This session, facilitated by David Roncolato and Ariane Hoy, will engage administrators in discussing some case studies and scenarios that relate to their efforts in advancing community engagement and its integration with curriculum, faculty, partnerships, and student work.

1. Strategizing for Community-
Engaged Capstones:
Campus and Community Change
BonnerSummerLeadershipInstitute2018
Tuesday, June 6, 2018 from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm
Administrators Strategy Session

2. Description
•What will it take to integrate capacity-building
capstones into the Bonner Program? We know
that some of the biggest barriers involve changing
campus culture and structures. Bonner Directors
and Coordinators will join a strategy session in
which we surface and work through a number of
challenges. Through case studies and scenarios,
we'll tackle issues like faculty engagement,
project identification, perceptions, and more.

3. Goals
•Immerse and dialogue into tackling some of the
common barriers and challenges we face, as
administrators, in advancing integration of co-
curricular and curricular community engagement
•Use case studies and scenarios to prompt our
thinking on issues like faculty engagement, rigor,
misperceptions of the Bonner Program, and more
•Work through these challenges together in order
to identify potential solutions and approaches

4. To Recap, a Capstone is…
• Team or individual project
• Done in 3rd and/or 4th year
• Benefits a community constituency
(group, nonprofit, goverment,
environment, etc.) in some way by
addressing identified issue or need
• Provides student(s) with opportunity for
integrative learning and doing

5. Civic-Minded Graduate
Identity
Civic
Experiences
Educational
Experiences
Cultural Norms and
Social Context
1
2
3
Civic-Minded Graduate
(CMG)
Hits That “Sweet Spot”

6. May Tie to Curriculum
The LEAP Challenge calls on
colleges and universities to
build pathways where all
undergraduates to complete a
substantial “cross-disciplinary
project in a topic significant to
the student and society, as
part of the expected pathway
to a degree(AAC&U, 2016).

7. Integrates Purposes

8. Round 1 Case Studies
The group will split in half and then
into small groups (no larger than 8)
Group A
Group B

9. Scenario 1 A
A senior comes in to meet with the Bonner Program Director at the beginning of
fall semester. She has decided to drop out of Bonner during her senior year to
focus on her senior capstone project. For the past three years she has done her
“Bonner work” related to food access and justice – from soup kitchens, to
community gardens to food deserts. She has clearly refined her knowledge and
skills through 3-year developmental work in the area of food insecurity. Despite
this, her faculty advisor has encouraged her to step away from her Bonner co-
curricular commitment to concentrate on their senior capstone academic work,
even though it’s an engaged project. She graduated with highest honors but not
as a member of her Bonner class. What needs to change within the Bonner
program? What needs to change about the Bonner program on this campus?
Questions:
• Why do you think that the faculty member suggested that the student step away from
Bonner in order to complete this senior capstone?
• What would be the ways to help the faculty member and the student to see that their
Bonner and academic experience could be integrated?
• What should we be doing to change this perception? How might we educate others on
campus? How might we change the expectations or experiences of Bonners?

10. Scenario 1 B
A Faculty member approaches the Bonner staff about finding Bonner students
as co-presenters with faculty at an upcoming conference on implicit bias and
race relations. Within this Bonner cohort are many students who work with
youth in complex, racially diverse, high schools and in after-school settings.
This is a research oriented conference where students and faculty can present
how they have tried to understand and analyze issues. The faculty member
sees and affirms the Bonners as great students for this conference. The staff
however fail to have even one Bonner consider applying to co-present. Even
though the Bonner students have the knowledge and experience they do not
recognize this and they do not know how to package their knowledge to write
a persuasive conference presentation proposal.
Questions:
• Why do you think that the faculty do not know how deep the knowledge and
experience of Bonners and deeply engaged students are?
• What would be the strategies that Bonner staff could do to help the students
articulate their learning in ways that faculty can understand?
• What should we be doing to change this perception? How might we educate others
on campus? How might we change the expectations or experiences of Bonners?

11. Discussion
First group, please read the
scenario and questions

12. What are the issues and strategies?
What our groups discuss and generate…

13. Round 2 Case Studies
The group will split into 4 sub-groups
and then into small groups (no larger
than 8)
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D

14. Scenario 2A
Emily is a Bonner Scholar in an established Bonner program. She has been both a reliable
service provider at her site and a strong student. Her site is a small nonprofit that is a short-
term shelter for homeless families. Emily has worked at the site since second semester her
first year of college. She has prepared and served meals, cleaned and painted rooms,
worked in child care and conducted adult financial literacy programs. She is now a second
semester Junior. In a one on one with Bonner staff she admits to being bored and no longer
challenged at this site. In addition, she is frustrated by the lack of time and effort to secure
much needed funding to improve the nonprofit and move it beyond operating on a “shoe
string.” As a Political Science /Economics major, Emily has often imagined hypothetical
political advocacy and fundraising campaigns for this nonprofit from material she has come
across in her academic work. She has come to the Bonner office to meet with the staff about
changing her site for her senior year where she could be better utilized and not be bored.
Questions:
• What does this particular case study reveal about the shortcomings of the existing Bonner Program
(i.e., its partnerships, placement model, etc.)?
• What could be done to educate and involve community partners in the developmental progression
of the Bonner Program that includes a higher level capstone project and has the opportunity for
academic integration?
• What might you do, in a case like this, to help Emily (and students like her) solidify her senior year
project (and still involve a capstone)?

15. Scenario 2B
One of the schools with the Bonner Program has created a new center for academic
community research. Community partners from nonprofits, government
organizations, schools and local businesses are encouraged to submit RFPs for
summer and year-long research projects. Students will work under a faculty advisor
and receive academic credit for work on these community-based projects. A local
afterschool program at a low income housing development submitted a proposal for
a study of effectiveness of homework help sessions for 6th graders living in the
housing development. A Bonner who has been working as a Bonner at this
afterschool program for three semesters is taken back when he finds out that this
proposal was submitted and accepted. As it turns out a student living across the hall
from him, who has not been involved with the site, has been selected by the
coordinating faculty member to take on the project in the upcoming semester. Yet
the Bonner was unaware of this research and academic opportunity.
Questions:
• Why is this a frustrating experience for the Bonner and what issues does it raise?
• How can we overcome the compartmentalization that happens for partners as they try to
access resources and assistance from the campus?
• What work with faculty would address this fragmentation and position the Bonners to be
able to access support and credit?

16. Scenario 2C
One of the Bonners in your Bonner Program has been studying the prison
system in terms of economics, race and socio economic disparities. As a
rising senior, he is very interested in connecting his studies with his co-
curricular service work at a youth detention center near campus. While the
faculty who have been teaching these courses are very knowledgeable
about researchers and writers in the field, they are not familiar with the
youth detention facility and the work that Bonners have been doing there.
Because of their lack of experience in connecting academic work with
service engagement the faculty are of little help in assisting this student in
developing a viable capstone experience. They do not know how they
would guarantee adequate rigor for and engaged capstone project.
Questions:
• How would you describe the experience of this Bonner?
• What are things that we as staff could do to enhance the perception of rigor
in our Bonner Program and students’ work?
• What faculty development strategies ought to be employed in this case?

17. Scenario 2D
An organized sub-group of 5 of the second-year Bonners asks to meet
with the Bonner staff. They have become aware of other, non-Bonner,
students receiving academic credit (2 credits or ½ of the credits for a
full semester class) for an informal group discussion section that does
not require any reading or any written homework. The Bonners are
upset because they realize they are actually doing more reading and
more written reflections and learning more than these other students in
their co-curricular Bonner trainings without receiving any academic
credit. The Bonner staff are not currently a part of the campus
committees who are making decisions about awarding academic
credit?
Questions:
• Why are the Bonners frustrated?
• What do Bonner staff need to know that would help them address these
concerns?
• What self-advocacy would you suggest to the Bonner students themselves?

18. Discussion
First group, please read the
scenario and questions

19. What are the issues and strategies?
What our groups discuss and generate…

20. Round 3: Scenarios
The group will work through one of five
scenarios
Group 1
Group 2
Group 3
Group 4
Group 5

21. Scenario 1
Students use their Bonner commitment as
an excuse for turning in academic work
late and/or of poor quality. The faculty
member takes this a step further and
contacts Bonner staff to discuss the time
demands of the Bonner program.
Questions:
• What are the issues?
• What do we need to do?

22. Scenario 2
Faculty recognize the learning and the
marketability of skills developed in
Bonners’ work in the community. Yet these
skills are not grasped by the student or
communicated in graduate school
applications or on resumes.
Questions:
• What are the issues?
• What do we need to do?

23. Scenario 3
A Bonner student come to school deeply
invested in the plight of refugees and in
the particular rural location of your school
there are no organizations working on
refugee issues – there are few refugees in
the region.
Questions:
• What are the issues?
• What do we need to do?

24. Scenario 4
You have at least a third of your Bonner
students doing significant, rigorous community
based projects during their junior and senior
years. But you do not know if there are any
faculty with research interest or willingness to
be faculty allies that might be able to give
credit to students for this work.
Questions:
• What are the issues?
• What do we need to do?

25. Scenario 5
In the most recent campus-wide strategic planning
process a key committee has been formed to build a
structure for community engaged courses and
independent research. Many of the community
partners that the Bonner program has developed over
the past decade are invited to participate in two day
planning retreat as part of this committee’s work. No
Bonner staff, only faculty and upper level
administrators are on the committee.
Questions:
• What are the issues?
• What do we need to do?

26. Discussion
First group, please read the
scenario and questions

27. Implications for Us?
What are the issues that we need help with as a group?
Thoughts…
What issues do we need to raise with our senior leaders?
Thoughts…

28. Final Discussion
Takeaways and Next Steps