Our Engaged Department Team will share how we strengthened the alignment between community engagement and departmental practices in an early childhood teacher education program at a public university. Participants will hear how we 1) collaboratively revised our mission and vision statements to highlight community-engaged learning, 2) established a network of community and school partners known as “The Collaborative,” and 3) addressed our partners’ priorities while simultaneously providing service-learning opportunities for our pre-service teachers. In the climate of the pandemic, reciprocity remained central. We will describe lessons learned about the importance of community building, discussion of priorities, sharing of resources in a repository, connections among partners, and celebrations through partner appreciation.

|Learning outcomes:

• To understand how an early childhood teacher education department at a public university strengthened the alignment between community engagement and departmental practices.
• To identify the initial steps to create a network of community partners known as “The Collaborative.”
• To understand how reciprocity fostered innovative projects with our community partners.