A higher education democratic civic and community engagement movement has developed across the US and around the world to better educate students for democratic citizenship and to improve the quality of life in local communities. Service-learning, engaged scholarship, community-based participatory research, volunteer projects, and community economic development initiatives are some of the means that have been used to create mutually beneficial partnerships designed to make a positive difference in the community and on the campus.
As civic and community engagement initiatives have increased on campuses, there has also been an increased focus on assessment and evaluation. A number of higher education institutions have begun to develop significant, ongoing research and evaluation projects that measure the impact of higher education civic and community engagement work both on local neighborhoods and also on campus. This panel will discuss what a comprehensive evaluation of the work on campus and in the community would entail.
Moderated by Ira Harkavy and Barbara Holland, representatives from three diverse CUMU member institutions – University of Pennsylvania, Loyola University, and IUPUI – will discuss their evaluation efforts to date, including:
- What is their current community engagement evaluation strategy?
- Who leads and manages the evaluation? / Where does the responsibility lie?
- What evaluation and assessment activities are being conducted?
- What short and long-term results/impacts have been found to date?
- How are these results being shared with community and campus partners?
- What impact does evaluation have on university-community partnerships?
- What is to be done to move evaluation efforts forward?
