University staff who lead and support community-university engagement play a crucial role in building partnerships, advancing institutional goals, and creating societal impact. However, effectively communicating the scope and significance of this work—especially to those less familiar with it—can be challenging. Join facilitators Oliver Mann and Kat Cureton for an interactive session on clearly articulating the value of your role and advocating for your community engagement programs.
This session is open only to members of the Community Engagement Network and UBC staff and librarians whose roles involve local and regional community-university engagement.
For more info on what community engagement is and looks like at UBC, visit our webpage.
- Date: Tuesday, March 11, 2025
- Time: 10:00 am – 11:30 am (PDT)
- Location: Zoom
- Cost: Free
The Zoom link will be included in your email confirmation upon registration.
Learning Objectives
At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
- Recognize the Role of Staff: Empower staff to articulate the value of their work and the programs they support in advancing community engagement.
- Craft a Compelling Pitch: Develop clear and impactful pitches that showcases the importance and outcomes of your CE initiatives.
- Strengthen Advocacy Skills: Equip participants to communicate effectively with stakeholders, funders, and institutional leadership.
Facilitators
Oliver Mann (he/him), Communications Strategist, Community Engagement, leads communications for UBC’s Office of Community Engagement, enhancing its profile and increasing awareness, participation, and diversity across programs. He also produces stories that showcase the impact of reciprocal community-university engagement.
With over a decade of communications experience at UBC, Oliver recently completed an MA in Professional Communications at Royal Roads University. His thesis explored how Canadian universities communicate about Indigenous engagement, advocating for Indigenous-led storytelling and decolonizing communication practices. It also provides actionable recommendations for university communicators.
As a settler of Costa Rican, West African, Spanish, Scottish, and English heritage, Oliver is committed to advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion in his work, ensuring that all voices are valued and heard.
Kat Cureton (she/her), Advisor, Community Engagement, joined the UBC Community Engagement team in 2016. She is an advisor on community-university partnerships. Her role is to help community partners navigate UBC and find helpful people, programs, and resources. She also leads the Community Engagement Network. Before joining the CE office, she was a sessional instructor in the UBC School of Kinesiology where she taught a community-engaged learning course for three years. Kat spent a number of years working in non-profit organizations in Vancouver, like AMSSA, Red Fox Healthy Living Society, and Collingwood Neighbourhood House, which is where she built her knowledge of community engagement. She holds a M.A. from UBC and a B.A. from Western University, both in kinesiology.
Kat is a white settler with English, Irish and German Ancestry. She is grateful to live and work on the unceded territory of the Musqueam peoples.
Event Organizers
The Community Engagement Network (CEN) is for staff and librarians at UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan who do community engagement work. Our purpose is to: (1) create and sustain a sense of community among staff at UBC who lead and support community-university engagement and (2) increase our collective capacity and provide tools for reciprocal, community-led engagement.