Community-Engaged Learning in Times of COVID-19, or, Why I'm Not Prepared to Transition My Class into an Online Environment

In this text, I outline my attempt at restructuring a community-engaged course during a pandemic while also navigating institutional expectations that gloss over the logistical difficulties of modifying this type of curriculum. I argue community-engaged educators should bypass existing resources provided by their universities and look to what those at their discipline’s intellectual margins are providing instead. In a hurried, almost confessional tone, I also reflect on whether we can do community-engaged work during a plague; and, if so, how we can deliver educational experiences that remain centered on community building and societal transformation. I end this piece by summarizing changes to my curriculum, which run counter to what I (and possibly others) have been asked to do to meet course learning objectives. Thus, while this piece opens with a sense of doubt, it ends with a tentative sense of hope by advocating for the role of bold pedagogical movidas (moves) that could empower students to engage in new ways of being and doing community in pandemic times.