I N S I D E

Civic Engagement: 3A Minnesota Tradition

TRUCEN Mission & Goals 4

Thinking Aloud: 5Network within a Network Current

Compact Current is the news-letter of Campus Compact,which provides leadership,resources, and advocacy tosupport civic education,com-munity building, and campusengagement for more than 1,100 member campuses.

S U M M E R 2 0 1 0

CAMPUS COMPACT

Educating CitizensBuilding Communities

CompactPenn President AmyGutmann’s Passionfor Engagement

Dr. Amy Gutmann, president of the University of

Pennsylvania, is widely regarded as a world-class

scholar whose research addresses many key issues

facing our society today—from religious freedom, to race and

affirmative action, to ethics and public affairs. She also views

herself as an active citizen of Penn’s vibrant West Philadelphia

community. As a member of TRUCEN (The Research Univer-

sity Civic Engagement Network), we asked her about the role of research universities in

promoting civic engagement.

CC: You’ve said that you, “want to makePenn a more powerful transformationalforce locally, nationally, and internationally.”Why is this important?

AG: Penn’s focus is to bring the most creativeideas and innovative knowledge to bear onproblem-solving that the world needs. Webegin locally with issues in our own neigh-borhood and extend as far as our partnershipsin China, India, and Africa. Far from an ivorytower, Penn is driven by the vision of ourfounder Benjamin Franklin, who held that thenoblest aim of a university is to teach allthings “useful and ornamental” so that youngpeople from all walks of life are inclined tolive well by contributing as much as they canto their friends, family, communities, country,and humankind.

No university has an innate right to exist;instead we prove ourselves deserving of pri-vate and public support by showing howmuch of a positive difference a Penn educa-tion can make in the world, where higher

education has never been more essential forboth the quality of individual lives and theprogress of local, national, and worldeconomies.

CC: In 2009, Penn was named #1 as a‘good neighbor’ for its model. How didyour presidency contribute to thataccomplishment?

AG: Being a good neighbor is so central tomy priorities as Penn’s President that Iannounced as the first event of my inaugura-tion in 2004 a community service day for allPenn faculty, staff, and students. Since then,the spirit, quality, and quantity of the Penncommunity’s service and our partnershipshave increased every year. I encourage stu-dents to learn while they develop leadershipskills, whether by taking academically basedservice-learning courses, by volunteering inuniversity-assisted schools, by helping torebuild communities devastated by HurricaneKatrina, or by engaging in the hundreds ofleadership and partnership projects that we run.

Registration Open…

Presidents Leadership Summit 2010

October 12 & 13, 2010Georgetown UniversityHotel & Conference CenterWashington, DC

Maximizing ‘d’emocratic Partnerships for Studentand Economic Success

Campus Compact memberpresidents may now register toattend this invitational forum atwww.compact.org.

Preregistration required.Member registration fee: $150.State Director fee: $75.Schedule:10/12 5 pm - 9 pm10/13 9 am - 2:30 pm Continued on page 2

University President, Dr. Amy Gutmann

Campus Compact hasreceived generoussupport from KPMGfor the Compact Current.

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Compact Current, the national newsletter of CampusCompact, is distributed three times a year to all CampusCompact member institutions.

Editorial Correspondence: Address all correspondence toSue C. Kelman, Editor, Compact Current, Campus Compact,45 Temple Place, Boston, MA 02111.Email: skelman@compact.org.

In addition to member support, Campus Compact receivesfinancial support from The Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund,KPMG Foundation, Lumina Foundation for Education, TheAndrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Jenzabar Foundation, andTOSA Foundation, among others.

Campus Compact is a national coalition of morethan 1,100 college and university presidents—representing some 6 million students—who arecommitted to fulfilling the civic purposes of highereducation. As the only national association dedi-cated solely to this mission, Campus Compact is aleader in building civic engagement into campusand academic life. Through our national office andnetwork of 35 state offices, members receive thetraining, resources, and advocacy they need tobuild strong surrounding communities and teachstudents the skills and values of democracy.

Campus Compact comprises a national officebased in Boston, MA, and state offices in CA, CO,CT, FL, HI, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME,MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, NH, NY, OH, OK, OR,PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, UT, VT, WA, WI, and WV. Forcontact and other information, seewww.compact.org.

Board of Directors

C H A I R

John J. DeGioia Georgetown University

V I C E - C H A I R S

Jane A. Karas Flathead Valley Community College

Richard R. Rush California State University Channel Islands

M E M B E R S

Louis Albert Pima Community College-West Campus

Lawrence S. Tufts UniversityBacow

Wilson Bradshaw Florida Gulf Coast University

Warrick L. Carter Columbia College Chicago

James B. Dworkin Purdue University-North Central

Carole Falcon- Fort Belknap CollegeChandler

David L. Giunta Natixis Global Associates

Karen Gross Southern Vermont College

James T. Harris III Widener University

JoAnn Haysbert Langston University

Teresa Iannaconi KPMG LLP

Shirley Ann Rensselaer Polytechnic Jackson Institute

Alex Johnson Community College of Allegheny County

John Keating University of Wisconsin

John Sirek McCormick Foundation

James Votruba Northern Kentucky University

E X E C U T I V E S TA F F

Maureen F.Curley President

Julie Elkins, EdD Director of Academic Initiatives

Sue C. Kelman Director of Communication

Amy Smitter Director of Institutional Development

In 2008, I announced that Penn wouldfund an additional 400 community serviceopportunities for students through Penn’sFox Leadership Program, Civic House, andthrough our Barbara and Edward NetterCenter for Community Partnerships. Thesethree programs embed Penn’s communityservice in the most path-breaking andinnovative leadership education for Pennstudents. We give students opportunities towork on real problems that affect realcommunities, resulting in future leaderswho understand the interconnectednessbetween themselves, our community, andthe larger society and world.

CC: What was the genesis of the PennCompact and how have you translated itinto action?

AG: I believe in the importance of thepursuit of knowledge for its own sake, butI also passionately believe that universitieshave a responsibility to use the knowledgeand understanding they generate to servehumanity. Enlisting our intellectual creativityand guided by our sense of socialresponsibility, Penn can demonstrate thecapacity of great teaching and researchuniversities to contribute substantially tothe betterment of the world.

I introduced the Penn Compact in 2004 tocapture the vision of the Penn communityas far larger than that of any one person.Fittingly, the entire Penn community nowowns it: faculty, students, alumni and parents,staff, and all those who contribute to ourmission. We all pursue three major goals thatgive meaning and inspire purpose to ourmission: to increase access; to integrateknowledge across disciplines (breaking downsilos between departments and schools); andto put our knowledge to work in ourengagement locally and globally.

Penn’s growth under the Compact is clear.We’ve increased undergraduate financial aidby 78% since the Compact was launched,creating an ever more diverse student body.Thanks to generous support from donors,we have over $100 million to invest inintegrating knowledge across disciplinesthrough our Penn Integrates Knowledge(PIK) initiative, which recruits eminent,interdisciplinary faculty leaders to Penn.We’ve already recruited ten path-breakingPIK professors each of whom holds a jointappointment in two of our great schools.

CC: How does Penn’s participation inTRUCEN benefit higher education morebroadly?

AG: TRUCEN’s focus on advancing civicengagement in research universities is aprinciple that Penn subscribes to bothinside and outside the classroom and weare proud to be among TRUCEN’sfounding members. Research universitieseducate many future leaders of society, so itis of great significance to the future of theworld that students who attend researchuniversities are educated to becomedemocratic, caring, and creative citizens.

TRUCEN also emphasizes democraticresearch—learning from and with thecommunity—working to solve global problems that are manifested locally—forexample, poverty, inadequate health care,and struggling schools.

Finally, TRUCEN is particularly focused onadvancing engaged scholarship—scholarshipwith the explicit goal of having a positiveimpact on the world. This approach resonatesstrongly at Penn, because our focus is tointegrate theory and practice to solve real-world problems and advance knowledge. CC

Continued from page 1

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When TRUCEN members discuss excellent, academy-wide systems that support and encourage civic engagement, theUniversity of Minnesota (UNN) is often mentioned. We asked Andrew Furco, Associate Vice President for PublicEngagement at UMN to explain how this has been accomplished.

University of Minnesota:A Systems Approach to Institutionalizing Civic Engagement

“As the only Land Grant and Research I university in the state,our Land Grant mission built upon an agricultural model is acenterpiece of the institution. President Robert Bruininks’leadership is also at the heart of everything we do. He hasdedicated himself to producing knowledge that benefits societyand that ensures quality teaching in ways that connect studentsto our global society,” says Furco.

“Finally,” he concludes, “Minnesota itself is a state that has avibrant sense of community that influences nearly every aspectof public life. It’s not necessarily around an activist approach, it’sjust that this is a ripe place for civic engagement to thrive andit’s how Minnesotans choose to live their lives.”

Looking at Promotions and TenureWhile President Bruininks was still provost, he began the Coun-cil on Public Engagement to assess how many civic engagementprojects were underway, who was involved, and what issues theywere addressing. In 2006, the Council recommended that theuniversity establish an Office for Public Engagement (OPE)with a senior-level administrator at its helm. An Associate VicePresident for Public Engagement would give visibility, impor-tance, legitimacy, and connectivity to administration policies.

By 2008, work began on an agenda to advance and institution-alize public engagement. Andy Furco’s predecessor had part-nered with the provost’s office to revise the Promotions andTenure Guidelines. The scope of teaching was broadened toincorporate “innovative teaching and learning practices thatinclude learning outside of the classroom.” In terms of research,the definitions embraced “scholarship that advances the disci-pline and that produces knowledge that benefits society.” Thisopened the door for faculty doing civic engagement work toaffirm that their activities were well within the guidelines forpromotion and tenure.

Until then, civic engagement had been highly reliant on indi-vidual professors. Now, each college prepared a statement onhow it would operationalize the new guidelines. The goal was tothink holistically. An Engaged Department Program was initi-ated and each college had to build a team comprised of thedepartmental chair, one tenure-track faculty member, and twoothers who could be students, faculty, or community partners.“We were looking at so many projects and proposals that weneeded to integrate and prioritize the work, so we created a ‘10Point Plan.’” Furco explains. “We needed an accounting andassessment system and we had to answer the question: So what?This isn’t unique to research institutions. All colleges and uni-versities, no matter what their involvement in civic engagement,must collect data and evaluate their success.”

Initially, 30-40 seed grants of up to $5,000 were available forfaculty to establish community-partnered initiatives. But whenmany grantees subsequently requested more funds to maintaintheir programs, the money wasn’t there. With over 200 publicengagement units and centers at UMN, all doing some formof community engaged work, expectations were great butcapacity was limited. The OPE’s response was to develop anEngaged Department Program that set out specific parametersfor receiving grants of up to $10,000. Here’s how it worked:

n The OPE issued an RFP.n Departments could apply for grants up to $10,000.n Each department had to develop a team with the same

guidelines as had been in place earlier.

Each team committed to spending 18-months on the project,completing self-assessments (a pre-survey) and identifying areaswhere they wanted to advance their own knowledge. Then,they created an action plan. In year two, the team had to attendthree meetings and present their action plans to other teammembers for feedback. Then they implemented each plan.At 18 months, each team member completed a post-survey,

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A UMN graduate student in chemistry ignites a passion forscience during an outreach program for a Twin Cities CubScout group.

A UMN astronomy graduate student shows students in a K-12program how massive objects like black holes can distortimages of more distant objects.

Explorers from the UMN-sponsored program "Go North"work with area schools to promote the Arctic AdventureLearning program in K-12.

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Most universities were founded with a civic purpose. They havea fundamental obligation to apply their skills, resources, andenergy to address the most challenging issues in society.

Research universities have a special role to play. Through schol-arship that combines rigorous academic standards with commu-nity collaboration, broadly defined, research universities candeepen our understanding of issues and develop practical solu-tions that will make a difference. Through teaching that com-bines deep understanding of issues with engagement in commu-nity and global problem solving, they can give students theknowledge, analytical skills, and civic disposition required toaddress our greatest challenges.

Research universities have been criticized for not takingadvantage of these opportunities — community-focused andcollaborative research and teaching — to make a big enoughdifference in the world. They often respond defensively with alist of their many important, traditional outreach activities, andin most cases the list is long. That misses the point. Researchuniversities have a responsibility to help us understand ourworld and that understanding is enhanced through engagementwith communities in solving theworld’s greatest problems. Those of usprivileged to work in these institutionsshould dedicate ourselves to putting inplace the structures, processes, andincentives to make it happen. It is ourmoral responsibility as scholars, it isour democratic responsibility as citi-zens, and it is our route to excellencein our scholarship and instruction. We must embrace this respon-sibility as an expression of our core academic, social, and civicvalues. TRUCEN is committed to helping research universitiesunderstand and meet this responsibility in ways that will makethem better institutions of higher learning making a greater dif-ference in the world.

Goals

TRUCEN has adopted the following goals for advancing civicengagement and engaged scholarship as part of the core missionof all research universities.

Encourage community-engaged scholarship by identifying itsdimensions and demonstrating how it satisfies criteria forrigorous scholarship established by and expected fromresearch universities.

There are many overlapping definitions of engaged scholarshipand reasonable people can disagree about exactly how it shouldbe conceptualized in practice. TRUCEN has identified threecore dimensions, however, and each represents a continuum ofpossibilities that a campus should address in determiningwhether scholarship is more or less engaged. The purpose of theresearch must be to benefit society, broadly defined, as opposed

to developing new knowledge solely for its own sake. The processmust be collaborative, but the overall level of engagement amongfaculty, students and community members will vary dependingon the degree of collaboration at each stage of the research. Theimpact of engaged research must benefit society and extendbeyond making a difference only within an academic field.

Engaged researchers must meet the same rigorous standardsapplied to traditional scholarly inquiry, and in addition meetstandards related to how they involve community membersand/or organizations as respected partners in research design,implementation, reporting, and evaluation. This kind of collabo-rative work can be deeply challenging and time-consuming. Thereward for meeting these additional challenges, however, is thesatisfaction that comes from researching issues with urgency andpotential to improve peoples’ lives, creating new knowledge thathas value and impact in both the community and the academy,and in engaging citizens as partners in the research process.

Encourage research on different forms of civic engagementand give greater visibility to this growing field of scholarship.

Democratic societies cannot realizetheir highest ideals without a diverseand vibrant civic life. There is wideagreement about that proposition.There is less agreement about how tocreate the kind of civic life that leadsto constructive and effective engage-ment by our citizens. TRUCENbelieves that research universities have

a responsibility to help answer that question by conductingresearch on civic learning and citizen participation in commu-nity and public affairs. Civic engagement takes many forms,including a focus on democratic citizenship, community devel-opment, public governance, philanthropy, and on many otherdiverse forms of civic life. Research on civic engagement is agrowing area of scholarship with its own specific content focus,and it is often carried out through interdisciplinary centers andinstitutes. TRUCEN is committed to strengthening democraticpractice by promoting and supporting research universities’ par-ticipation in the expansion of scholarship on civic engagement.

Encourage greater commitment to curricular and co-curricularactivities that promote students’ civic understanding andengagement, and scholarly efforts to understand andarticulate the outcomes, challenges, and best practicesfor doing so.

In recent years many colleges and universities have createdprograms designed to give students greater opportunities forservice-learning, volunteer service, public leadership develop-ment, and engaged research. These programs have multiple goals,including service to community partners, enhanced learning forstudents through a combination of teaching and practice, andincreased civic participation by students. TRUCEN believes that

Continued on page 6

TRUCEN Mission and Goals

The mission of TRUCEN is toadvance civic engagement and

engaged scholarship amongresearch universities.

TRUCEN:Network within a Network

We are proud to devote this issue ofCurrent to The Research UniversityCivic Engagement Network, betterknown as TRUCEN. TRUCENrepresentatives are passionate,dedicated, and above all strategic inour commitment to change the waythe academy thinks about engagedscholarship.

In 2005, together with Tufts University(under the leadership of PresidentLawrence S. Bacow and RobertHollister, now dean of the JonathanM. Tisch College of Citizenship andPublic Service at Tufts), we gatheredindividuals from very high researchactivity institutions to support eachother in their goal of promotingengaged scholarship. Striving to begeographically diverse and achieve abalance between public and privateuniversities, we’ve grown from a smallgroup to about 28 institutions withfour to five new participants joiningeach year.

We believe that by convening repre-sentatives who have institution-wideinfluence within their institutions, wecan increase, promote, and emphasizethe value of engaged scholarship.Among the questions we ask ofourselves and each other are: Howcan we assure academic rigor in allmatters relating to service-learningand community-based research? Howdo we teach others to develop engaged

scholarship that is rigorous? Havecommunity members been involvedat all stages of our work? What bestpractices can we share with the field asa whole? What can we learn fromcolleges and universities that have beendoing this work with excellence for along while, many—if not most—ofwhom are not research institutions?What creative strategies will buildcommitment in each of our universitysystems and more deeply advance thiswork throughout higher education?

TRUCEN is self-sustaining withCampus Compact serving as theSecretariat; we also have a missionstatement and goals which you willfind elsewhere in Current. In additionto issuing two national reports, wehave also created (and recentlyupdated) The Research UniversityEngaged Scholarship Toolkit.You willfind these and many more resourceson engaged scholarship athttp://www.compact.org/initiatives/civic-engagement-at-research-universities/.

Why are we devoting a whole issue toTRUCEN? We’re doing so in order toshare the work that’s being done at aparticular kind of institution, anddemonstrate, in part, how ourmembers are influencing the growthof engaged scholarship in the academy.Learning is multidirectional. We havemuch to learn and are eager to shareinformation without boundaries. Thisis our attempt to tell you what we’vebeen doing. CC

Thinking Aloud…

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Campus Compact President, Maureen Curley

From CC President Maureen F. Curley

The Research Universitiesand Civic Engagement Network(TRUCEN)

Arizona State UniversityBrown UniversityDuke UniversityGeorgetown UniversityMichigan State UniversityNorth Carolina State UniversityOhio State UniversityPrinceton UniversityStanford UniversityTufts University Tulane UniversityUniversity of California, BerkeleyUniversity of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)University of GeorgiaUniversity of IowaUniversity of KentuckyUniversity of Maryland, College ParkUniversity of Massachusetts AmherstUniversity of MichiganUniversity of MinnesotaUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel HillUniversity of OklahomaUniversity of PennsylvaniaUniversity of Southern CaliforniaUniversity of WashingtonUniversity of Wisconsin, MadisonVanderbilt UniversityWashington University in St. Louis

The breadth and depth of civic engagement projects and programs sponsored byTRUCEN members are too numerous to list. To provide just a flavor of that work,we’ve created examples of service-learning and civic engagement on TRUCENcampuses at our website. You will find them by visiting www.compact.org andthen clicking on TRUCEN in the Search feature.

revisited their self-assessment, and presented their findings tofellow team members.

Thirty departments applied and 13 grants were awarded indisciplines as diverse as psychology, English, pharmacy, geron-tology, social work and music, to name just a few. For example:

n The social work department used the grant to buildcapacity for faculty to do community-based participatory research.

n The psychology department used its grant to develop apsychology minor.

n Using a large piece of land that the university owned,a full-fledged community—a small town—is being created“from scratch” Furco reports. The Department of Housing,Planning and Design is using this opportunity to helpcreate a “community of the future.”

Andy Furco often says, “Public engagement is not a program.Public engagement is a strategy to help us accomplish otherimportant goals at the university.” It has helped to build learn-ing communities and today, eight associate deans, all withengagement responsibilities, belong to a Council of AssociateDirectors that meets informally. They share their stresses andchallenges, and have built a strong sense of collegiality. Man-

agers and directors involved in civic engagement programsalso meet regularly. This work calls for passion, dedication,and strategic commitment to changing the way the academythinks about engaged scholarship. Clearly, Andy Furco and theUniversity of Minnesota have these in full measure. CC

Note: Campus Compact offers a valuable resource through the more than 300exemplary service-learning syllabi available on its website:www.compact.org. Our collection is growing exponentially and wewelcome your submissions.

Non-Profit Org.U.S. PostagePAIDPermit No. 1232Boston, MA

45 Temple PlaceBoston, MA 02111617/357-1881campus@compact.orgwww.compact.org

Continued from page 3 Minnesota...

Continued from page 3 TRUCEN Mission...research universities must be more rigorous and systematic in clarifying and articulating the intended outcomes of thesedifferent programs, and that they are particularly well positionedto do so. We should encourage investigations focused on: whatknowledge, skills, values, and behavior do we seek to promote instudents through this work? What practices and conditionsmaximize student learning and community impact? What factorsmotivate students and best prepare them for effective participationin democratic society over their adult lives? What are the bestpractices in working with community organizations that partnerwith universities to support the civic and community engagementof our students? TRUCEN is committed to encouraging researchthat will answer these and related questions about the effectivenessof engagement programs and activities for students. CC