TRUCEN Engaged Scholarship Resource Collection

The Research University Civic Engagement Network (TRUCEN) is an affinity group of R-1 higher education institutions (Carnegie-classified as "very high research activity") that share a fundamental commitment to leveraging their resources, skills, and energy to address the challenging issues in society. Functioning in a collegial spirit, TRUCEN provides members with opportunities to share knowledge and strategies about how their institutions are promoting engagement on their campuses and in their communities.

For more information, visit the TRUCEN website. 

The TRUCEN Toolkit (published online in 2010) has been discontinued, but an expanded version of its contents can be found in the following knowledge hubs: 

• Tenure and Promotion for Engaged Scholarship - A Repository

• Institutionalizing Engagement in Higher Education Knowledge Hub

• Community-Engaged Research Knowledge Hub

• Publishing Engaged Scholarship Knowledge Hub

• Vetted Database of Readings and Resources on Community Based Research 

TRUCEN Publications and White Papers

Campus Compact (Summer 2010). Compact Current (Special Issue on TRUCEN). 

• A special issue of Campus Compact’s newsletter, Compact Current, featured TRUCEN and serves as an excellent overview to the affinity group's early history.

• This essay, written by a University of Cape Town professor of sociology, summarizes his community-engaged research concerns and activities, and proposes an investigation and theorization of how universities might become more deeply engaged with civil society, particularly with respect to research relations with local and regional government bodies, community and civic organizations, labor and other non-governmental organizations etc.

• A brief practical essay addressing six critical areas for faculty consideration in undertaking community engaged research: institutional context, establishing legitimacy, community credibility, funding, methodological difficulties, and collaboration.

Curley,  Maureen F.  & Stanton, Timothy K. (2012). The History of TRUCEN. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, Volume 16, Number 4, p. 3.

• This article, which appeared in the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, outlines TRUCEN’s purpose-driven history and its deep commitment to promoting and advancing engaged scholarship in research university settings.

Gibson, Cynthia M. (2006). New Times Demand New Scholarship: Research Universities and Civic Engagement — A Leadership Agenda. Tufts University. 

• This Leadership Agenda, published by Tufts University in 2006, describes the group’s rationale and philosophy and provides recommendations that outline why it is important for research universities to embrace and advance engaged scholarship as a central component of their activities and programs at every level — institutional, faculty, and student. The statement, endorsed by the entire group, argues that research universities’ exceptional faculty, students, financial resources, and research facilities position them to contribute to community change relatively quickly and in ways that will ensure deeper and longer-lasting commitment to civic engagement across higher education.

Jordan, C. (2009). Practical tools for overcoming the challenges of advancing your career as an engaged scholar. Practical tools for overcoming the challenges.pdf. Original Essay of the TRUCEN Engaged Scholarship Toolkit. 

• The community-engaged scholar often experiences challenges to career advancement (Commission on Community-Engaged Scholarship in the Health Professions, 2005). Fortunately, a variety of resources and tools are emerging to assist in overcoming these hurdles. This article reviews the challenges in terms of developing skills, securing recognition for community-engaged scholarly work, and particularly in successfully navigating the promotion and tenure (P and T) system. This review is followed by presentation of several resources for addressing these challenges.

• This is a thematic issue dedicated to The Research University Civic Engagement Network (TRUCEN). The articles included share the mission statement of TRUCEN; the history of TRUCEN; examples of work being done in the global academy to advance university-community engagement; best practice programs and activities at TRUCEN institutions; and a reprinting of TRUCEN’s 2006 and 2007 monographs.

• Michelle McClellan, historian at the University of Michigan, received an Arts of Citizenship engaged scholarship grant for developing and teaching a public history course and for scholarship deriving from her work on a public history project. In this two-part article, McClellan describes the proposed project that was awarded Arts of Citizenship funding, then reflects on the experience — how it will affect her future teaching and future historical scholarship.

• This essay profiles Loyola University's Center for Urban Research and Learning (CURL), which organizes and sponsors collaborative university-community research in the Chicago area, which emphasizes the bringing of a ‘communities eyes, ears, and voice to the research table. 

• This essay advocates articulation of a broader role for academic faculty in American democracy beyond their technical expertise as critical for making the case for community engaged research.

• This essay focuses on the need to frame engagement as scholarship and to gain support for faculty members who do this type of work from institutional leaders.

​​​​​​Stanton, Timothy K. (2007). New Times Demand New Scholarship II: Research Universities and Civic Engagement — Opportunities and Challenges.

• This is the network’s second report. It focuses on four critical areas: 1) engaged scholarship, 2) scholarship focused on civic and community engagement, 3) educating students for civic and community engagement, and 4) advancing civic engagement within and across research universities. This second report also includes models from a range of participating research universities.

To be added.