Education Commons^™

Motivation For Faculty Community Engagement: Learning From Exemplars, Kerryann O'Meara

KerryAnn O'Meara

This explorative study examines the motivations of sixty- eight faculty exemplars in community engagement. Analysis of personal narrative essays reveals a great diversity in personal and professional motivation, including but not limited to the desire to teach well, personal commitments to specific issues, neighborhoods, and people, a perceived fit between community engagement and disciplinary goals, and a desire for meaningful collaboration. This study reports the first phase in a multiphase study and finds that faculty exemplars have a rich reservoir of motivations that are both intrinsic and extrinsic, rooted in personal goals and identity as well as some organizational cultures. …