What are, and what should be, the roles of modern universities and colleges in supporting their host societies? Where have these obligations arisen from, and how can they best be responded to? What are the conditions of “membership” of a modern university or college? There is an international revival of interest in issues about the purposes of universities and colleges and their role in a wider society. Much of this is structured around perceptions of the role of higher education in modern knowledge economies. Meanwhile there has been a dearth of scholarly attention to the practice (as opposed to the rhetoric) of civic engagement by universities and colleges in various cultural contexts. This book fills that gap. An historical survey of the “founding” intentions of universities and colleges in different eras and various countries is followed by case studies of successful recent projects carried out at three leading institutions – the Universities of Brighton, Pennsylvania and Queensland. A practical benchmarking questionnaire that was developed with the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) is also included in order to assist institutions in assessing their own progress. The book contends that genuine engagement, with the community and with civil society, can be uncertain and risky, but that it plays an essential role in managing today’s higher education institutions. Managing Civic and Community Engagement provides key reading for people interested in equity and diversity in higher education, including those studying aspects of higher education management, as well as professionals and policy makers in the field.

This book intends to theoretically conceptualize and empirically investigate upcoming and established practices of community-based initiatives in various countries in which both citizens and governments join efforts and capacities to solve wicked issues. It aims to include and compare cases from various countries, departing from the notion that community-based initiatives take place in an institutional context of governmental structures, rules, procedures, regulations, and routines. This leads to government involvement in these initiatives and sharing the public space. Furthermore, the editors take into account what kind of leadership roles, knowledge, and resources are present and how they evolve in this collaborative or coordinative effort, which in turn can enhance the capacities of community-based initiatives. This book joins excellent researchers from renowned universities all over the world, aiming for a balance between upcoming scholars and renowned scholars in the field of community-based initiatives and governance capacity. Contributors were carefully selected on the basis of their experience in the field of community-based initiatives, citizens’ engagement and governance capacity approaches. Aimed at researchers and academics, this volume will be of interest to those in the fields of business, economics, public administration, political science, social enterprise, sociology and third sector studies.

This book, offered by “practitioner-scholars,” is an exploration and identification of the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that are central to supporting effective community engagement practices between higher education and communities. The discussion and review of these core competencies are framed within a broader context of the changing landscape of institutional community engagement and the emergence of the Community Engagement Professional as a facilitator of engaged teaching, research, and institutional partnerships distinct from other academic professionals. This research, conducted as part of Campus Compact’s Project on the Community Engagement Professional, seeks to identify the shared knowledge and practices of Community Engagement Professionals by looking to empirical practice literature. Chapters include an exploration of competencies applicable to those in Community Engagement Professional roles generally, and also to those specializing in specific areas such as faculty development, partnership facilitation, and other areas of responsibility. The authors trace the evolution of engagement administration over time and the role of those facilitating community-campus engagement toward a “Second Generation” professional who is at once a “tempered radical, transformational leader, and social entrepreneur.” Central to the work is a presentation of the core competency findings, along with suggestions for continued exploration. Dostilio and her colleagues argue that Community Engagement Professionals should claim a professional identity grounded in a set of core competencies, values, and knowledge, and through association with a community of scholar practitioners similarly dedicated. Additional work to understand and empower Community Engagement Professionals in their role as distinct from other higher education professional types will enable both broader impact for institutions and communities now with a view to prepare those coming to the role for a dynamic and demanding environment without distinct boundaries.

Going Public examines programs related to civic engagement and the ways in which faculty and students participate in communities in order to improve them. Each chapter in this book tells a unique story of community engagement and the scholarship of practice in a diverse range of settings, documenting successes and failures, the unintended consequences, and the questions yet to be answered.

There is a comforting tale that heads of higher education institutions (HEIs) like to tell each other. "Go around your university or college," they say, "and ask the first ten people who you meet how their morale is. The response will always be 'rock-bottom.' Then ask them what they are working on. The responses will be full of life, of optimism and of enthusiasm for the task in hand." The moral of the story is that the two sets of responses don't compute; that the first is somehow unthinking and ideological, and the second unguarded and sincere. The thesis of this book is that the contradictory answers may well compute more effectively than is acknowledged: that the culture of higher education and the mesh of psychological contracts, or "deals," that make it up make much of the current discourse about happiness and unhappiness in contemporary life look simplistic and banal. In particular, the much-vaunted "science of happiness" may not have much to say to us. There is also a potential link between the Manichean discourse about morale and our wider culture's approach to happiness. Both normally deal in extremes, and much more rarely in graduations. Why is so much discourse about contemporary higher education structured around (real and imagined) unhappiness? How does this connect with the realities of life within (and just outside) the institutions? Does it matter, and, if so, what should we be doing about it? Based on historical, sociological and philosophical analysis, this book offers some answers to these questions.

This book is a reference for administrators and educators at institutions of higher learning who are thinking about taking serious steps to link their educational mission to helping their surrounding communities. Various research findings across the disciplines in higher education about integrating community engagement in traditional coursework are presented. This book provides a multi-disciplinary and multi-method approach to both incorporating and studying the effects of community engagement (service learning) in the curriculum. Multiple departments, from Kinesiology to Sociology, as well as various types of classes (undergraduate, graduate, online, face-to-face, traditional, international) are represented here. Both qualitative and quantitative work is included. Methods involved include interviews, case studies, reflections, and surveys. One chapter also uses longitudinal data collection to address the overall effect of engaging in community engagement during the undergraduate college experience. If you are not sure how to study the effects of community engagement on students at your university, this book is for you.

Maria Avila presents a personal account of her experience as a teenager working in a factory in Ciudad Juarez to how she got involved in community organizing. She has since applied the its distinctive practices of community organizing to civic engagement in higher education, demonstrating how this can help create a culture that values and rewards civically engaged scholarship and advance higher education’s public, democratic mission.Adapting what she learned during her years as an organizer with the Industrial Areas Foundation, she describes a practice that aims for full reciprocity between partners and is achieved through the careful nurturing of relationships, a mutual understanding of personal narratives, leadership building, power analysis, and critical reflection. She demonstrates how she implemented the process in various institutions and in various contexts and shares lessons learned. Community organizing recognizes the need to understand the world as it is in order to create spaces where stakeholders can dialogue and deliberate about strategies for creating the world as we would like it to be. Maria Avila offers a vision and process that can lead to creating institutional change in higher education, in communities surrounding colleges and universities, and in society at large.This book is a narrative of her personal and professional journey and of how she has gone about co-creating spaces where democracy can be enacted and individual, institutional, and community transformation can occur. In inviting us to experience the process of organizing, and in keeping with its values and spirit, she includes the voices of the participants in the initiatives in which she collaborated – stakeholders ranging from community partners to faculty, students, and administrators in higher education.