TRACING OUR JOURNEY
2 November 2011 — Present
OUR BEGINNINGS
The Chua Thian Poh Community Leadership Centre (CTPCLC), generously funded by Dr Chua Thian Poh, was established in November 2011 as a leadership programme for all NUS students. Housed within and supported by the University Scholars Programme (USP) in the early years, the first batch of students consisted of 40 fellows under the directorship of Associate Professor Albert Teo. As the first Director, Assoc Prof Teo shaped and steered the Community Development ship at NUS. Under his leadership and direction, he inaugurated the first annual Community Leadership Symposium.
ANNUAL SYMPOSIA
The annual symposium brings together students, community leaders, community organisers, and academics to share community-related trends and insights based on applied research conducted with community partners by our students. These engagements have proven to be successful year after year in showcasing the Centre’s role in facilitating community development conversations. Over the years, the Centre has organised many symposia since 2011, with our students presenting a wide range of research projects on community issues relating to dementia, domestic/migrant workers and early childhood literacy, to name just a few.
To ensure the research outcomes of all the work put in by students, community partners, and academic supervisors were accessible to the larger community, the HeartBeats journal was launched in 2013. The journal serves as a valuable resource, sharing the various findings and outcomes of community development projects conducted by our fellows during their time at our Centre. This resource has since evolved into a digital online research gallery, with short project highlights and reports placed on the Centre’s website for public sharing.
FROM PROGRAMME TO CENTRE
2017 added more significant milestones for the Centre. An additional gift pledge from Dr Chua created even more opportunities for the Centre’s expansion and growth in the coming decade. The Centre gained independent status, and has since 2017 been allocated its own space at University Town, running programmes for all NUS undergraduates. Within a year, new courses were approved by the University, and CTPCLC began offering credit-bearing courses. Our most popular and well-received course that entailed applied practicums with
community partners was the first to be offered, followed by a theory and methods course for Community Development titled “Engaging and Building Communities”. These courses remain a core part of our curriculum, teaching undergraduates community development and leadership fundamentals. The teaching of Community Development theory and methods ensure that students have praxis-rich pedagogical engagement in their learning through the practicum course that takes them outside of the classroom.
EXPANDING OUR HORIZONS
The Centre has continued to expand and grow with a recently launched Minor degree programme under the directorship of Associate Professor Chng Huang Hoon, who succeeded Assoc Prof Teo as Director in 2019. With the support of a lean but deeply committed academic and administrative team, CTPCLC contributes to developing important research skills and offering NUS students even greater depth and opportunities in engaging communities.
NUS CTPCLC is the only programme in Singapore to offer undergraduates the opportunity to attain a Minor degree in Community Development and Leadership. Undergraduates at NUS from any discipline, who have interests in pursuing a community-centred career, can enrol in the Minor programme.
To date, the CTPCLC Certificate and Minor Programmes have enrolled (and graduated) students from Arts & Social Sciences, Business, Computing, Engineering and Science, to name just a few. CTPCLC therefore augments and adds value to NUS’s larger vision of bridging learning connections in a multi-faceted and holistic way, interfacing with different academic/disciplinary bridges.
THE ROAD AHEAD
The Centre continues to create relevance at NUS, integrating teaching about community as a central dimension of NUS's undergraduate learning experience when a number of the Centre’s courses become a part of the new General Education curriculum. CTPCLC aspires to be a thought leader in engaging community and developing community leadership as a core part of the NUS undergraduate experience in the next few years.
Today, the Centre’s presence goes beyond its contribution to the pedagogy of community development and leadership and has increased its visibility with appearances and participation at various university events such as the NUS Open House. CTPCLC students and staff can be seen proudly donning the CTPCLC t-shirt throughout campus, and continue to help to shape the Centre’s identity in the years to come.