Eastern Region Campus Compact (ERCC) conference gathers academic leaders from Maine to Florida to share successful strategies for advancing campus engagement

East Elmhurst, NY, October 27, 2011—At a time when colleges and universities might be expected to hunker down and focus on internal priorities like building recession-proof endowments, many campuses are looking for ways to increase their commitment to external community work. These schools recognize that now more than ever, higher education has a responsibility to educate the next generation of responsible citizens—and that the best way to do that is to put students to work solving pressing community issues. Such work not only provides billions of dollars in direct services to communities nationally but also gives students real-world experiences that will shape their future role in society.

Nearly all colleges have at least one community partnership, but embedding community work into the campus culture requires a more profound commitment. Today marks the beginning of a region-wide two-day conference to explore specific tools, strategies, and policies for supporting a deep level of campus engagement with the community. The 2011 Eastern Region Campus Compact (ERCC) conference, “Moving Us Forward: Recognizing and Rewarding Civic Engagement,” focuses on the critical areas of engaged scholarship (i.e., involving faculty in their roles as teachers and researchers), institutional change (i.e., involving campus policymakers in creating campus support structures and rewards), and campus-community reciprocity (i.e., involving community organizations as equal partners).

“This conference brings together campus leaders from across the Eastern U.S. to strengthen campus-community relationships by supporting faculty and institutional involvement,” says Campus Compact Executive Director Maureen F. Curley. “The conference’s focus on bringing campus teams to the table, including faculty and high-level administrators, will help ensure buy-in. The leaders who are attending aren’t interested in paying lip service to these ideas; they’re here to build on their strengths and find ways to adopt best practices.”

Conference highlights include a two-day institute for faculty teams to explore ways to assess and recognize engaged scholarship, guided by Timothy K. Eatman, Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Syracuse University and Director for Research of Imagining America, with KerryAnn O’Meara of the University of Maryland. Dwight Giles of the University of Massachusetts-Boston will examine faculty roles using data from the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification project, which evaluates campus engagement. A panel of college and university vice presidents will discuss their successes in revising faculty promotion and tenure guidelines to recognize engaged scholarship. In addition, Randy Stoecker of the University of Wisconsin-Madison will navigate ways to create reciprocal campus-community partnerships, Richard Guarasci of Wagner College will address the culture of the engaged campus, and Richard Kiely of Cornell University will discuss creating sustainable global service-learning partnerships.

Laurie Worrall, Executive Director of New York Campus Compact and one of the conference organizers, notes that the Community Engagement Classification has become a hallmark of excellence in this field. “Campus Compact has a rich history in this area. Our 13 “Indicators of Engagement” informed the Carnegie Foundation’s classification criteria, and most schools that have earned the classification are Campus Compact members. We’re in a great position to evaluate how campuses can strengthen their engagement efforts, which will improve community-based teaching, learning, and research and help campuses gain recognition for this work.”

Conference sponsor ERCC is a collaboration of eastern Campus Compact organizations spanning Maine to Florida. These state organizations, which represent 400 member campuses, are part of the national Campus Compact coalition of college and university presidents who are committed to the civic purposes of higher education.

“This conference is just one piece of Campus Compact’s sustained national effort to promote campus-based community and civic engagement,” notes Debby Scire, Executive Director of Campus Compact for New Hampshire. “Two keys to building this work are faculty involvement, which we’re exploring over these two days, and the ability to assess community impact, which will be the subject of the next regional conference in 2012. By focusing on collaboration within and among campus teams and sharing successful strategies, these conferences are helping to bring about major change in the region.”

About Campus Compact

Campus Compact is a national coalition of more than 1,100 college and university presidents—representing some 6 million students—who are committed to fulfilling the civic purposes of higher education. As the only national higher education association dedicated solely to campus-based civic engagement, Campus Compact promotes public and community service that develops students’ citizenship skills, helps campuses forge effective community partnerships, and provides resources and training for faculty seeking to integrate civic and community-based learning into the curriculum.

With support from a national office and 35 state affiliates, students at Campus Compact member colleges and universities contribute an estimated $8 billion in service to their communities each year through campus-sponsored programs. By working in the community, these students gain real-world experience while meeting pressing needs in areas such as K-12 education, health care, the environment, hunger/homelessness, literacy, and senior services.