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Campus-Wide Assessment

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The annotations below will introduce you to some basic information about the tools below. One area that is not covered here but that is covered elsewhere on the Bonner Wiki are campus-wide tracking tools. We cover a number of purposes and examples of systems (like OrgSync and Get Connected) that may be used to put into place mechanisms for keeping track of and counting community engagement projects here: Tracking Systems - Overview.

You may download all of the tools and documents on the page: Documents to Download

Making the Case Guide

Guide to Producing a Compelling Report on the Benefits of the Bonner Program and Community Engagement

More than ever, most institutions of higher education face structural and financial challenges that compel them to demonstrate the value and return on investment for their work. With limited resources, institutions face difficult decisions regarding prioritization of programs and units. Financial concerns in higher education have been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.    Although senior leaders and institutional rhetoric often express a commitment to civic and community engagement, the Bonner Program and centers for community engagement may be at risk. It is incumbent that staff and programs effectively make the case for the value that having a Bonner Program and infrastructure (including staffing) for civic and community engagement bring to an institution’s reputation, enrollment, retention, completion, and work as stewards of place.    The guide provides step-by-step instructions to support a Bonner Program and community engagement unit to produce a comprehensive report that describes the positive impacts of this work. This guide is designed to help your center and program evaluate and make case for its Bonner Program and center’s work, much in the same way that other units or departments might articulate their value. The guide will help you quantifiably, quantitatively, and financially demonstrate to key stakeholders that the Bonner Program and civic and community engagement centers accrue major benefits for institutional priorities.

Making the Case Guide.pdf   Making the Case Guide.docx   Bonner Learning Community Self-Paced Webinar

Rubric Assessments:

Bonner Foundation's Program Self-Assessment Tool:

For over a decade, the Bonner Foundation has asked campuses to review and share their responses to an institutional Self-Assessment Tool. We recommend this as a tool for program and center planning as well as in conjunction with an annual report. This tool currently includes 50 indicators in the following categories:

1. Staffing and Governance (6 indicators)
2. Recruitment and Selection (2 indicators)
3. Program Administration (3 indicators)
4. Student Development and Leadership (7 indicators)
5. Co-Curricular Activities (7 indicators)
6. Advising (4 indicators)
7. Community Partnerships (7 indicators)
8. Curricular (9 indicators)
9. Campus-Wide (5 indicators)

The tool drew on scholarly frameworks (such as by Holland and CCPH below) for particular areas (like curricular engagement), but it also added a number of unique dimensions on student development and leadership, recruitment, cornerstone activities, and other areas specific to the Bonner approach. Generally, Bonner Center and Program staff – in conjunction with students, faculty, and partners - review and complete the tool. They then use their insights to articulate goals for change in both their programs and campus-wide engagement.

Building Capacity for Community Engagement: Institutional Self-Assessment:

by Gelmon, Seifer, Kauper-Brown, and Mikkelsen (produced in partnership with Campus-Community Partnerships for Health). This rubric was produced and used by institutions involved with a multi-year CCPH project to more fully integrate community engagement (CE) and community-engaged learning (CEL) across 20 colleges and universities. The project was called the "Faculty for the Engaged Campus Initiative." The tool has a strong emphasis on examining whether CE/CEL has been integrated into the work and assessment of faculty, teaching, and culture. The tool is constructed around six dimensions:

This article, published in the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement (2012) describes the project and learning across the consortium, including with using the rubric.   Building Capacity for CES by Gelmon et al.pdf

Quantitative Surveys which may produce data of campus-wide engagement:

National Assessment of Service and Community Engagement

Institutions that are interested in producing some numbers about the depth and type of engagement from a campus-wide survey of students may find that the NASCE is a useful tool to implement. The survey instrument is administered by Siena Research Institute, a department of Siena College. As such, many campuses in the Bonner network have used the NASCE on one or more occasions. Involving an online survey that your students receive via email (customized to your campus graphics), it collects and produces a POP Score. The "Percent of the Possible" or POP Score is a quantitative measurement for understanding the breadth and depth of a student body's total levels of community involvement.  The POP Score combines each student's rate, frequency, and depth of service into one easy-to-understand score. Some campuses have found this gives them a metric to work with to set goals for deepening or enhancing engagement. See Campus Examples.

National Survey of Student Engagement (General and Civic Engagement Module)

Drawing on data from the widely used survey instrument administered by NSSE at Indiana University (see: http://nsse.indiana.edu/html/about.cfm), NSSE data might also be useful in providing metrics about the type of student engagement - including in service-learning and internships - happening at your institution. As noted by NSSE, "student engagement represents two critical features of collegiate quality. The first is the amount of time and effort students put into their studies and other educationally purposeful activities. The second is how the institution deploys its resources and organizes the curriculum and other learning opportunities to get students to participate in activities that decades of research studies show are linked to student learning. Through its student survey, The College Student Report, NSSE annually collects information at hundreds of four-year colleges and universities about first-year and senior students' participation in programs and activities that institutions provide for their learning and personal development. The results provide an estimate of how undergraduates spend their time and what they gain from attending college." Because NSSE asks about a number of high-impact practices that are connected with community engagement (as well as with diversity and global immersions), it may provide some data to track and analyze in your efforts. Such data has been used by other studies to produce a better understanding of student engagement in and out of class. Additionally, in 2015, NSSE added a topical module on Civic Engagement, which specifically asks a number of questions about students engagement within and outside of courses in a variety of forms of civically focused activities (service, civic dialogue, civic education, organizing, etc.).

The Personal and Social Responsibility Inventory (PSRI)

The Personal and Social Responsibility Inventory (PSRI): An Institutional Climate Measure is a campus climate survey developed originally as part of an initiative called Core Commitments: Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility. It was sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and directed by Caryn McTighe Musil. The initial inventory was developed in 2006 by L. Lee Knefelkamp, Teachers College, Columbia University, who consulted with Richard Hersh, Council for Aid to Education, and drew on the research assistance of Lauren Ruff. The initial inventory was then refined in cooperation with Eric L. Dey and associates at the University of Michigan's Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education and refined after Dey's death by Robert D. Reason, at Iowa State University. Most recently, the research involving data from the PSRI has suggested that students' perceptions of the campus climate (and specifically if the campus values student civic engagement and ethical action) matters a great deal in shaping student behavior. For more information on the PSRI, see: http://www.psri.hs.iastate.edu/.

Publications that offer frameworks for assessing campus-wide engagement:

The two below are especially helpful to share with senior leaders.

A Crucible Moment

This report, published in 2012 by the U.S. Department of Education and the Association of American Colleges and Universities, served as a call to action for higher education to renew its focus on civic education and engagement. The report, in part the result of a series of national roundtables involving more than 134 institutions and organizations, articulated five essential actions. It shared frameworks and best practices for institutionalizing civic engagement and learning, including the Bonner Program's developmental model and approach. A Crucible Moment also included Civic Investment Plan Templates (see page 81) and a matrix for institutional assessment. It is a good tool for involving senior leaders (including the president, provost, VPSA, and deans) in conversations about the degree of campus-wide integration and engagement. Like the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification, it promotes a model of pervasive, deep integration.

Stepping Forward as Stewards of Place

This report was written by a Task Force on Public Engagement including several university and system presidents and chancellors and published by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. It offers "a strategic, 'ground level' guide for presidents and chancellors and other campus leaders that offers a working definition of public engagement, provides exemplars of campus-wide commitment to engagement initiatives, and proposes concrete actions for institutions, public policymakers, and the association to promote an even fuller commitment to the concept of engagement" (foreword). The report is particularly useful because of its expanded conception of public engagement, which is defined as place-related, interactive, mutually beneficial, and integrate. The report also discusses ways that institutions can be involved in providing applied research, technical assistance, impact assessment, policy analysis, and economic development initiatives. Each of these models is embraced by the Bonner Foundation and its broader vision for the Bonner Program. While the report does not include a rubric, it includes several useful frameworks and diagrams for assessing institutional planning, goal setting, monitoring, and alignment.

Approaches that involve external review:

Carnegie Community Engagement Classification

Begun in 2006, this is the only elective Carnegie Classification. Earning it requires a thorough application through which an institution demonstrates that community engagement and community engaged learning are deep, pervasive, and integrated in the fabric of the curriculum and cocurricular life. The New England Resource Center for Higher Education (NERCHE), a nonprofit organization based at the University of Massachusetts Boston and led by John Saltmarsh, oversees the classification process. To date, the Carnegie Foundation has selected 240 U.S. colleges and universities to receive its 2015 Community Engagement Classification. Of this number, 83 institutions are receiving the classification for the first time, while 157 are now re-classified, after being classified originally in 2006 or 2008. These 240 institutions join the 121 institutions that earned the classification during the 2010 selection process. Currently, a total of 361 campuses have the Community Engagement Classification.