Dr. Lorilee Sandmann talks with Provost John Folkins before her presentation on establishing standards and documenting the scholarship of engagement.

Faculty offered expert advice on the ‘nuts and bolts’ of engagement

Faculty and administrators received some practical information on the planning, documentation and assessment of engaged scholarship March 24 when Dr. Lorilee Sandmann, associate vice president for public service and outreach at the University of Georgia, visited campus. Sandmann is a national leader on issues related to the development of standards on the scholarship of engagement.

In introducing Sandmann, President Sidney Ribeau noted that BGSU and other institutions that are already involved in integrating engaged scholarship into their missions and research agendas are about 10 years ahead of the rest of the country.

"We’re talking about how you do it now, and 10 years from now, accrediting agencies will be looking at how to assess engagement,” he predicted.

Sandmann told attendees that institutional benchmarks are already being developed by accrediting agencies. For example, the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, BGSU’s accrediting agency, has named its Criterion 5 “engagement and service.” And the Carnegie Foundation is reclassifying some of its categories and has added “engaged institution” as an optional criterion.

“That is the tipping point, I believe,” Sandmann said. Once it has been identified and is being discussed, it then becomes a part of the future agenda for higher education, she said.

Ribeau noted that even though Bowling Green has been engaging with the community for many years, “we haven’t defined it adequately as a primary tenet of our mission and identified how to integrate it into all the things we do as a university.”

BGSU’s Task Force on the Scholarship of Engagement has recommended that standards be developed to determine ways to assess engagement uniformly across the University. The president has appointed Dr. Donald Nieman, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, to chair that committee. The committee will begin its work April 5. (See committee members listed below.)

Sandmann said there is now a “national agenda on engagement that is playing itself out in a number of ways.” Engagement is one way a university can go from good to great, she said, and “it is the scholarship component that moves us forward.”

Sandmann strongly recommended that before beginning any community-based project, faculty have clear in their minds “what is the driving intellectual question that guides your engagement?” By keeping scholarship uppermost, researchers can help insure they maintain control over their part of collaborative projects, she said.

It is important to talk at the departmental level about the issues of what constitutes engaged scholarship and how it should be rewarded, she said, because that is where faculty truly “live their lives,” and without departmental buy-in, progress will be difficult at best.

She recommended that departments discuss their commitment to engagement and identify who is best suited and most interested, because not everyone should or can be involved.

In terms of promotion and tenure, she said, “it can be a thorny thing to document.” Traditional forms of reporting too often force faculty to document their scholarship in rigid categories, she said. But engaged scholarship by definition “crosses boundaries of teaching, research and service,” and sometimes being forced to document one’s work by category actually obscures its true nature. Simply changing the reporting forms can be a first step in helping look at a project more broadly, she noted.

The process of documentation itself can enhance the quality of engagement by fostering an ongoing consideration of the process and outcomes, she noted. Continuous evaluation can aid adaptation and encourage faculty to expand their conceptualization of their scholarship to include its impact on community partners.

True engagement implies a strong commitment to direct, two-way interaction between the university and an external community partner for mutual benefit. While communities are often geographic in nature, they may also be defined in terms of interest or other shared qualities, she noted.

Such scholarship must be “place related,” and the interaction should be respectful and collaborative, she said. For it to be of mutual benefit, the institutional partners must be clear about what they and the institution need from the collaboration, she stressed. In addition, engaged scholarship should be embedded in all areas of academic life—teaching, research and service. It must also promote the institution’s mission in relevant ways.

Most importantly, the definition of scholarship—original, intellectual work that is significant and is validated by one’s peers—must never be diluted, she said. However, in engaged scholarship, those peers may also include the community partners.

A pitfall of engagement can occur because of the collaborative nature of the project, she warned. Faculty are often leery of documenting their individual contributions, a modesty that may not stand them in good stead when being considered for tenure and promotion. “I often encourage faculty to use the ‘I’ word more often when documenting their work,” Sandmann joked.

Sandmann is a member of the Clearinghouse and National Review Board for the Scholarship of Engagement. She invited faculty who would welcome feedback on their engagement efforts to submit project portfolios for review.

For more information on how to submit work for review, and to view the series of questions the review uses in its evaluation process, visit www.scholarshipofengagement.org.

Standards Committee – Documenting, Evaluating, and Disseminating the Scholarship of
Engagement at BGSU

Chair:
Dr. Donald Nieman, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

Membership:
• Dr. Robert Berns, professor, School of Teaching and Learning
• Dr. Albert Dzur, assistant professor, political science
• Dr. Kathy Farber, professor, educational foundations and inquiry, women’s studies; director, Partnerships
for Community Action
• Dr. Jodi Haney, associate professor, Environmental Programs
• Dr. Chris Keil, associate professor, environmental health
• Dr. Katerina Rüedi Ray, professor, director, School of Art; chair, University Council of Chairs and Directors
• Dr. Robert Vincent, professor, geology

Additional members to be announced
• Representative, College of Technology
• Representative, College of Musical Arts