Digital Commons Network^™

Dispositions Of Higher Education Faculty Toward K-12 Community Outreach, Brett L. Bruyere, Marcos Roybal, Rebecca Thomas

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

This study assessed the preparedness and willingness of faculty at a land-grant university to conduct outreach to youth about science. Using a mixed-methods design, faculty were aware of some components of effective youth outreach, but fail to acknowledge the importance of other critical pieces such as linking outreach to educational standards. This study has implications for higher education administrators, particularly those who perceive our universities as a resource for addressing the low science achievement in the United States.

Cultivating Community-Engaged Faculty: The Institution’S Role In Individual Journeys, Eric Malm, Nicholas Rademacher, David Dunbar, Mary Harris, Erin Mclaughlin, Caroline Nielsen

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Campus-community partnerships are increasingly recognized as important parts of curricula and have become central to the missions of many colleges. Yet while the notion of service is becoming more prominent at the institutional level, the number of faculty who are actually teaching community-engaged courses is alarmingly low. This paper addresses the problem of inadequate faculty participation in campus-community partnerships through the case study analysis of the pathways that brought six faculty members from different backgrounds and disciplines into the world of the engaged classroom. From the stories of individual faculty members, a model of involvement emerged that illustrates a common …

Service Learning: Representing University And Community Outcomes In Our Writing, Catherine Stemmans Paterson

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

No abstract provided.

Errata, Catherine Stemmans Paterson

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

In the Volume 3, Number 1 issue an error was made in the “Issues with Implementing Service Learning into an Agricultural Sciences Equine Program” article. The affiliation of authors Aleta C. Overby, Erin Tucker, and Aaron Lusby should have read Louisiana Tech University.

A User-Friendly Guide To Intergenerational Service Learning, Denise C. Lewis, Desiree M. Seponski

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

This article describes and provides a timeline for establishing an intergenerational service learning (ISL) program, the Friendly Visitors Program (FVP). The nationally recognized FVP has grown to about 100 students visiting approximately 200 elders each semester in more than 10 different facilities ranging from an adult day center to a small, rural assisted living facility. This article provides a timeline, textbooks, forms, and journal questions so that other scholars can replicate the FVP with ease.

Service Learning Projects In The Public Relations Writing Course, Deborah A. Silverman

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

This study explores the pedagogical effectiveness of service learning in the Public Relations Writing course. Surveys of students and their nonprofit clients, student reflection papers, and comparisons of grades in service-learning vs. non-service-learning sections found that the service-learning approach resulted in greater understanding of course content, higher grades on writing assignments, and greater appreciation for diverse cultures. Clients said students lightened staff workloads, brought new ideas, and enabled them to better meet community needs.

Impact Of Service Learning On Pharmacy Students’ Empathy Toward Patients, Autumn L. Stewart, John R. Tomko, Holly C. Lassila

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of a pilot service learning project with indigent patients on pharmacy student empathy. Previous research has demonstrated a decline in empathic behavior during schooling. Effective strategies that prevent or reverse this change may exist and should be explored. The Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy, a validated instrument for measuring empathy, was used before and after participation in a service learning experience with indigent patients. A significant increase in the degree of empathy was observed (mean difference=3.778, 95% CI 0.008 to 7.548, p=0.05) demonstrating that service learning with indigent patients has …

Safer Spaces: Creating A Supportive Rehabilitation Environment For Gay, Transgender And Questioning Youth, Corey W. Johnson, Edward A. Delgado-Romero

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

This manuscript describes Safer Spaces, a semester-long outreach program between faculty, students and the Augusta Youth Detention Center Campus (AYDC). The purpose of the project was two-fold: (a) to meet an expressed need of a state agency and (b) to create a unique opportunity for university outreach and service learning. Safer Spaces centered on assessing and meeting the needs of staff and adjudicated youth with resources about gay and transgender identity development in a predominantly African American facility with a group of interdisciplinary service-learning students in Counseling-Psychology, Recreation and Leisure Studies, and Women’s Studies.

Champions For Outreach And Advocacy For Campus And Community Health: A College-Based Peer Health Coach Program, Vanessa Duren-Winfield, Kimya Nance, Elijah O. Onsomu, Peggy Valentine, Michael Mckenzie, Arthur Roberts

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Few studies have investigated the role Historically Black Colleges and University (HBCU) students can play in addressing chronic diseases among themselves, their peers, and local community. An overview of a peer health promotion education strategy is provided. Ten students completed an eight-week health disparities curriculum while providing health information and screening to 1,525 campus and community residents. A description of the program and recommendations are provided. Findings support the need for peer student health educators in HBCUs as a model to improve campus and community health outcomes.

Interdisciplinary Community-Based Research: A Sum Of Disparate Parts, Nancy Watterson, David Dunbar, Melissa Terlecki, Caroline Nielsen, Lisa Ratmansky, Amy Persichetti, Kristen Travers, Susan Gill

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

For faculty committed to socially responsible community engagement, the process of interdisciplinary course design and assessment can be charged and challenging. At Cabrini College, faculty are involved in precisely this kind of work as part of the College's new core curriculum, Justice Matters. Our study of two connected interdisciplinary courses marks a shift in conceptual models: how we developed from a “community service learning (CSL) approach into a participatory, collective process that embeds community based research (CBR) protocols more intentionally and explicitly. Additionally, the two linked courses illustrate how interdisciplinarity, when combined with CBR best practices, can offer powerful solutions …

Releases Of Liability For Service-Learning Programs: Effective, Innocuous, Or A Waste Of Time?, Franklyn P. Salimbene

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

This paper examines the enforceability of releases of liability relating to college and university students engaged in service-learning. It reviews cases where universities were sued for injuries incurred by students and where signed releases were offered in defense. It then examines key guidelines that courts apply in determining whether such releases are adequate. The paper concludes by offering service-learning educators a number of practical suggestions for drafting and utilizing releases with students engaged in service-learning.

Community-Based Learning And Social Capital: Exploring Student Attitudes And Perceptions Of Connectedness To Campus And Diverse Communities, August John Hoffman

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Community service activities, civic engagement, and volunteer services have been identified as key elements in improving how individuals relate and communicate with each other in society. Social capital also has been described as a highly useful form of social networking that empowers community members to collectively use each other as potential resources. The current study explored how participants from non-traditional backgrounds (i.e., ethnicity, culture, and age) completed a variety of interethnic community service activities. We hypothesized that increased exposure with members of diverse ethnic groups through community service activities would show reductions in ethnocentric attitudes and also show increases in …

Issues With Implementing Service Learning Into An Agricultural Sciences Equine Program, Aleta C. Overby, Erin Tucker, Aaron Lusby

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

In the spring of 2007 service learning classes were implemented in an equine science program after being funded for animal evacuation and recovery grants. This program was met with great student enthusiasm and participation; however, the authors raise questions about some of the obstacles they have found while implementing this program. The three major areas of concern include the optimum class size for service learning, transportation, and the depth of responses to student reflective pieces.

How Students Learn In A Service-Learning Course: A Quasi-Experimental Field Study Of Generative Learning, Valerie I. Sessa, Dana K. Natale, Manuel London, Courtney A. Hopkins

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Sessa and London’s (2005, 2006) continuous learning model was used to generate hypotheses suggesting that service-learning courses trigger student engagement in generative learning processes moderated by the students’ prior experience and that engagement in generative learning behaviors impact learning outcomes. 127 students in eight courses participated in a quasi-experimental, non-equivalent control group design with a pre-test and two post-tests. Results partially support hypotheses. Implications for theory development, future research, and service learning pedagogy are discussed.

Consortium, University, And Program Impact On Regional Economy And Community, Sean Creighton, Robert J. Sweeney, Katherine Cauley

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Community engagement in higher education has become increasingly widespread. As a consequence, universities find themselves learning how to integrate community engagement on their own, from each other, and, hopefully, from their community partners. This article discusses three distinct cases–a consortium, university, and program–and their impacts on a regional economy and community. In addition to illustrating intentional macro to micro community engagement practices, the article notes key findings from regional institutional collaborations. Further, the article recommends benchmarks for evaluating the quality and effective practice of community engagement.

Service-Learning Pathologies And Prognoses, Roy Schwartzman

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

This essay diagnoses and suggests treatments for several pathologies that afflict service-learning. Structural challenges include geographic isolation and optimization of institutional administration. Student challenges include reinforcing stereotypes, deficiencies in practical skills, elitism regarding suitable service, underdeveloped empathy, and excessive focus on time spent in service. Community partner challenges include appropriately defining student labor and systematically under-reporting negative experiences. The prognosis explores how service-learning projects could instigate student engagement with the systemic nature of social injustice.

Working Outside The Box: Advertising Campaigns, Downtown Revitalization, And Community Engagement, Laura Lindenfeld

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

This descriptive analysis of an Advertising Campaigns course demonstrates how measured risk-taking can help establish a “virtuous cycle of improvement” between universities and communities. Student engagement in downtown revitalization efforts was supported by a flexible syllabus, strategic classroom management, and strong partnerships. The essay emphasizes the process of making curricular decisions that align with instructors’ experience, talent, and goals. When teaching outside of the box instructors should choose models that complement their own expertise and talents.

The Day One Leadership Program: Engaging Campus In Community Hunger Issues Through Service-Learning, April K. Heiselt, Chiquita A. Briley

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Hunger issues continue to be a major part of both the United States’ and the global health agenda. The “War on Hunger” is an initiative that engages college students in the solution to fight hunger. Using Mississippi State University’s Day One Leadership Community as a case study, this article details how freshmen students in a first-year, living-learning community participated in a service-learning project with their local food pantries in order to better understand the issues of food insecurity and domestic hunger. Elements of the program as well as challenges and benefits for the students and food pantry community partners are …

Serve At Your Own Risk?: Service-Learning In The Promotion And Tenure Process, Jacquelyn B. Frank, Mark Malaby, Laura Raidonis Bates, Marcie Coulter-Kern, Sheron Fraser-Burgess, J. R. Jamison, Linda Stalker Prokopy, Nathan A. Schaumleffel

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Pre-tenure faculty integrating service-learning into their professional roles are often uncertain about its position in the faculty reward system. This study gathered data from administrators at five institutions of higher education in Indiana to learn if and how service-learning is credited toward tenure and promotion at their institutions. The results point to the need for junior faculty members and administrators to be cautious when implementing and evaluating service-learning initiatives.

Supporting Community Safety Through University-Community Partnerships: Exploring Models Of Engagement, James M. Frabutt

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

This paper explores various models of university-community engagement to support youth violence prevention and community safety. A series of case examples from the Center for Youth, Family, and Community Partnerships at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro are highlighted. The case examples-four projects spanning a six-year time period-are the springboard for exploring issues of funding, community collaboration, sustainability, leadership, evaluation, and communication.

Working Across Cultures: Outcomes Of An Initiative To Improve Student Capacity And Institutional Coordination Related To Global Engagement, Karen E. Kun, Suzanne Mason, Jennifer Foster, John E. Mcgowan, Courtney N. Coleman, Cornelia Lindenau, Edward L. Queen Ii

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

The Working Across Cultures Initiative was developed at Emory University to improve undergraduate and graduate student capacity and institution-wide coordination related to global engagement. The Initiative contributed to enhanced student knowledge and skills as well as changes in institutional policies and procedures. It may thus have implications for other institutions of higher education grappling with how best to prepare students for global engagement and how to bring about the changes in the institutional policies and procedures that would best support, enable, and engage students in these activities.

Improved Process For The Preparation Of 5-[(4-Bromo-2-Chlorophenyl)Amino]-4-Fluoro-6- [(2-Hydroxyethoxy)Carbamoyl]-1-Methyl-1h-Benzimidazol-3-Ium Or A Salt Thereof, Msn Laboratories Private Limited, R&D Center; Srinivasan Thirumalai Rajan, Ghojala Venkat Reddy, Uppalanchi Srinivas, Manda Ananth Reddy, Revu Satyanarayana, Nomula Sathaiah, Rayavarapu Srinuvasa Rao

Defensive Publications Series

Abstract:

The present invention relates to an improved process for the preparation of 5-[(4-bromo-2-chlorophenyl)amino]-4-fluoro-6-[(2-hydroxyethoxy)carbamoyl]-1-methyl-1H benzimidazol-3-ium or a salt thereof, which is referred to as Selumetinib and represented by the following structural formulae,

Formula-1

Memory-Optimized Model For Simulating Yang-Based Devices Using Netconf And Gnmi Interfaces, Anonymous

Defensive Publications Series

This disclosure provides a memory-optimized model for simulating network elements (NEs) that expose YANG-based management interfaces such as Netconf and gNMI. Traditional simulators that run full device software in virtual machines or load YANG schemas consume multiple gigabytes of memory per device and cannot scale to the tens of thousands of devices needed to validate Network Management Solutions (NMS). Snapshot simulators reduce overhead but create disk I/O bottlenecks and lack flexibility.

The disclosed model represents device data using lightweight YangNode objects, which store all values as strings and avoid schema metadata entirely. This design reduces memory usage by ~99%, eliminates …

An Ai Framework For Automated Generation Of Multiple Content Formats From Multi-Camera Productions, Sunil Kumar Jang Bahadur, Girish Nair, Varun Mishra, Gopala Dhar

Defensive Publications Series

Manual post-production of multi-camera footage can be a labor-intensive process, and some existing automated solutions may have limitations in comprehending narrative context or adapting content to the cinematic principles of diverse output formats. The disclosed technology relates to a framework that can facilitate multi-format content generation by first synchronizing raw footage and extracting rich metadata, which can include information such as speaker identification, emotion, and scene segmentation. A narrative-specific agent can then utilize a knowledge base of cinematic rules to score and rank video segments according to a desired output format, for example, a movie, a social media reel, or …

A System For Providing Language Models With Contextual Guidance Discovered From Software Library Packages, Michael Bleigh

Defensive Publications Series

Large language model (LLM) based coding agents may exhibit inconsistency when using software libraries, for example, by referencing outdated APIs from training data or generating calls to non-existent APIs. Some existing mechanisms for providing supplemental context may involve manual discovery and configuration by the user. A described system and associated standard allows library authors to package guidance, which may be specific to language models, directly within their distributable software package, for instance, in a dedicated directory. Tooling can be configured to discover this guidance across a project's dependencies, aggregate it, and provide it to a coding agent in a structured, …

A Method For Assessing Token Importance In Code-Switched Text Through Language Boundary Analysis, Mithun Kumar S R

Defensive Publications Series

Existing explainable AI (XAI) attribution methods for natural language processing (NLP) models may have difficulty determining token importance in code-switched text, potentially leading to explanations that do not fully capture the emphasis conveyed by switching languages or the structural role of words at language boundaries. A method is described that can address this by performing token-level language identification to locate boundaries between languages in an input text. A contextual weighting engine can then assign weights to tokens within a code-switched segment and to boundary tokens adjacent to the switch. These weights may be used to modulate raw attribution scores generated …

A System For Synchronizing Artificial Intelligence Model Context With External Data Sources, Colby Hawker, Piyush Arora

Defensive Publications Series

Artificial intelligence (AI) models that depend on context from external data sources may produce outdated responses as underlying information, such as database schemas or web content, changes over time. The described system compartmentalizes AI model context into static and dynamic components. A static context may comprise fixed rules, safety policies, and format requirements. A dynamic context can be populated by a user-provided script configured to run at a specified frequency. This script can fetch, structure, and cache data from external sources, for instance APIs or databases, using stored credentials. This method allows AI models to operate with more current information …

System For Recommending Ai Model Configurations With Human-In-The-Loop Oversight, Piyush Arora, Adam Glazier, Colby Hawker, Jaime Sonoda, Sönke Rohde

Defensive Publications Series

Configuring and optimizing artificial intelligence (AI) models for specific tasks can be a complex process that may involve deep technical expertise and iterative manual experimentation. This disclosure describes a system, which may be implemented as a self-improving AI agent, that can assist in automating this process by interpreting a user's intent to recommend a suitable AI model and configuration. The agent can analyze available models and propose settings, for example, system instructions, grounding data, and operational parameters. The system can also perform background evaluations to provide empirical data and a rationale for its recommendation. A human-in-the-loop component may be included …

A Method For Converting Business Process Models Into Orchestrated Ai Agent Workflows, Leonid Kuligin, Max Tschochohei

Defensive Publications Series

Automating complex business processes with large language models (LLMs) can present challenges, as monolithic prompts containing extensive domain-specific information and instructions can be difficult to develop and evaluate, and LLMs may lack certain adaptive business logic capabilities. The described method can address such challenges by transforming standard business process flowcharts (for example, decision trees or business process diagrams), into an orchestrated workflow. In this approach, a node of the flowchart can be converted into a distinct step for execution by a dedicated artificial intelligence (AI) sub-agent. The sub-agent may receive a targeted prompt containing relevant context from the flowchart's descriptions …

Transformative Opportunities For Community Engagement Within Teacher Education: Creating Opportunities To Prepare Preservice Teachers For Urban Environments In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Margaret-Mary Sulentic Dowell

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Preservice teachers need meaningful opportunities to engage in authentic community activities that expand their cultural horizons and frames of reference, strengthening their preparation for urban teaching. Abramson Science and Technology Magnet in New Orleans East opened the 2007-08 school year without a library or functioning classroom libraries. Providing access to books is a cornerstone of reading development; thus, Louisiana State University education candidates engaged in a project that established classroom libraries in every K-8 classroom.