Katherine Lambert-Pennington

Embedding Service Learning in Engaged Scholarship at Research Institutions to Revitalize Metropolitan Neighborhoods

Over the past 2 decades, the form and function of teaching, research, and service activities labeled as community and civic engagement has increased. At the University of Memphis, the evolution of engaged scholarship has been strongly influenced by the grassroots-level participation of faculty who embraced service learning as an integral component of the engaged scholarship process centered on building community partnerships. In this article, we outline the history of service learning and community engagement at the University of Memphis resulting in the Strengthening Communities Initiative and suggest the role of internal social movements in transforming institutions of higher education and communities. Our model calls for program-initiated service learning, reciprocal partnerships, and institution-level changes to support engaged teaching and scholarship. Such a transformation requires visionary leadership at the institutional level, external demands for new thinking and acting, and a critical mass of engaged faculty and students. In addition, the model suggests that an organizing structure, such as the Strengthening Communities Initiative program, is key to further institutionalize the social movement and ultimately influence the cultural and philosophical core of institutions of higher education.

Promoting Engaged Scholars: Matching Tenure Policy and Scholarly Practice

This article explores what an uneven embrace of community engagement means for faculty as they apply for tenure and promotion. It closely examines how three faculty members (including the author) from different departments framed and discussed their engaged scholarly contributions in the presence or absence of departmental guidelines on engaged scholarship. Their experiences and success reveal the influence of departmental context on decisions to include engagement in faculty evaluation criteria and the importance of finding strategies to mitigate the absence or underdevelopment of guidelines.