May 17, 2023

Spring CELEbration event recognizes student and community partnerships

The University of Washington’s Community Engagement and Leadership Education (CELE) Center announces the 2023 Spring CELEbration, a forum in which CELE Center and Mary Gates Endowment Leadership Scholars showcase their service, leadership and activist work that was conducted in partnership with the greater community.

Spring CELEbration places the CELE Center tenet of reflective learning into practice, as students articulate their learning, community service and leadership work. Executive director of the CELE Center, Fran Lo, shared that the event was intentionally “designed for students to reflect upon critical questions about themselves and the world around them, which is vital in our individual and collective work toward positive change with and in our communities.” The public forum allows students “to draw from the knowledge and skills they have developed as they lead and act in service to the greater good,” Lo stated.

Guests will attend poster sessions, oral presentations, lightning round talks and a video showcase, all exploring the impact of students’ work, mentor relationships, and academic and career trajectories. Undergraduates will present on topics ranging from current challenges with access to engineering/STEM disciplines, mentorship of students on dismantling systems of oppression, to mental health awareness and resource allocation in farmworker communities.

Presenter Greta Fehlan, ‘23, and CELE Center participant of the Undergraduate Community Based Internship Program, is looking forward to sharing her internship experience from the Pike Market Senior Center and Food Bank. “I’m focusing my presentation on the impact I witnessed for this community,” said Fehlan. “I loved this experience so much that it solidified for me that this is what I want to be doing with my life — community-based, community-focused work.”

Fehlan noted it will be rewarding to see the range of student projects from across all CELE Center programs and the Mary Gates Endowment Leadership Scholarship. Guests will be able to engage with undergraduates in conversation and questions across this wide-sweeping range of leadership experiences and service fields. “I’m excited to see all the awesome things that everyone’s been up to,” Fehlan said.