Why Do Engaged Scholarship?: An Annotated Reading List

Why do engaged research? An annotated list of readings

• Boyer, E. (1994). Creating the new American college. Chronicle of Higher Education, March 9, A. 48.
  • In this last page proclamation in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Boyer admonishes colleges and universities to become "part of the solution" for the pressing social ills of our times, and introduces the concept of the new American university that would be devoted to solving society's social problems.
• Boyte, H. & Hollander, E. (1999). Wingspread declaration on the civic responsibilities of research universities. 
  • In this document university presidents, provosts, deans, and faculty members with extensive experience in higher education as well as representatives of professional associations, private foundations, and civic organizations have formulated strategies for renewing the civic mission of the research university, both by preparing students for responsible citizenship in a diverse democracy and engaging faculty members in developing and utilizing knowledge for the improvement of society.
• Checkoway, B. (2008). Involving urban planning, social work, and public health faculty members in the civic renewal of the research university. Journal of Planning Education and Research,27(4), 507-511.
  • What are some strategies for involving urban planning, social work, and public health faculty members in the civic renewalof the research university? At a time when citizens have "disengaged from democracy," and universities have deemphasized their civic mission, this article examines ways in which these faculty members might join together and formulate strategies which complement their shared professional and public purposes on campus and in the community.
• Colbeck, C. & Weaver, L. (2008). Faculty engagement in public scholarship: A motivation systems theory perspective. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement,12(2), 7-33.
  • This study used the lens of motivation systems theory to explore why research university faculty engage in public scholarship. Analysis of motivational patterns, including goals, capability beliefs, context beliefs, and emotions, of twelve community-engaged faculty, is used to identify leverage points for other faculty and administrators who wish to support, increase, or enhance their own and others' engagement in public scholarship.
• Colbeck, C. & Wharton-Michael, P. (2006) Individual and organizational influences on faculty members' engagement in public scholarship. In R. Eberly & J. Cohen (Eds.), A laboratory for public scholarship and democracy (pp. 17-26). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
  • This chapter proposes a conceptual framework for understanding influences on faculty work and for conducting research about individual, organizational, and epistemological factors that may shape faculty members' engagement in public scholarship.
• Cunningham, K. & McKinney, H. (2010). Towards the recognition and integration of action research and deliberative democracy. Journal of Public Deliberation, 6(1), 1 - 11.
  • This article asserts that the shared underlying value systems of action research (AR) and deliberative democracy (DD) can mutually reinforcing, with the former especially being a powerful means for engaging the academy in the latter. AR and DD are both grounded in principles of inclusion, equity, the co-generation of knowledge, and action. In making the case for the integration of AR and DD, the authors describe their commonalities and place AR in the context of other forms of engaged scholarship. They review outreach scholarship, community-based research and other forms of participatory research, examining each in terms of their alignment with deliberative democratic principles and their potential for furthering deliberative democracy generally. Engaging the academy in research on and for deliberative democracy requires the full recognition of AR and other forms of engaged scholarship.
• De Las Nueces, D., Hacker, K., DiGirolamo, A., & Hicks, L.S. (2012). A systematic review of community-based participatory research to enhance clinical trials in racial and ethnic minority groups. Health Services Research, 47(3), 1363-1387.
  • This systematic literature review examines the effectiveness of current CBPR clinical trials involving racial and ethnic minorities. The review finds that CBPR is effective in increasing participation of racial and ethnic minority subjects in research. Additionally, it finds that CBPR may be a powerful tool to improve both the measurement of health disparities and in testing the generalizability of effective interventions among populations traditionally under-represented in clinical trials.
• Gibson, C. (2006). New times demand new scholarship: Research universities and civic engagement. A leadership agenda.Report of The Research University Community Engagement Network (TRUCEN).
  • This statement, which was endorsed by the participants of the first TRUCEN meeting at Tufts University in 2005, argues that because of research universities' significant academic and societal influence, world class faculty, outstanding students, state-of-the-art research facilities, and considerable financial resources, they are well-positioned to lead the higher education sector to ensure deep and long-lasting commitment to civic engagement. It includes sections on engaged scholarship and why it should be important to research universities with examples from member institutions.
• Gibson, C. (2006). Research universities and engaged scholarship: A leadership agenda for renewing the civic mission of higher education. Prepared for Campus Compact's 20th anniversary celebration. 
  • Because research universities "set the bar" for scholarship across higher education, they are positioned to promote and advance new forms of scholarship that link the intellectual assets of higher education institutions to solving public problems and issues. This essay includes criteria for engaged scholarship, barriers, and reasons for doing it.
• Gonzalez, K. & Padilla, R. (Eds.). (2008). Doing the public good: Latino/a scholars engage civic participation. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, LLC.
  • Through the lenses of personal reflection and auto-ethnography—and drawing on such rich philosophical foundations as the Spanish tradition of higher learning, and the activist principles of the Chicano movement—these writers explore the intersections of private and public good, and how the tension between them has played out in their own lives, and the commitments they have made to their intellectual community and to their cultural and family communities. Through memoirs, reflections, and poetry, these authors recount their personal journeys and struggles—often informed by a spiritual connectedness and always driven by a concern for social justice—and show how they have found individual paths to promoting the public good in their classrooms and in the world beyond.
• Lichtenstein, G., Thorme, T., Cutforth, N., & Tombari, M.L. (2011). Development of a national survey to assess student learning outcomes of community-based research. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 15(2), 7-33. 
  • This article describes the creation of a conceptually valid and statistically reliable CBR Student Learning Outcomes Survey, first analyzing the perceived benefits of CBR experienced by 70 undergraduates and faculty at six colleges and universities and later piloted to students from 15 colleges and universities (N=166). Five CBR “outcome con-structs” were measured: academic skills, educational experience, civic engagement, professional skills, and personal growth. This survey can be used as a tool for universities to evaluate CBR courses.

• Michener, L., Cook, L., Ahmed, S.M., Yonas, M.A., Coyne-Beasley, T., & Aquilar-Gaxiola, S. (2012). Aligning the goals of community-engaged research: Why and how academic health centers can successfully engage with communities to improve health. Academic Medicine, 87 (3), 285-91. 
  • The aim of this article is to assist academic health centers (AHC) in community engagement (CE) and community-engaged research (CEnR) using five steps: defining community and identifying partners, learning the etiquette of CE, building a sustainable network of CEnR researchers, recognizing that CEnR will require the development of new methodologies, and improving translation and dissemination plans. This paper asserts that national health disparities will persist without CEnR, and that barriers toward implementation of CEnR can be overcome through leadership and commitment of top decision makers within institutions.

• National Association of State University and Land Grant Colleges (2001). Returning to our roots: The engaged institution. In Executive summaries of the reports of the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities. Washington, DC: NASULGC. 
  • This report reviews the rationale for higher education institutions to be engaged with communities, guiding characteristics that define an engaged institution, and a set of recommendations including developing incentives to encourage faculty involvement in engagement.
• O'Meara, K. (2009). Making the case for the new American scholar. Original Toolkit essay. 
  • 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.
• O'Meara, K. (2008). Motivation for faculty community engagement: Learning from exemplars. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 12(1), 7-29.
  • This study examines the motivations of sixty-eight faculty who are community engaged exemplars. Motivations include personal commitments to specific issues, neighborhoods, and people, perceived fit between community engagement and disciplinary goals, and desire to teach well. Motivations are intrinsic and extrinsic, rooted in personal goals, identity, and organizational cultures. Findings suggest motivation likely varies by type of engagement and depth of involvement over time.
• Oldfield, S. (2007). Making sense of multiple conversations: Teaching, research, and activism in and with communities in South African cities. South African Geographical Journal, 89(2), 104 – 110. 
  • In this article a South African urban geographer offers her perspective on doing research in a regional context of immediate crisis and change that call on one to engage outwards beyond conventional academic disciplinary communities to a range of social and political institutions and actors. Drawing on her own experience she examines the ways in which her engagement with community organizations articulates with her conventional university activities of research and teaching; but, as importantly, the ways in which her scholarship is shaped by community-based agendas that not only inform her research but sustain the relationships critical to her undertaking her research. She concludes that the overlapping nature of research, teaching and community activism is more than a political and contextual imperative. Potentially it is a theoretical strength that adds depth, reflexivity, and, in the relationships built, enables her to construct more robust urban knowledge.

• Perold, H. (2005). Strengthening the civic roles and social responsibilities of higher education: Building a global network: A Report on the Talloires Conference 2005, Tufts University.
  • The Talloires Conference, held in Talloires, France in September 2005, was the first international meeting of heads of universities committed to strengthening the civic roles and social responsibilities of higher education. This report outlines the three-day conference, which addressed topics such as civic engagement as a global movement, civic engagement in public policy and higher education, placing civic engagement at the center of institutions, and how to create a global network of leaders in civic engagement. This report also includes the Talloires Declaration on Civic Engagement, which aims to set high standards for universities to be civically engaged and to design proposals on ways that universities can increase their positive impact on society.
• Pratt, J., Matthews, S., Nairne, B., Hoult, E. & Ashenden, S. (2011). Collaboration between universities: An effective way of sustaining community-university partnerships? Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement, 4, 119-135. 
  • In the era of the global economic recession, many higher education institutions have faced budget cuts. In this piece, the authors argue that community-university partnerships should be highly valued due to the ability of such partnerships to improve the quality of teaching and research. The South East Coastal Communities program (SECC) of southern England is presented in this paper to demonstrate ways in which partnerships can lead to new research opportunities, new developments in curriculum, and build the knowledge and skills of students in an context outside of the classroom.

• Scobey, D. (2004) Making use of all our faculties: Public scholarship and the future of Campus Compact. Campus Compact 20th anniversary celebration. Available through Campus Compact, 617-357-1881.
  • The author argues on behalf of community collaboration as a transformative medium of scholarly and artistic production, and offers personal case studies.
• Simon, Lou Anna K. (2009). Embracing the world grant ideal: Affirming the Morrill Act for a twenty-first century global society. A monograph. 
  • The 2012 sesquicentennial of the signing of the Morrill Act provided an occasion to celebrate the enduring power of the land-grant vision of higher education as an instrument of individual, social, and economic transformation in this nation. The Morrill Act created a new type of higher education institution in the 19th century. Now, according to the president of Michigan State University, the most pressing need in higher education is to encourage universities to evolve in ways that align them more effectively to advance the public good—to affirm the ideals of the Morrill Act and its core values through each institution’s commitments and actions, regardless of its roots.
• Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. New York, NY: Zed Books.
  • In this research methodology book, Smith explores the intersections of imperialism and research—to the colonized, the term "research" is conflated with colonialism, and academic research steeped in imperialism remains a painful reality. Smith then discusses concepts such as "discovery" and "claiming", and argues that the decolonization of research methods will help to reclaim control over indigenous ways of knowing and being. Finally, the author proposes an Indigenous Research Agenda and provides examples of such research.
• Stanton, T. and Wagner, J. (2010), Educating for democratic citizenship: Antecedents, prospects and models for renewing the civic mission of graduate education at research universities. In Fitzgerald, H.E., Burack, C., & Seifer, S. (Eds.). Handbook of engaged scholarship: Contemporary landscapes, future directions. Vol. 1: Institutional Change. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press (In press).
  • This paper was originally prepared as background for the Stanford Symposium on Civic Engagement and Graduate Education at Research Universities, sponsored by California Campus Compact at Stanford University on April 24, 2006. It is an account of the historical and organizational contexts that have shaped the asymmetry between engaged scholarship in undergraduate and graduate education, where the values of civic engagement have become increasingly separate from the values of advanced study and career development.
• Van de Ven, A. (2011). Engaged scholarship stepping out. Business Strategy Review, 2, 43-45.
  • In this article Andrew Van de Ven presents an interview with hinself in which he answers a series of questions on engaged scholarship and encourages people in all “realms”, not only researchers, to “step out” and engage others in order develop a deeper understanding of their field or study. Van de Ven describes engaged scholarship as a process in which academics participate with other scholars, stakeholders, and practitioners to collaborate on research. Although he comments on the existing gap between theory and practice of social research, he offers a solution to this gap and predicts there will be a “wave of growth” in engaged scholarship.

• Wolf, T. (2010). The power of collaborative solutions: Six principles and effective tools for building healthy communities. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.
  • In his book, author Tom Wolf asserts that in order to solve complex problems and build healthy communities we must form partnerships and collaborations. Wolf describes why the traditional community problem-solving methods are failing and offers six key principles to build healthy communities through collaboration: encourage true collaboration as the form of exchange, engage the full diversity of the community, employ an ecological approach that builds on community strengths, take action by addressing issues of social change and power on the basis or a common vision, and engage spirituality as the compass for social change.