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Students who are very active in service-learning have impressed us with their commitment and their practical knowledge as they apply their insights about social problems to projects in their communities. These students' judgments about community issues seem qualitatively different from those of less experienced students or students analyzing social issues only in the classroom. For example, asked about a solution for the problem of poverty, a student who has participated for two years in a program that integrates community service with his college coursework responded:That's a difficult question. There are so many causes and so many ways of working on the solution, that there's no one clear answer. The way that our organization works is mainly to help families who are already poverty stricken, and so instead of working upstream on stopping the poverty, we're working downstream and helping people get off the streets once they're on the streets. We clearly need programs like ours to help people who are already stuck in the system, but I think I'd get more value and meaning out of it if1 were to work upstream. And to do that, I think we need to revamp a lot of our systems. . . . [wle might as well make it a system that works instead of making people go crazy jumping through hoops that are just going to leave them where they are.

Community engagement is one of the major innovations that has occurred in higher education over the last 20 years. At the center of this innovation are faculty members because of their intimate ties to the academic mission. This article examines the progress that has been made in understanding this critical area of faculty work. It builds on past research to consider Innov High Educ (2011) 36:83-96