Campus Compact is excited to welcome Trina Van Schyndel as Director of Campus Compact for Wisconsin. As director, Van Schyndel will provide leadership for the engagement efforts of member institutions throughout the state and serve as a place-based facilitator of network gatherings and institution-specific technical assistance.

“I am excited about the opportunity to serve as Director of Campus Compact for Wisconsin and support the community engagement efforts of member institutions throughout the state of Wisconsin as they seek to work with communities to collaboratively create more just, equitable, and sustainable societies,” said Van Schyndel. “I have enjoyed working alongside community engagement colleagues in the Milwaukee area over the past year, and I look forward to connecting with new colleagues throughout the state.”

Van Schyndel comes to the position with over a decade of experience in the field of education, having worked in government, nonprofit, and university settings and with student and community populations ages pre-K through adult.

Prior to coming to Campus Compact for Wisconsin, she worked in the Office of Community Engagement at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) where she managed a portfolio of community-engaged research seed grants jointly funded by the MCW Office of Community Engagement and partner centers and institutes across MCW. While at MCW, she also contributed to initiatives aimed at institutionalizing community engagement across campus and fostering a network of community-engaged institutions across the Milwaukee region. She also worked within the Center for Community-Based Learning, Leadership, and Research at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, where she coordinated the Community Engaged Scholars Network and focused on faculty-oriented initiatives around service-learning pedagogy and recognition of community-engaged scholarship in tenure and promotion.

Prior to coming to Milwaukee, she managed a mentored teaching opportunity for graduate students and staff at Michigan State University (MSU), in which teaching apprentices received ongoing training and instruction while they taught a semester-long undergraduate course on student leadership. She also co-taught this course herself – both online and face-to-face. Prior to this role, she worked in undergraduate academic advising and new student recruitment at MSU, with a focus on supporting students while in high school, during orientation, and throughout their first year in college.

Additionally, for the past year she has served as a Board Member and as Chair of the Graduate Student Network for the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE). In those roles, she has been highly involved in conference planning, the recognitions and awards program, and professional development opportunities for graduate students.

Before her journey into higher education, she served two terms as an AmeriCorps State and National Volunteer teaching environmental education in the National Park Service. She also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine teaching English at the secondary school and university levels. Her love for and belief in the power of public service to create social change runs deep.

She is currently a doctoral student in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education at Michigan State University, where she is also completing a Graduate Certificate in Community Engagement. Previously, she earned her Certificate in Nonprofit Management from the University of Illinois at Chicago, her Master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, and her Bachelor’s degrees from Michigan State University.

Her research interests as a practitioner-scholar include institutionalization of community engagement, community-campus partnerships for social change, boundary spanners in community engagement, and professional development of all stakeholders involved in community-campus partnerships.

Van Schyndel will be based out of Campus Compact for Wisconsin’s new offices at Cardinal Stritch University. She can be reached at tvanschyndel@compact.org.