We expect that many members of the University community will want to engage with the residents of Tent City 3 during their stay on campus, and that many of you may be thinking of ways to incorporate conversations about homelessness into Winter Quarter courses.

The community engaged courses team--part of the Community Engagement and Leadership Education (CELE) Center, a unit within Undergraduate Academic Affairs--is partnering with Tent City Collective to serve as a conduit for service-learning and other academic engagement opportunities with Tent City 3 during their stay on campus. Given the social distancing protocols that are likely to inform much of our academic work in the coming year, we don’t know what kinds of in-person engagements will be possible in the first months of 2021. We are working with camp to support resident's virtual engagement with equipment and wifi access, but we won't know the full extent of what is possible until late December.  

Still, we believe that meaningful engagement with Tent City 3 is possible and that academic conversations around housing and homelessness are a key part of this residency! We are eager to engage with you and work together to find ways for your students to connect with TC3 residents, make powerful interpersonal connections, and more deeply understand the complicated issue of homelessness in the region.  

This proposal process has been designed with and vetted by residents of Tent City 3. It is meant to draw on existing university resources and expertise in supporting ethical and thoughtful community engagement in academic courses across the curriculum.

Have questions or want technical support with this proposal process? Please contact Kathryn Pursch Cornforth, Director of Community Engaged Learning, at 206-616.0784 or engage@uw.edu