Meet our new Director!

August 24, 2018

Trina Van Schyndel

Prior to coming to Wisconsin Campus Compact, Trina 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 and community partners across the Milwaukee region. She also worked within the Center for Community-Based Learning, Leadership, and Research at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee (UWM), where she coordinated the UWM Community Engaged Scholars Network and focused on faculty-oriented initiatives around service-learning pedagogy and recognition of community-engaged scholarship in tenure and promotion.

Before 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 and orientation at MSU.

Additionally, from 2017-2018 Trina 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, and she has held several other positions as an educator and support staff in nature centers across the US. She also served two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine teaching English at the secondary school and university levels.

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.