Community and Civic Engagement in Graduate Education:
Preparing the Next Generation of Engaged Scholars
A Proposal to The Johnson Foundation/Wingspread Conference Center
Statement of Purpose
The Upper Midwest Campus Compact Consortium (including state network offices in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) and its partners seek to convene a meeting of approximately forty faculty, academic administrators, and graduate student leaders to explore how graduate education can better prepare future academics for civic engagement throughout the three traditional responsibilities of teaching, research, and service. We are particularly interested in exploring innovation in graduate schools that equips future scholars to use engaged pedagogies, to pursue public scholarship, and to support a culture of democratic dialogue and action in collaboration with community stakeholders. We are also very interested in examining the potential for incorporating civic engagement into graduate education to increase the recruitment and retention of students of color.
Description of the Issue
In a recent essay, “Civic Engagement and Graduate Education,” Victor Bloomfield, Interim Dean of the Graduate School and Vice Provost for Research at the University of Minnesota, states:
Graduate education and the advanced research that accompanies it depend on public support. As our scholarship has become more specialized, and our enterprise larger and more expensive, we are in danger of losing public understanding and support. Higher education is increasingly looked on as a private good, and our research—with the possible exception of biomedical research—is viewed by large segments of the population as either irrelevant or designed to enrich large corporations. With some laudable exceptions, our faculty and students do not make personal contact with the general public in ways that enable the public to understand what we’re doing and allow them to feel that they have a stake in our success.
Bloomfield is not alone in his assessment of the need to reframe graduate education as a public good. There is substantial evidence that leaders at a wide range of institutions are concerned about recent trends and committed to change:
· A 2000 summary of recommendations from three national studies on doctoral education includes “produce scholar-citizens who see their special training connected more closely to the needs of society and the global economy” as one of eight major recommendations.
· In 2003, the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools introduced (and in 2005 began applying) a new accreditation criterion— Engagement and Service—requiring institutions to demonstrate responsiveness to the constituencies and communities they serve, including connecting students with external communities through their educational programs.
· The Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), an academic consortium of Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago that is committed to advancing academic excellence through resource sharing and collaboration, established a Committee on Engagement in 2003 that has made significant contributions to defining, benchmarking, and measuring engagement activities.
· The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is currently piloting the development of a “Community Engagement” elective classification for institutions that demonstrate an exchange of knowledge and resources between higher education institutions and their larger communities in a context of partnership and reciprocity.
· The National Science Foundation (NSF) now reviews proposals based on two criteria: not only the intellectual merit of the proposed activity but also its broader impacts, defined to include increased participation of underrepresented groups, strengthened partnerships, and integration of research and education. NSF is establishing supporting new models for graduate education through its Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Program, which seeks to “contribute to the development of a diverse, globally-engaged, science and engineering workforce,” and it has expanded involvement of graduate students in community-university partnerships through grant programs such as the Math Science Partnerships.
· Campus Compact, an organization focused on strengthening the civic mission of higher education, has seen its membership grow from 548 in 1998 to 952 in 2005.
Graduate students themselves are interested in civic engagement. According to “At Cross Purposes: What the Experiences of Doctoral Students Reveal about Doctoral Education,” a report by Chris M. Golde and Timothy M. Dore for The Pew Charitable Trusts, “over half (52.1%) of students are very interested in providing service to the community. Only 13.8%, however, reported any preparation by their programs for this role. . . . Future faculty would benefit from some discussion of how to undertake service responsibly and effectively. We recommend supporting students in these interests and, even more importantly, nurturing these civic impulses in new faculty.”
Enhancing civic engagement opportunities would also address other priorities in graduate education. Numerous national reports emphasize the need to prepare doctoral students to teach using pedagogies appropriate for diverse learning styles—as well as to pursue a wide range of careers since faculty positions will not be available for all graduates. Teaching service-learning courses, conducting community-based research, and developing the partnerships on which both activities rest, will offer graduate students significant opportunities to apply and further develop their intellectual expertise, introduce them to alternative career paths, and help them develop the “real world” skills (teamwork, communication, etc.) perceived as important to non-academic employers.
In addition, opportunities for civic engagement will likely enhance efforts to increase the recruitment and retention of students of color, another high priority in graduate education. Extensive research by Alexander Astin and his colleagues at the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA has demonstrated that one key to successful matriculation through college is students’ sense of belonging and their active involvement in the campus and/or local community. A 2003 General Accounting Office report, “College Completion: Additional Efforts Could Help Education with Its Completion Goals,” also suggests service-learning as a strategy to increase retention by enhancing learning and engaging undergraduates. Such initiatives as Purdue University’s EPICS – Engineering Projects in Community Service and the University of Texas’ Intellectual Entrepreneurship Pre-Graduate School Internship, which engage students in community-based research and learning, have succeeded in increasing enrollment of underrepresented students by providing creative, collaborative, and socially meaningful academic experiences.
We anticipate building on the work previously cited and on several previous Wingspread meetings that have focused on postsecondary community and civic engagement. The published Wingspread proceedings for the following meetings will be made available to the participants in advance.
· Community-Campus Partnerships (April 6-8, 2003)
· Implementing the National Action Agenda for Civic Engagement in Higher Education (October 27-29, 2003)
· Institutionalizing University Engagement (April 18-19, 2004)
· Creating Civically Engaged Campuses (June 6-8, 2004)
· Public Accountability for Student Learning in Higher Education (October 6-7, 2004)
· Higher Education Collaboratives for Community Engagement and Improvement (October 27-29, 2004)
Action Plan
We plan to initiate this dialogue during the fall 2005. Invitees will be asked to review written materials that serve as a catalyst for an online discussion that will take place prior to our proposed meeting at the Wingspread Conference Center (the Upper Midwest Campus Compact is currently developing a web-based forum for a variety of civic engagement related topics). Statements will be drawn from existing documents (i.e., previous Wingspread Conference proceedings or other provocative statements that address graduate education and civic engagement) or from material generated by the planning committee members. The online dialogue will be launched by a conference call with invitees (facilitated by members of the planning committee). This preliminary work will ensure that participants are well prepared for substantive discussion while at the Wingspread Conference Center.
Conference planners will compile and publish proceedings generated during the preliminary online dialogue and at the proposed Wingspread meeting. These proceedings will include a public statement on the importance of effectively preparing future scholars to use engaged pedagogies and to pursue the scholarship of engagement, recommendations for general reforms deemed necessary within graduate schools, and a directory of model programs. These proceedings will be disseminated to graduate school deans and postsecondary education associations through the national Campus Compact network and the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, and will be posted on our websites. Conference planners will also make at least one presentation regarding this work at a relevant national conference or appropriate venue.
Conveners and Co-Sponsors
The Upper Midwest Campus Compact Consortium has received financial support from the Corporation for National and Community Service Learn and Serve America program and is committed to convening a meeting of graduate school administrators, faculty, and students. The Committee on Institutional Cooperation has agreed to co-sponsor this meeting. The planning committee will consist of the following individuals, each of whom has a breadth of understanding regarding community and civic engagement and/or issues related to preparing future academics.
· Dr. Barbara McFadden Allen, Director, Committee on Institutional Cooperation
· Dr. JoAnn Campbell, Senior Program Director, Minnesota Campus Compact
· Dr. Hiram Fitzgerald, Assistant Provost, University Outreach, Michigan State University, and Chair, CIC Committee on Engagement
· Ms. Sandra Hansen, Executive Director, Iowa Campus Compact
· Dr. Julie Plaut, Associate Director, Minnesota Campus Compact
· Dr. Thomas Schnaubelt, Executive Director, Wisconsin Campus Compact
· Dr. Suzanne Wofford, Director, Wisconsin Center for the Humanities, University of Wisconsin, Madison
· Ms. Della Zurick, Graduate Student, Political Science, and Graduate Assistant, Career and Community Learning Center, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Conference Format
The following agenda is provided as a draft. The conference planning committee will discuss and make revisions as necessary.
Day 1
6:00 p.m. Welcome to Wingspread
Introductions
Overview of the meeting purpose and agenda
Short presentation on changes and challenges in graduation education
7:00 p.m. Dinner
8:00 p.m. Small group circles in which each participant tells a story about civic engagement and her/his own graduate school experience
9:00 p.m. Adjourn
Day 2
9:00 a.m. Opening plenary: Perspectives on civic engagement and graduate education
Potential speakers: Dr. Steven Crow, Executive Director, Higher Learning Commission?; Dr. Hiram Fitzgerald, Assistant Provost, University Outreach, Michigan State University; Della Zurick, Graduate Student, Political Science, University of Minnesota; someone with strong grounding in issues related to recruitment and retention of students of color?
10:30 a.m. Break
10:45 a.m. Large group discussion of key questions, goals, and promising practices
12:00 p.m. Lunch
1:15 p.m. Participants form three working groups, which meet to discuss in greater detail:
· Scholarship of engagement (or civic engagement and research)
· Engaged pedagogies (or civic engagement and teaching)
· Fostering a civic culture (or civic engagement and service)
2:45 p.m. Break
3:00 p.m. Working groups meet to identify more specific goals, models, resources, and recommendations
4:30 p.m. Break
5:30 p.m. Working groups report to large group, with discussion
6:30 p.m. Dinner
7:30 p.m. Adjourn [or do some kind of programming? Small groups by role—students, faculty, administrators? Multiple people from each campus talking, if we structure this to have three people from eleven campuses, for instance? Small group meets to develop draft set of proposals based on conversation?]
Day 3
9:00 a.m. Plenary session: What constitutes success? Assessment, documentation, culture of higher education, connections between civic engagement and other institutional priorities.
10:30 a.m. Break
10:45 a.m. Campus teams discuss action plans?
11:30 a.m. Large group sharing/discussion of team action plans and collective plans?
12:30 p.m. Lunch
1:30 p.m. Review/agree on next steps
Closing comments/reflection and meeting evaluation
3:00 p.m. Adjourn
The agenda looks pretty good. I don’t think it needs to be completely flushed out; I’ve told folks that we’ll take a look at this (and the invitation list) as part of the planning process.
Timing & Duration
In order to take advantage of resources made available via a grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service Learn and Serve America program, this meeting must take place prior to September 2006. Depending on the availability of the conference center, we would ideally like to convene a two-day meeting sometime between January 2006 and March 2006. We anticipate that proceedings would be made available no later than six months after the conference.
Participants
Approximately 40 graduate school faculty, academic administrators, and graduate students from across the nation will be invited to participate. The majority of participants will come from Midwestern institutions, but we will also invite several participants from institutions outside this region to share innovative program models. The conference planning committee will be charged with developing an invitation list that ensures representation of a wide range of institution types and diverse experiences with engaged scholarship and graduate education.
Johnson Foundation Support
The Upper Midwest Campus Compact Consortium and our conference partners are seeking support from the Johnson Foundation/Wingspread Conference Center to host this meeting. Approximately $10,000 has been allocated through a grant from Learn and Serve America, and we hope that the Johnson Foundation/Wingspread Conference Center can assist with any additional costs associate with this meeting. While state Campus Compact staff members are prepared to coordinate the event, we are also requesting assistance with conference logistical arrangements from the Johnson Foundation/Wingspread Conference Center. The national reputation of the Wingspread Conference Center will enable us to attract the highest caliber of participants and will ensure that the proceedings are taken seriously within the academic community.
Additional Support
The planning committee is committed to developing additional resources that may be necessary to support a successful gathering.