Discovering Pathways to Civic Engagement
The 21st Century Imperative for Universities and Communities
The University of Tennessee at Martin
August 22, 2007
Martin, Tennessee
Kevin Kecskes, Director
Community-University Partnerships
Portland State University
(kecskesk@pdx.edu)
Today we will think a bit about…
Education
 Community
 Knowledge
 Expertise
 Leadership
 Ourselves
 Each other
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Questions on the table
Why are community-based approaches
worth my time?
Why should I change my curriculum,
pedagogy and/or research strategies?
Will all of this just go away…?
Think Big…
Remember our “out of the box”
experiences…
…As we make things fit together.
A Good Question
What do we mean by
“community”?
A Contextual Response
Picture your community…
REFLECT on…what we know about
Higher Education
Public Mandate
“Society appropriately is asking that we justify
the huge investment made in both research and
teaching institutions in higher education. Campuses
configured in ivory towers are no longer acceptable.
The academy is responding to this public mandate”
Sherwyn Morreale, former associate director of the National
Communication Association (NCA) & James Applegate, past president
NCA. In Kecskes, K. (Ed.) Engaging Departments: Moving Faculty Culture
from Private to Public, Individual to Collective Focus for the Common
Good. (Chapter 17)
> Values
“…No nobler task than committing
ourselves to helping catalyze and lead a
national movement to reinvigorate the
public purposes and civic mission of higher
education…now and through the next
century, our institutions must be vital
agents and architects of a flourishing
democracy.”
~ (Campus Compact)
Presidents’ Fourth of July Declaration on the
Civic Responsibility of Higher Education
Uphill Climb
The university has become more of a
bureaucracy than a community—"a mechanism
held together by administrative rules and
powered by money…a series of individual
faculty entrepreneurs held together by a
common grievance over parking."
- Clark Kerr, 1963
Higher Education for the
Public Good
The idea of what is true merit, should also be
often presented to youth, explain’d and
impress’d on their minds, as consisting in an
Inclination join’d with an Ability to serve
Mankind, one’s Country, Friends and
Family…which Ability should be the great Aim
and End of all Learning.
- Benjamin Franklin, 1749, “Proposals
Relating to the Education of Youth in
Pennsylvania
Higher Education for the
Public Good
It is the university that, in these latter
days, goes forth with buoyant spirit to
comfort and give help to those who are
downcast, taking up its dwelling in the
very midst of squalor and distress. The
university, I maintain, is the prophetic
interpreter of democracy; the prophet of
her past, in all its vicissitudes; the prophet of
her present, in all its complexity; the prophet
of her future, in all its possibilities.
-
William Rainey Harper (first President of the University of
Chicago), The University and Democracy (1899)
Higher Education for the
Public Good
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Morrill Act of 1862

land grant colleges and universities were
designed to spread education, advance
democracy, and improve the mechanical,
agricultural, and military sciences
Higher Education for the
Public Good
Modern Research Universities:
Universities must… “make for less
misery among the poor, less ignorance
in the schools, less bigotry in the
temple, less suffering in the hospitals,
less fraud in business, less folly in
politics”.
- Daniel Coit Gilman, 1876, in his inaugural
address as the first president of Johns
Hopkins, America’s first modern research
university
Higher Education for the
Public Good
“At bottom most of the American
institutions of higher education are filled
with the democratic spirit of
serviceableness. Teachers and students
alike are profoundly moved by the
desire to serve the democratic
community.”
- Charles W. Eliot, Harvard President, 1908
Higher Education in Trouble?
Other higher education leaders
have echoed Derek Bok's concern
that universities are disassociated
with the civic missions on which
they were founded….In short, the
university has primarily become "a
place for professors to get tenured
and students to get credentialed.”
- Cynthia Gibson, 2001 Study for the Grantmaker Forum on
National and Community Service
Contemporary Responses
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Boyer – Scholarship reconsidered
Newman – Public scholar, public purposes
Barr and Tagg – New paradigm: From teaching
to learning
Ehrlich – Civic responsibility and higher
education; Educating citizens (2004)
Kellogg Commission Report on the Future of
State and Land-Grant Institutions (1999)
New Times Demand New Scholarship Research Universities and Civic Engagement
(2006)
Association of American Colleges and
Universities (AAC&U), College Learning for the
New Global Century (2007)
Northwest Flight 444, 8/21/07
A story about John, a
manufacturer of industrial
abrasive solvents.
AAC&U – College Learning for the New Global
Century (2007). A Three-year Study

What kind of skills, attitudes and
attributes do you think Fortune 500
companies told researchers they are
looking for when considering hiring recent
college graduates?
Employers want graduates who:

Can Integrate Learning

Have Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical
and Natural World

Possess Intellectual and Practical Skills

Understand and Take Action Based on Personal and
Social Responsibility
AAC&U Calls these four:
“ESSENTIAL LEARNING OUTCOMES
FOR THE 21ST CENTURY”
Employers Want graduates who can:
Thrive in jobs that aren’t even created yet by…
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Solving Problems
Working in groups
Thinking and acting creatively
Demonstrating (collaborative) leadership
Communicating well (written and orally)
Working well with diverse populations
Understanding (and successfully navigating)
multiple cultures
Thinking critically
Appreciating diversity
Making and keeping commitments.
Percentage of Business Leaders Who Want Colleges
to "Place More Emphasis" on Key Outcomes

Integrative Learning
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Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World
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Science and technology 82%
Global issues 72%
The role of US in the world 60%
Cultural values/traditions (US/Global) 53%
Intellectual and Practical Skills
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Applied knowledge in real-world settings 73%
Teamwork skills in diverse groups 76%
Critical thinking and analytic reasoning73%
Written and oral communication 73%
Information literacy70%
Creativity and Innovation 70%
Complex problem solving 64%
Personal and Social Responsibility
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Intercultural competence (teamwork in diverse groups) 76%
Intercultural knowledge (global issues)72%
Ethics and values 56%
Intercultural knowledge (cultural values/traditions--US/Global)53%
Making a difference

Learning

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When did you learn something really important
(to you)? Who was there? Who “taught” you?
What did they “do” or what were some of their
key attributes that helped facilitate this
important learning…for you?
Teaching
 Think
of a time when you were an effective
teacher. What happened? How do you
know that you were effective?
REFLECT on…what we know about
our students
Learning Retention Rates
Prioritize which activities promote retention of
learning (from lowest to highest % retention).
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Discussion
Reading
Lecture
Teaching Others
Demonstration
Practice Doing
Audiovisual
> Service-Learning

Service-Learning is a
deliberate, mutually
beneficial, connection
between academic learning
and community assets and
needs
> Civic Engagement
Civic engagement means working to
make a difference in the civic life of our
communities and developing the
combination of knowledge, skills, values
and motivation to make that difference.
~Thomas Ehrlich, et. al.,
Civic Responsibility and Higher Education (2000)
Definition: Community Engagement
Community Engagement describes the
collaboration between higher education
institutions and their larger communities
(local, regional/state, national, global) for
the mutually beneficial exchange of
knowledge and resources in a context of
partnership and reciprocity.
- Carnegie Classification Project 2006
Portland State University
 Urban,
public comprehensive
university
27,000 students
27 years – average age
Large percentage of student from
Portland Metropolitan area
Many graduates remain in
Portland Metropolitan area
An Integrated Approach
Institutional
Engagement
Departmental
Engagement
Student
Engagement
Faculty/Staff
Engagement
Institutional Civic Engagement
Economic Development
Lifelong Learning
Extended Programs
Cultural Programs
Faculty Outreach
Other
Engagement
Internships/Coop
Community-Engaged
Research
Co-Curricular
Service-Learning
Curricular Service-Learning
FOR THE FIFTH YEAR IN A ROW, Portland State
University ranked among the nation’s best colleges in five
categories that lead to student success, according to U.S.
News & World Report in its “America’s Best Colleges 2007”
edition.
The categories were identified with the help of education experts,
including staff members of the Association of American
Colleges and Universities. College presidents, chief academic
officers, and deans of students were invited to nominate
institutions with stellar programs in each category, and those
that received the most nominations were named by U.S. News.
SERVICE-LEARNING
In service-learning programs,
volunteering in the community
is an instructional strategy
and
a requirement of a student’s
coursework. The service relates
to what happens in the class and
vice versa.
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Brown University
Duke University
Georgetown University
Portland State University
Stanford University
University of CaliforniaBerkeley
University of Colorado-boulder
University of Michigan-Ann
Arbor
University of Notre Dame
University of Pennsylvania
University of Wisconsin
Vanderbilt University
Partial list of 42 institutions.
PSU: Size & Scope of Community
Engagement
 Annually, 8,200 students formally
participate
 Over 400 faculty involved
 Over 1,000 community partners
Mapping Community-University Engagement
www.partner.pdx.edu
Global Civic Engagement
An Example:
One Powerful Partnership
Partners: PSU and City Government
Purpose: Watershed improvement
Duration: 12 years
An Example:
One Powerful Partnership
Impacts
32 courses: 600 undergraduate and 20
graduate students
 28,000 citizens contribute 275,000 hours
 Planting of 82,000 plants & trees
 4,000 meters of stream improved

An Example:
One Powerful Partnership
Portland State University’s
Portland State University:
“Core Leadership Position”
Students
PSU:
Leader in
Engagement
Globally relevant,
regionally focused.
Faculty/Staff
Communit
y
Education for what?

Robert Gliner, Professor of Sociology,
California State University at Fresno and
professional documentary film maker.
Building Community Partnerships
Faculty
Assets
Interests
Needs (?)
Assets = Content Expertise
Needs = Student Learning
= Compelling, rigorous
research questions
Community
Assets (?)
Interests
Needs
Assets = Informal & Formal
Community-based Expertise
Needs = Service Outcomes (project)
= Research Outputs
Building Community Partnerships
Faculty
Community
Assets
Assets
Interests
Interests
Needs
Needs
Assets
Interests
Needs
Students
Building Community Partnerships
Faculty
Community
CommunityEngaged
Partnerships*
Students
*Engaged learning &
research environments that
leverage faculty expertise,
community-based
knowledge, and student
interests to meets
community-defined
compelling needs and
challenge stakeholders to
create and apply useful,
new knowledge in realworld situations.
Service-Learning at UT Martin
A DIALOGUE:
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History: Donna Cooper-Graves
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English: Leslie LaChance
Curricular/Research Enhancement
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Small groups:
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Your discipline: course(s) currently teaching
New courses you wish to develop
Current/potential community partnerships
How might a community partnership
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Deepen, or
Expand learning/research?
How would you begin to establish a learning or
research environment to facilitate this
deepened or expanded learning?
What’s Next at UT Martin?
Individual (course level) work
 Departmental work
 Institutional work
 Regional, multi-institutional work
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About Leadership

Lead with, not for
“If you have come to help me you
are wasting my time. But if you
have come because your liberation is
bound up with mine, then let us work
together.”
–Lilla Watson (An aboriginal woman)