W. James Jacob & Stewart E. Sutin 
Community Engagement in Higher Education [PDF ebook] 
Policy Reforms and Practice

There seems to be renewed interest in having universities and other higher education institutions engage with their communities at the local, national, and international levels. But what is community engagement? Even if this interest is genuine and widespread, there are many different concepts of community service, outreach, and engagement. The wide range of activity encompassed by community engagement suggests that a precise definition of the “community mission” is difficult and organizing and coordinating such activities is a complex task. This edited volume includes 18 chapters that explore conceptual understandings of community engagement and higher education reforms and initiatives intended to foster it. Contributors provide empirical research findings, including several case study examples that respond to the following higher educaiton community engagement issues. What is “the community” and what does it need and expect from higher education institutions? Is community engagement a mission of all types of higher education institutions or should it be the mission of specific institutions such as regional or metropolitan universities, technical universities, community colleges, or indigenous institutions while other institutions such as major research universities should concentrate on national and global research agendas and on educating internationally-competent researchers and professionals? How can a university be global and at the same time locally relevant? Is it, or should it be, left to the institutions to determine the scope and mode of their community engagement, or is a state mandate preferable and feasible? If community engagement or “community service” are mandatory, what are the consequences of not complying with the mandate? How effective are policy mandates and university engagement for regional and local economic development? What are the principal features and relationships of regionally-engaged universities? Is community engagementto be left to faculty members and students who are particularly socially engaged and locally embedded or is it, or should it be, made mandatory for both faculty and students? How can community engagement be (better) integrated with the (other) two traditional missions of the university—research and teaching? Cover image: The Towering Four-fold Mission of Higher Education, by Natalie Jacob

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List of Figures; List of Tables; List of Abbreviations and Acronyms; Series Editors Introduction; Community Engagement in Higher Education: International and Local Perspectives; Part I: Thematic Issues Related to Higher Education Community Engagement; Divide and Conquer: Long-Term Consequences for Education, Economic Participation, and Higher Education Engagement; Service-Learning and Disaster Recovery: Implications for Government, Communities, and Colleges; Engaging Technology in University-Community Partnerships; Building University-Community Partnerships: Expectations and Challenges; Place-Based Approaches to Engagement: Can Universities be Local and 89 Global?; Part II: Institutional Programs, Partnerships, and Case Studies in the United States; University and Communities in Partnership: Exploring the Roots and Current Trends of Higher Education Community Engagement in the United States; Public Higher Education Performance in the United States: A Community Perspective; Service-Learning as Catalyst for Integrating Community Engagement Across Core Academic Functions; Critical Civic Literacy as an Essential Component of the Undergraduate Curriculum: The Case of California State University, Monterey Bay; Teachers College Partnership Schools Consortium: A University-Assisted Schools Model to Achieve Comprehensive Educational Opportunity; Evolution, Not Revolution: Building the Engagement Function One Asset at a Time; The Shape of Community Engagement in Urban Centers – Possibilities or Improbabilities: The Case of Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Part III: Institutional Programs, Partnerships, and Case Studies in China, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia; Knowledge Matters: The Service Mission of Chinese Higher Education Institutions; A Comparative and Empirical Study of Academic Service Activities: A Focus on Japan; The Role of Maasai Mara University in Promoting Sustainable Development; Enhancing Community-University Engagement: The Case of Montemorelos University; Action Learning as an Approach for Developing Leaders, Solving Problems, and Building Successful Teams: A Case Study of Princess Nora Bint Abdul-Rahman University; Notes on Contributors; Index.