IHE | Publications | Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement

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Preparing Future Faculty for Community Engagement: Barriers, Facilitators, Models, and Recommendations

(hide abstract) This article considers the historical and current national context for integrating community engagement into graduate education. While it might be argued that most graduate education contributes generally to society by advancing knowledge, we are referring here to community engagement that involves some reciprocal interaction between graduate education (through students and faculty) and the public, an interaction that betters both the discipline and the public or set of stakeholders for whom the work is most relevant.

The authors survey and synthesize the literature on the history of graduate education in the United States and assess current barriers to and facilitators of integrating community engagement into doctoral programs. The authors consider what models already exist that might be replicated. Finally, the article concludes with a set of recommendations for national servicelearning and outreach organizations, graduate deans, department chairs, and faculty interested in integrating community engagement into their doctoral programs.

Engaged Faculty at the University of New Hampshire: The Outreach Scholars Academy

(hide abstract) Faculty development has been identified as a means of enhancing the ability of faculty members at higher education institutions to conduct scholarly engagement with community partners. The University of New Hampshire developed a semester-long Outreach Scholars Academy to help faculty partner with key external stakeholders in conducting research that will benefit the public and to enhance an engagement ethos across the campus. Faculty were selected through a competitive nomination and selection process. The outreach scholars work to learn and apply concepts of engagement through lectures, case studies, panel discussions, and reflection about their own project work. This program is supported by a national expert, engaged faculty experts, coaches, and the use of critical friends. Results indicate that faculty have gained a greater understanding of how to work with external and community partners, conduct scholarly research, and communicate their work to others as a scholarly endeavor.

Building a Higher Education Network for Community Engagement

(hide abstract) The 2006 Wingspread Conference on Engagement in Higher Education convened twenty-eight formal and informal affiliate organizations, all of which focus on advancing the scholarship and impact of higher education’s engagement with communities, to explore acting strategically as a "guild" with common interests and diverse capacities for the purpose of developing a blueprint for action to advance the engagement movement. One of the outcomes was a virtual confederation named HENCE (Higher Education Network for Community Engagement) that recognizes engagement as a core element of higher education’s civic role. HENCE seeks to consolidate and advance research, practice, policy, and advocacy for engagement. Leaders can join national work groups, advance action plans, coordinate events, access data, and find new community engagement models.

Adventure Central: Applying the "Demonstration Plot" Concept to Youth Development

(hide abstract) Historically, land-grant university research stations focused on demonstrating successful farming methods. The land-grant mission and the principles at its foundation have broad applicability, and we believe the land-grant principles can be successfully applied in urban settings to a university’s work with youth and families. In this article we describe our work at Adventure Central, which has become a demonstration plot to learn about and share what works for youth and family programming. We describe the program components and lessons learned from being engaged with youth on a daily basis for the past six years. We argue that Adventure Central is an example of how extension remains relevant to the needs of today’s society and serves as a model of outreach and engagement by extending the lessons learned to benefit other youth development efforts.

"The place of the academy is in the world not beyond it..." (Taylor 1981, 37)

Economic Concepts Guiding Minnesota Extension's New Regional and County Delivery Model

(hide abstract) In response to a state budget deficit, the University of Minnesota Extension restructured its field staff, establishing a new regional and county delivery system, shifting all supervision of field staff to campus faculty, and encouraging greater field staff specialization, program focus, and entrepreneurial efforts. Nine economic concepts and numerous business principles influenced the creation of the new model. This article outlines the problems facing Extension in Minnesota as it reacted to budget cuts and the nine economic principles that helped Extension sort out the alternative courses of action and their consequences. By applying these principles, Extension was able to maintain a higher number of field staff than it might have otherwise, and effectiveness has in some respects increased despite reductions in the number of personnel.

"There is nothing more practical than a good theory." &mdashKurt Lewin

One Block at a Time: Win-Win Situations for Community Design

(hide abstract) Citizen participation and community education are critical to encouraging attractive and sustainable growth. The Alliance for Quality Growth (AQG), housed at the University of Georgia, was formed to increase awareness and understanding of the wide variety of planning and growth management tools available, including the charrette, a proven technique for delivering design solutions in a short time through an intensive community-based process. To help in situations not appropriate for a full charrette, the AQG has developed a "mini-charrette" that combines a team of experts and a shortened input/local education component. This article documents how the mini-charrette was used in restoring a portion of downtown Warrenton, Georgia. Through this technique, the town obtained expert advice that enabled it to visualize untapped potential at minimal cost, and students gained real-world experience by creating a design that fit the town’s character and aesthetics.

Serving the Community through Discipline-Specific Consulting

(hide abstract) Discipline-specific consulting has a critical place in any university as a form of community outreach. For example, when government and nonprofit organizations need objective information for decision making, a university-driven consulting program providing free services can fulfill their needs. We show how this can be accomplished by describing a project completed by Statistics in the Community (Statcom), a graduate student-run organization at Purdue University. Statcom helped the city of West Lafayette, Indiana, develop and analyze the results of two community surveys. We use this as a case study to illustrate the multiple benefits of implementing such an engagement opportunity at any university and argue that discipline-specific consulting should play a major role in university outreach. This case study also illustrates how students can be utilized to fulfill a university’s engagement mission.

Service-Learning in Disaster Recovery: Rebuilding the Mississippi Gulf Coast

(hide abstract) This article describes a course in the City and Regional Planning program at the Ohio State University. Its overarching goal was to offer service-learning by providing students with an opportunity to apply what they learned in the classroom by meeting community needs following Hurricane Katrina and to reflect on their experiences through journaling. This article describes the theoretical basis for the course and its structural features, then presents evidence of the impact on both students and the communities served. Attention is focused on student responses to service-learning, the studio experience, and both intended and unintended outcomes. The course includes two unique features, the integration of professionals into the role of educators and a heavy reliance on technology. Recommendations based on feedback from students and the communities are offered to help other institutions implement service-learning courses involving projects at a distance.

Challenging Our Students’ Place through Collaborative Art: A Service-Learning Approach

(hide abstract) This article describes two art-based service-learning experiences that can serve as models for an authentic communityuniversity partnership by challenging college students’ sense of place through an examination of "others'" places. College students face displacement in adjusting to a new location and a new direction in life, while youth living in oppressive situations are often misplaced or forgotten. Collaborative community art can serve as a medium for reciprocal partnerships between college students and youths from neighborhoods near campus. Such community-university collaborations show qualities that demonstrate the benefits of service-learning and of university policies and procedures that support it.

Giving each person a voice is what builds community and makes art socially responsive. —Suzi Gablik (1995, 82)

Outreach and Engagement in a Retail Environment: The University Meets Home Improvement

(hide abstract) Even at land-grant institutions, faculty seldom work with commercial retailers on community programs. Retailers can help with outreach and engagement programs because they provide the "natural habitat" for consumers the programs seek to address. Allied health, family science, and interior design faculty at the Ohio State University worked with Lowe’s Home Improvement Stores to bring information to the public on home modifications and universal design, a concept that advocates for environments for people of all ages and abilities. Lowe’s has collaborated in offering in-store workshops, products, and displays for consumers interested in making home modifications, as well as a universally designed model kitchen and bathroom. Because of differences in academic community and retail cultures, working together calls for flexibility; however, such collaboration can yield benefits to both partners. Retail store environments are not always ideal for teaching, but utilizing them can help academic outreach programs reach consumers.

Creighton Collaborative Health Professions Partnership: Assessing Impact beyond the Numbers

(hide abstract) Creighton University, a private Jesuit institution in the Midwest, included a Health Professions Partnership Initiative (HPPI) to increase the pool of qualified underrepresented minority applicants by identifying students early and encouraging their progress through elementary and middle school, high school, college, and professional schools. Activities available to the five hundred student participants included workshops on study skills and time management, summer research institutes, enrichment activities including classroom presentations by medical professionals, shadowing, ACT skill building, priority registration for science and math programs, college prep planning, regular informational and social meetings, mentor/mentee sessions, and academic counseling. Quantitative and qualitative research results reveal that the HPPI was a successful collaboration yielding satisfactory results with the resources available to encourage academic achievement, the exploration of health sciences as a career choice, and development of positive attitudes of participants toward themselves, peers, academic success, health careers, health and safety issues, and Creighton University.

Partners in Outreach and Advocacy: Interdisciplinary Opportunities in University-Based Legal Clinics

(hide abstract) The Dickinson School of Law of the Pennsylvania State University offers several specialized in-house legal clinics. This article focuses on the outreach services of the Elder Law and Consumer Protection Clinic and the Children’s Advocacy Clinic. These programs provide opportunities for law students to obtain practical experience in a thoughtful and reflective environment and engage the students in community outreach and public policy advocacy. This article reviews the development of the two clinical programs as vital components of an engaged university and further suggests how interdisciplinary collaboration helps to guide their growth.

JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION OUTREACH AND ENGAGEMENT

Abstracts

Volume 11, Issue 4