Publicly Engaged Scholars

"This book has many implications for the structure and practice of higher education, and the authors call on community partners to help participate in research agendas. There is no longer room for curriculum decisions made in the isolation of one department alone. Tenure and promotion decisions must grow and change to allow for a new set of guidelines to better support faculty engagement. Also crucial is a greater acceptance of community and practitioner publications, instead of focusing only on first tier journals. The addition of community participation in curriculum development can not only build partnerships within the community, but also continue education beyond the classroom by providing real experiences to students. Also, allowing community members to coauthor research can likewise increase the number of people who have access to research outcomes and data.

Overall, this book truly makes the case for the importance of community engagement in higher education and the important role faculty play in shifting its current focus. Many of the changes discussed in the book can be positive for students, faculty, and communities if we embrace them."

Teachers College Record

“This book arrives at an important moment in the history of service-learning and community engagement (SLCE) in higher education. In many ways, efforts to integrate community engagement into the academy have been tremendously successful, evidenced by the upsurge in SLCE research and practice across a wide range of academic disciplines, and by the expansion of institutional support through the creation of service-learning centers on campuses and the promotion of national agendas for SLCE in higher education. However, most of the work to date has been inwardly focused, examining the positive impact of the pedagogy on college students and calling for changes within the academy to support engaged scholarship; less attention has been paid to the nature and potential of campus-community partnerships, particularly the role and experience of ‘the community’ in those partnerships.

The volume pays overdue and significant attention to the ‘public’ in publicly engaged scholarship, making a strong case for renewing higher education’s commitment to addressing community concerns, particularly in the wake of neoliberal policies and the devolution of public responsibility to the private sector and to individuals. It argues for expanding notions of what counts as ‘scholarship,’ acknowledging the important contributions that community partners can and do make in knowledge production, and identifying the need for substantial changes in the academy to support engagement practices that address issues of working between the two cultures (the academy and the community) and incorporate multiple points of view.

Publicly Engaged Scholars is a very timely book and a worthwhile read. It reflects the work of a current generation of scholars and the work that still remains to advance engaged scholarship’s place in the academy.”

Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning

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"It is a new day in academia, and Publicly Engaged Scholars: Next Generation Engagement and the Future of Higher Education is here to tell the story. An outgrowth of the New Generation Engagement Project, a working group organized under the New England Resource Center for Higher Education, the book presents a diverse cadre of individuals who are upsetting the proverbial applecart (a.k.a. the academy) and transforming – as Nadinne Cruz notes on the back cover – long-held conceptions of what we call 'the work'.

The book argues, ‘At its core, next-generation engagement is defined by a collaborative engagement paradigm of teaching, learning, and scholarship in which faculty, students, and community partners co-create knowledge and learning’. Next generation scholars are embedded in the life of the university and the community, and their work is intimately connected to and stems from community concerns. This connection is the hallmark of next generation scholars, and as the editors suggest, their growing numbers require us all to recognize new ways of doing business.”

Partnerships: A Journal of Service-Learning and Civic Engagement

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"This book gives voice to what is at stake—what matters and why—in pushing past our current discourses towards creating a new 'language regime of engagement.' The overall message comes through loud and clear: the ways by which next-generation scholar-practitioners of engagement have experienced their work and how they think about it require new ways to name 'the work.' I call on fellow 'pioneers' and 'elders' to honor next-generation engagement scholars by 'listening eloquently' (as pioneering Herman Blake would urge his students to do with community partners) to what they have to say, by identifying in their articulations areas rich for 'theorizing engagement,' and by referencing their work as we express one’s own thinking on what engagement is or ought to be about."

Nadinne Cruz, service-learning pioneer

co-author of Service-Learning: A Movement's Pioneers Reflect on Its Origins, Practice and Future

"Publicly Engaged Scholars: Next Generation Engagement and the Future of Higher Education is a timely and hopeful book. A new generation of creative, dedicated, collaborative scholars is necessary if we are to realize the unrealized democratic promise of American higher education to powerfully contribute to a fair, decent, and just society. This book gives visibility and voice to that generation. Reading what young publicly engaged scholars have to say is both highly instructive and cause for genuine optimism about the possibilities for much needed significant, sustained university and societal change."

Ira Harkavy, Associate Vice President, Founding Director

Barbara and Edward Netter Center for Community Partnerships, University of Pennsylvania

"Publicly Engaged Scholars is an inspiring book that presents a renewed vision and pathway to advance participatory scholarship. The book provides a critical exploration of public engagement that is grounded in both a rich understanding of the historical context and future promise of socially responsible, impactful, and equitable scholarship. As a next generation scholar, the book challenges us to shape the future of engaged scholarship as active collaborators and change agents partnering with communities and within and across institutions of learning."

Jomella Watson-Thompson

2014 Lynton Award Recipient; Assistant Professor; Associate Director of the Work Group for Community Health and Development, University of Kansas

"Grounded in the deep history of the engagement movement in higher education but spoken in the voices of its next generation, Publicly Engaged Scholars is both unflinching in its presentation of the challenges—personal, professional, political—facing those who seek to transform higher education for the greater good and hopeful in its demonstration of the persistence and adaptability of engaged scholarship. Anyone concerned about higher education’s contribution to democracy should read it."

Andrew J. Seligsohn, President

Campus Compact

“Publicly Engaged Scholars is a much needed look at the future of higher education as more of the public, increasingly diverse in every way, pushes for more of the academy to engage in high-impact scholarship, collaborate broadly, and be a locus of democratic practice and educator of democratic citizens. Its authenticity comes from the powerful voices of our students, who have emerged as the new generation of publicly engaged scholars looking to make a difference in the world. This is an exciting time, and this volume pulls us enthusiastically into that future.”

Nancy Cantor, Chancellor

Rutgers University-Newark

“This is a book that captures a critical development in the civic engagement movement as we witness the emergence of a new generation of public engaged scholars. The implications for higher education and society, as the scholars who have contributed to this volume make clear, are enormous…The chapters give voice not only to the rich and powerful stories of next generation publicly engaged scholars, but also to current developments in the civic engagement movement shaping higher education globally.

The chapters in this volume provide a window into the emerging citizenry of academe, publicly engaged scholars working in capacities both on and off campus…A growing body of research demonstrates that the field suffers from a paucity of knowledge about the aspirations, decisions, and career pathways of the next generation…What these chapters demonstrate is that engagement is transforming the academy – the future is upon us."

Timothy K. Eatman

School of Education, Syracuse University, and Faculty Co-Director of Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life