Co-Constructing Knowledge Spheres in the Academy: Developing Frameworks and Tools for Advancing Publicly Engaged Scholarship

Abstract

Publicly engaged scholarship (PES) has emerged as a powerful force, yet institutional policies and cultures have often inhibited its acceptance in the academy. This article considers the benefits of PES for higher education as well as the obstacles to its enactment. It identifies the college level as a critical site for change and offers a rubric for institutional change agents to use to assess support for community engagement at the college level and identify avenues for further progress. The authors also grapple with tensions inherent in promoting PES at institutions that have historically served as agents of domination and oppression.

Promoting institutional change to support public psychology: Innovations and challenges at the University of California.

“…A scoping review of two decades of literature on community-engaged scholarship across disciplines identified that institutional conditions of mission, reward structure, logistical support, and support for students are critical for advancing community-engaged scholarship, but did not describe how faculty and institutions have worked to achieve these changes (Beaulieu et al, 2018). Several studies note major mismatches that require shifts in the evaluation of faculty scholarship, relating to products, peer review processes, and assessing impact (Eatman et al, 2018; Hart & Silka, 2020). Regarding products, scholarly artifacts of community-engaged scholarship include peer-reviewed articles and books that count as scholarship in traditional academic tenure and promotion reviews.…”

“…Several reports from scholars seeking to shift institutional cultures and reward systems to support community-engaged research provide perspectives on the particular challenges within their disciplines and campuses, emphasizing the cultural nuances and ecological features of each campus that strengthened and undermined these efforts (Eatman et al, 2018; Hart & Silka, 2020; Saltmarsh et al, 2015). Hart and Silka (2020) share strategies for developing an interdisciplinary faculty network of community partnerships to strengthen the public impact of environmental sustainability research at the University of Maine, a small land-grant university characterized as “R2-high research activity” per the Carnegie system.…”

Critically Engaged Civic Learning: A Comprehensive Restructuring of Service-Learning Approaches

“…With approximately half of faculty in public institutions collaborating with community organizations through teaching or research (Eatman et al, 2018), collectively establishing community goals that leverage multiple forms of knowledge and that are inclusive and problem orientated leads to the authentic relationships necessary for meaningful community building across stakeholder groups.…”

Developing Community Engaged Research Practices in Family, School and Community Partnerships

“…While the academy is slowly becoming more accepting of publically engaged scholarship, there is still much work to be done in this area. Experienced practitioners of CES have started to develop tools to better support the evaluation of publicly engaged scholarship in academia (Eatman, Ivory, Saltmarsh, Middletown, Wittman, & Dolgon, 2018). However, it is still advisable for researchers and community stakeholders to negotiate mutually beneficial research projects upfront to avoid future misunderstandings.…”