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Faculty Engagement

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Faculty Engagement Strategies

 These slides provide an overview of several helpful different strategies for faculty engagement and development. 

Below are links to detailed guides linked with each of the following key strategies. You will note that all of these strategies go beyond simpler introductions and workshops (such as in short sessions or with handouts) of service-learning concepts and practices to faculty; see the Overview for a list of those examples.

With the advancement of the field of community engagement, service-learning, and public scholarship during the past three decades, we believe that the key strategies shown below represent the best uses of time and resources. In the near future, we hope to develop even newer models that link to project-based and issue-oriented learning.

As annotated below, for each of these models or strategies, more comprehensive resources may be found below. These resources include information from particular campuses that have developed and implemented these strategies. For each strategy, you will find more details about advantages, needs and resources, cost considerations, and helpful steps.

Faculty Fellow Roles

Engaging one or more faculty members or instructors as a formal Fellow within the center for community engagement is another critical best practice. Across the network, institutions have found that the Faculty Fellow position, and faculty involvement in general, has enabled centers and programs to leverage the influence of respected faculty to wield change and influence peers and senior leaders. As faculty have progressed through this work, they move from a transactional relationship to a transformational relationship with community partners, often developing multiple projects, courses, and pathways within and across their disciplines. Additionally, they begin to involve students in more substantive, collegial ways. Students especially play leadership roles in forging connections between community engagement with diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives within their institutional and community contexts. This developmental engagement, by faculty and students, becomes driven by mission and place, resulting in innovative projects and curriculum. Finally, it is supporting the success of other priorities, including the institution’s impact, learning, and reputation. 

This booklet, developed in 2021-2022, showcases 32 faculty from 17 institutions who were involved as Faculty Fellows. Included are their professional biographies and descriptions of their roles. The Bonner Community-Engaged Learning Initiative grant, as well as Special Project and Endowment funds, may be leveraged for providing stipends and support to faculty or in buying out their time with a course release. 

Bonner Community-Engaged Learning Initiative Faculty and Staff Fellows 2022.pdf

Faculty Reading Groups or Learning Circles

A reading group or learning circle can be an effective strategy for building understanding and participation, including that of faculty and also other constituents, should you decide to involve them. These structures and forms can be effectively aligned with strategies that faculty are already accustomed to working with and even with faculty governance structures and strategic planning. Allegheny College (with the leadership of David Roncolato, Allegheny Director of Civic Engagement) developed a Civic Engagement Working Group which includes a variety of faculty, community partners, staff, and students.  A list of readings was developed to include cutting-edge scholarship about the field. Participants divided a list of scholarly articles so that pairs of individuals take an article, read it and then present it to the Working Group following an assigned schedule. The leaders of the working group have reported that the process has been extremely beneficial for broadening campus support for community engagement and service-learning efforts as well as a venue for integrating important new ideas, scholarship, and research.  

For more detailed information visit Faculty Reading Group or Learning Circles

Faculty Development Seminars

Faculty Development Seminars for community engagement or service-learning are intensive faculty development experiences, often organized and led by Center staff. Some Centers and Bonner Programs partner with other units, e.g., a Center for Teaching and Learning. These sessions are often tied to mini-grants, course release time, or other incentives and rewards for faculty. Faculty members might attend a week-long session, followed by ongoing meetings to design courses, syllabi, and determine how community engagement can be a part of these efforts.

For more detailed information visit Faculty Development Seminars

Student as Colleagues or Partners: Collaborators to Faculty Integration

"Students as Colleagues" is a term that signifies how students play a leadership role on campus, in courses, and even with faculty. Students could serve as team leaders, student mentors, teaching assistants, and also as curriculum writers with faculty. This approach has potential for strong collaboration among faculty, students, and community partners.

For more detailed information visit Student as Colleagues

Faculty Training and Immersion Into Community

Faculty Immersions Into Community are a useful approach for faculty training and development. The experience includes a strong emphasis on immersing faculty locally, nationally, and/or internationally through place-based engagement connecting participants with other universities, non-profits, government departments, and alumni. This approach has many elements similar to Faculty Development Seminars. However, it also has elements that successfully help faculty see the "community" as wider than just the campus. As Macalester College staff discusses in the linked resources, this strategy can also be implemented in other, broader partner communities.

For more detailed information visit Faculty Training and Immersion Into Community

Linking with Accreditation Review and Improvement Plans

As institutions of higher education participate in a reaccreditation process, which generally occurs every ten years, the institutions are evaluated by a relevant commission, such as the Southern Accreditation Commission (SACS) or the Middle States Association. During reaccreditation, the institution completes a self-study and plan for improvement. For instance, SACs notes: “Each institution seeking reaffirmation of Accreditation is required to develop a Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). Engaging the wider academic community and addressing one or more issues that contribute to institutional improvement, the plan should be focused, succinct, and limited in length. The QEP describes a carefully designed and focused course of action that addresses a well-defined topic or issue(s) related to enhancing student learning.” This strategy involves linking the academic institution’s broader strategic aims for community engagement (and the work of the campus-based Center) with accreditation efforts, through the Quality Improvement or Enhancement Plans.  

For more detailed information visit: Linking with Accreditation Review and Improvement Plans

Course Designators or Attributes

One important strategy for institutionalizing community engaged learning through curriculum and coursework is the development of an institutional mechanism to track and distinguish courses that involve a community-engagement component. This is referred to as a course designator. A course designator is a short form of an academic discipline, used before a course number. It is represented by a series of letters. For example, EDU = education, Psy = psychology, HIST = history, etc. 

Many higher education institutions are now developing a course designator for community-engagement courses (e.g. CE = Community-engagement; CBR = community-based research; SL = service-learning). Some institutions also call this an attribute. Having a course designator is extremely useful for community engagement, as it assists with promoting courses, having a full inventory of CE courses (useful for the Carnegie Classification), and managing faculty and partner relationships and projects. 

• A course designator for community engaged courses helps an institution in identifying which departments / units across the campus are working with a community and what kind of campus-community partnerships exist.
• This process assists with institutionalizing community-engaged learning (CEL) through curriculum and coursework.
• A designator helps students to easily identify courses that are community-engaged, and also the ones that count for a particular major, minor, certificate, or degree.

Refer to the Course Designator Guide to create a community engagement course designator / an attribute for your institution. Visit the "Campus Examples" section of this page to see schools that developed a course attribute / designator for community engagement. It includes contact information of staff members from respective schools. 

Engaging Faculty with Cross-Functional Staff in Designing Student Learning Outcomes

This strategy involves formalizing a set of learning outcomes tied to the Center, Bonner Program or civic/ community engagement. This is important because of the following components: It demonstrates and documents the impact of community engagement on student learning; connects community engagement to institutional core (curriculum, values, strategic objectives) and multiple faculty/departments; elevates the perception and value of community engagement, community-based scholarship, co-curricular and curricular; and demonstrates adequate rigor to enable the Center to be taken more seriously as a professional unit that impacts learning. 

For more detailed Information visit: Engaging Faculty with Cross-Functional Staff in Designing Student Learning Outcomes

Tenure and Promotion Resources

A key barrier to institution-wide community engagement, as identified by the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification and other leaders in the field, are trenchant barriers to faculty engagement through community engaged scholarship and teaching. There are, however, many institutions and higher education consortia that have developed resources and recommended models and steps for institutional change. Visit this page to learn more.

For more detailed information visit: Tenure and Promotion Resources

Tenure and Promotion Revision

This is a way to incentivize and reward faculty engagement across the institution, thus clearly signaling its value to faculty, administrators, and partners. When an institution makes these kinds of changes, it significantly reduces barriers to faculty engagement. These changes also elevate the perception and value of community engagement and community-based learning and scholarship. Supportive policies also can drive more complex partnerships and projects, such as those that involve research and capacity-building.

For more detailed information visit: Tenure and Promotion Revision

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