National Center for the Study of University Engagement - The Engaged Scholar Speaker Series Video and Audio Presentations

Nancy Franklin, Ed.D.

Director, Strategic Initiatives for Outreach and Cooperative Extension, The Pennsylvania State University. View the speaker biography

Timothy V. Franklin, Ph.D.

Director, Office of Economic and Workforce Development, The Pennsylvania State University. View the speaker biography

Engagement Through a Regional Looking Glass

Imagine if you will.

Life—-and former university colleagues—-offer you a higher education Peace Corps-like opportunity: Move with your family to an economically struggling region and serve as a university emissary to develop and implement a plan in partnership with local leaders to chart a path toward regional economic renewal and vitality. Your work will provide a basis for the university to reshape its land-grant mission in the context of the 21st century. You will find yourself agreeing to accept this interesting proposition knowing that much uncertainty lies ahead. After six and a half years in the region (and more than a few battle scars), you will better appreciate the depth of the challenge and be able to point to positive economic and social trends emanating from the work you've been involved in.

Nancy and Tim Franklin will share the story of their engagement immersion experience—how they learned to understand the issues, engage university expertise, and shape policy arguments to resource the effort. Now back in mainstream academia and on the back side of dissertation research about distributed regional engagement, the Franklins will offer their thoughts about how universities can take the next step toward effective engagement.

Dwight E. Giles, Jr., Ph.D.

Professor, Higher Education Administration, University of Massachusetts, Boston -- Senior Associate, New England Resource Center for Higher Education (NERCHE). View the speaker biography

Forty Years in the Academy: Service-Learning's Pioneers, Programs, and Promise

Dr. Dwight Giles, a leading expert on service-learning, will review service-learning's evolution from obscure pedagogical practice to institutional priority. Dr. Giles will reflect on the journey from the margins to the mainstream as service-learning has matured, both nationally and at MSU.

The history of service-learning over the past 40 years provides a richly woven tapestry with many strands including pedagogy, educational reform, community engagement and outreach, institutional transformation, and social concerns. While service-learning and, more recently, civic engagement have emerged as national and international phenomena, the true history of this movement is found in local programs on specific campuses.

As one of the oldest continuous service-learning programs in the country, the Center for Service-Learning and Civic Engagement at Michigan State University is an instructive case study for understanding the broader landscape of university and community relationships and for mileposts for where this journey might go in the future.

Paul Spicer, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, American Indian and Alaska Native Programs, Department of Psychiatry -- Director, American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Research Center, School of Medicine, University of Colorado. View the speaker biography

Community-Based Participatory Research on American Indian and Alaska Native Health

The American Indian and Alaska Native Programs in the University of Colorado’s School of Medicine, in existence since 1985, have a diverse portfolio of research, training, and technical assistance. This talk provides a history of the programs’ growing commitment to community-based participatory research.

Dr. Spicer presents examples of how he and his team are extending this commitment through their work in genetics, child development, alcoholism, and obesity.

Kelly Ward, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Department of Educational Leadership & Counseling Psychology. View the speaker biography

Tami Moore, Ph.D. Candidate

Doctoral Student, Higher Education and Cultural Studies, College of Education. View the speaker biography

Faculty at Work as Teachers, Scholars and Community Members: The Practice of Engaged Scholarship

Conversations about engaged scholarship have largely focused on research projects and outcomes with a community orientation. The challenge of focusing on projects is that it leaves many faculty members both confused about how such an approach fits with promotion and tenure guidelines and concerned about adding a community orientation to an already full plate of academic work. In Faculty Service Roles and the Scholarship of Engagement (2003), Ward offers an integrative model, whereby faculty ground their traditional roles in meeting community needs. The session includes findings of a recent research project that offers portraits of engaged scholars as a way to shift conversation about community engagement from projects to the practice of engaged scholarship at research universities. The study explores motivations for integration, challenges to crafting an integrated scholarly practice, strategies employed in achieving integration, and campus climate issues surrounding engaged scholarship at research universities. This workshop offers an opportunity to examine these findings, consider their contribution to the outreach and engagement movement, and reflect directly on personal practices of engagement and integration. The session is designed to help faculty think creatively about their work in the community in ways that complement traditional teaching, research, and service roles.

Jeff Grabill, Ph.D.

Information Technology and Community-Based User Research (November 14, 2006). View the speaker biography

The Expertise and Complexity of Citizen Knowledge Work

This talk is based on a study of an existing data democratization effort called CACVoices, and includes a public Web site that hosts both a powerful set of databases and other types of public information. It is an example of a common type of community network that aggregates information, tools, and IT capacity for "the public." Citizen and community-based organizations in nearly every community rely on networks like CACVoices to do their work.

In doing this research we have learned that the work of individuals and groups within these organizations constitutes a type of "knowledge work." However, while complex information technologies are readily available to such users, it is unclear how well the tools support expert knowledge workers in these new contexts. This study is one attempt to provide evidence about a common but largely invisible area of human-computer interaction -- community-based knowledge work. In this talk we discuss our results and report on our attempts to design new tools to support community-based knowledge work.

Sarena Seifer, M.D.

Achieving the Promise of Authentic Community-Academic Partnerships: Taking our Work to the Next Level (September 19, 2006). View the speaker biography

Community-Based Participatory Research: Addressing Community Health Concerns and Meeting Promotion and Tenure Guidelines

This presentation focuses on the definition, rationale and key components of community-based participatory research (CBPR) and its contributions to understanding and addressing health issues. A continuum of approaches to involving communities as partners in health research will be described. Trends in funding for CBPR and resources available to support CBPR will be highlighted. Strategies for documenting CBPR for promotion and tenure review will be offered. This session will be particularly relevant to health sciences faculty members and administrators.

From Community Service to Community-Engaged Scholarship to Partnerships for Social Change

How do we combine the knowledge and wisdom of communities and academic institutions to solve the major health, social and economic challenges facing our society? How do we ensure that community-driven social change is central to service-learning, community-based participatory research and community-higher education partnerships? This presentation provides a snapshot of what we know about community-higher education partnerships, highlighting critical issues and trends, posing key questions for the future, and sharing resources to support community-engaged scholarship and community-academic partnerships.

Julie Ellison, Ph.D.

Between Hope and Critique (April 27, 2006). View the speaker biography

Between Hope and Critique

Both on and off campus, animated networks in the humanities and arts are making the passion for social change central to the theory and practice of public engagement. Students and faculty in the cultural disciplines are committed to social agency in creative and humanistic practice. They bring a mix of passion and skepticism to this endeavor. The work of leaders in the "engaged imagination" movement—including Robin Kelley, George Sanchez, Sekou Sundiata, and Lani Guinier, among others—is defi ned by a love of ideas, a resolute pursuit of theory-building, and a willingness to weave critique and practice in ways that advance collaboration with community partners.

This complex approach involves a balance among hope and critique, theory and action. These artists and scholars display core commitments to "freedom dreams" (Kelley), "magical realism" (Guinier), "dream states" (Sundiata) and "dream[s] of a multiracial democracy" (Sanchez). Their focus on diverse creativity for the public good marks a historical moment in the imagination of social change. They—and we—are part of a growing community of people eager to exchange program models, test their rhetoric against skeptical listeners, foster translations across specialist vocabularies, and strengthen learning.