This article originally appeared in the Off-Script print issue, in stands November 2025. It has not been updated and some information may be out of date.
At the University of Utah, some of the most rewarding lessons happen beyond traditional lecture halls. Through courses centered on civic engagement and community building, students learn to turn their academic work into real-world impact.
These community-engaged classes, offered across departments, give students hands-on experience tackling real issues alongside local organizations and leaders. The approach encourages collaboration, reflection and a broader understanding of how academic skills can translate into civic action and long-term community impact.
Bryce Williams, the associate director for student engagement and outreach at the Bennion Center and a professor of BENN 1020: Pathways to Engagement, got involved with the Bennion Center in 2007 as a student leader. In 2019, him and his team co-created Pathways course in 2019, modeled after Stanford University’s Pathways to Community Engagement.
“[The class] includes what most people would know is like direct service. But that’s also things like philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, policy and governance, activism, community organizing and then community engaged learning and scholarship,” Williams said. “It’s showing people that there’s different ways to do community work, and that it’s not just one-time volunteer projects.”
BENN 1020, housed in Undergraduate Studies, is a Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) course that “bridges academia and communities to create positive impact.” Students are given the opportunity to choose projects that align with a variety of pathways and academic interests.
“They send me a proposal saying this is where I want to spend my time, and I say yes if it meets the pathways or no and try something else. I think everyone’s who’s put something forward has been accepted,” Williams said. “I don’t want to dictate it, I want them to really explore what they’re passionate about.”
Williams listed off a few examples of students and their projects, ranging from working with the Food Recovery Network to provide food to those in need, to working with ASUU to learn about student government and make proposals for on-campus changes. A new assignment this year is interviewing elected officials in Utah, Williams said.
“I’m an elected member of the Salt Lake City Board of Education, so there are officials that I’m connect with,” Williams said. “Students are getting to hear about why somebody ran for office, what their experience was, and I think it’s a nice personal touch to an assignment to get students out of their comfort zone.”
Real world experience
Most students who took the BENN 1020 course are part of the High Impact Volunteer Engagement (HIVE), a living learning community (LLC) at the U. HIVE is open to first-year students and is located in the Gail Miller Community Engagement Tower at Kahlert Village.
Noah Eisbach, a sophomore majoring in biomedical engineering, said his prior experience in community service inspired him to participate in the program.
“I’ve always been involved in community engagement somehow. In high school I participated in Boy Scouts and the National Honor Society,” Eisbach said. “When I got to college, I wanted to continue that involvement and find ways to engage with the broader campus community, and I figured this class would help me contribute to that.”
For his project, Eisbach chose to work with the American Chemical Society student chapter at the U and the Primary Children’s Hospital to develop a chemistry demonstration for hospitalized children interested in science. He wrote a paper and presented about the volunteer opportunities he participated in throughout the semester, as well as how those experiences impacted him.
“It was a meaningful way to merge my interests in science and service into something that could bring learning and joy to kids during their stay at the hospital,” Eisbach said. “The biggest thing I took away from the class was realizing that community service goes beyond direct engagement.”
Eisbach said that exploring work beyond the standard engineering courses has enriched his experience at the U. “I’m glad I took this this class even though it was outside of my major, it helped me think about my major through a community-centered lens and how my future career can combine science with social good,” he said.
For Williams, that connection between study and service is what makes participation in unconventional classes so meaningful. “I like being more hands-on, doing projects or experiencing them with students. The academic piece of this has allowed me to see things in a different lens and take teaching in the classroom and apply it to the real world,” Williams said. “That’s the beauty of community-engaged learning: it’s tying academics to real-world experiences.”
