Indicators of an Engaged Campus

Any of the characteristics of wider institutional engagement, occurring in concert with other characteristics on a campus, suggests the emergence of an “engaged campus.” However, it is unlikely that all characteristics will be apparent on any one campus. These characteristics should not be regarded as prescriptive; their value lies in the possibilities they suggest. They include:

1) Mission and purpose that explicitly articulates a commitment to the public purposes of higher education.

2) Administrative and academic leadership (president, trustees, provost) that is in the forefront of institutional transformation that supports civic engagement.

3) External resource allocation made available for community partners to create richer learning environments for students and for community-building efforts in local neighborhoods.

4) Disciplines, departments, and interdisciplinary work have incorporated community-based education allowing it to penetrate all disciplines and reach the institutions academic core.

5) Faculty roles and rewards reflect a reconsideration of scholarship that embraces a scholarship of engagement that is incorporated into promotion and tenure guidelines and review.

6) Internal resource allocation is adequate for establishing, enhancing, and deepening community-based work on campus – for faculty, students, and programs that involve community partners.

7) Community voice that deepens the role of community partners in contributing to community-based education and shaping outcomes that benefit the community.

8) Enabling mechanisms in the form of visible and easily accessible structures (i.e., centers, offices) on campus to assist faculty with community-based teaching and to broker community partnerships.

9) Faculty development opportunities are available for faculty to retool their teaching and redesign their curricula to incorporate community-based activities and reflection on those activities within the context of the course.

10) Integrated and complementary community service activities that weave together student service, service-learning and other community engagement activities on campus.

11) Forums for fostering public dialogue are created that include multiple stakeholders in public problem-solving.

12) Pedagogy and epistemology incorporate a community-based, public problem-solving approach to teaching and learning.

(Hollander, Saltmarsh, and Zlotkowski, 2001; Hollander and Saltmarsh, 2000)