Communities of Practice

The communities of practice provide opportunities for in-depth learning, sharing of best practices, generation of new knowledge, and collaborative problem solving in key domains of communications:

  • Social media
  • Visual storytelling
  • Web communications
  • Written storytelling

The Charge

The communities of practice focus on expanding the collective professional knowledge base of all University of Oregon professional communications staff (the “100” plus a limited number of approved exceptions) to strengthen our ability to help elevate the university’s reputation and to advance the communications profession.

The communities of practice will also establish consistency of practice in these learning domains.

Each Community will:

  • Select topics based on an annual division-wide needs assessment and calls for topics of interest from the members
  • Conduct regularly scheduled learning sessions covering topics most relevant to the domain of communications specific to the community of practice
  • Focus on increasing the depth of knowledge in the domain of communications specific to the community of practice
  • Engage in joint activities, discussions, mutual learning, problem solving, and information sharing
  • Develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, tools, stories, and solutions to recurring problems
  • Invite UO or external experts as appropriate depending on the selected topics
  • Not make policy decisions, establish mandates, or ensure compliance

Leadership

Each community will be co-lead by a University Communications employee and unit partner from the 100. Leadership for 2023 will be:

  • Social Media: Jesse Summers, Alyssa Hinojosa
  • Visual Storytelling: Charlie Litchfield, Tamra Holmes
  • Web Communications: Rachael Nelson, Julianne Davis
  • Written Storytelling: George Evano, Lexie Briggs

Things to note:

  • Additional communities of practice will be established, as necessary, by the Executive Leadership Team of University Communications.
  • Each community of practice will meet more than quarterly but frequency will be set by the individual community.
  • Participants are encouraged to select meetings/communities of practice that are most closely related to their job.
  • These communities are for professional staff only; we are not extending membership to student employees.
  • If you have participated in an affinity group, workgroup, or something similar—these are to replace those but add consistency of charge and direction. The other groups will sunset formally but share many of the same goals as these new communities.

Signing Up

If you are interested in signing up, please fill out the form below. The co-leads will be in contact about upcoming meetings.

Please Note: we encourage you to check with your supervisor about your involvement and to select the one community that most aligns with your work. If you feel like your work aligns with multiple, please ensure you are able to make the time commitment to multiple and that your supervisor is supportive.

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