The Scholarship of Engagement

• The Scholarship of Engagement:  Foundations
• Resources for Faculty
• Toolkit Resources:  Promotion, Tenure, and Community Engaged Research

The Center for Experiential Learning serves as an academic support service for faculty members who embrace the scholarship of engagement. Based on Loyola University Chicago’s mission and vision "to expand knowledge in the service of humanity," the Center for Experiential Learning encourages community-engaged scholarship through our service-learning program, our academic internship program, and our undergraduate research program (LUROP).  The Center is also the sponsoring body within Loyola University for the 2009-2010 Engaged Scholars Program for Faculty.

   The Scholarship of Engagement:  Foundations

"The scholarship of engagement means connecting the rich resources of the university to our most pressing social, civic and ethical problems, to our children, to our schools, to our teachers and to our cities..."

- Ernest Boyer in The Scholarship of Engagement

Ernest Boyer’s seminal work, Scholarship Reconsidered (1991), challenged higher education institutions to embrace the broader scope of academic work, moving beyond the traditional tripartite faculty role of teaching, research, and service, and an overly narrow definition of research as the only legitimate avenue to further knowledge. He proposed four interrelated dimensions of scholarship:  discovery, integration, application and teaching. Subsequently, Boyer expanded his definition to include the scholarship of engagement, which regards service as scholarship when it requires the use of knowledge that results from one's role as a faculty member.

Often referred to as "community-engaged scholarship", the scholarship of engagement applies an integrative approach to the traditional domains of research, teaching, and service. As illustrated in Figure 1, approaches such as community-based participatory research (e.g. that sponsored by Loyola’s Center for Urban Research and Learning [CURL]) and service-learning represent types of community-engaged scholarship that are consistent with the missions of research, teaching and service.

Cited from “Community-Engaged Scholarship” at http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/scholarship.html

   Resources for Faculty:

Loyola’s Center for Urban Research and Learning (CURL) supports community-based research in and around Chicago. Find out more information at http://www.luc.edu/curl/About.shtml.

For more detail on Boyer's re-definition of scholarship, see the following works:

Boyer, Ernest. (1990). Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. Menlo Park, CA, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching: 147.

Boyer, Ernest. (1996). The Scholarship of Engagement. Journal of Public Outreach. 1(1): 11-20.

The following websites also offer excellent information and thought-provoking reflections on the scholarship of engagement:

• For more information on community-engaged scholarship, visit these pages on the
  Community-Campus Partnerships for Health website:
  CES resources: http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/scholarship.html
  CES toolkit: http://www.communityengagedscholarship.info
  Commission on CES: http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/kellogg3.html
  CES Collaborative: http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/healthcollab.html
  Faculty for the Engaged Campus:
  http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/faculty-engaged.html
• http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/scholarship.html
• http://www.scholarshipofengagement.org  Provides clear criteria for the scholarship of engagement
• New Times Demand New Scholarship (a publication of a Campus Compact-organized study group on the role of the scholarship of engagement at Research I universities) at http://www.compact.org/initiatives/research_universities/
• Declaration on the Civic Responsibilities of Research Universities (the preliminary publication of the same Campus Compact-organized study group) at http://www.compact.org/initiatives/research_universities/wingspread_declaration

   Toolkit Resources:  Promotion, Tenure, and Community Engaged Research

Community-Campus Partnerships for Health's Community-Engaged Scholarship Toolkit is intended as a resource for community-engaged faculty on how to "make their best case" for promotion and tenure.  Over a dozen recently promoted and/or tenured faculty members have graciously "donated" excerpts from their portfolios for posting on the toolkit at http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/toolkit-portexamples.html

The Community-Engaged Scholarship Review, Promotion & Tenure (RPT) Package is designed to help RPT committees to understand community-engaged scholarship and how to assess its quality and impact.  Download the package at http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/pdf_files/CES_RPT_Package.pdf

Components include:

• A description of characteristics of quality CES
• Sample abbreviated dossiers including vita, narrative statements and a letter of support
• A summary of how well the work documented in this dossier aligns with the characteristics of quality CES
• Tables documenting the ways in which teaching and research are enhanced through community engagement.
• Instructions for completing a "mock RPT committee" exercise using the above materials.

We welcome your questions, comments or suggestions on the toolkit!  We also invite community-engaged faculty members who have been promoted and/or tenured to submit portfolio excerpts for posting on the toolkit site.  Email the toolkit team at fipse2@u.washington.edu.

The toolkit homepage is www.communityengagedscholarship.info.