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Tracking Systems
Overview | Guides | Campus Examples | Documents to Download
As campuses build and sustain the Bonner Program and campus-wide engagement, it is helpful to be able to demonstrate the quantity and quality of engagement and its impact. Tracking campus-wide community service and civic engagement is useful for a number of reasons including:
- To provide accurate metrics of how students are engaged and to what extent or how deeply
- To provide an accurate picture and measure of which faculty, departments, and programs are engaged and to what extent or how deeply
- To provide and demonstrate the value and significance of such engagement, for instance in:
- Hours served
- Projects completed
- Service-learning courses, CBR, or academic projects
- Community capacity building (i.e., number and types of grants written, financial resources devoted, etc.)
- The monetary value of this engagement
- To illustrate the linkages between civic engagement with student learning and other institutional goals
- To demonstrate and provide evidence for why centers need resources such as staffing, budgets, and other institutional infrastructure
- To build and sustain a professional, well-managed and well-organized operation and center
This section introduces some of the tools for these purposes, drawing on the experiences and perspectives of campuses in the Bonner Network that have integrated campus-wide tracking systems.
If you want to get a point-in-time picture of the breadth and depth of student engagement, consider doing the National Assessment of Service and Community Engagement (NASCE), offered through Siena Research Institute. Learn more here: https://www.siena.edu/centers-institutes/siena-research-institute/national/.
