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Section A: About Engaged Scholarship

1. What Is Engaged Scholarship?

2. How Does Engaged Scholarship Compare with Traditional (Discovery) Scholarship?

3. Why Do Engaged Scholarship?

4. How To Do Engaged Scholarship Well

5. Exemplars of Engaged Scholarship

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1. What Is Engaged Scholarship?

In an address to the campus at the end of her inaugural year (April, 2005), Chancellor Nancy Cantor announced her vision of Syracuse University as a Creative Campus whose faculty and students would be deeply engaged with the world, interacting with local and global communities in productive relationships and activities that she named “scholarship in action.” Recognizing the difficulty of fitting such public or community-engaged scholarship into the traditional framework for defining and evaluating faculty work, she called on the Academic Affairs Committee of the Senate to study the issues related to implementing this vision. This is a study of scholarship of action both as a concept and as a set of faculty practices.

  • American Association of State Colleges and Universities. (2002). Stepping forward as stewards of place: A guide for leading public engagement at state colleges and universities. Washington, DC: AASCU. www.aascu.org/pdf/stewardsofplace_02.pdf

This is AASCU’s task force report on public engagement, a practical and strategic guide for state college and university leaders who want to more deeply embed public engagement in the fabric of their institution at the campus, college, and departmental levels. The report includes sections on challenges and importance of, and recommendations and guidelines for, quality engaged practice.

Engaged scholarship represents one way for making research relevant to organizational practitioners by bridging the gap between theory and practice. Engaged scholarship is viewed as a form of collaborative inquiry between academics and practitioners that leverages their different perspectives to generate useful organizational knowledge. This article explores the possibilities associated with engaged scholarship in three specific contexts: (1) theory-building and research, (2) pedagogy, teaching, and education, and (3) institutional opportunities and constraints as they relate to issues of tenure and promotion and creation of the engaged campus.

  • Benson, L. Harkavy, I., & Puckett, J. (2007). Dewey’s dream: Universities and democracies in an age of education reform (especially pp. 77-113). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

In this section of the book, the authors assert that by working toward solving the overall problems of the public school system, the University of Pennsylvania will be much better able to achieve its traditional mission to advance, preserve, and transmit knowledge. At the same time, the University will help produce well-educated citizens necessary for a genuine democratic society.

  • Boyer, E. (1996). The scholarship of engagement. Journal of Public Service and Outreach, 1(1), 11-20. Boyer, E (1996).pdf

In this article, Boyer coined the term “scholarship of engagement” and discussed its relationship to his reconceptualization of scholarship as discovery, integration, application, and teaching. Posted with permission of the Journal of Public Service and Outreach (now the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement).

  • Boyer, E. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Princeton, NJ: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

This seminal work on the four types of scholarship–discovery, integration, application, and teaching–led the way for Boyer’s subsequent naming of the scholarship of engagement in his 1996 Journal of Public Service and Outreach article.

This comprehensive report, focused on the health professions, reviews a conceptualization of engaged scholarship, identifies the significant gap that exists between the promise of health professional schools as engaged institutions and the reality of how faculty members are typically judged and rewarded, and makes recommendations on how to close this gap. It acknowledges that recognizing and rewarding community engaged scholarship in the health professions will require changes not only in the wording of institutional policies and procedures but in the culture of institutions and professions. Leadership is needed from academic institutions and the external stakeholders that influence their values and priorities, including government, peer-reviewed journals, and accrediting bodies.

  • Cooper, D. (2009). The university in national development: The role of use-inspired research. Proposed comparative case studies of community-engaged research. Original Toolkit essay. PDF available at dcooper-toolkitfeb09

This essay by a University of Cape Town professor of sociology summarizes his community-engaged research concerns and activities, and proposes an investigation and theorization of how universities might become more deeply engaged with civil society, particularly with respect to research relations with local and regional government bodies, community and civic organizations, labor and other non-governmental organizations etc.

The author discusses the key elements of participatory action research and the importance of engaging with the community population rather than social service providers, and provides some principles of good practice. He describes a case study that involved him and his students.

  • Giles, D.E., Jr., (2008). Understanding an emerging field of scholarship: Toward a research agenda for engaged, public scholarship. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 12 (2)2, 97-106.

This article synthesizes contributions to two special issues of the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement (Volume 12) to develop a comprehensive view of this emerging field, ‘which as yet has many names and a number of dif ferent emphases, conceptualizations, and research questions.’ It argues that only an engaged process can ultimately clarify this emerging field and enable it to move forward with a research agenda. Such a process would include practitioner and community voices, be interactive, and be encouraged and supported by additional outlets for scholarly exploration.

  • Howard, J. (2007). Powerpoint slide of a Venn diagram that reflects the three essential components of engaged scholarship: involves the community, benefits the community, and advances the faculty member’s scholarship. University of Michigan. engaged-scholarship-venn-diagram.pdf.                                

  • Howard, J. (2007). Powerpoint slide: Distinguishing engaged scholarship from faculty volunteering and professional service. University of Michigan. distinguishing-engaged-scholarship.pdf.

Volunteering may benefit a community, but it doesn’t necessarily draw on the faculty member’s expertise nor advance her/his scholarship. Professional service draws on the faculty member’s expertise but doesn’t advance her/his scholarship. Engaged scholarship necessarily taps the faculty member’s expertise and advances her/his scholarship.

  • Howard, J. (2007) Powerpoint slide: Is it engaged scholarship? An exploratory assessment heuristic to assist campuses in determining whether or not a community-engaged project qualifies as engaged scholarship. University of Michigan. engaged-scholarship.pdf.

This heuristic or an adaptation thereof may be useful to campus administrators and faculty in distinguishing engaged scholarship from other forms of scholarship at their university.

  • Michigan State University Committee on Evaluating Quality Outreach. (1996, 2000). Points of distinction: A guidebook for planning and evaluating quality outreach. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Outreach and Engagement. http://outreach.msu.edu/documents/pod.pdf

This guidebook encourages discussion about the values and evidence associated with quality outreach and engagement. Four dimensions of quality outreach include: significance, context, scholarship, and impact. Components, sample evaluation questions, and qualitative and quantitative indicators for each dimension are suggested as rigorous ways for both individual faculty and academic units to plan, document, and evaluate outreach scholarship.

  • Nyden, P. (2006) The challenges and opportunities of engaged research. In Silka, L., ed., Scholarship in action: Applied research and community change (HUD’s Office of University Partnerships). www.oup.org/files/pubs/scholarship.pdf

The use of engaged methods such as collaborative university-community research, is examined as a way of strengthening traditional academic research. Particular focus is placed on a collaborative model combining university-based and community-based knowledge. The Loyola University Chicago Center for Urban Research and Learning is used as a case study. The incorporation of grassroots research into broader research initiatives promises to increase the quality of research and connections among communities at national and international levels.

  • O’Meara, K. & Rice, R.E. (2005). Faculty priorities reconsidered: Rewarding multiple forms of scholarship. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

This book features case studies of nine institutions grappling with reform of faculty roles and rewards and how institutional cultures, values, history, type, and internal and external forces influenced their efforts. The case studies are sandwiched between chapters tracing the history of the movement to redefine scholarship and the impact of this movement at the national level, and concludes with a guide to “best practices, strategies, and campus examples” and lessons learned from an inquiry into the scholarly work of faculty. While not focused on community-engaged scholarship per se, the book includes references to this work providing a rich institutionally focused context for considering it.

The purpose of this statement is to articulate the commitment of all sectors of higher education, public and private, two- and four-year, to their civic purposes and identify the behaviors that will make that commitment manifest. It was reviewed, refined and endorsed at a Presidents’ Leadership Colloquium convened by Campus Compact and the American Council on Education.

This presentation to the University of Southern Indiana looks at definitions of engagement, scholarship, scholarship of engagement, standards, and systems to support this work.

  • Sandmann, L. (2008). Conceptualization of the scholarship of engagement in higher education: A strategic review, 1996-2006. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 12(1), 91-104.

During the past decade, the generalized concept of the scholarship of engagement has evolved. Once a broad call for higher education to be more responsible to communities, it is now a multifaceted field of responses. This article describes the evolution of the term; then, to clarify the “definitional anarchy” that has arisen around its use, it explores the past decade’s punctuations in the evolutionary progress of the concept. Finally, it calls for moving beyond descriptive, narrative works to more critical, empirical research as well as policy analysis and introduces the possibility that the next punctuation will be the development of engaged scholarship’s own theory.

  • Sandmann, L. (2009). Placing scholarly engagement “on the desk.” Original Toolkit essay. sandmann.pdf

This essay focuses on the need to frame engagement as scholarship and to gain support for faculty members who do this type of work from institutional leaders.

  • Schon, D. (1995). Knowing-in-action: The new scholarship requires a new epistemology. Change, 32(1), Nov-Dec, 44-52.

In this article, the author who coined the term “reflective practitioner,” insists that if we are going to broaden our conceptualization of scholarship we must commensurately broaden our conceptualization of epistemology, from only detached ways of knowing to more connected and community-based ways of knowing.

This report highlights the discussion at the UCLA TRUCEN gathering, with a focus on engaged scholarship. Figure 2, Degrees of Collaborative Processes in Engaged Scholarship, differentiates unilateral vs. mutual determination of each stage of a research process, from the research question to the application of findings. Figure 3, Outcomes of Engaged Research, demarcates four unequal quadrants reflecting low and high academic and community outcomes. The report also addresses scholarship on engagement, educating students for civic engagement, and institutionalizing civic engagement.

  • Walshok, M. (1995). Knowledge without borders: What America’s research universities can do for the economy, the workplace, and the community. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

The author reveals the untapped potential of research universities for delivering and helping to apply the critical knowledge that society needs to maintain and build economic, workforce, and civic capabilities. She explores the evolution and expansion of America’s dependence on new knowledge and the importance of that knowledge as a critical resource that supports and drives virtually all social and economic progress.

 

2. How Does Engaged Scholarship Compare with Traditional (Discovery) Scholarship?

  • Furco, A. (2002). A comparison of traditional scholarship and the scholarship of engagement. In Anderson J. & Douglass, J.A. et al, Promoting civic engagement at the University of California: Recommendations from the strategy group on civic and academic engagement (p. 10). Berkeley, CA: Center for Studies in Higher Education. The full report can found at http://cshe.berkeley.edu/publications/docs/StrategyReport.2.06.pdf

In this University of California report Furco offers a useful chart that compares views on traditional scholarship of discovery and on scholarship of engagement along six dimensions. He suggests that scholarship of engagement must satisfy criteria related to the traditional views and also additional ones having to do with direct application to broader public issues, community impact, and that it is reviewed and validated by qualified peers in the community.

This document delineates eight characteristics of quality and significant community-engaged scholarship: clear academic and community change goals, adequate preparation in content area and grounding in the community, appropriate academic and community methods, significant impact on disciplinary knowledge and the community, effective presentation and dissemination to academic and community audiences, reflective technique, contribution to the national engagement movement, and consistently ethical behavior.

A community-engaged research approach can enable researchers to strengthen the links between research and practice and enhance translational results. To practice community-engaged research one needs to re-think the relationship of research and researchers to communities. The presentation distinguishes traditional from community-engaged research, with a focus on community-based participatory research. It addresses how to incorporate community-based approaches into traditional research and how the community can contribute to and strengthen research.

 

3. Why Do Engaged Scholarship?

  • Boyer, E. (1994). Creating the new American university. Chronicle of Higher Education, March 9, A. 48.

In this last page proclamation in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Boyer admonishes colleges and universities to become “part of the solution” for the pressing social ills of our times, and introduces the concept of the new American university that would be devoted to solving society’s social problems.

In this document university presidents, provosts, deans, and faculty members with extensive experience in higher education as well as representatives of professional associations, private foundations, and civic organizations have formulated strategies for renewing the civic mission of the research university, both by preparing students for responsible citizenship in a diverse democracy and engaging faculty members in developing and utilizing knowledge for the improvement of society.

  • Checkoway, B. (2008). Involving urban planning, social work, and public health faculty members in the civic renewal of the research university. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 27(4), 507-511.

What are some strategies for involving urban planning, social work, and public health faculty members in the civic renewalof the research university? At a time when citizens have “disengaged from democracy,” and universities have deemphasized their civic mission, this article examines ways in which these faculty members might join together and formulate strategies which complement their shared professional and public purposes on campus and in the community.

  • Colbeck, C. & Weaver, L. 2008. Faculty engagement in public scholarship: A motivation systems theory perspective. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 12(2), 7-33.

This study used the lens of motivation systems theory to explore why research university faculty engage in public scholarship. Analysis of motivational patterns, including goals, capability beliefs, context beliefs, and emotions, of twelve community-engaged faculty, is used to identify leverage points for other faculty and administrators who wish to support, increase, or enhance their own and others’ engagement in public scholarship.

  • Colbeck, C. & Wharton-Michael, P. (2006) Individual and organizational influences on faculty members’ engagement in public scholarship. In R. Eberly & J. Cohen (Eds.), A laboratory for public scholarship and democracy (pp. 17-26). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

This chapter proposes a conceptual framework for understanding influences on faculty work and for conducting research about individual, organizational, and epistemological factors that may shape faculty members’ engagement in public scholarship.

  • Gibson, C. (2006). New times demand new scholarship: Research universities and civic engagement. A leadership agenda. Report of The Research University Community Engagement Network (TRUCEN). New Times Demand New Scholarship

This statement, which was endorsed by the participants of the first TRUCEN meeting at Tufts University in 2005, argues that because of research universities’ significant academic and societal influence, world class faculty, outstanding students, state-of-the-art research facilities, and considerable financial resources, they are well-positioned to lead the higher education sector to ensure deep and long-lasting commitment to civic engagement. It includes sections on engaged scholarship and why it should be important to research universities with examples from member institutions.

  • Gibson, C. (2006). Research universities and engaged scholarship: A leadership agenda for renewing the civic mission of higher education. Prepared for Campus Compact’s 20th anniversary celebration. Research Universities and Engaged Scholarship

Because research universities “set the bar” for scholarship across higher education, they are positioned to promote and advance new forms of scholarship that link the intellectual assets of higher education institutions to solving public problems and issues. This essay includes criteria for engaged scholarship, barriers, and reasons for doing it.

  • Gonzalez, K. & Padilla, R. (Eds.). (2008). Doing the public good: Latino/a scholars engage civic participation. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, LLC.

Through the lenses of personal reflection and auto-ethnography—and drawing on such rich philosophical foundations as the Spanish tradition of higher learning, and the activist principles of the Chicano movement—these writers explore the intersections of private and public good, and how the tension between them has played out in their own lives, and the commitments they have made to their intellectual community and to their cultural and family communities. Through memoirs, reflections, and poetry, these authors recount their personal journeys and struggles—often informed by a spiritual connectedness and always driven by a concern for social justice—and show how they have found individual paths to promoting the public good in their classrooms and in the world beyond.

This report reviews the rationale for higher education institutions to be engaged with communities, guiding characteristics that define an engaged institution, and a set of recommendations including developing incentives to encourage faculty involvement in engagement.

  • O’Meara, K. (2008). Motivation for faculty community engagement: Learning from exemplars. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 12(1), 7-29.

This study examines the motivations of sixty-eight faculty who are community engaged exemplars. Motivations include personal commitments to specific issues, neighborhoods, and people, perceived fit between community engagement and disciplinary goals, and desire to teach well. Motivations are intrinsic and extrinsic, rooted in personal goals, identity, and organizational cultures. Findings suggest motivation likely varies by type of engagement and depth of involvement over time.

This essay advocates articulation of a broader role for academic faculty in American democracy beyond their technical expertise as critical for making the case for community engaged research.

The author argues on behalf of community collaboration as a transformative medium of scholarly and artistic production, and offers personal case studies.

 

4. How to Do Engaged Scholarship Well

  • Ansley, F. & Gaventa, J. (1997). Researching for democracy and democratizing research. Change, 29(1), 46-54.

Noting that the current, conventional approach to research does little to strengthen scholars’ participation in civic life, this article advocates and describes models of research that promote more democratic inquiry methods, more reciprocal relationships between researchers and their subjects, and new collaborations between research institutions and communities. Examples of programs and initiatives are offered.

  • Bringle, R. & Hatcher, J. (2002). Campus-community partnerships for health: The terms of engagement. Journal of Social Issues, 58(3), 503-516.

This article focuses on campus-community partnerships thats can leverage both campus and community resources to address critical issues in local communities. Campus-community partnerships are described as a series of interpersonal relationships between (a) campus administrators, faculty, staff, and students and (b) community leaders, agency personnel, and members of communities. The phases of relationships (i.e., initiation, development, maintenance, dissolution) and the dynamics of relationships (i.e., exchanges, equity, distribution of power) are explored to provide service-learning instructors and campus personnel with a clearer understanding of how to develop healthy campus-community partnerships.

  • Brown, R.E., Casey, K.M., Springer, N.C., Doberneck, D.M., Thornton, D. W., & Georgis, G. (2008). Tools of engagement, web-based curriculum modules for undergraduate students and faculty. Michigan State University, http://outreach.msu.edu/tools/

The Tools of Engagement web-based, curriculum modules are designed to: 1) Introduce undergraduate students to the concept of university-community engagement, 2) Develop their community-based research and engagement skills, and 3) Assist with training the next generation of engaged scholars.

The Tools of Engagement are intentionally non-discipline specific, allowing for adaptation and customized utilization across the curriculum. The five modules focus on the university’s commitment to engage with community, understanding the concepts of power and privilege in the context of engagement, effectively working in groups, building successful partnerships, developing negotiation techniques, etc. MSU welcomes colleagues from other institutions to utilize Tools of Engagement and collaborate in a joint research. If interested in pursuing collaborative use, contact Robert Brown,brownr23 {at} msu(.)edu, or Karen McKnight Casey, caseyk {at} msu(.)edu, for access to the secure pages of the site.

A brief practical essay addressing six critical areas for faculty consideration in undertaking community engaged research: institutional context; establishing legitimacy; community credibility; funding; methodological difficulties; collaboration.

  • Examining Community-Institutional Partnerships for Prevention Research Group. (2006). Developing and sustaining community-based participatory research partnerships: A skill-building curriculum. http://www.cbprcurriculum.info

With interest in community-based participatory research (CBPR) growing, there is a commensurate need and demand for educational resources to build the knowledge and skills needed to develop and sustain effective CBPR partnerships. This evidence-based curriculum is intended as a tool for community-institutional partnerships using or planning to use a CBPR approach to improving health, but it is relevant for all CBPR efforts. It can be used by partnerships just forming as well as mature ones. Chapters include: getting grounded, starting a partnership, developing a partnership, trust and communication, securing and distributing funding, disseminating results, and sustainability.

  • Fear, F., Bawden, R. Rosaen, C., and Foster-Fishman, P. (2002). A model of engaged learning: Frames of reference and scholarly underpinnings. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 7(3), 55-68.

This article seeks to make explicit the essential features of an engagement model based on the separate engagement experiences of four colleagues–a sociologist, rural developer, teacher educator, and community psychologist. Shares and discusses what engagement means to them, then shares interpretations of the conceptual, philosophical, and normative underpinnings of their work.

  • Gust, S. & Jordan, C. (2006). The community impact statement: A tool for creating healthy partnerships. Minneapolis. Community-impact-statement.pdf

This set of guiding questions is intended to help community and university partners discuss critical issues as they develop and sustain partnerships for community-based participatory research. In order to create partnerships that share knowledge and reap mutual benefits, partners are invited to consider questions in four areas: Preparing the Ground; Making the Connections/Building the Relationships; Doing the Work; and The Harvest: Evaluation/Dissemination/Policy Implications/Completion. The process grew out of the lessons learned by community members, University of Minnesota faculty, and representatives of other public and private organizations involved in the Phillips Neighborhood Healthy Housing Collaborative. [A companion piece to Gust, S. & Jordan, C. (2006), immediately below.]

  • Gust, S. & Jordan, C. (2006) The community impact statement: A prenuptial agreement for community-campus partnerships. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 11(2), 155-169.

Like a prenuptial agreement when there are resources to share, these authors advocate that those seeking to establish community-campus partnerships develop an agreement before the work the partnership begins. The strength and success of the partnership is dependent on the process by which the relationship and its assets are clearly defined. Guidelines are presented for such a community impact statement.

  • Israel, B., Eng, E., Schulz, A., & Parker, E. (2005). Methods in communitybased participatory research for health. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

A comprehensive publication on how to do CBPR, including partnership formation, community assessment, defining a research question, documenting and evaluating partnerships, and disseminating and applying the results.

This document delineates eight characteristics of quality and significant community-engaged scholarship: clear academic and community change goals, adequate preparation in content area and grounding in the community, appropriate academic and community methods, significant impact on disciplinary knowledge and the community, effective presentation and dissemination to academic and community audiences, reflective technique, contribution to the national engagement movement, and consistently ethical behavior.

  • Minkler, M. & Wallerstein, N. (Eds.). (2003). Community-based participatory research for health. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

This resource on the theory and application of community-based participatory research focuses on health, but the application is universal. The book contains information on a wide variety of topics including planning and conducting research, working with communities, promoting social change, and core research methods. An appendix of tools, guides, checklists, sample protocols, and much more is included.

  • Sandmann, L., Foster-Fishman, P., Lloyd, J., Rauhe, W., & Rosaen, C. (2000). Managing critical tensions: How to strengthen the scholarship component of outreach. Change, 32(1), 44-52.

Central to scholarship in outreach is the management of several critical tensions that emerge during planning, implementing, and evaluating endeavors. How can one produce outcomes valued by the academy and community? Analysis uses Michigan State University’s Points of Distinction framework including significance, attention to context, scholarship, and impact.

  • Strand, K., Marullo, S., Cutforth, N.,Stoecker, R., Donohue, P. (2003). Community-based research in higher education. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

This book presents a model of community-based research (CBR) that engages community members with students and faculty in the course of their academic work. Noting that CBR is collaborative and change-oriented and finds its research questions in the needs of communities, it presents a dynamic research model that combines classroom learning with social action in ways that can ultimately empower community groups to address their own agendas and shape their own futures.

 

5. Exemplars of Engaged Scholarship

  • McClellan, M. (2009). History at work: a public history project. Original Toolkit Essay. History-at work.pdf

Michelle McClellan, historian at the University of Michigan, received an Arts of Citizenship engaged scholarship grant for developing and teaching a public history course and for scholarship deriving from her work on a public history project. In this two-part article, McClellan describes the proposed project that was awarded Arts of Citizenship funding, then reflects on the experience—how it will affect her future teaching and future historical scholarship.

  • Minkler, M. et al (2008). Promoting healthy public policy through community-based participatory research: Ten case studies, PolicyLink and School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley http://www.policylink.org/publications.html

10 case studies of diverse community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships around the United States that have in common a commitment to foster healthy public policy through scholarly research findings that are translated and used in ways that can promote the public’s health and well-being.

This essay profiles Loyola University’s Center for Urban Research and Learning (CURL), which organizes and sponsors collaborative university-community research in the Chicago area, which emphasizes the bringing of a “communities eyes, ears, and voice to the research table.”

TRUCEN member research universities have provided examples of how they structure civic and community engagement initiatives and activities on campuses.

I have always had a drive to serve others and work for the common good. But I never fully realized that I could go beyond volunteerism--that my opinion and hard work could influence policy decisions. My views changed when I sat in the office of one of my legislators in Washington, DC."

-Amanda Coffin, University of Maine at Farmington, Campus Compact student leader

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