The Engaged Campus: From Service to

Community Outcomes

• Mary Beckman Ph.D.• Associate Director, Academic Affairs and

Research • Center for Social Concerns• University of Notre Dame• July 25, 2011

• What is the place and importance of community engagement in higher education today?

• Where is the “cutting edge” of this work? 

What will have to happen at this retreat for you to leave feeling satisfied?

Introductions

Community Engagement in Higher Education

It’s happening, it’s growing, and institutions are increasingly on

board…

Evidence: from three major national organizations

• Carnegie Foundation: Classification

• Campus Compact: Service-Learning

• Corporation for National and Community Service: Community-Based Research

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (1905)

Definition of Community Engagement:

• “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.”

Carnegie Classification

“…to be selected, institutions had to provide descriptions and examples of institutionalized practices of community engagement that showed alignment among mission, culture, leadership, resources and practices.”

Gains seen in 2010 group

-increased student engagement tied to the curriculum

-increased use of institutional measures…for understanding student learning through community engagement.

Needed Improvements

• …better assessment and tracking

• …more attention to the intentional practices of developing reciprocal relationships between higher education and the community.

• …still few institutions providing evidence for promotion and tenure policies that recognize and reward the scholarship associated with community engagement

The main “ways in” to higher education

community engagement….

Service-Learning and Community-Based Research

Campus Compact

• Campus Compact is a national coalition of more than 1,100 college and university presidents - representing some 6 million students - dedicated to promoting community service, civic engagement, and service-learning in higher education http://www.compact.org/

• Goal: “to move America closer to a nation of responsible, active citizens who are fully vested in the welfare of the democracy.”

Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS)

CNCS: federal agency that engages more than five million Americans in

service through Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve

America, and leads President Obama's national call to service initiative, United

We Serve.http://cbrnet.pbworks.com/w/page/6418778/

FrontPage

Learn and Serve Community-Based Research

Networking InitiativeB

Community-Based Research

• Question is community driven

• Method involves community and campus expertise

• Outcomes are intended to address community challenge

Strand, K., Marullo, S., Cutforth, N., Stoecker, R., & Donohue, P. (2003). Community-based

research and higher education: principles and practices. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Aims– to support the development of high-quality

community-based research programs– to create a national networking structure to

assist and connect practitioners. 

Housed at Princeton University and managed in partnership with the Bonner Foundation

The network included over 30 campuses across the country. 

Why Community Engagement?

• Higher Education more and more holds it up as important

• It’s needed

• Our institutional missions and strategic plans call for it

University of Notre Dame Mission

• ...the University seeks to cultivate in its students not only an appreciation for the great achievements of human beings but also a disciplined sensibility to the poverty, injustice and oppression that burden the lives of so many. The aim is to create a sense of human solidarity and concern for the common good that will bear fruit as learning becomes service to justice.--University of Notre Dame Mission Statement.

Why do it?• Higher education holds it up as important• It’s needed• Our missions and strategic plans call for

it.• It works, that is, fosters student

learning.– Eyler, J., and Giles, D. E. (1999). Where’s the learning

in service-learning? San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.– Cutforth, N. & Lichtenstein, G. (2009). Student

learning themes for development of CBR outcomes survey. Report for the national Community-Based Research Network, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.

Barriers to Community Engaged Work• View within the academy that compartmentalizes learning into

the classroom• Perceived softness of the education involved• Perceived threat: does this mean we don’t value traditional

scholarship?• Silo tendencies of the academy• Lack of time

• Lack of funding….• Lack of Incentives, in particular, toward tenure

and promotion• Colleges and Universities are interested in their

own agendas and not in community improvement

Barriers

Institutions not interested in community change…and yet “the field” is pushing us to think even more about community change!

• Cutting Edge: documenting outcomes and moving toward long-term impact

President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll

• Since 2006 has annually recognized institutions of higher education for their commitment to and achievement in community service.

• In 2010 the Honor Roll shifts the emphasis from inputs, such as numbers of service participants, to community outcomes, such as the changes in communities that result from the service activities (e.g., number of houses built).

www.NationalService.gov/HonorRoll

To get to community improvement, we have to….

• Document and Track

• Take TIME into account

Outputs, Outcomes, Impact

OUTPUTS: IMMEDIATE EFFECTS

OUTCOMES: MEDIUM TERM EFFECT

IMPACT: LONG TERM EFFECT

OutputsEnglish: writing projects for local non-profit organizations…

chemistry: testing for lead in low income neighborhoods…

engineering: designing toys that are appropriate for kids with disabilities…

Spanish: offering language instruction…

Interdisciplinary: a theologian focusing on ethics and a civil engineer offer a course on energy conservation

• …the written documents

• …report on lead present

• …the actual toys

• …acquisition of new English vocabulary

• Energy audits of local non-profits

How do these outputs become outcomes?

Education Collaborative Group (ECG)

• Began 2006

• Core group: – principals from 6 local public schools– 7 ND faculty (economics, education, English, psychology, sociology, etc) – some staff members of the university– and a few other interested local residents,

e.g, a pediatrician

ECG Accomplishments

revised course, undergraduate research, faculty scholarship, and real community improvement

2010 Ganey Community-Based Research Faculty Award Recipient

http://video.nd.edu/294-connecting-home-and-school-the-2010-ganey-community-based-research-

award

Outcomes• Behavioral Trends• Fewer tardies, excused, and unexcused absences among

intermediate students than Title 1 average

• Fewer in-house and out of house suspensions for primary and intermediate students than Title 1 average

• Academic Trends• 21% increase in moving K-2 students from “Hi and Moderate

Risk” reading categories to “Low Risk,” compared to district average of 11%

• PA employees’ children passed ISTEP at higher rates than other Title 1 students in Grades 3 through 8 Language Arts and Grades 3,4, 8 Math

• Ask: What is the output of the service project, service or

research in the service-learning class, or other community engagement activity? (Output)

How can I design a service project or course or assignment or research project that will contribute to longer term aims for community improvement? (Outcomes)

And:How can this work flow from a larger (not only my

own) community agenda?

Toward long-term community impact - questions to consider

1. What is the large goal you hope to be part of reaching? (e.g., ending homelessness, getting someone a job, reducing obesity…)

2. Are there groups (coalitions, etc.) already attempting to reach this goal? If so, are you willing to join in with one?

3. If there is no ongoing group or effort, are you willing to try to start one?

What do you want to remember from this session?