Kat and Oliver are bringing back their workshop, “How to Explain Your Community Engagement Work to People Who Don’t Get It,” on June 9—this time for a national audience of community engagement professionals.
Hosted by Community Campus Engage Canada (CCEC), the session is part of CCEC’s Community Engagement Professionals Peer Network. This national network convenes staff from post-secondary institutions who manage external community-campus relationships, offering a space to share concerns, strategies, and practices in monthly meetings.
The session is open to staff, brokers, and others at universities, colleges, polytechnics, and community-based organizations who coordinate or maintain community-campus relationships.
Session Info
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
- Date: Monday, June 9, 2025
- Time: 10:30 am – 12:00 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.
Registration is now closed.