TCNJ faculty are at the heart of the Bonner Center’s mission to cultivate the common ground that exists between the College and the needs and interests of the community. And, faculty engagement is on the rise. On a weekly basis a visitor might find professors speaking to first year students before they embark on their CEL (Community Engaged Learning) Day, guiding students as they complete a class-based project to address a local community need, or forming and advising a new student club that will apply professional skills to a developing country.
Over thirty-five faculty members incorporated community-engaged learning into their first year seminar courses (FSPs) during the Fall 2012 Semester.
Fall 2012 FSP CEL Courses
- Once Upon a Time: The Store of Story
- Language and Culture
- Cinema and the City
- The Tears and Blood of Our State: The Theater as Art, Culture and Politics
- The Digital Domain
- Rock ‘N’ Roll in Post-Mao China
- The Joys of Genre: Reading and Writing Fiction
- Reading Bleak House
- Language in Society
- Holistic Wellness and Mindfulness
- Does What We Eat Matter?: The Culture, Politics and Science of Food
- Springsteen’s Lyrics as Literature
- Quantifying US Professional Sports: Science, Statistics and Money
- Environmental Justice
- Life In, Out and After College
- Morality, Mind and the Meaning of Life
- Incarceration Nation: The Literature of the Prison
- Morality, God and Free Will
- Social Justice
- Diversity and Its Responses
- Music and the Holocaust: Culture, Identity and Ideology
- Voting With Our Fingers and Electing a President
- Leadership for Social Justice
- Normal? Issues of Identity and Difference
- Aging, Death and Dying
- Becoming an American
- Rebel Girls: Social Change and Leadership Girl Style
- Human Ability Unplugged
- Ability and Dis/Ability: Deconstructing and Disrupting the Social and Cultural Gaze
- Being Digital in 2012
- New Jersey’s Urban Environment
- Multicultural New York: THe City From its Beginnings to the Present
- World on a Plate at an American Table
- The Evolution of African American Gospel Music
Fall 2011 FSP CEL Courses
- Aging, Death and Dying
- Leadership for Social Justice
- Teachers in the Media: The Creation of the Perfect Teacher
- The Joys of Genre: Reading and Writing Fiction
- The Digital Domain
- Being the Change: Analyzing Mentoring Relationships
- Rock ‘N’ Rock in Post-Mao China
- To See A World in a Grain of Sand: Reading and Writing the Short Story
- How We Learn
- American Film Renaissance: The 1970s
- Becoming American
- Language in Society
- You Have the Right to Remain Silent (And Other Rights Too)
- Multicultural New York: THe City form its Beginnings to the Present
- Incarceration Nation: Literature of the Prison
- Cinema and the City
- Digital Me: Exploring the Impact of a Wired Generation
- Wrongful Convictions: Causes and Remedies
- Violence in the United States
- Morality, God and Free Will
- Springsteen’s Lyrics as Literature
- The Tears and Blood of Our Stage: The Theater as Art, Culture and Politics
- The Mind-Body Connection
- Human Abilities: Unplugged
- Normal? Identity and Difference
- Friendship in the Age of Facebook
- Women and the Family in Modern China
- Debating Controversial Topics in Drug and Alcohol Policy
- Does What We Eat Matter?: The Culture, Politics and Science of Food
- Income Inequality: Economic Insights and Policy Debates
- Race to the Top: Education Reform in the 21st Century
- The Evolution of African american Gospel Music
- Exploring Amish Culture
Fall 2010 FSP CEL Courses
Click here for some examples of projects being worked on by students enrolled in these classes.
- Aging, Death and Dying
- American Film Renaissance of the 1970s
- Applied Theater: Letterman Meets American Idol, Transforming Beliefs through Theater and Imagination
- Being the Change: Analyzing Mentoring Relationships
- Black, White and Brown
- Corrupting the Youth: The Power of Philosophy
- Corrupting the Youth (Section 2)
- Diversity and Its Responses
- Drug and Alcohol Abuse in American Society
- Exploring Amish Culture
- Ewing’s 20th Century
- From Lincoln to Obama: Race and Politics in American History
- From the Ballroom to the Street: Exploring American Dance
- Human Ability: Unplugged
- Images of Superheroines
- In Pursuit Of Innovation
- Incarceration Nation: Literature of the Prison
- Kids and Crime
- Language and Culture
- Language in Society
- Leadership for Social Justice
- Learning How to Learn
- Marketing and Public Policy: Shaping Behaviors and Thoughts
- Moral and Social Issues of Modern Catholicism
- Morality, God, and Free Will
- Morality, God, and Free Will (Section 2)
- Mortality, Mind, and the Meaning of Life
- Mortality, Mind and the Meaning of Life (Section 2)
- Multicultural New York: The City from its Beginnings to the Present
- Music and the Holocaust
- Normal? Issues of Identity and Difference
- Rock ‘N’ Roll in Post-Mao China
- Scaling Back: Simplicity, Community, Sustainability
- Springsteen’s Lyrics as Literature
- Springsteen’s Lyrics as Literature (Section 2)
- Teachers in Media: The Examination of the Perfect Teacher
- The Digital Domain
- The Evolution of African American Gospel Music
- The Mathematics of Voting, Apportionment, and Fair Division
- The Persistence of Memory
- To See a World in a Grain of Sand: Reading and Writing the Short Story
- Urban Soundscapes
- What Makes Great Literature Great?
- Wit and Humor as Art and Social Tool
- Women and the Family in Modern China
- Wrongful Convictions: Causes and Remedies
- You have the right to remain silent (and other rights too)!
Fall 2009 FSP CEL Courses
Click here for some examples of projects completed by students enrolled in these classes.
- American Transformations: European Refugees of the 1930s and 40s in Music, Theater, and Film 1 and 2
- Being Me, Knowing You — Foundations for Human Encounter
- Being the Change: Analyzing Mentoring Relationships
- Black, White and Brown
- Deconstructing Autism: A View from the Inside
- Diversity and Its Responses
- Evolution of African Amercina Gospel Music
- Exploring Amish Culture
- Female Sexuality: A Myth
- From the Ballroom to the Street: Exploring American Dance
- Ghosts of Schools Past: A Historian’s View of Urban Schooling
- Hollywood Before the Code Changed Everything
- Human Abilities: Unplugged
- ‘Incarceration Nation’: Literature of the Prison
- Income Inequaliy (Session 1 and 2)
- Leadership for Social Justice
- Lies They Told Me: Finding Truth in a World of Lies
- Living in a Virtual World
- Menace to Society: The Condemnation of Philosophical Ideas in the Bertrand Russel Case – Session 1 and 2
- Mortality, Mind, and the Meaning of Life- Session 1 and 2
- Multicultural New York: The City from its Beginnings to the Present
- Protecting New Jersey’s Pine Barrens
- Race, History and the Fictive Imagination
- Reading and Writing the Short Story – Sessions 1 and 2
- Scaling Back: Simplicity, Community, Sustainability
- The Vanishing Amazon
- This Is Your Life on Music
- Vietnam War and the Hollywood Cinema
- Women and the Family in Modern China – Sessions 1 and 2
- Wrongful Convictions: Causes and Remedies
Fall 2008 FSP CEL Courses
- Living in a Virtual World
- Social Justice, History and Practice
- Mortality, Mind, and the Meaning of Life
- This is Your Life on Music
- The Evolution of African American Gospel Music
- Friends forever: Online Socializing (
- Simplicity, Society and Sustainability
- Law, Film and Literature
- Paradise Lost and Found
- To See the World in a Grain of Sand: Reading & Writing Short Stories
- Menace to Society: The Condemnation of Philosophical Ideas in the Bertran Russell Case
- American Masculinities
- Some Great Books I
- Race, History and the Fictive Imagination
- Social Computing and Collective Intelligence
- Strong Democracy and Student Leadership
- Mexican Seminar
- Global Ecocinema and the Ethics of Environmentalism
- What Happened to Yugoslavia?
- Click here to read about a related project
- Human Abilities Unplugged
- Deconstructing Autism
- Voting with Our Fingers and Electing a President
- The Social Documentary
- Leadership for Social Justice
- Incarceration Nation: The Literature of the Prison
- The American Dream