Hastings Spencer and Johanna Phelps

In technical writing scholarship, the classroom has been described as a laboratory for citizenship (Sapp and Crabtree, 2002). This framework also has a foundation in the efforts of institutions to offer opportunities to students for both intellectual and ethical development  (Print et al. 2002, Gatti et al. 2018, Dewey 1916, …)[1]. Such efforts are resonate especially for land-grant institutions in the United States, whose practical and political obligations in terms of instructional space are codified in the Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862 (Sorber 2018, Geiger and Sorber 2013, Gavazzi and Gee 2018). For contemporary universities, these obligations are expressed in a “tripartite mission of teaching, research and service” (Sorber 2018, 6).[2]

Washington State University Vancouver espouses this mission and has outlined specific community engagement initiatives as part of their strategic plan for 2016-2021 (“WSU Vancouver Strategic Plan”). The actual practice of engagement at WSU Vancouver, of course, predates these strategic initiatives and presently lives decentralized across its campus, including discipline and college specific partnerships that operate alongside campus level initiatives spearheaded by the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Strategic Partnerships, Max Ault, and initiatives such as the Collective for Social and Environmental Justice. WSU Vancouver is committed to its local community and works to stimulate economic growth in the Vancouver, WA area through engagement– in their own words, to “establish and maintain mutually beneficial community outreach, research, financial and civic engagement partnerships”(“Goal 5: Community”).

Paying specific attention to the classroom and faculty’s role in this work, the scholarship on the efficacy of community engagement in support of these aims is robust and conclusive (Bassler et al. 2008, Barnes and Schmitz 2016, Brizee et al. 2019 ), warranting the investments of universities across the country. In terms of the maintenance of the mutually beneficial nature of the practice – to meet the criteria of the strategic plans, the Act of 1862, various other criteria – employing best practices as outlined in the literature is an important starting point for faculty new to, or practically experienced but curious about the literature regarding, community engaged pedagogies.

Institutions often provide training and guidance on implementation of community engaged pedagogies via workshops and other in-person trainings during a semester in which faculty receive ongoing support and feedback on novel pedagogical practices. Occasionally, faculty who are new to CEPs are paired with more experienced faculty to form a mentoring partnership and build interdisciplinary partnerships. The time to successfully design and implement robust and successful CEPs should not be underestimated, and therefore compensation and ongoing benchmarks are useful, too. In a 2017 survey of 28 refereed articles on faculty development in the field of community engaged scholarship (CES), Marshall and Plaxton-Moore report “one-on-one consultations and … a series of 1–2 hour workshops” (144) to be the most common, usually utilized as part of a “faculty cohort model” or “faculty fellows seminar” (144). This volume is designed to mimic the iterative and collaborative process as faculty fellowships/seminars insofar as it can, while covering similar set of “core competencies.” We are constrained, of course, by our present context and the distance delivery model that will keep our students, partners, and faculty as safe as possible in coming months, and we hope this material is useful as you build your CE course.

Developing competencies to successfully deploy a CE curriculum are defined variously by Blanchard et al. (2009, 2012), Dostilio et al. (2017)  McCloskey et al. (2011) and comprise a set of skills utilized in a manner deeply responsive to the community of interest. To say these skills are used in a linear way would be counter to what we know about sucessful CE initiatives. Therefore, we offer these materials with no intention that they be read in a specific order, and they are presented linearly in the loosest of ways. Pared down and synthesized for our use, the following modules draws specifically from Marshall and Plaxton-Moore’s (148) and Kwas’ (2009) syntheses on the literature of faculty development, with close attention to Doberneck et al.’s “Community Engagement Competencies for Graduate and Professional Students,” Blanchard et al.’s (2008) “Models for Faculty Development,” and Axtell (2008)’s “Creating a Community-Engaged Scholarship (CES) Faculty Development Program.” These are further cross-referenced with available information on certain of WSU Vancouver’s peer institutions, including Virginia Tech, Cornell University, UMass Amherst, NC State, and others, while incorporating literature on best practices specifically from technical communication scholarship.

The text itself is split into five sections. These emphasizes active, critical reflection as the backbone of both designing and implementing effective and ethical engagement initiatives. Put another way, reflection is here foregrounded as a tool to be refined and utilized as the turning point through which reactions are proceed and funneled back into improved action. Before proceeding, then, we ask you to consider why you are reading this and why you are interested in implementing CEPs. Our best writing teachers always encouraged us to take some time to freewrite. We encourage you to spend a few moments, five perhaps, reflecting on why you are here.

In the first section, we will discuss issues of principles, ethics, and terminology as informing course design, instructional practices, and maintaining partnerships. The second, third, and fourth sections offer recommendations and structural content for developing, implementing, and reflecting on CEPs. Finally, the fifth section will expand on ideas of reflection, offering specific prompts for both students and instructors, and discuss assessment practices as incorporating the specific learning outcomes achieved through active, critical reflection. The sections should be taken as overlapping and reciprocal in terms of informing approach. We’re glad to have you here with us.

Works Cited

Axtell, Sara. “Creating a Community-Engaged Scholarship (CES) Faculty Development Program Phase One: Program and Skill Mapping,” Office for Public Engagement, University of Minnesota, 2008.

Barnes, Melody and Schmitz, Paul. “Community Engagement Matters (Now More Than Ever),” Stanford Social Innovation Review, Leland Stanford Jr. University, 2016, 32-39.

Bassler, Allan, Brasier, Kathy, Fogle, Neal, and Taverno, Ron. Developing Effective Citizen Engagement: A How-To Guide for Community Leaders, Center for Rural Pennsylvania, 2008.

Blanchard, Lynn W., Hanssmann, Chris, Strauss, Ronald P., Belliard, Juan Carlos, Krichbaum, Kathleen, Waters, Emily, and Seifer, Sarena D. “Models for Faculty Development: What Does It Take to be a Community-Engaged Scholar?” Faculty Development Workgroup of the Community-Engaged Scholarship for Health Collaborative, 2009.

Brizee, Allen, Paola Pascual-Ferrá, and Giuliana Caranante. “High-Impact Civic Engagement: Outcomes of Community-Based Research in Technical Writing Courses.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, June 12, 2019, 004728161985326. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047281619853266.

Chism, Nancy, Megan Palmer, and Mary Price. “Investigating Faculty Development for Service Learning.” Research on Service Learning: Conceptual Frameworks and Assessment, Volume 2A: Students and Faculty. eds. Patti H. Clayton, Robert G. Bringle, Julie A. Hatcher. Stylus Publishing, 2013.

Dewey, John. Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education, Macmillan, 1916.

Doberneck, Diane M, Burton A Bargerstock, and Miles McNall. “Community Engagement Competencies for Graduate and Professional Students: Michigan State University’s Approach to Professional Development,” n.d., 21.

Dostillo, Lina D. The Community Engagement Professional in Higher Education: A Competency Based Model for an Emerging Field, Stylus Publishing, LLC., 2017.

Gatti, Lauren; Masterson, Jessica E.; Brooke, Robert; Shah, Rachael W.; and Thomas, Sarah, “English education as democratic armor: Responding programmatically to our political work” (2018). Faculty Publications: Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education. 321. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/teachlearnfacpub/321

Gavazzi, Stepen M. and Gee, E. Gordon. Land-Grant Universities for the Future: Higher Education for the Public Good, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018.

Geiger, Roger and Sorber, Nathan. The Land-Grant Colleges and the Reshaping of Higher Education: Perspectives on the History of Higher Education, Transaction Publishers, 2013.

“Goal 5: Community.” Washington State University Vancouver, n.d., https://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/strategic-plan/goal-5-community

Kwa, Kai Xiang. “Service Learning: A Survey of the Literature.” Educating for Empathy: Service Learning in Policy Education, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., 2009: 25-48.

McCloskey, Donna Jo, Tabia Henry Akintobi, Ann Bonham, Jennifer Cook, and Tamera Coyne-Beasley. “Principles of Community Engagement (Second Edition).” Community Engagement, 2011, 197.

Mitchell, Tania D. “Using a Critical Service-Learning Approach to Facilitate Civic Identity Development.” Theory into Practice, 2015, 54:1, 20-28, DOI:  10.1080/00405841.2015.977657

Print, Murray, Susanne Ornstrom, and Henrik Skovgaard Nielsen. “Education for Democratic Processes in Schools and Classrooms.” European Journal of Education 37, no. 2 (June 2002): 193–210. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-3435.00102.

Sapp, David Alan, and Robbin D. Crabtree. “A laboratory in citizenship: Service learning in the technical communication classroom.” Technical communication quarterly 11.4 (2002): 411-432.

Sorber, Nathan. The Origins of the Morrill Act and the Reform of Higher Education, Cornell University Press, 2018.

Welch, Marhsall and Plaxton-Moore, Star. “Faculty Development for Advancing Community Engagement in Higher Education: Current Trends and Future Directions.” Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, Volume 21, Number 2, p. 131, (2017).