Community Engagement: Engaged Scholarship

Engaged Scholarship: Scholarly work done in full partnership with the community. It consists of research, teaching, and the application of scholarship mutual benefits for the institution and community partner.

Scholarship of Engagement: Another type of systematic research and scholarly inquiry that focuses on the impact of community engagement on teaching and learning. It aims to provide evidence and data to inform and influence community engagement theory and practice. The goal of this work is to advance the field of community engagement in teaching, research or service by assessing the impact of outreach work on faculty, students, the institution, the discipline, and the community partners.

Engagement and Service

Community Engagement in Service is often the first type of community engagement that people consider when hearing the term community engagement. There are several types of service as detailed below. The goals of the service in this context are different than the goals of community engagement in teaching and in research.

Community Service is defined as engaging with the community to provide services for the benefit of the community. Community service may be performed by faculty, staff, and students and may not require specific academic preparation or be linked to specific curricular activities. Community service includes civic engagement.

• Service related academic scholarship, discipline-specific work or the university mission has the potential to be recognized under university governance structures. University faculty, staff or student/student organizations granted release time for service work should document this activity for formal reports. Examples of this activity could include service completed through Ideas to Action, Signature Partnership, Service Learning, Greek Life, Every1Reads, Just Act Day, or other university sponsored or sanctioned projects.
• Service that reflects personal interests or civic engagement activities performed as a private citizen (after work hours or personal time), while encouraged on many levels, will not typically be recognized under university governance structures. Examples of these activities could include volunteering at a local youth club, hospital, library, or coaching a sports team.

Co-Curricular Service is performed by students outside of, but complementary to the regular curriculum. It includes community service work done by student organizations or individual students: federal work study positions used for community service and service projects conducted by Recognized Student Organizations.