Education Commons^™

Non-Tenure-Track Faculty And Community Engagement: How The 2020 Carnegie Community Engagement Classification Application Can Encourage Campuses To Support Non-Tenure-Track Faculty And Their Community Engagement, Allison Lafave, Damani Lewis, Sarah Smith

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

In 2006, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching developed an elective classification for community engagement for institutions of higher education. To receive the classification, campuses must complete an application and respond to questions by providing evidence that demonstrates a commitment to sustaining and increasing their community engagement efforts (Welch & Saltmarsh, 2013). Many of the application questions relate to policies and practices that affect faculty careers. For example, the 2015 Community Engagement Classification application asked institutions to describe relevant professional development opportunities and ways in which faculty community engagement is incentivized, recognized, and rewarded. These questions are important, …

The Challenges Of Rewarding New Forms Of Scholarship: Creating Academic Cultures That Support Community-Engaged Scholarship, A Report On A Bringing Theory To Practice Seminar Held May 15, 2014, John Saltmarsh, John Wooding, Kat Mclellan

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

The need for and value of civic engagement is widely acknowledged and frequently advocated by students and faculty at American universities. Over the last several decades, recognizing the variety of forms of scholarly research and academic achievement has become commonplace on many campuses. The Carnegie Foundation now assesses and validates community engagement as one critical measure of a university’s identity and success. Many faculty stress community involvement, internships, and various forms of experiential learning in their courses and view them as critical components of a university education. Numerous faculty engage in communityengaged research, working with local organizations, local businesses, and …

Gathering Data And Documenting Impact: 2010 Carnegie Community Engagement Classification Application Approaches And Outcomes, Jana Noel, David P. Earwicker

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

The Community Engagement Classification is an elective classification offered by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. In order to be classified, campuses provide evidence documenting engagement through an application process. Campuses were classified in 2006, 2008, and 2010, and will be classified on five-year cycles from 2015 onward. (Information about the classification can be found on the Carnegie Foundation website.)

This mixed-methods, two-part study sought to discover how institutions that received the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification in 2010 approached their application process and to examine the longer term outcomes of that process. How did they undertake a “full …

Brief 20: Graduate Education And Civic Engagement, Kerryann O’Meara

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

Across the country, new attention is being paid to graduate education and civic engagement (Applegate, 2002; Bloomfield, 2006). For decades college campuses have worked diligently to connect undergraduate academic study with public service in order to enhance learning and meet community needs, a connection often referred to as service-learning or civic engagement. Given that over 1,000 institutions have joined Campus Compact, a national organization of college presidents and institutions committed to this work (www.campuscompact.org), the widespread success of the service-learning movement is undeniable. As a further testament, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching now has a classification focused …

Brief 16: In Search Of Equity: An Institutional Response, New England Resource Center For Higher Education, University Of Massachusetts Boston

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

The United States Supreme Judicial Court is currently deliberating the University of Michigan Affirmative Action lawsuits involving three white students who claim they were discriminated against because of race-conscious admissions policies. Organizations, such as the Center for Individual Rights, which sponsored the Michigan plaintiffs, and the Center for Equal Opportunity, have spearheaded drives to evaluate affirmative action programs in light of equal protection under the law. Viewed in this light, these policies appear to be unfair to white candidates. Examined more closely, concerns about equitability are missing from arguments about fairness. NERCHE’s Multicultural Affairs Think Tank members discussed the changed …

Brief 10: Lessons On Supporting Change Through Multi-Institutional Projects, New England Resource Center For Higher Education, University Of Massachusetts Boston

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

The New England Resource Center for Higher Education’s (NERCHE) Civic Engagement Cluster1 is a multi-institutional model for strengthening civic engagement in higher education across ten institutions simultaneously. Reflecting NERCHE’s mission to promote community, collaboration, and change in higher education, the Cluster is based on the premise that significant change can be accomplished most effectively through collaboration and communication across institutions. The purpose of this Brief is to pass on some key lessons learned in the pilot year of this project about laying the groundwork for collaboration and improving institutional practice.

Brief 7: Preparing For The Next Wave Of Faculty, New England Resource Center For Higher Education, University Of Massachusetts Boston

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

Ten years ago higher education scholars predicted a major faculty turnover in the late 1990s and into the twenty-first centurya prediction based on demographic data on an aging faculty. The turnover is under way, accelerated by early retirement policies. Currently blocks of faculty positions are opening up at regional colleges and universities, and new faculty are being hired in groups, rather than a few at a time. In larger universities, the impact of this kind of hiring is felt most acutely at the department level. At small institutions, the effects can be institution wide. Throughout this academic year, NERCHE’s Department …

Brief 5: For Funders Of Multi-Institutional Collaborations In Higher Education: Support Partnership Building, New England Resource Center For Higher Education, University Of Massachusetts Boston

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

This brief was derived from the discussions of NERCHE’s think tank for coordinators of GEAR UP school-college partnerships. The insights of these coordinators point to the principle that it is the quality of the relationships among the partners that determines the effectiveness of multi-institutional collaborations. This means then that those who support and invest in multi-institutional collaborations should also focus on supporting the process of partnership building. But what does this mean in practical terms? It means being strategic right from the beginning in the design of grant structures, and throughout the relationship with the grantees. This brief provides examples …

Scholarship Unbound: Assessing Service As Scholarship In Promotion And Tenure Decisions, Kerryann O’Meara

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

Scholars of higher education have long recognized that existing reward systems and structures in academic communities do not weight faculty professional service as they do teaching and research. This paper examines how four colleges and universities with exemplary programs for assessing service as scholarship implemented these policies within colleges of education. Case studies suggest that policies to assess service as scholarship can increase consistency among an institution’s service mission, faculty workload, and reward system; expand faculty’s views of scholarship; boost faculty satisfaction; and strengthen the quality of an institution’s service culture.

The Institution As A Citizen: How Colleges And Universities Enhance Their Civic Roles, Nancy L. Thomas

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

This paper is premised on the assumption that civic responsibility is the contemporary version of higher education's historical outreach mission. With that as an understanding, it considers how best colleges and universities can fulfill this commitment of service to external communities, broadly defined to include local, national, and international concerns. The paper offers typologies of ways that institutions structure academic outreach, responsive curricula, land-grant and extension school programs, faculty professional service, coordinating student volunteerism and encouraging public access to campus for athletic or cultural events. Institutions interested in enhancing their civic role can take from this paper strategies for enhancing …

The Status Of Faculty Professional Service And Academic Outreach In New England, Sharon Singleton, Cathy Burack, Deborah Hirsch

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

In 1994 the New England Resource Center for Higher Education surveyed New England colleges and universities about the professional service faculty are engaging in, and the policies and structures that support such activities. Information was obtained from 120 institutions. As seen through a wide lens, there is considerable institutional commitment to faculty professional service. A majority of respondents reported that service is both a stated part of their institutional mission and that faculty, administrators and staff supported that commitment. However, a sharper focus reveals a gap between statements and practice: only a third of the respondents were able to demonstrate …

Rewarding Faculty Professional Service, Kerryann O’Meara

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

Scholars of higher education have long recognized that existing reward systems and structures in academic communities do not weight faculty professional service as they do teaching and research. In the past five years, however, many colleges and universities have found innovative ways to define, document, and evaluate faculty professional service in traditional promotion and tenure systems. Other institutions have created or expanded alternate faculty reward systems, including faculty profiles in service, merit pay, and post-tenure reviews emphasizing service. Based on data from a nation-wide sample, this paper discusses innovations in rewarding faculty professional service and offers conclusions and recommendations.

Organizational Structures For Community Engagement, Sharon Singleton, Deborah Hirsch, Cathy Burack

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

In a time of public scrutiny of higher education, there is good reason - both for the survival of the campus and the survival of the community around it -- for institutions to promote outreach. Yet even within those institutions with formal structures -- mission statements, faculty handbooks, and presidential leadership that support community service -- the practical considerations -- work assignments, evaluation mechanisms and institutional rewards -- present real challenges. Service-enclaves are structures that exist or are developed within institutions that allow faculty and staff to work collectively as they serve their communities. While individual service work is no …

Bridging Two Worlds: Professional Service And Service Learning, Deborah Hirsch, Ernest Lynton

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

Authors of this essay, also published in the NSEE Quarterly, argue that proponents of service-learning and faculty professional service should join forces to pursue a common agenda of community outreach. At a time when colleges and universities are being urged to help solve society's problems, the faculty represents a virtually untapped resource. Certainly, there are presently - and always have been - individual faculty working in the community as consultants or as supervisors and guides for students. If the campus is to make a significant impact, however, the institution must be able to deploy departments, divisions, interdisciplinary centers and …

Does Service-Learning Have A Future?, Edward Zlotkowski

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

Until very recently the service-learning movement has had an "ideological" bias; i.e., it has tended to prioritize moral and/or civic questions related to the service experience. Such a focus reflects well the movement's past but will not guarantee its future. What is needed now is a broad-based adjustment that invests far more intellectual energy in specifically academic concerns. Only by paying careful attention to the needs of individual disciplines and by allying itself with other academic interest groups, will the service-learning movement succeed in becoming an established feature of American higher education.

The Status Of Black And Hispanic Faculty In Massachusetts Colleges And Universities, Sandra E. Elman

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

To implement policies and programs that facilitate recruitment and retention of minority faculty, educators and policymakers must first determine the status of Blacks and Hispanics in the Commonwealth's colleges and universities. The principal objective of this report is to provide that knowledge.

The study has a dual purpose: to develop a data base on the availability of and demand for Black and Hispanic faculty in Massachusetts institutions of higher education, and to enhance our understanding of the strategies and programs required to foster recruitment and retention of underrepresented faculty. Furthermore, it seeks to identify hiring trends in different types of …