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New multiple-delivery-format courses at Grenfell Campus are building community and encouraging participation in university courses.

For instance, Kelly Anne Butler's Humanities 3100 course, "Contemporary Indigenous ideas: Personal narrative," drew about 40 students from across Canada and into the United States.

"This was a creative experiment in moving the ‘classroom’ around to a variety of Indigenous communities as well as the university," said Ms. Butler, a PhD candidate at the University of Saskatchewan.

The course met one night per week, simultaneously at multiple locations via livestream. While several individuals were scattered throughout Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia and even Wisconsin, the bulk of the students were in Newfoundland and Labrador. Ms. Butler travelled regularly to the Flat Bay Band Office, what Butler refers to as the "community partner classroom," where a critical mass of classmates gathered from that area to participate in a classroom format. She has also travelled to Happy Valley-Goose Bay to deliver course material from the Labrador Institute.

"This method of delivery enables more people to access the university," she said. "It also brings mainstream university students into conversation with Indigenous peoples and communities."

She said while many of the participants enrolled for personal enrichment, the experience is exposing them to the university context and a few are pursuing courses again in the winter semester.

Meanwhile, Dr. Holly Pike delivered a community course about the work of L. M. Montgomery. Most people think of L.M. Montgomery as a writer of novels. Dr. Pike, of Grenfell's English Program, brought a different side of Montgomery’s writings to the public. Prior to the publication of Anne of Green Gables, Montgomery published hundreds of poems and approximately 500 short stories, some of which were subsequently reused in her novels. Dr. Pike explored several of these short stories that featured the lives of young women, often students and journalists, living in urban boarding houses.

And Dr. Bernie Wills of Grenfell’s humanities program offered Themes in Humanities 2010: Mental Health in the setting of the Corner Brook Public Library. The course explored various questions pertaining to mental health using material from various periods of history and various societies around the world. Participants explored the boundaries between literature, philosophy, psychology and social history.

Another interesting facet of these courses is the variety of participation/registration/fee levels: university credit, community participation certificate or personal enrichment – participants could register for an academic course, a non-academic certificate or simply sit in on the courses for interest.

"Embracing multiple delivery formats within one course – face-to-face, interactive livestream, and online viewing – along with the varied levels of registration, help to make our community courses great examples in accessibility innovation," said Charlene Connors, program developer.

For more information about community courses, contact cconnors@grenfell.mun.ca.