Faculty Events & Workshops

The CCP offers faculty development events to support University of Toronto instructors with designing and delivering CEL courses. CCP faculty events include course development workshops, faculty roundtables, and collaboratively delivered sessions with other units. These events cover a variety of topics and bring together instructors who teach, or are interested in teaching, community-engaged learning courses.  

To stay up to date on events as they are announced, please subscribe to our faculty newsletter.

Click the arrows below for dates and registration info for all 2025-26 events!

Community-Engaged Learning Course Development Workshop Series

The three-part CEL Course Development Workshop series for faculty offers an overview of the fundamentals of CEL pedagogy and practice, support for designing a CEL course, and practical strategies for working respectfully with community partners. Offered virtually in Fall, and as a half-day intensive in Spring. 

Workshop 1: Fundamentals of CEL

Tuesday, October 21, 2025
9:30 – 11 a.m.
Online (Zoom)

Focuses on the fundamentals of CEL pedagogy and practice, including definitions, rationales, and models for CEL, as well as resources available at U of T to support CEL.  

Workshop 2: Designing a Successful Community-Engaged Learning Course

Tuesday, November 11, 2025
9:30 – 11 a.m.
Online (Zoom)

Focuses on the three ‘Ps’ of CEL course development: pedagogy, partnerships and student preparation, including practical strategies for designing and running a CEL course.   

Workshop 3: Stewarding Respectful and Reciprocal Community Partnerships in CEL

Tuesday, November 25, 2025
9:30 – 11 a.m.
Online (Zoom)

Focuses on building respectful and reciprocal partnerships for CEL courses; working equitably with partners from community, grassroots, nonprofit, or public organizations. 

CEL Course Development Intensive

Tuesday, April 21, 2026
9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Koffler House, St. George campus

This half-day, in-person intensive workshop for faculty offers a comprehensive introduction to Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) pedagogy and practice. Designed to support course development, the session will guide participants through the fundamentals of CEL, provide hands-on support in designing a CEL course, and offer practical strategies for building respectful and reciprocal relationships with community partners. 

Faculty are encouraged to bring a course they are actively developing, or hoping to design, to the session, allowing participants to immediately apply insights and feedback to their course planning. The workshop will take place the day before the Faculty Institute.

The deadline to register for this in-person event is 6 p.m. on Friday, April 10, 2026.

Partnering in Service of First Nations Child Well-being

Thursday, October 16, 2025
1 – 2 p.m.
Online (Teams)

Partnerships between faculty and communities can lead to insights and impact beyond what is achievable from within the academy. Yet many scholars whose research and outcomes could be transformed through community partnership hesitate to explore this path, uncertain where to begin and how to proceed and succeed.   

The Centre for Research and Innovation Support (CRIS) and the CCP invite you to join us for an open and engaging discussion on walking the partnership path in pursuit and service of First Nations child and family well-being. Learn from experienced partners Amber Crowe (Executive Director, Dnaagdawenmag Binnoojiiyag Child & Family Services) and Barbara Fallon (Professor, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and VPRI) who will share their experiences, challenges and successes in working collectively from the academy, child welfare agencies, and First Nations organizations to deepen understanding of the over-representation of First Nations children in the Ontario child welfare system.  

This session will begin with a deep dive into the context and development of this partnership, then move into an integrative open discussion of participants’ questions. Questions can be submitted ahead of time and during the session. 
 
Learn more and register for Partnering in Service of First Nations Child Well-being. 
 

Featuring conversations between University of Toronto CEL scholar/practitioners and invited scholar/practitioners from outside U of T, this virtual series aims to advance community-engaged learning practice and scholarship through critical reflection and discussion of societal challenges, theoretical questions, and practical pedagogical strategies.  

Critical Conversations in CEL: Bridging Theory and Practice I 

Wednesday, February 11, 2026
12 – 1:30 p.m. ET
Online (Zoom)

More info forthcoming

Critical Conversations in CEL: Bridging Theory and Practice II 

Wednesday, March 11, 2026
12 – 1:30 p.m. ET
Online (Zoom)

More info forthcoming

FALL Indigenizing Curriculum – An Introduction 

Tuesday, November 4, 2025
9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Koffler House, St. George campus
Registration closes at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, October 28, 2025

This interactive in-person session will support CEL instructors and staff who support CEL to better understand and collaboratively practice the process of Indigenizing curriculum. We will look at some of the sources for Indigenous epistemologies and explore the implications for how these ways of knowing and doing interact with different subject disciplines. This session will include examples, and participants will apply an Indigenous framework for Indigenizing curriculum to syllabi. Participants are encouraged to bring a course syllabus to work with. This workshop is facilitated by Andrew Bomberry, Office of Indigenous Initiatives, in partnership with the CCP, for CEL instructors and staff who support CEL courses. It is particularly relevant for settler/displaced (non-Indigenous) colleagues.

WINTER Indigenizing Curriculum – An Introduction 

Thursday, February 5, 2026
9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Student Commons, St. George campus
Registration closes at 6 p.m. on Thursday, January 29, 2026

This interactive in-person session will support CEL instructors and staff who support CEL to better understand and collaboratively practice the process of Indigenizing curriculum. We will look at some of the sources for Indigenous epistemologies and explore the implications for how these ways of knowing and doing interact with different subject disciplines. This session will include examples, and participants will apply an Indigenous framework for Indigenizing curriculum to syllabi. Participants are encouraged to bring a course syllabus to work with. This workshop is facilitated by Andrew Bomberry, Office of Indigenous Initiatives, in partnership with the CCP, for CEL instructors and staff who support CEL courses. It is particularly relevant for settler/displaced (non-Indigenous) colleagues.

2026 CEL Faculty Institute: Driving Change: Scaffolding, Deepening & Sustaining CEL’s Transformative Impacts 

Wednesday, April 22, 2026
9:15 a.m. – 4:15 p.m.
Hart House, St. George Campus
Registration closes at 6 p.m. on Friday, April 10, 2026

The CEL Faculty Institute is an annual event that brings together CEL practitioners from across the University of Toronto, and those interested in CEL, to share and learn from each other about effective strategies for CEL teaching, informed by the latest research and on-the-ground experience.  

At our 20th anniversary Institute in April 2025, we collectively imagined what a path toward transformative change through CEL might entail. This year, we build on that visioning to consider embedded, relational, imaginative and collective strategies in CEL for fostering transformative impacts.  

Scaffolding: How can we think, coordinate and build across CEL courses for sustainability and responsiveness? How can we design within CEL courses to maximize learning and minimize harm?  

Deepening: How can we practice relationship-building over the long term? How can we support students to integrate transformative learning and commitments to social change beyond the life of a single CEL course? 

Sustaining: How do we navigate tensions around scalability and barriers to continuity? How might we leverage the disruptive, catalytic potential of CEL while practicing care for students, faculty and community partners? 
 
Join us to hear from speakers, participate in workshops and panel discussions, and build a CEL community of practice at the University. 


Missed an event? Visit our Past Faculty Events where you can find links to recordings of events.

To stay up to date on events as they are announced, please subscribe to our faculty newsletter.