Transform Mid-Atlantic

Each spring, Transform Mid-Atlantic and its member campuses host the annual Service-Learning and Civic Engagement (SLCE) Conference. The SLCE Conference offers a full-day of panels, discussion, professional development, and opportunities to share success strategies among students, faculty, and staff at institutions throughout Maryland, D.C., Delaware, and West Virginia on the topics of community service, service-learning and civic engagement. The conference generally occurs in late-March or early-April.

Transform Mid-Atlantic VISTA programs join the mission of AmeriCorps VISTA through projects that build campus-community partnerships to fight poverty. Through the Transform Mid-Atlantic VISTA program, we alleviate poverty by strengthening communities and developing our leaders. Our state programs:
- Improve college access and success;
- Bring community voice to campus;
- Empower students to be community advocates;
- Improve service-learning courses that address local, national, and global community issues;
- Build the capacity of higher education institutions to strengthen communities;
- Develop the skills of VISTA members and students in community organizing, volunteer management, and community partnership development.

Transform Mid-Atlantic supports an annual cohort of approximately 30 VISTA members. Members are placed with institutions of higher education throughout Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Delaware.

The Transform Mid-Atlantic Civic Fellowship (TMACF) is a program geared toward engaged student leaders throughout the region. Nominations are accepted each spring for the following academic year. Each of TMA's member presidents is invited to nominate one student from their campus for the Fellowship.

Participation in the Transform Mid-Atlantic Civic Fellowship will provide students from across the region high impact opportunities to develop their leadership skills and understanding of civic and community engagement so that they may better serve as leaders in their communities and collectively create solutions to our region's most urgent problems. This fellowship is a key avenue to develop student leaders who are engaged global citizens, actively contributing to the creation of equitable, healthy, sustainable, and socially just communities.

Through its work within higher education institutions as well as the communities that those institutions serve, Transform Mid-Atlantic is committed to work to resolve issues related to inequity and oppression wherever they exist within our communities.

TMA annually hosts JEDI-Civic and Community Engagement (CCE) Institutes that invite teams from member campuses to imagine and create action plans that utilize their civic and community engagement programs to advance a campus culture of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. TMA also hosts an ongoing equity conversation series that invites guest speakers and facilitators to highlight and workshop best practices in the JEDI / higher education space. In 2022-2023, approximately 160 individuals from ~ 20 college and university campuses throughout MD, DC, DE, and WV attended one of TMA's JEDI Initiative events, workshops, or institutes.

Thanks to the ongoing support of TMA's most generous friends and donors, the network annually offers $10,000 in mini-grant funding to member institution faculty throughout the region. These grant funds support faculty development opportunities like workshops and institutes that ultimately support students’ community-engaged learning.

These grant funds can support requests from individual institutions or collaborations between and among multiple educational institutions.

Previously funded projects include:
- Supporting an Annual Regional Conference on Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship;
- A cohort-based dialogue program that offered space for community members of diverse backgrounds to engage in dialogue on topics related to social identity;
- Developing an institution's internal research capacity by funding webinars and collaborative workshops designed to support faculty and staff in translating and mobilizing their research and expertise.

During Earth Week, TMA provides a select number of its member institutions with licenses to provide an on-campus screening of a global citizenship / environmental justice-related film. This program, which will continue to develop in years to come, is titled "Transform 2040." Through film and conversation, TMA and its partners hope to catalyze change makers in communities throughout the region to plan action to combat significant global issues, from climate change to growing socioeconomic inequity.

Participating campuses receive the following:
- License for a public screening of the film (at no charge);
- Marketing materials for the screening;
- Resource kit for educators;
- Discussion guide to lead post-screening community conversations;

During Earth Week 2023, approximately 100 students, faculty, and community members attended screenings held throughout Maryland at TMA member institutions during the pilot phase of this project.

Transform Mid-Atlantic actively seeks to recognize excellent service-learning and civic engagement work in our region. Through the annual Transform Mid-Atlantic Awards program, we aim to recognize student, faculty, administrative, and community leaders. Click on each award below for more information on the award and application instructions.

Each December, TMA holds an awards ceremony, recognizing 9-15 outstanding leaders, researchers, educators, students, administrators, and community members for their contributions to building just communities and the advancement of the public purposes of higher education. Awards include:
- Alan G. Penczek Service-Learning Faculty Awards
- Engaged Scholarship Award
- Global Citizenship Award
- Justice, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion - Civic & Community Engagement (JEDI-CCE) Award
- Transformational Leadership Award
- Transformational Partnership Award
- Transformational Student Leadership Award