Kevin Kecskes, Director Community-University Partnerships Portland State University

Discovering Pathways to Civic EngagementThe 21st Century Imperative for Universities and Communities

Kevin Kecskes, Director Community-University Partnerships

Portland State University(kecskesk@pdx.edu)

The University of Tennessee at Martin

August 22, 2007Martin, Tennessee

Today we will think a bit about…

Education Community Knowledge Expertise Leadership Ourselves Each other

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 justifythe huge investment made in both research andteaching institutions in higher education. Campusesconfigured 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)

“…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

> Values

Uphill ClimbThe university has become more of abureaucracy than a community—"a mechanismheld together by administrative rules andpowered by money…a series of individualfaculty entrepreneurs held together by acommon 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 GoodIt 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

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 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…

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

Applied knowledge in real-world settings 73%

Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World 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 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 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

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 RatesPrioritize which activities promote retention of learning (from lowest to highest % retention).

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 students27 years – average ageLarge percentage of student from Portland Metropolitan area

Many graduates remain in Portland Metropolitan area

An Integrated Approach

Institutional Engagement

Departmental Engagement

Faculty/Staff Engagement

Student Engagement

Institutional Civic Engagement

Economic DevelopmentLifelong LearningExtended Programs

Faculty Outreach

Internships/Coop

Curricular Service-Learning

Cultural Programs

Other

Co-Curricular Service-Learning

Community-Engaged Research

Engagement

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

Brown University Duke University Georgetown University Portland State University Stanford University University of California-

Berkeley 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.

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.

PSU: Size & Scope of Community Engagement

Annually, 8,200 students formally participate

Over 400 faculty involved

Over 1,000 community partners

Global Civic Engagement

Mapping Community-University Engagement

www.partner.pdx.edu

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

PSU: Leader in Engageme

nt

Students

Students

Faculty/Staff

Faculty/Staff

Community

Community

Globally relevant, regionally focused.

Portland State University:“Core Leadership Position”

Education for what?

Robert Gliner, Professor of Sociology, California State University at Fresno and professional documentary film maker.

Building Community Partnerships

Faculty Community

Assets

Interests

Needs (?)

Assets (?)

Interests

Needs

Assets = Content Expertise

Needs = Student Learning

= Compelling, rigorous research questions

Assets = Informal & Formal Community-based Expertise

Needs = Service Outcomes (project)

= Research Outputs

Building Community Partnerships

Faculty Community

Assets

Interests

Needs

Assets

Interests

Needs

Interests

Assets

Needs

Students

Building Community Partnerships

Faculty Community

Students

Community-Engaged Partnerships*

*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 real-world situations.

Service-Learning at UT Martin

A DIALOGUE:

History: Donna Cooper-Graves

English: Leslie LaChance

Curricular/Research Enhancement Small groups:

Your discipline: course(s) currently teaching New courses you wish to develop Current/potential community partnerships How might a community partnership

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

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)