Andrew Furco

The Engaged Campus: Toward a Comprehensive Approach to Public Engagement

ABSTRACT Although civic purposes are implicit in the mission statements of higher education institutions, American colleges and universities have not always embraced public engagement initiatives. This paper explores how the recent emergence of the engaged campus movement has helped move public engagement initiatives from the margins to the mainstream by integrating community engagement into the research, teaching and public service functions of the academy.

The impacts of mandatory service on students in service-learning classes.

ABSTRACT This naturalistic study examined differences in students’ motivations for elective versus required service-learning (SL) classes. Students in two successive academic years’ cohorts were surveyed by the SL center at a large Midwestern university. Analyses compared classes differing in requirements for community-based service. Students required to participate in community service as part of a class within a program required for admission to a university were less likely to: want to be involved in future community work; enroll in another SL class; and recommend their class, compared to other groups of students, including others from classes in which SL was required as part of the program in which students were enrolled. These findings suggest that students’ motivations to participate in community-engaged activities are not shaped simply by whether or not community engagement is required in SL classes, but also by other factors including how the engagement opportunity is contextualized.

Legitimizing Community Engagement with K-12 Schools

This article examines the issue of internal legitimization and its importance in securing high-quality community engagement in K-12 schools. Drawing on the literature from the fields of community engagement, school reform, school–university partnerships, and school–community partnerships, this article describes some of the prevailing challenges and barriers external partners face when conducting reform oriented partnership work in K-12 schools. The discussion focuses on four factors that contribute to enhancing external partners’ internal legitimization within K-12 settings. The article offers a set of strategies for working through each of the four components.

Modeling the Influence of Service-Learning on Academic and Sociocultural Gains: Findings from a Multi-institutional Study

Data from the Community and Civic Engagement Module of the 2010 multi-institutional Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) survey were used to develop and test two structural equation models that estimated the potential direct and indirect effects of service-learning involvement on undergraduate students’ (n = 20,426) perceived gains in academic and sociocultural development. Service-learning was found to have a positive association with students’ citizenship/civic behaviors, both in- and out-of-class, but no statistically significant effect on students’ perceived gains in academic skills was found. The structural equation model also revealed statistically significant positive direct relationships between service-learning and student perceptions of sociocultural gains as well as between service-learning and students’ civic-oriented behaviors (both in- and out-of-class). Students’ citizenship and civic behaviors (both in- and out-of-class) were found to play a mediating role between service-learning and sociocultural outcomes.

Exploring the Relationship Between Service-Learning and Perceptions of Campus Climate

The authors explore the relationship between participation in service-learning courses and students’ perceptions of sense of belonging and campus climate. Curricular activities such as service-learning, which engage students in community service through a structured course setting, may promote diversity outcomes such as perspective taking and critical reflection about diversity, which could lead students to become more aware of racial/ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic disparities. Using SERU data, the authors analyzed the relationship between these service-learning; campus climate and sense of belonging within different ethnic and racial groups. The results suggest that students in service-learning courses tend to perceive more negative campus-climate within their institution across different ethnic groups.

Enhancing underrepresented students’ success through participation in community engagement

In this chapter, the authors investigate the relationships between students’ participation in a multifaceted community-engaged learning program (the Community Engagement Scholars Program—CESP) and their educational success. Using propensity score matching techniques, the authors compared undergraduate students participating in CESP with comparable peers who did not participate. The students who participate in the program progressed more rapidly toward graduation, completing more credits, and were more likely to persist/graduate (93% vs. 83%) after four years. Students from groups underrepresented in postsecondary education completed more credits and, although not significant, had higher persistence/completion (89% vs. 81%) compared with other underrepresented students.

Building a University-Wide Agenda for Intercultural Competence and Understanding: Lessons Learned at the University of Minnesota.

Furthering intercultural competence in higher education requires colleges and universities to establish an intentional, mission driven strategic plan that embeds intercultural understanding and practice across the institution’s work. To secure broad-based buy-in and support, this plan needs to consider the various ways that different units within the academy define, interpret, and view intercultural work. For large, complex and multi-faceted colleges and universities, building this plan can prove daunting as different parts of the institution will ascribe different meanings, purposes, and intentions to intercultural advancement.In this paper, administrators from the University of Minnesota, who represent units that are highly engaged in intercultural competence work, share some of their struggles and lessons learned in their effort to build a comprehensive, campus-wide strategy to grow intercultural advancement. The administrators initiated this campus-wide strategic work following their participation in an international conference focused on intercultural competence. Since that time, they have developed recommendations for the foundational work required to establish a common university-wide framework and comprehensive plan for institutional intercultural advancement.