FRAMING STATEMENT 3R D ANNUAL SUMMER RESEARCH INSTITUTE

THE FUTURE OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION

-- MERRIMACK COLLEGE -- JUNE 23-24, 2012

DAN W. BUTINDAN.BUTIN@MERRIMACK.EDU

DEAN, SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, MERRIMACK COLLEGE

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR ENGAGED DEMOCRACY

When Engagement Is Not Enough:Academic Programs as a Key Component in the Institutionalization of Community Engagement

LOGISTICS

AcknowledgementsRoom logistics

“Sak” Student Center Library

Schedule of events Materials Website Schedule of the days Changes

The Punch Line…The Future of Engagement

This should be easy…NSSE; Campus Compact; Lumina;

Carnegie Classification; HERI; AAC&U

But we have reached an “engagement ceiling”

At Stake: How We Resolve the Future of Place-Based

Experiential Learning is the Future of Higher Education

The Engagement “10% Ceiling”

CONCEPTUAL PRAGMATIC INSTITUTIONAL PEDAGOGICAL

SL clustered in “soft” disciplines

<6% STUDENTS SEE SL AS SOCIAL OR POLITICAL

< 7% OF FACULTY AT CAMPUS COMPACT INSTITUTIONS USE SL

1 in 4 new faculty tenure-stream2% OF 4,000+

INSTITUTIONS ARE “LIBERAL ARTS”

25% OF STUDENTS ARE “TRADITIONAL”

>80% of all instruction is lecture-based

<20% OF CBR HAS COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

“A Crucible Moment” – A Stalled Movement

“epistemology of the academy runs counter to the civic engagement agenda”

“sense of drift and stalled momentum”“imprecise and even conflicting language” “highly fragmented and compartmentalized” set of

networksa “remarkably apolitical” civic agenda

How to Think About This Dilemma

Social Movement

Intellectua

l Movement

Breadth DepthDiffuse Focus

Answers QuestionsToolkits Handbooks

A Campaign A Discipline (or SoTL)

What’s At Stake? – in Higher Education

“Disruption” and Splintering of Higher Education Institutional Diversification (>40% community colleges & 12% for-profits) Online and technological innovations (MOOCs)

What’s At Stake? – for Teaching & Learning

Online Technology OPEN COURSEWARE MOVEMENT; WIKIPEDIA; KHAN

ACADEMY NEW CHARTER UNIVERSITY; STRAIGHTERLINE WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY

MITx LAUNCHED THIS SPRING; 120,000 SIGNED UP; 10,000

FINISHED FULLY AUTOMATED SCALABLE UNDERMINES THE CREDENTIALING SOCIETY LEARNING ANALYTICS BAUMOL’S COST DISEASE

Outcomes “academically adrift” Graduation/retention <50%; disaggregate by race,

ethnicity, SES, etc.

VOLUME

VARIETY

VELOCITY

VARIABILITY

What’s at Stake? – Recovering the Power of Community-Engaged Teaching, Learning and Research

Service-Learning as a Pedagogy of Disturbance (technical; cultural; political; antifoundational) Dewey’s “forked-road…moment of uncertainty” “moment of doubt” Wittgenstein’s ladder Festinger’s cognitive dissonance Fish’s “self consuming pedagogy” Foucault’s obliteration of epistemic certainty

Service-Learning as Social Justice Indirect; “weak overcoming”

Service-Learning as a culturally saturated, socially consequential, politically contested, and existentially defining experience Who benefits? To what ends? With what impacts?

Implications for Service-Learning

…as the question (rather than “the

answer”)

Implications for the “Engaged Campus”

DEPTH OF PRACTICE

• Relevance and impact for all stakeholders

PEDAGOGICAL LEGITIMACY

• Scholarship of Teaching & Learning

COURSE INTEGRITY (NOT AN “ADD-ON”)

• academic freedom