Nicole Soulier
Nicole Soulier is an enrolled member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, from the Bad River Indian Reservation in Wisconsin. She attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison to earn her undergraduate degree in Human Development & Family Studies and American Indian Studies. She later returned to the university to earn a graduate degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis with an emphasis on higher education and leadership in two-year schools. Nicole has worked in higher education for over 13 years in both enrollment services and curriculum management. She currently serves as community engagement coordinator with Madison College where she combines community relationship building and project management to improve and increase the college’s engagement with historically underserved communities.
Thursday, November 18, 2021 | 8:30 AM - 9:45 AM (CDT)
Exploring Community Engagement
The relationship that institutions have with the communities they serve is vital in confronting the racial inequities present in today’s society. This relationship has shown to not only have impact on the practice of teaching done in schools, but it contributes to the impact that institutions can have on numerous aspects of a community’s overall well-being. As the social and political landscape of our world continues to shift, our institution’s relationship is seen to become increasingly important in order to remain an effective, diverse, and inclusive institution. In an effort to remain in tune with the needs of the communities while remaining an institution that local communities can turn to and trust, it is important for educators to find ways to fully engage with communities and become a partner working to achieve social equity. By doing so, institutions can ensure that they are fully invested in meeting the needs of those they serve.
To move forward in this direction, it is necessary to better understand what it means to be fully “engaged”. Institutions and communities may have different perceptions, understandings, or expectations of engagement and what it means to be engaged with one another. Until these interpretations are aligned, community engagement will remain ambiguous and ambivalent in both practice and scholarship. This session will explore the concepts of community engagement with particular attention paid to the relationship that educational institutions have with Wisconsin’s Tribal communities.
