Institutionalizing Community Engagement in Higher Education E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Serie: J-B HE Single Issue Higher Education
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 205

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Leading scholars of engagement analyze data from the first wave ofcommunity-engaged institutions as classified by the CarnegieFoundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The analysescollectively serve as a statement about the current status ofhigher education community engagement in the United States.Eschewing the usual arguments about why community engagement isimportant, this volume presents the first large-scale stocktakingabout the nature and extent of the institutionalization ofengagement in higher education. Aligned with the Carnegie CommunityEngagement Classification framework, the dimensions of leading,student learning, partnering, assessing, funding, and rewarding arediscussed. This volume recognizes the progress made by this first wave ofcommunity-engaged institutions of higher education, acknowledgesbest practices of these exemplary institutions, and offersrecommendations to leaders as a pathway forward. This is the 147th volume of the Jossey-Bass higher educationquarterly report series New Directions for HigherEducation. Addressed to presidents, vice presidents, deans,and other higher-education decision-makers on all kinds ofcampuses, New Directions for Higher Educationprovides timely information and authoritative advice about majorissues and administrative problems confronting everyinstitution.

Leseprobe

Contents

Editors’ Notes

Chapter 1: Carnegie’s New Community Engagement Classification: Affirming Higher Education’s Role in Community

Introduction to the Classification

Development and Initiation of the Community Engagement Classification

The Community Engagement Classification Framework

Inaugural Applications—Process and Findings

Reflections on Community Engagement in the Context of the 2006 Classification

Conclusion

Chapter 2: Leading the Engaged Institution

Leading Questions

Close and Direct Leadership

Characteristics of Institutions Leading the Engagement Movement

Defining the Leader’s Role

Leadership to Advance Engagement

Deeper Reflections on Leadership

Leadership Challenges

Habits of Leadership

Chapter 3: Rewarding Community-Engaged Scholarship

What It Means to Reward Community-Engaged Scholarship

How Community-Engaged Scholarship Is Being Rewarded

The Future of Engaged Scholarship

Chapter 4: Innovative Practices in Service-Learning and Curricular Engagement

Prevalence and Nature of Service-Learning Classes

Learning Outcomes and Assessment in Service-Learning

Conclusion

Chapter 5: Issues in Benchmarking and Assessing Institutional Engagement

Approaches to Assessing Community Engagement Institutionalization

Assessment Considerations from Carnegie Classified Institutions

Conclusion

Chapter 6: Understanding and Enhancing the Opportunities of Community-Campus Partnerships

Defining Partnership

Partnership in the Carnegie Framework

Analysis of Community-Campus Partnerships

Recommendations for Successful Partnerships

Conclusion

Chapter 7: Engagement and Institutional Advancement

Advancement in an Era of Engagement

Advancement Practices at Engaged Institutions

Findings and Discussion

Conclusion

Chapter 8: After the Engagement Classification: Using Organization Theory to Maximize Institutional Understandings

Organizing for Success: A Structural Perspective

Managing Power and Resources: A Political Perspective

Empowering People to Serve: A Human Resource Perspective

Living the Mission: A Symbolic Perspective

Conclusion

Chapter 9: Will It Last? Evidence of Institutionalization at Carnegie Classified Community Engagement Institutions

Models for Measuring Institutionalization of Engagement

Institutional Impacts of Engagement

Conclusion

Chapter 10: The First Wave of Community-Engaged Institutions

Emerging and Needed Best Practices in Community Engagement

The Evolution of the Framework

Riding the Wave of Momentum

Index

Institutionalizing Community Engagement in Higher Education: The First Wave of Carnegie Classified Institutions

Lorilee R. Sandmann, Courtney H.Thornton, Audrey J. Jaeger (eds.)

New Directions for Higher Education, no. 147

Martin Kramer, Judith Block McLaughlin, Co-Editors-in-Chief

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Editors’ Notes

In 1996 Ernest Boyer exalted American colleges and universities as “one of the greatest hopes for intellectual and civic progress in this country.” But, he went on to say, “. . .for this hope to be fulfilled, the academy must become a more vigorous partner in the search for answers to our most pressing social, civic, economic and moral problems, and must reaffirm its historic commitment to what I call the scholarship of engagement” (pp. 19–20). As institutions of higher education entered the twenty-first century, they moved to respond to this challenge. Colleges and universities in the United States increasingly turned to community engagement as a natural evolution of their traditional missions of service to recognize ties to their communities along with their commitments to the social contract between society and higher education.

To demonstrate that it is critical for higher education to become engaged with its community in authentic, mutually beneficial partnerships, this volume eschews the usual arguments and presents the first large-scale “stocktaking” about the nature and extent of institutionalization of engagement in higher education. To what extent have higher education institutions become “engaged”? To what extent has the academy fulfilled hopes that it can be a vigorous partner in the search for answers to our most pressing social, civic, economic, and moral problems? The authors in this volume assess the progress by analyzing the first wave of what have been classified as community-engaged institutions by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT).

Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement

The Carnegie Foundation’s recent development of the elective Community Engagement Classification has given this topic precedence among concerns of the higher education community. In 2006, the CFAT first offered its new elective classification as part of its classification system of postsecondary institutions. The first such elective classification was in community engagement, a term that, according to CFAT (2008), “describes the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.” Its use is based on the voluntary participation by postsecondary institutions that wish to recognize, publicize, and share best practices about community engagement as important elements of their strategically planned and managed missions. According to the Campus Compact (2008) of Brown University, “. . .This Carnegie classification reaffirms institutional commitment to deepen the practice of service and to further strengthen bonds between campus and community. . . .”

The actual classification has three categories of recognition. Curricular engagement applies to institutions where teaching, learning, and scholarship engage faculty, students, and community in collaborations with the intention of addressing community-identified needs, deepening students’ civic and academic learning, enhancing community well-being, and enriching the scholarship of the institution. Outreach and partnerships applies to institutions that provided compelling evidence of one or both of two approaches to community engagement: outreach that features the application and provision of institutional resources for community use and partnerships that focus on collaborative interactions with community and related scholarship for the mutually beneficial exchange, exploration, and application of knowledge, information, and resources (for example, research, capacity building, and economic development). In the third categorization, institutions that show substantial commitment to both areas could be awarded classifications in both categories.

To date, 195 public and private institutions of higher education have submitted successful voluntary applications to CFAT documenting their experience in and commitment to community engagement. This volume analyzes data from the seventy-six institutions designated during the initial offering of this classification in 2006: sixty-two institutions were awarded the classification in both curricular engagement and outreach and partnerships, five were awarded only the curricular engagement classification, and nine were awarded only the outreach and partnerships classification. These institutions are geographically distributed around the United States, with particular clustering in the Northeast, Midwest, and California.

Because of its voluntary nature, the elective classification does not represent a comprehensive national assessment. Carnegie (2007) cautions that “an institution’s absence from the Community Engagement classification should not be interpreted as reflecting a judgment about the institution’s commitment to its community.” However, this first wave of Carnegie community-engaged classified institutions can reveal much about the general state of engagement across types of higher education institutions and functions and about particular best practices. Of the seventy-six successful institutions, representing all types of classified institutions, fifty-six agreed to make their applications available for the research purposes of this volume. We found the application materials of these institutions filled with impressive examples of institutionalization and innovative activities. Taken as a whole, the submissions reveal areas of national strength, such as service-learning, as well as widespread areas of weaknesses, such as support for engagement in tenure and reward policies. This first wave offers us a unique opportunity to provide an analysis that will instruct leaders across all types of institutions on the current status of higher education outreach and engagement.

Contents of the Volume

The organization of this volume roughly corresponds to the broad categories of the Carnegie classification framework. The framework is extensive and requires institutions to report on foundational indicators (mission, policy, and so forth), curricular engagement, and outreach and partnerships. Within these three categories are more detailed discussions, including institutional identity and culture, leadership, resource allocations, policy, assessment, rewards and recognition, scholarship, and reciprocity. We have assembled key scholars and leaders in community engagement as chapter authors.

In Chapter One, Amy Driscoll more fully describes the classification: what it is, how it came to be, overall findings from the first wave, and updates from the 2008 process. One finding is that the role of leadership was critical for these engaged institutions. In Chapter Two, Lorilee Sandmann and William Plater examine ways that institutions and individuals serve in leadership roles for higher education community engagement.

Supportive environments for faculty who define their work as engaged scholarship is a persistent issue of discussion and discord. To better understand institutional reward policies and practices related to community engaged scholarship, John Saltmarsh, Dwight Giles Jr., Elaine Ward, and Suzanne Buglione present in Chapter Three an analysis based on the data from the campus applications as well as from the actual promotion and tenure guidelines for each campus. Their findings provide insight into nationwide faculty reward policies and practices for community engaged scholarship.

In Chapter Four, Robert Bringle and Julie Hatcher feature innovative practices in service-learning and curricular engagement. Rigorous and meaningful assessment of community engagement efforts, including in service-learning, continues to pose a challenge for institutions across the country. In Chapter Five, Andrew Furco and William Miller, leaders on national task forces to develop systems for benchmarking and assessing engagement, explore the institution-level challenges in tracking and assessing outreach and engagement. Because of the diversity in types of engagement and the scope and scale of engagement within and across campuses, single institutions and nationwide organizations have been challenged to develop a set of metrics for assessing engagement.

In Chapter Six Carole Beere considers outreach and partnerships and addresses the important issue of the community partner in institutional planning and implementation of engagement efforts.

This is followed by consideration of the progress and challenges in funding engagement efforts. David Weerts and Elizabeth Hudson share in Chapter Seven the ways in which engaged institutions allocate internal resources to support engagement and how these campuses have reshaped their institutional advancement programs through such activities as marketing, branding, and fundraising to leverage financial support for engagement.

The Carnegie community engagement application process and its data can also serve as a vehicle for institutionalizing engagement. Courtney Thornton and James Zuiches examine in Chapter Eight the North Carolina State University process and application findings through an organization theory lens. This perspective helps campuses take a “50,000 foot” view of the vast data collected for the Carnegie process in order to craft useful recommendations for the institution and to sustain an institution’s wave of energy for this topic after the classification.

The penultimate chapter is an overall assessment of the institutionalization of community engagement by Barbara Holland, who discusses exemplary and varying ways in which engagement is becoming embedded in institutional foundations and the strategic directions of higher education organizations with different missions.

In the final chapter, we, the volume editors, discuss overall themes, best practices, outstanding issues, and future directions brought to the light by this first wave of classified institutions in community engagement.

Lorilee R. Sandmann

Courtney H. Thornton

Audrey J. Jaeger

Editors

References

Boyer, E. L. “The Scholarship of Engagement.” Journal of Public Service and Outreach, 1996, 1(1), 9–20.

Campus Compact. “Civic Engagement Initiatives.” 2008. Retrieved June 1, 2008, from http://www.compact.org/initiatives/civic_engagement/.

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. “Elective Classification: Community Engagement—2008 Documentation Framework.” 2007. Retrieved June 1, 2008, from http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/dynamic/downloads/file_1_614.pdf.

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. “Community Engagement.” 2008. Retrieved June 1, 2008, from http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/classifications/index.asp?key=1213.

Lorilee R. Sandmann is associate professor in the Department of Lifelong Education, Administration and Policy at the University of Georgia and director of the National Review Board for the Scholarship of Engagement.

Courtney H. Thornton is director of research for the University of North Carolina system.

Audrey J. Jaeger is associate professor of higher education and founder of the Center for Research on Engagement at North Carolina State University.

Chapter 1

Carnegie’s New Community Engagement Classification: Affirming Higher Education’s Role in Community

Amy Driscoll

The new Carnegie classification of community engagement provides a unique opportunity for campuses to embrace their responsibilities to society.

In 2005, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) stirred the higher education world with the announcement of a new classification for institutions that engage with community. The classification, community engagement, is the first in a set of planned classification schemes resulting from the foundation’s reexamination of the traditional Carnegie classification system. The new classifications are intended to provide flexibility, closer match of data with purpose, and a multidimensional approach for better representing institutional identity. The first of those new schemes, community engagement, has prompted a flurry of inquiry, self-assessment, documentation, and development of engagement practices as educators in colleges and universities strive to qualify for the classification.

Introduction to the Classification

The community engagement classification affirms that a university or college has institutionalized engagement with community in its identity, culture, and commitments. The classification further affirms that the practices of community engagement have been developed to the extent that they are aligned with the institutional identity and an integral component of the institutional culture. This classification is elective: it relies on voluntary participation by an institution. In contrast to the traditional Carnegie classification, which uses national data, the community engagement classification uses documentation provided by each institution.

The term community engagement was intentionally selected for the classification to encompass the broadest conception of interactions between higher education and community and to promote inclusivity. The definition of community engagement used for the classification also represents broad thinking about collaborations between higher education and the community and intentionally encourages important qualities such as mutuality and reciprocity. The definition serves as an initial guide to both documentation and review processes for the classification: community engagement describes the collaboration “between higher education institutions and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.”

Development and Initiation of the Community Engagement Classification

For many higher education professionals and community partners, the classification represented a unique opportunity to affirm the labors of many institutions and their partners to attend to Ernest Boyer’s (1990, 1996) urging to embrace their responsibilities to society. Thus, its development was approached with the utmost reflection in terms of both intentions and content.

Intentions of the Classification

The vision for the classification was developed collaboratively by Carnegie colleagues and national engagement leaders and served as a significant guide for developing the documentation framework that institutions would use to apply for the classification. From its inception, the documentation framework was designed to respect the diversity of institutions and their approaches to community engagement; engage institutions in a process of inquiry, reflection, and self-assessment; and honor institutions’ achievements while promoting the ongoing development of their programs (Driscoll, 2008). In addition, the development priorities attended to practicality and usefulness of data so that institutional documentations would be appropriate for such multiple purposes as program improvement and accreditation.

Development Processes for the Classification

From the beginning, the processes for developing a documentation framework for the community engagement classification built on concurrent developments for support. The ongoing benchmarking and assessment approaches of Campus Compact, the Council of Independent Colleges, the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, the Community-Campus Partnerships for Health, and individual institutions contributed substantive direction and examples. At the same time as those approaches were reviewed, intense consultation with national leaders highlighted challenges, potential, and priorities for the new classification and its documentation.

The earliest draft of the community engagement documentation framework integrated insights from the current literature base with those sources of consultation and current efforts. From there, Carnegie sponsored a pilot study of documentation with representatives of thirteen institutions of higher education. The representatives initially met to review and revise the documentation draft before engaging in a six-month trial of reporting and documenting community engagement at their respective institutions. After using the documentation framework, the group came together a second time to describe their individual campus experiences and synthesize recommendations for further revision of the framework. Each institution experienced new challenges and questions, as did the revision process for the documentation.

In the final revision process, there was unanimous support for some components of the documentation framework to serve as indicators of community engagement regardless of the diversity of institutions: institutional mission specifying community engagement as a priority, executive leadership that specifically promoted engagement, coordinating infrastructures and budgetary support for community engagement, and faculty development support for those engaged with community. There was also dissent among the pilot institutions about some indicators: search and recruitment policies and practices that support hiring of faculty with expertise and commitment to community engagement, and promotion and tenure policies that reward the scholarship of engagement. A number of representatives in the pilot study supported those indicators for the classification but simultaneously acknowledged that their own campuses could not qualify with such a requirement.

The resulting documentation framework was comprehensive, designed to capture the scope of institutional engagement, inclusive to affirm the diversity of approaches, and rigorous in promoting quality practices of community engagement. The framework would require many campuses to develop new data sources; however, it did encourage use of existing data for practicality reasons.

The Community Engagement Classification Framework

The documentation framework for the new classification was designed with two major components. In the first component, colleges and universities are expected to demonstrate institutionalization of community engagement, demonstrated through indicators of institutional identity and culture and institutional commitment. In the second component, they identify the focus of their community engagement: curricular engagement, outreach and partnerships, or both. This second component requires data, description, and examples of either or both of the focuses.

The documentation process is intensive and requires the collaboration of many institutional and community participants. It has often promoted new communication and cooperation across campuses and with community for data sharing and documentation.

Institutions that are able to document either or both of the categories of community engagement after demonstrating the foundational indicators are clearly deeply engaged with community.

Inaugural Applications—Process and Findings

The inaugural application of community engagement was approached with some trepidation and concern for the untried nature of the classification process, so the application pool was limited to ensure a thorough and reflective review process. A national advisory panel of engagement leaders representing varied institutions and national organizations was selected to support and enhance the review process. The panel also studied the initial applications and review process to inform revision of the classification process and documentation framework.

Profile of Inaugural Institutions Classified as Community Engaged

The initial response to the first application process came from 145 institutions early in 2006. Of those, 107 were selected to apply based on diversity of institutional size, institutional type, program emphasis, and location. By September 2006, eighty-nine institutions submitted full documentation for review. Those that did not submit applications described a lack of readiness for documentation or a need for further development of their engagement practices. When the newly classified institutions were announced in December 2006, seventy-six colleges and universities, representing a broad range of institutional type and size, were classified as institutions of community engagement.

As hoped and expected, the seventy-six institutions documented widely varied approaches to community engagement. Strong documentations exhibited clear alignment between the foundational indicators, such as mission, leadership, budgetary support, and strategic plan. They described supportive infrastructures in different forms, faculty development in a wide range of strategies, and diverse and creative ways of involving the community in the institution, all of which were compelling evidence of institutional commitment. Another distinction that was noted across the newly classified institutions was a difference in the conceptualization of both community and community engagement. Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis is committed to the concept of civic engagement and documented its commitments and activity according to its philosophical stance. North Carolina State University introduced its documentation with a definition of community unlike Carnegie’s geographical concept to better reflect the scope of campus activities. Its definition included “identifiable groups of individuals that share similar interests, concerns, and educational needs around a subject-matter area” (Zuiches and others, 2008, p. 43).

Among the seventy-six classified institutions, five documented only curricular engagement, and nine focused their documentation on outreach and partnerships. Sixty-two institutions documented both categories of engagement for the classification. Within the documentation of curricular engagement, institutions described different definitions of service-learning, varied integration within campuswide programs, and multiple forms of faculty scholarship related to curricular engagement. Within outreach and partnerships, the institutions described diverse partnerships in terms of disciplinary focus, size, length of time, and purposes and extensive examples of related faculty scholarship.

The decisions of whether to classify individual institutions was a careful process conducted by Carnegie staff and supported by the national advisory panel of leaders in community engagement nationally. It was important during the initiation of the classification process to have multiple perspectives considered in the decision-making process. The panel provided those perspectives on individual applications and at the same time reflected on the documentation framework and the overall application process. Their feedback was a substantive source of revision prior to the 2008 classification application process.

Institutional Perspectives on Impact of Classification

Many of the newly classified institutions achieved instant recognition and visibility when the Carnegie Foundation announced the inaugural group of successfully classified institutions for 2006. For states like Kentucky, in which there was statewide accountability for community engagement, the classification served as a kind of report card. For institutions with the intent of establishing an identity related to community engagement, there was the Carnegie acknowledgment of their focus. Within months after the announcement, institutional brochures and flyers clearly contained this recognition with the university message. A number of institutional representatives reported that the process of documentation revealed both gaps and strengths, often motivating renewed development or internal recognition. The self-assessment or self-study intent of the classification framework prompted many institutions to expand or initiate tracking and assessment systems and strategies.

Reflections on Community Engagement in the Context of the 2006 Classification

A review of the strengths and challenges acknowledged by institutions in their documentation provides clear direction for institutions committed to community engagement. This chapter focuses on the challenges—institutional recording and assessment systems and approaches, revision of promotion and tenure policies and practices, and communication and collaboration with community—because they are applicable to most institutions and have significant potential for improving community engagement in general.

Assessment of Community Engagement

Assessment in general continues to be an ongoing challenge for higher education, so it is not surprising that assessment of community engagement is in dire need of development. Even the simple tracking and recording of engagement activities appeared to be difficult to maintain with a systematic institution-wide process. Few institutions could be specific about institution-wide student learning outcomes related to engagement, so most assessment of curricular engagement took the form of individual course assessments and occasional program assessment. (Bringle and Hatcher discuss this idea further in Chapter Four.) Most institutions relied on data from individual faculty projects and some departmental reviews to document their community engagement approaches, but few examples of consistent assessment of community engagement were found.