participated in the day.  15 are students in Celia Chazelle's Social Justice First Year Seminar course.  Their community engaged learning project was built into their course.  The rest of the students were residents from Wolfe 3 who chose Poverty as their community engaged learning issue.  Bonner students filled out the rest of the team.  Brittany Aydelotte (Bonner 09) helped organize the day and other Bonners acted as crew leaders at the two work sites. 

As with all CEL days, service and learning are combined.  Students received a short educational packet prior to leaving campus.  Among other things, it illustrated the many challenges Camden residents face; more than 30% live in poverty, for example.  In addition, Father Michael Doyle addressed the students.  He summarized how Camden, like other northeastern cities, have been rocked by large economic and social changes (e.g. the departure of manufacturing jobs); and how the dangerous combination of poverty, anger, drugs, guns affect daily life.