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Campus Wide Centers:

Organizational and Staffing Structure 

Overview  |  Guides  |  Campus Examples  |  Documents to Download

Presentations

The following presentations are part of the New Staff Orientation materials that the Bonner Foundation offers each summer for new staff and prospective institutions.

Campus-wide Engagement 

Bonner Program Management

You can find these and other slides in the Wiki Meeting Archives pages or on the Foundation's account on Slideshare. 

Tools

• Bonner Campus Self-Assessment Tool: This instrument was designed to bring together the most important indicators of a high- quality, comprehensive program. As a tool to support teams who build and manage the Bonner Program and other civic engagement initiatives with a comprehensive checklist, the self-assessment tool is used for planning and implementation. Many of the items in the rubric have been shaped by nationally recognized rubrics for civic engagement, such as those developed by Barbara Holland, Andrew Furco, Campus Compact, AAC&U, and Campus-Community Partnerships for Health. Moreover, this instrument incorporates components that are specifically tied to the frameworks and required activities of the Bonner Program. The tool consists of more than 40 indicators in a rubric form. Below is an example:

Handbooks

These workbooks, originally developed by Campus Outreach Opportunity League (COOL) may be helpful to teams working to expand and enhance student leadership roles and the effective mobilization of students into service and civic work campus-wide.

•  On Your Mark, Go! Get Set.pdf  by Wayne Meisel, and Julia Scatliff COOL (1988)

This guide outlines simple strategies to ignite community a community service initiative using student leadership while addressing community needs. 

• Building-It-Up-booklet.pdf  

A workbook that was designed to accompany a one-day workshop on strengthening campus-based community service programs. The workbook provides opportunities to examine the Coalition of Project Model, Recruitment, Gaining Support, and Developing Action Plans. 

Literature

• Deepening Community Engagement in Higher Education — These chapters are available in this edited volume, edited by Ariane Hoy and Mathew Johnson. Bonner Programs were provided a copy of this book, or contact the Foundation to see if you can obtain one. Also available on Amazon and other sellers. For more information and additional ideas, see the following articles:
• Marshall Welch and John Saltmarsh: Best Practices and Infrastructures for Campus Centers of Community Engagement – discusses the top ten characteristics of effective and comprehensive campus centers, based on research with institutions that have earned the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification.
• Rick Ellis and Kristine Hart: “If you build it, they will come”: Building a Structure for Institutional Change – shows how a student developmental model and student leadership can help foster the creation of a campus-wide infrastructure for engagement.
• Abby Kiesa and Ariane Hoy: Leveraging New Technologies for Engagement – discusses practices and findings for using social media and technology as tools to broaden and deepen campus-wide community engagement (especially by students), drawing on Bonner network experiments supported by a Corporation for National Service grant to the Bonner Foundation.
• Ariane Hoy and Mathew Johnson: Strategic Planning for Centers: Fostering Pervasive, Deep, Integrated, Developmental Community Engagement – highlights how strategic planning by a center for civic/community engagement can foster alignment with the institutional mission and strategic plan, as well as build support and resources. See more on Strategic Planning here on the wiki.

• Engaging Higher Education: Purpose, Platforms, and Programs for Community Engagement: For directors of campus centers that have received the Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement, this book offers research and models to further advance their work. For directors starting out, or preparing for application for the Carnegie Classification, it provides guidance on setting up and structuring centers, as well as practical insights into the application process and criteria.

• Looking In, Reaching Out: A Reflective Guide for Community Service-Learning Professionals, edited by Barbara Jacoby and Pamela Mutascio. Eleven chapters, offered by experienced professionals in the field, cover topics such as establishing and sustaining an office, understanding faculty culture, and more. Available for purchase from www.compact.org.

• This new report, Community Engagement Terms and Meanings: A Deeper Dive into Definitions, created through the Coastal Academic Alliance, seeks to define and clarify the wide-ranging set and use of terms related to community engagement. It aims to reduce confusion and improve understanding not just for specific terms, but also for recognizing the value of community-based learning more broadly across departmental and institutional uses.

• Organizational Structures for Community Engagement, by Sharon Singleton, Deborah Hirsch, and Cathy Burack (New England Resource Center for Higher Education). This report analyzes alternative organizational models for community engagement in higher education and offers frameworks for where and how a center or office can be located and structured within an institution.

• Current Practice and Infrastructures for Campus Centers of Community Engagement, by Marshall Welch. This study examines common structures, staffing patterns, roles, and responsibilities of campus centers, offering evidence about how centers coordinate institution‑wide commitment to community engagement and what infrastructures support their effectiveness.

• The Impact of Organizational Structure on Community Engagement, by C. Arrazattee. This doctoral study explores how different organizational configurations (for example, location in Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, or as a cross‑divisional unit) shape the scope and effectiveness of community engagement work on campus, with implications for structuring centers.

• Community Engagement in Higher Education: Trends, Practices and Policies. This international report synthesizes literature and practice on how universities organize, support, and govern community engagement. It highlights common trends in institutional strategies, center structures, and policy frameworks, and can help campus leaders situate their centers within broader system‑level developments.

• Capacity Building for Community Engagement in Community Colleges. Although focused on community colleges, this report offers a practical framework for building and sustaining campus engagement infrastructures, including leadership roles, organizational placement, and strategies for aligning centers with institutional priorities.