Kevin Kecskes, Director Community-University Partnerships Portland State University

1. Kevin Kecskes, Director Community-University Partnerships Portland State University (kecskesk@pdx.edu) Discovering Pathways to Civic EngagementThe 21st CenturyImperative forUniversities and Communities The University of Tennessee at Martin August 22, 2007 Martin, Tennessee

2. Today we will think a bit about… • Education • Community • Knowledge • Expertise • Leadership • Ourselves • Each other

3. 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…?

4. Think Big…

5. Remember our “out of the box” experiences…

6. …As we make things fit together.

7. A Good Question What do we mean by “community”?

8. A Contextual Response Picture your community…

9. REFLECT on…what we know about Higher Education

10. 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)

11. >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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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)

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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)

20. Northwest Flight 444, 8/21/07 A story about John, a manufacturer of industrial abrasive solvents.

21. 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?

22. 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”

23. 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.

24. Percentage of BusinessLeaders 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%

25. 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?

26. REFLECT on…what we know about our students

27. Learning Retention Rates Prioritize which activities promote retention of learning (from lowest to highest % retention). • Discussion • Reading • Lecture • Teaching Others • Demonstration • Practice Doing • Audiovisual

29. > Service-Learning • Service-Learning is a deliberate, mutually beneficial, connection between academic learning and community assets and needs

30. > 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)

31. 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

32. 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

33. An Integrated Approach Institutional Engagement Student Engagement Departmental Engagement Faculty/Staff Engagement

34. Institutional Civic Engagement Economic Development Lifelong Learning Extended Programs Cultural Programs Faculty Outreach Other Engagement Co-Curricular Service-Learning Internships/Coop Community-Engaged Research CurricularService-Learning

35. 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.

36. 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. SERVICE-LEARNING

37. PSU: Size & Scope of Community Engagement • Annually, 8,200 students formally participate • Over 400 faculty involved • Over 1,000 community partners

38. Mapping Community-University Engagement www.partner.pdx.edu Global Civic Engagement

39. An Example: One Powerful Partnership Partners: PSU and City Government Purpose: Watershed improvement Duration: 12 years

40. 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

41. An Example: One Powerful Partnership

42. Portland State University’s Portland State University: “Core Leadership Position” Students PSU: Leader in Engagement Community Globally relevant, regionally focused. Faculty/Staff

43. Education for what? • Robert Gliner, Professor of Sociology, California State University at Fresno and professional documentary film maker.

44. Building Community Partnerships Faculty Community Assets Assets (?) Interests Interests Needs (?) Needs Assets = Content Expertise Needs = Student Learning = Compelling, rigorous research questions Assets = Informal & Formal Community-based Expertise Needs = Service Outcomes (project) = Research Outputs

45. Building Community Partnerships FacultyCommunity Assets Assets Interests Interests Needs Needs Assets Interests Needs Students

46. Building Community Partnerships Faculty Community *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. Community-Engaged Partnerships* Students

47. Service-Learning at UT Martin A DIALOGUE: • History: Donna Cooper-Graves • English: Leslie LaChance

48. 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?

49. What’s Next at UT Martin? • Individual (course level) work • Departmental work • Institutional work • Regional, multi-institutional work

50. 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)