Community Building at Bakersfield College <empty>


Any time you try to bring new people and ideas into an existing group especially if you bring in new parties and try to change the nature of relationships, you are changing the power dynamics of the situation. While some people will be excited, others will be upset. In addressing the situation take into account whether people are in agreement and whether they trust each other. The CLIPs enhance community building because they deliberately create a safe, trusting, respectful environment in which to share insights, concerns, solutions, tools, and promising practices to improve teaching and learning.

As you provide support for community building, you may find that this part of your work is more important than technical assistance because much of the technical information is readily available in books and online. Two aspects of community building are important here: (a) keeping the CLIPs focused on peer-to-peer problem solving and (b) ensuring that the CLIPs remain “permeable” —allow and encourage input from others—so they don’t develop into cliques.

The Math CLIP at Bakersfield College provided an example of maintaining the permeability of the CLIP. Recognizing that faculty would need to invest a lot of time and effort to complete a survey, the CLIP used some of their funds for a pizza party in one of the classrooms. By using the pizza party to entice math faculty to fill out the questionnaire, they garnered information from people who were not part of the CLIP and helped the CLIP keep well connected to the rest of the department.

 

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