Institutional Assessment

Initial curators: Tabitha Underwood & H. Anne Weiss

To recommend additional resources to include in this knowledge hub, please contact us at [email protected]

Introduction

When campuses have created and signed our Action Statement, the next step is to develop a meaningful and strategic civic action plan (CAP). To do so, however, a campus must first understand its current state of engagement; to plan for future action, one must understand their starting point. This entails a self-assessment of engagement across a variety to indicators, putting tracking and monitoring into place, and utilizing national data and trends to inform the plan and future practice. An institutional self-assessment will include a comprehensive examination of the following themes and best practices of an engaged campus: institutional culture, curriculum and pedagogy, faculty roles and rewards, mechanisms and resources, and community-campus exchange. A variety of resources to support self-assessment, tracking and monitoring, and the institutionalization of engagement can be found in the following sections. 

Key resources

A) Indicators of an Engaged Campus

• • Campus Compact’s Indicators of Engagement: Themes and indicators

B) Self-Assessment Tools

These assessment tools walk campuses through determining where they are in the process of institutionalization of engagement as expressed in themes of an engaged campus. Institutionalization Rubrics

• • Furco, A., Weerts, D., Burton, L., & Kent, K. (2009). Assessment Rubric for Institutionalizing Community Engagement in Higher Education.

• • Gelmon, S.B., Seifer, S.D. Kauper-Brown, J. & Mikkelsen, M. (2005). Building Capacity for Community Engagement: Institutional Self-Assessment.

• • Holland, B.A. (2006). Levels of Commitment to Engagement Adapted from Holland, Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, Vol.4, Fall 1997, pp. 30- 41.
• • Kecskes, K. (2008). Creating community-engaged departments: Self-assessment rubric for the institutionalization of community engagement in academic departments.
• • National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement (2012). A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy’s Future. Washington, DC: AAC&U.

Carnegie Community Engagement Classification

• • While not an actual assessment rubric, the application for the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification can be a useful tool in conducting a self-assessment since it follows the themes of Campus Compact’s Indicators of Engagement. 

Anchor Strategies

• • Campus Compact (2022). Anchor Institution Knowledge Hub: Aligning Institution to Community

  • ICIC (June 2011). Anchor Institutions and Urban Economic Development: From Community Benefit to Shared Value.
  • The Democracy Collaborative (August 2013). The Anchor Dashboard: Aligning Institutional Practice to Meet Low-Income Community Needs. (see Figure 1, p. 16 for outcomes and examples of indicators.
  • The Netter Center for Community Partnerships. (March 2008). Anchor Institutions Toolkit.

Compilation of Rubrics

• • Action Planning Benchmarking Tool.  Missouri Campus Compact (MOCC)  created this assessment tool to be used and/or modified by campuses to benchmark their community engagement before beginning action planning for engagement.
  • Bonner Network Wiki. Tools and Rubrics for Campus Civic Engagement Assessment

• • Gelmon, S.B., Holland, B.A., Driscoll, A., Spring, A., & Kerrigan (2001). Assessing service-learning and civic engagement: Principles and techniques. Boston, MA: Campus Compact. Provides matrices for assessing impact on students, faculty, community, and institution.
  • North Carolina Campus Compact (August 2013). Building the Engaged Campus: A Campus Planning Guide.
  • Utah Campus Compact. Building the Engaged Campus: A Civic Action Planning Guide

Other Assessment Resources

• • • Bonner: Student Learning Outcomes (Wiki). 
    • IUPUI Center for Service and Learning (Assessment Resources):  https://csl.iupui.edu/resources-support/assessment-resources/index.html
    • JCB Consulting (2017). American Evaluation Association Workshop:  "Evaluative Thinking: Principles and Practices for Learning in and about Evaluation." [worksheet]
    • Nexus Community Engagement Institute (formerly Building the Field Community Engagement partners).
      • • Community Engagement Assessment Tool
        • Assess Your Work: Essentials of Community Engagement
        • Distinguish Your Work: Outreach or Community Engagement? An Assessment Tool
        • Impacts of Community Engagement
          • Impacts of Community Engagement (graphic)

Assessing Social Impact: Tools/resources for measuring and analyzing social impact of programs: 

• Measure Results: Special Collection

Other Assessment Considerations:  The assessment tools provided here indicate whether certain aspects of engagement are in place; however, they will not illustrate the magnitude of engagement. You may also want to consider the following (also available in the Carnegie Application):

• • Number of service-learning courses
  • Percentage of the curriculum that is service-learning or community-based
  • Number of faculty teaching service-learning or community-based learning courses
  • Percentage of faculty teaching service-learning or community-based learning courses
  • Hours of service-learning
  • Hours of co-curricular service
  • Number and length of community partnerships
  • Number of students participating in some form of community-based learning/activity
  • Number of community-based research projects or courses
  • For research institutions: Number of faculty involved in public scholarship or broader impacts research
  • Percentage of community-based research projects in relation to total undergraduate research
  • Number of faculty/staff involved in community service
  • Percentage of students voting (data available from NSLVE—National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement at https://idhe.tufts.edu/nslve

You may also want to consider ways you measure and track progress towards equity in your engagement and partnership efforts as well as recruitment for equity and access.

C) Tracking & Monitoring

Overviews & Guidance for Developing Tracking & Monitoring Systems

• • Serve, Track, Report Webinar This webinar was sponsored by CCMW, MNCC, and CACC. Provides an overview of available tracking software. For the full spreadsheet, click here.
• • Building the Engaged Campus: A Campus Planning Guide. This planning guide, developed by North Carolina Campus Compact, can be used for continual monitoring of indicators.
• • Gelmon, S.B., Holland, B.A., Driscoll, A., Spring, A., & Kerrigan (2001). Assessing service-learning and civic engagement: Principles and techniques. Boston, MA: Campus Compact. Provides tools for assessing strategies and examples.

• • Collaboratory: Comprehensive data collection across the institution

• • Optimal College Town Assessment: measuring town-gown relations

D) National Surveys

• • National Survey on Student Engagement-
  • Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA- CIRP Freshman Survey

• • Personal and Social Responsibility Index- Iowa State University & AASC&U

• • National Campus Compact Annual Membership Survey

• • Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership

• • National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement (NSLVE)

• • Civic Learning and Engagement Assessment Instruments (Illinois State University)
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Organizations

• • Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education (AALHE) - professional membership association

• • Assessment Commons - Resources for higher education outcomes assessment

• • American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) - Assessment tools and practices

• • Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education - Civic Engagement and Service Learning Programs Standards

• • Community of Practice on Tracking & Assessing Community Engagement Activities Across your Institution - Sponsored by Indiana Campus Compact

Exemplars

Institutionalization

• • University of North Carolina-Greensboro Emily Janke, Director, Institute for Community and Economic Engagement. A leader in supporting, sustaining, and enhancing how higher education can be an inclusive, collaborative, and responsive community member.

• • Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis Amy Conrad Warner, Vice Chancellor of Community Engagement. This newly formed position spawned during the campus’s process of completing the application for Carnegie’s Community Engagement Classification.

Tracking & Monitoring Community Engagement

• • Home Grown Example: Michigan State National Collaborative for the Study of University Engagement, (Burton Bargerstock, Director) have developed a unique system (the Outreach and Engagement Measurement Instrument- OEMI).

• Other Useful Information

• • Recognition for Institution’s Community Engagement: Carnegie Community Engagement Classification, Campus Compact Impact Awards.

• • Accreditation: Many accrediting bodies have standards or requirements for community engagement at an institutional level. 

• • Community Impact: In order to understand how effective the engagement may be on a campus, one must assess both the campus’ outcomes as well as the community outcomes and impact.
    • Kellogg Foundation - Logic Model Development Guide 
    • Neighborworks America community outcome measurement toolkit
• • Asset Mapping: When telling the story of an engaged campus and planning for future action, one must consider the assets or resources available at the institution and in the community. Asset mapping should be a part of any comprehensive assessment plan.
    • ABCD Institute
    • Participatory Asset Mapping Toolkit by Community Science