Beyond their educational value, university institutions can play a pivotal role in community improvement. By utilizing academic resources, these organizations can positively impact their communities. Engaged Scholarship and Civic Responsibility in Higher Education is a critical reference source for the latest scholarly research on the adoption and implementation of civic engagement initiatives in higher education institutions. Including a range of pertinent topics such as service learning, economic development, and social justice, this book is ideally designed for academics, practitioners, students, professionals, and researchers interested in the growing influence of universities on community improvement.
Numerous studies have chronicled students lack of trust in large social institutions, declining interest in politics, and decreasing civic skills. This book is a comprehensive guide to developing high-quality civic engagement experiences for college students. The book defines civic engagement and explains why it is central to a college education. It describes the state of the art of education for civic engagement and provides guidelines for designing programs that encourage desired learning outcomes. In addition, the book guides leaders in organizing their institutions to create a campus-wide culture of civic engagement.
The concern that the democratic purposes of higher education -- and its conception as a public good -- are being undermined, with the growing realization that existing structures are unsuited to addressing today's complex societal problems, and that our institutions are failing an increasingly diverse population, all give rise to questioning the current model of the university. This book presents the voices of a new generation of scholars, educators, and practitioners who are committed to civic renewal and the public purposes of higher education. They question existing policies, structures, and practices, and put forward new forms of engagement that can help to shape and transform higher education to align it with societal needs.The scholars featured in this book make the case for public scholarship and argue that, in order to strengthen the democratic purposes of higher education for a viable future that is relevant to the needs of a changing society, we must recognize and support new models of teaching and research, and the need for fundamental changes in the core practices, policies, and cultures of the academy. These scholars act on their values through collaboration, inclusiveness, participation, task sharing, and reciprocity in public problem solving. Central to their approach is an authentic respect for the expertise and experience that all stakeholders contribute to education, knowledge generation, and community building. This book offers a vision of the university as a part of an ecosystem of knowledge production, addressing public problems with the purpose of advancing a more inclusive, deliberative democracy; and explores the new paradigm for teaching, learning, and knowledge creation necessary to make it a reality.
More than a century ago, John Dewey challenged the education community to look to civic involvement for the betterment of both community and campus. Today, the challenge remains. In his landmark book, editor Thomas Ehrlich has collected essays from national leaders who have focused on civic responsibility and higher education. Imparting both philosophy and working examples, Ehrlich provides the inspiration for innovative new programs in this essential area of learning.
This book, offered by “practitioner-scholars,” is an exploration and identification of the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that are central to supporting effective community engagement practices between higher education and communities. The discussion and review of these core competencies are framed within a broader context of the changing landscape of institutional community engagement and the emergence of the Community Engagement Professional as a facilitator of engaged teaching, research, and institutional partnerships distinct from other academic professionals. This research, conducted as part of Campus Compact’s Project on the Community Engagement Professional, seeks to identify the shared knowledge and practices of Community Engagement Professionals by looking to empirical practice literature. Chapters include an exploration of competencies applicable to those in Community Engagement Professional roles generally, and also to those specializing in specific areas such as faculty development, partnership facilitation, and other areas of responsibility. The authors trace the evolution of engagement administration over time and the role of those facilitating community-campus engagement toward a “Second Generation” professional who is at once a “tempered radical, transformational leader, and social entrepreneur.” Central to the work is a presentation of the core competency findings, along with suggestions for continued exploration. Dostilio and her colleagues argue that Community Engagement Professionals should claim a professional identity grounded in a set of core competencies, values, and knowledge, and through association with a community of scholar practitioners similarly dedicated. Additional work to understand and empower Community Engagement Professionals in their role as distinct from other higher education professional types will enable both broader impact for institutions and communities now with a view to prepare those coming to the role for a dynamic and demanding environment without distinct boundaries.
Society and democracy are ever threatened by the fall of fact. Rigorous analysis of facts, the hard boundary between truth and opinion, and fidelity to reputable sources of factual information are all in alarming decline. A 2018 report published by the RAND Corporation labeled this problem "truth decay" and Andrew J. Hoffman lays the challenge of fixing it at the door of the academy. But, as he points out, academia is prevented from carrying this out due to its own existential crisis—a crisis of relevance. Scholarship rarely moves very far beyond the walls of the academy and is certainly not accessing the primarily civic spaces it needs to reach in order to mitigate truth corruption. In this brief but compelling book, Hoffman draws upon existing literature and personal experience to bring attention to the problem of academic insularity—where it comes from and where, if left to grow unchecked, it will go—and argues for the emergence of a more publicly and politically engaged scholar. This book is a call to make that path toward public engagement more acceptable and legitimate for those who do it; to enlarge the tent to be inclusive of multiple ways that one enacts the role of academic scholar in today's world.
In the preface to the Handbook of Engaged Scholarship, Hiram Fitzgerald observes that the Kellogg Commission's challenge to higher education to engage with communities was a significant catalyst for action. At Michigan State University, the response was the development of "engaged scholarship," a distinctive, scholarly approach to campus-community partnerships.Volume One addresses such issues as the application of engaged scholarship across types of colleges and universities and the current state of the movement.
Creating transparency between government and citizens through outreach and engagement initiatives is critical to promoting community development and is also an essential part of a democratic society. This can be achieved through a number of methods including public policy, urban development, artistic endeavors, and digital platforms. Civic Engagement and Politics: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a vital reference source that examines civic engagement practices in social, political, and non-political contexts. As the world is now undergoing a transformation, interdisciplinary collaboration, participation, community-based participatory research, partnerships, and co-creation have become more common than focused domains. Highlighting a range of topics such as social media and politics, civic activism, and public administration, this multi-volume book is geared toward government officials, leaders, practitioners, policymakers, academicians, and researchers interested in active citizen participation and politics.
The need for more empathetic and community-focused students must begin with educators, as service-learning has begun to grow in popularity throughout the years. By implementing service and community aspects into the classroom at an early age, educators have a greater chance of influencing students and creating a new generation of service-minded individuals who care about their communities. Teachers must have the necessary skills and current information available to them to provide students with quality service learning and community engagement curricula. The Research Anthology on Service Learning and Community Engagement Teaching Practices provides a thorough investigation of the current trends, best practices, and challenges of teaching practices for service learning and community engagement. Using innovative research, it outlines the struggles, frameworks, and recommendations necessary for educators to engage students and provide them with a comprehensive education in service learning. Covering topics such as lesson planning, teacher education, and cultural humility, it is a crucial reference for educators, administrators, universities, lesson planners, researchers, academicians, and students.
This set of essays critically analyze global citizenship by bringing together leading ideas about citizenship and the commons in this time that both needs and resists a global perspective on issues and relations. Education plays a significant role in how we come to address these issues and this volume will contribute to ensuring that equity, global citizenship, and the common wealth provide platforms from which we might engage in transformational, collective work. The authors address the global significance of debates and struggles about belonging and abjection, solidarity and rejection, identification and othering, as well as love and hate. Global citizenship, as a concept and a practice, is now being met with a dangerous call for insularism and a protracted ethno-nationalism based on global economic imperialism, movements for white supremacy and miscegenation, various forms of religious extremism, and identity politics, but which antithetically, also comes from the anti-globalization movement focused on building strong, sustainable communities. We see a taming of citizens that contributes to the taming of what we understand as the public sphere and the commons, the places of cultural, natural, and intellectual resources that are shared and not privately owned. The work of global citizenship education is distinguishable from the processes of a deadly globalization or destruction of the world that responds to the interlocking issues that make life on the planet precarious for human and non-humans everywhere (albeit an unequal precarity). This book is an invitation into a conversation that explores and makes visible some of the hidden chasms of oppression and inequity in the world. It is meant to provoke both argument and activism as we work to secure common spaces that are broadly life-sustaining. Contributors are: Ali A. Abdi, Sung Kyung Ahn, Chouaib El Bouhali, Xochilt Hernández, Carrie Karsgaard, Marlene McKay, Michael O’Sullivan, Christina Palech, Karen Pashby, Karen J. Pheasant-Neganigwane, Thashika Pillay, Ashley Rerrie, Grace J. Rwiza, Toni Samek, Lynette Shultz, Harry Smaller, Crain Soudien, Derek Tannis, and Irene Friesen Wolfstone.
