I got an email from a colleague recently from the EX[L] Center for Community Engaged Learning at The University of Akron.\u00a0 Instead of a question or request for help with their website, they were congratulating me on winning an award and inviting me to an awards ceremony.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I racked my brain for a bit to remember what all I had done for them. There was help with a website and maybe a form or two – and some help with their listservs. But nothing that seemed to warrant an award for \u201cCommunity Engagement Champion\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, there was a promise of snacks and that\u2019s usually enough for me. I asked if I needed to bring – or prepare – anything as part of RSVP and they replied all I needed was to be ready to have my picture taken. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the afternoon of the event I headed over to the venue – wearing a tie and my official name tag. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I got seated in the middle – an easy path to the exit, but also a direct line to the snacks – and then groaned inwardly when they said that each award recipient would be asked to say a few words about their project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since I couldn\u2019t remember what project qualified me as a Champion, I tried to pull something together in my head based on what other people were doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As other departments got their awards, I realized that I had helped – behind the scenes – on many of the projects they talked about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, when it was my turn, I talked about my contributions to the Center\u2019s website and the surveys, websites, lists, and e-commerce sites that the other projects had done. It seemed to do the job and I went over to have my picture taken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afterwards, I talked to some colleagues that I hadn\u2019t seen in a bit – then headed back to the office briefly to drop off my certificate and get my things before heading home a bit early. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hey, if a \u201cCommunity Engagement Champion\u201d can\u2019t leave early, who can?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was glad to help and it was nice to be recognised, although mine was apparently more for being \u201cgenerally awesome\u201d than any specific project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I learned more about the good work the center and the many academic departments across campus were doing. It was a \u201cfeel good\u201d kind of afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the snacks included frosted cookies shaped like our mascot – the kangaroo Zippy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not a party unless there are Zippy Cookies. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n So now, in addition to being Director and Webmaster, I\u2019m also a Champion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Which is not too bad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I got an email from a colleague recently from the EX[L] Center for Community Engaged Learning at The University of Akron.\u00a0 Instead of a question or request for help with their website, they were congratulating me on winning an award and inviting me to an awards ceremony.\u00a0 I racked my brain for a bit to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3228,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3227\/revisions\/3228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}