Today@Sam Article

ACE Courses Faculty Highlight: Professor Maintains Community Engaged Courses For Years

May 21, 2024
SHSU Media Contact: Mikah Boyd

By Lidia Gutierrez

Lisa Brown has served as an Academic Community Engagement (ACE) coordinator for the College of Education (COE) for several years and she has consistently incorporated ACE principles into her courses since 2012.

ACE is a teaching method that integrates community engagement with academic instruction. This prompts students to apply their classroom-acquired skills, knowledge and experiences to collaborate with community partners in advancing the public good.  ACE coordinators are selected by their respective deans to represent their college.

“It was a huge privilege,” Brown said. “Out of everybody in the college, I was asked. It’s a lot of work, but I’m not complaining. It’s good work.”

Brown has been an educator for 27 years and understands how real-world experience impacts her students.

“It gives them an edge and provides them these opportunities that they may have not been provided in previous times,” Brown said.

For her ACE course in the fall, she has her students who are pursuing an agriculture teaching certification, measure the trees at the Raven Tree Trail. She collaborates with the Texas A&M Forest Service to help them train on how to measure the trees. The students adopt a tree, measure it and compile the data. Brown has been tracking the health of Huntsville’s urban forest since the fall of 2017.

She also started a new ACE course this spring with ThisIsHouston, a Houston-based animal rescue shelter. Her students are creating infographics on vaccinations and preventative diseases.

“It’s been going well,” Brown said. “We’ll give the infographics to them at the end of the semester, they’ll pick the ones they’d like to use and hand those out to the people adopting and also for people at their clinics.”

ThisIsHouston has a major focus in the Montgomery County area because of the high rate of animal abandonments in that region. 

“In my capacity as a college professor, I have a profound passion for promoting environmental education and stewardship,” Brown said. “I feel it is important for people to understand their role in the environment and to embrace responsible land management practices.”

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