- Watters, A.J., Haninen, P., & Hardin, J.M. (2012). Developing a community-based research network for interdisciplinary science: The Alabama Entrepreneurial Research Network. Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship, 4(2).
- This resource describes the Alabama Entrepreneurial Research Network (AERN), a program that equips entrepreneurs from rural low-income areas with resources and support to develop projects to improve their communities. Sustained for over 10 years and now working with 15 partners, AERN has developed into a research network for interdisciplinary work, providing community members with materials, training, counseling, and business research services through the University of Alabama. By describing the many benefits of AERN on the University of Alabama team, the entrepreneurs, and the community, this paper demonstrates how the AERN program exemplifies a sustainable university-community partnership.
- Smith, L.H., Valenzuela, J., & Ludke, R.L. (2012). Engaging rural and urban Appalachians in research using a community-based participatory research approach. PRISM: A Journal of Regional Engagement, 1(1), 3-17. http://jces.ua.edu/developing-a-community-based-research-network-for-interdisciplinary-science-the-alabama-entrepreneurial-research-network/
- There is growing evidence that CBPR conducted through community-academic partnerships can lead to a decrease in health disparities. This paper explores how two distinct academic-community partnerships in Appalachian communities were developed to identify community health needs, create community-led interventions, and evaluate the projects iteratively. Using seven CBPR principles, the authors outline the process of developing these strong partnerships and conclude that forming the partnerships using CPBR principles improved the capacity of the communities and institutions to address health disparities.
- Rojas, A., Sipos, Y., & Valley, W. (2012). Reflection on 10 years of community-engaged scholarship in the faculty of land and food systems at the University of British Columbia-Vancouver. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 16(1), 195-211. http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe/article/view/756
- This paper explores a transition in which faculty members in Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia–Vancouver moved from community-inquiry projects to com¬munity-engaged action research projects. The transition was achieved through organizational restructuring, curricular revision, and new teaching approaches. The paper discusses the concepts that influenced the curricular revision and examines outcomes of the faculty transition and lessons learned.
- Nyden, P., Hossfeld, L.H., & Nyden, G.E. (2012). Public sociology: research, action, and change. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press.
- This book explores the many ways in which sociology brings about social change, written by authors who work on the forefront of the public sociology movement. The book begins with four chapters on the following topics: sociological imagination and engaged scholarship, sharing knowledge through university-community collaboration, starting and sustaining projects, and a career guide for public sociologists. The book continues with eight chapters of case studies, and concludes making the case for a new, engaged 21st century scholarship.
- Catalini, C.E.C.V., Veneziale, A. Campbell, L., Herbst, S., Butler, B., Springgate, B., & Minkler, M. (2012). Videovoice: Community assessment in post-Katrina New Orleans. Health Promotion Practice, 13(1), 18-28. http://hpp.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/09/03/1524839910369070.abstract?rss=1
- Videovoice is a health advocacy, promotion, and research method through which people use video cameras as a tool to research issues, communicate knowledge, and advocate for change. This paper explores a videovoice project carried out in post-Katrina New Orleans by a community-university-filmmaker partnership, in which 10 community members participated in an 18-week training and community assessment. The authors describe how the final product (a 22-minute film) successfully communicated knowledge to many audiences (live premier, YouTube, DVD distribution) and mobilized community action on three issues: affordable housing, education, and economic development. The paper concludes by discussing particular challenges of videovoice and the effectiveness of this method as a participatory and equitable research approach.
- Baillie, C., Pawley, A., & Riley, D.M. (2012). Engineering and social justice in the university and beyond. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press. http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/titles/engineering-and-social-justice-university-and-beyond
- This book describes the work of international scholars aiming to integrate engineering with social justice, focusing on the role of scholars in teaching, research, and community engagement. From discussing how courses can be designed to encourage engagement, to how scholars are conducting research to improve the lives of marginalized communities, this book features a variety of perspectives on ways engineering can achieve social impact.
- Watson, D., Hollister, R., Stroud, S.E., & Babcock, E. (2011). The engaged university: International perspectives on civic engagement. International Studies in Higher Education. New York: Routledge.
- This book is a detailed account of a global movement of higher education institutions to increase their civic engagement and social responsibility. Based on self-assessments by and authors’ visits to 20 universities (members of the Talloires Network) around the world, which are committed to directly tackling community problems, the book examines their engaged scholarship objectives, management and achievements. It provides an historical overview of each university’s founding mission, which is demonstrated as having almost invariably incorporated context-specific elements of social purpose, together with a survey of how these intentions have fared in the different systems of higher education in which they work; a contemporary account of the policy and practice of universities all over the world seeking to re-engage with social purpose; and an overview of generic issues which emerge for the engaged university. Practice comparisons are made across nations and continents, and between the global North and South.
- Santilli, A., Caroll-Scott, A., Wong, F., & Ickovics, J. (2011). Urban youths go 3000 miles: Engaging and supporting young residents to conduct neighborhood asset mapping. American Journal of Public Health, 101(12), 2207-2210. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222416/?tool=pubmed
- In 2009 the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement at Yale University (CARE) implemented a multisectoral chronic disease prevention initiative called Community Interventions for Health, in which seven local high school students were hired to conduct asset mapping. This paper provides a detailed description of how youth mapped assets in their communities, personal quotes from youth about their participation, and an evaluation of youth-driven asset mapping as a method.
- Russell, A., Cattermole, A., Hudson, R., Banks, S., Armstrong, A., Robinson, F., … Brown, G. (2011). Sustaining community-university collaborations: The Durham University model. Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement, 4, 218-31. http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/ijcre/article/view/1781
- This article describes how a group of people worked to change the surrounding region’s perception of Durham University (United Kingdom) from an elitist institution to a civically engaged one. The Durham Model is founded on four principles (empowerment, partnership, education, leadership) with the goal of supporting engaged scholarship initiatives between faculty and the community of Durham County. Characterized as organic, multifaceted, responsive, and sustainable, aspects of this model have become increasingly integrated into the university’s structures. The authors discuss how to endure sustainability, the lessons learned, and their future vision for the partnership model in Durham.
- Katz, D L., Murimi, M., Gonzalez, A., Njike, V., & Green, L.W. (2011). From controlled trial to community adoption: The multisite translational community trial. American Journal of Public Health. 101(8), e17-e27. http://ajph.aphapublications.org/toc/ajph/101/8
- A standardized research methodology for translating findings from controlled trials into community application is needed. This paper introduces the multisite translational community trial (mTCT) as the research analog to the multisite randomized controlled trial. The mTCT is adapted to incorporate principles and practices of community-based participatory research to increase relevance and generalizability gained from research in diverse community settings. The mTCT is a tool designed to bridge the gap between what a clinical trial demonstrates can work in principle and what is needed to make it workable and effective in the real-world. Its utility could be put to the test, in particular with practice-based research networks such as Prevention Research Centers.
- Cortez, P., Dumas, T., Joyce, J., & Olson, D. (2011). Survivor voices: Co-learning, re-connection, and healing through community action research and engagement (CARE). Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action, 5(2), 133-142. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21623015
- This paper examines the community-campus partnership between the Trauma Healing Project (THP) and the University of Oregon Psychology and Counseling Services Department, examining Survivor Voices, a community-based PAR mixed methods study that was developed and implemented through this partnership. This collaboratively designed study aimed to understand from survivors of abuse “what hurt” and “what helped” from the process of dealing with trauma and what recommendations these survivors could provide about trauma healing. Methods, quantitative/qualitative results, and challenges/lessons learned are presented, as well as a section reflecting on how the partnership and PAR methods can be useful tools in a community’s ability to address abuse and reduce violence.
- Brazg, T., Bekemeier, B., Spigner, C., & Huebner, C.E. (2011). Our community in focus: The use of photovoice for youth-driven substance abuse assessment and health promotion. Health Promotion Practice, 12(4), 502-511. http://hpp.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/11/03/1524839909358659
- Photovoice, a CBPR methodology, is one way to effectively engage youth in the assessment of substance abuse and prevention initiatives. This paper describes “Our Community in Focus”, a community-based assessment of youth substance use and abuse that employed photovoice methodology with high school participants. Prompted with the question, “What contributes to adolescents’ decisions to use or not to use alcohol and other drugs?” participants captured compelling photos to reflect community strengths and concerns relating to substance abuse. The authors explore the findings of the research and offer conclusions about photovoice as an effective tool to engage youth in community-assessment projects.
- Bushouse, B., Jacobson, W.S., Lambright, K.T., Llorens, J.L., Morse, R.S., & Poocharoen, O. (2011). Crossing the divide: Building bridges between public administration practitioners and scholars. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 21 (1), 99-112. http://jpart.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/suppl_1/i99.abstract
- This article explores the challenges of improving the connection between public administration (PA) scholarship and practice in three areas: engaged scholarship, engaged teaching, and engaged faculty. Examples of solutions to improve the connection between PA scholarship and practice are also discussed.
- Frabutt, J.M. (2010). Supporting community safety through university-community partnerships: Exploring models of engagement. Journal of Community Engagement, 1(2), 1-13. https://discovery.indstate.edu/ojs/index.php/joce/article/view/92/31
- This paper highlights four six-year long projects to explore various models of university-community engagement supporting violence prevention and community safety. These case examples, from the Center for Youth, Family, and Community Partnerships at UNC Greensboro, address issues such as funding, community collaboration, sustainability, leadership, evaluation, and communication.
- University of California, Santa Cruz et al (2010). Engaged institutions enriching communities and strengthening families website. http://www.engagedinstitutions.org/
- This website was created for leaders and participants of a cluster of university-community partnership projects at four state universities: the University of Texas at El Paso; the University of California at Santa Cruz; the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities; and Pennsylvania State University. It provides specific information about cluster activities as well as general information and resources on university engagement.
- Tendulkar, S.A. et al. (2010). A funding initiative for community-based participatory research: Lessons from the Harvard Catalyst Seed Grants. Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action, 5(1), 35- 44.
- In 2008 Harvard University was awarded a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA). The Harvard CTSA project (also known as the Harvard Catalyst) and its Community Advisory Board (CERAB) developed a seed grant initiative to enhance community-academic research projects by providing funding directly to community partners, thus aiming to address power differentials. This article describes the goals and design of the initiative, the methods used to award seed grants, and provides a list of funded projects. Although 28 projects were successfully funded, the initiative experienced three main challenges: differences in the research readiness of communities, insufficient time to build the partnership and complete a project, and engaging academic researchers. More specifically, attracting researchers who were both interested in a community-identified research question and skilled in CBPR was difficult due to a shortage of CBPR mentors, limited funding for researchers, “the absence of protected academic time for CBPR”, and “the negative impact of pursuing CBPR on tenure prospects”. (Tendulkar et al, 42). The article concludes by emphasizing need to understand the context, capacity, and CBPR experience of the community-organization prior to funding a project, and building a more encouraging academic environment for CBPR by sharpening its definition and demonstrating its multifaceted value to both investigators and community partners.
- Jernigan, V. B. B. (2010). Community-based participatory research with Native American communities: The Chronic Disease Self-Management Program. Health Promotion Practice, 11(6), 888-899.
- This article provides an overview of the use of Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) with Native American communities and discusses the translation of the Stanford Chronic Disease Self-Management Program using a CBPR approach with an urban Native American community. This article highlights not only how the CBPR process facilitates the successful translation of the Stanford program but also how CBPR is used within this community to build community capacity. The author provides a detailed account of her experience and concludes that the project’s success was due to its “truly peer-led” participatory approach and the empowerment of those who participated.
- Cuthill, M. (2010). Working together: A methodological case study of ‘Engaged Scholarship’. Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement, 3, 20–37.
- This paper explores the University of Queensland’s Boilerhouse Community Engagement Centre (UQ Boilerhouse) as a case study for engaged scholarship in practice. Informed by principles of participatory action research (PAR), the paper describes the three stages of the methodological framework guiding the work of UQ Boilerhouse: project development and design, data collection and analysis, and reporting and project evaluation. In conclusion, the paper examines ways in which PAR can effectively promote participatory democracy, and discusses particular constraints and challenges of the PAR process.
- Huzzard, T., Ahlberg, B.M., & Ekman, M. (2010). Constructing interorganizational collaboration: The action researcher as a boundary subject. Action Research, 8(3), 293-314.
http://arj.sagepub.com/content/8/3/293.abstract - This article aims to explore critically the role of an action research team in the social construction of inter-organizational collaboration aimed at transgressing organizational and professional boundaries. We argue that the new relationships, actor conceptions and in some cases forms of work organization arising from the change process have been socially constructed through the discursive interventions of the researchers. This has largely occurred through informal interaction with and between the actors engaged in the development process. The action researcher, rather than being a neutral discursive gatekeeper in collaborative development projects, is an active constructor of the discourse shaping the collaboration. A case is presented showing how the researcher role is thus better seen as being an active boundary subject mediating across various professional and organizational perspectives rather than a passive boundary object. Accordingly, by focusing on the discursive role of active researchers as boundary subjects, we can reflect more critically on the roles we adopt in our intervention endeavors and their inevitably political nature. (Huzzard, Ahlberg & Ekman, 2010, p. 293)
- Browne, R. et al. (2009). Community – academic partnerships: Lessons learned from replicating a salon-based health education and promotion program. Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action, 3(3), 241-248.
- This article examines a partnership between the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health (AAIUH), two community-based organizations (CBOs), three universities, and 17 beauty salons. This partnership was created to replicate a salon-based health education and promotion program in African-American and Latino communities in Philadelphia, and its formation was guided by common understanding of four key principles: mutually agreeing on and implementing predefined plans and processes; sharing expertise, resources, and methods; a commitment to building capacity; a commitment to shared credits and rewards. These principles are described, as well as the challenges and lessons learned from both the development of the community-academic partnership and the program replication process. In conclusion, the article demonstrates the overall effectiveness of the partnership and program replication, citing indicators such as leveraging additional funding and results from salon-based surveys that showed a large increase in community me
- Campus Compact (2009). Models of civic engagement initiatives at research universities.
- TRUCEN member research universities have provided examples of how they structure civic and community engagement initiatives and activities on campuses.
- Griffith, Derek M. et al. (2009). The origins and overview of the W. K. Kellogg Community Health Scholars Program. Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action, 3(4), 335-348.
- This paper describes the history, components and evaluations of the W. K. Kellogg Community Health Scholars Program (CHSP). From 1998 to 2007, CHSP trained 46 postdoctoral fellows to develop and enhance skills in working with communities and engage in community-based participatory research (CBPR). Its design and implementation exemplified the partnership principles at the core of the training it provided. Evaluations have shown that CHSP has had substantial impact not only on its participants, but also on academic institutions, community-based organizations (CBOs), policies relating to research funding and implementation, and professional organizations. A key element in this impact has been the continued interaction of CHSP alumni and their academic and community mentors and partners. Key lessons learned from the evaluations are explored.
- Hall, M. et al (2009). Gateways: International journal of community research and engagement. http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/ojs/index.php/ijcre
- This special edition frames emerging responses to the challenges of social responsiveness at the University of Cape Town. The articles include university-community collaborations around the HIV/AIDS crisis, managing coastal resources, xenophobia, disaster planning and innovation in manufacturing. Gateways is a refereed journal concerned with the practice and processes of community research and other forms of engagement. It provides a forum for academics, practitioners and community representatives to pursue issues and reflect on practices related to interactions between tertiary institutions and community organizations: academic interventions in community; community-based projects with links to the tertiary sector; and community initiatives.
- Johnson, J.C. et al. (2009). Building community participatory research coalitions from the ground up: The Philadelphia Area Research Community Coalition. Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action, 3(1), 61-72.
- The Philadelphia Area Research Community Coalition (PARCC) was formed in 2005 by the University of Pennsylvania – Cheyney University of Pennsylvania EXPORT Center. PARCC is a community-academic research partnership that is comprised of 22 organizations and programs of distinct sizes and varied experience in health research. This paper explores PARCC’s process of developing this coalition, the outcomes achieved, governing principles and lessons learned. The developmental processes reviewed include the partnership’s conceptual framework, methods of recruitment of members, working with varied community and academic perspectives on research, the contextual significance of trust as a core tenet of PARCC, and the establishment of the coalition’s structure and internal processes (governance and operating principles). The paper describes PARCC’s success and attributes it to factors such as trust between members of the community and academia, committed leaders and members, preexisting relationships, and effective research training programs. Challenges facing PARCC include a lack of academic scholars willing and able to join community research projects and securing long-term funding. The paper concludes by emphasizing the importance of training partners in the early stages of engagement while trust, governance structure and operations are still developing.
- 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.
- Nyden, P. (2009). Collaborative university-community research teams. Original Toolkit essay. Collaborative-university-community-research-teams.pdf
- 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.”
- Michigan State University et al (2006-2009). The engaged scholar magazine. http://engagedscholar.msu.edu/Default.aspx
- The Engaged Scholar Magazine focuses on collaborative partnerships between Michigan State University and its external constituents—partnerships forged for mutual benefit and learning, with an emphasis on research. The magazine is published annually, in the fall of each year, in both hard copy and web versions. Annual issues are themed, e.g. sustainability, cultural entrepreneurship, families. Current and archived magazine editions are available online as are editions of the Engaged Scholar E-Newsletter, a quarterly online supplement to The Engaged Scholar Magazine.
- 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/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=lkIXLbMNJrE&b=5136581&ct=6996033
- 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.
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Civic Engagement at Research Universities > Research University Engaged Scholarship Toolkit > Exemplars of Engaged Scholarship
Exemplars of Engaged Scholarship
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