While traditional architect-client relationships prioritize needs of the owner over broader community impacts, a growing movement in design education recognizes and addresses the members of our communities who disproportionately cannot advocate for their own well-being(1,2). Many programs have made noteworthy attempts to repair this gap through design education, connecting students with communities through studio courses late in their studies, once they have honed a range of design skills(3). This paper details restructuring this pedagogical approach by introducing students to community engagement within their first year of design school, thus bringing community to the forefront of the learning experience (Figure 1). Building early literacy in community engagement skills empow- ers students to deepen their knowledge throughout their later coursework and work-based learning(4). We believe embedding this framework of testing then applying discrete skills related to community engagement early in a students’ design education to be replicable in a range of design education settings. See the download link above for PDF version of the paper.