digests of articles Directors

1. Immersing in the
Scholarship of
Engagement
BonnerSummerLeadershipInstitute2018
Friday, June 8, 2018 from 9:00 am to 10:00 am
Bonner & Center Directors

2. Three Articles
•“Service Learning as a Pedagogy of
Whiteness”, in Equity & Excellence in Education
(Vol. 45) by Tania D. Mitchell, David M. Donahue &
Courtney Young-Law (2012)
•“The Arc of the Academic Career Bends Toward
Publicly Engaged Scholarship” by Timothy K.
Eatman (Syracuse University, 2012).
•“Current Practice and Infrastructures for
Campus Centers of Community Engagement”
by Marshall Welch and John Saltmarsh, in Journal
of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement
(Vol. 17, 2013)

3. Service Learning as a Pedagogy of Whiteness
Mitchell, Donahue, and Young-Law:
“In this article we employ whiteness as a
conceptual framework to contextualize how
faculty develop and implement, and
consequently how students experience,
service learning. A vignette that illustrates
the pervasiveness of whiteness in service
learning is followed by an analysis that
details how whiteness frames the teaching
and learning in this service learning
experience. Through this example and
analysis, we seek to increase instructors’
capacity and confidence to interrupt the
patterns and privileges of whiteness that
too often are normalized in service learning.”

4. Why Whiteness Must Be Seen
(1) “The changing demographics of student
enrollment should impel educators to
examine how we implement service
learning, paying attention to our biases,
expectations, and traditions” (p. 613)
(2) “whiteness as a social construction that
remains invisible to white people but
conveys to them normative privileges
based on such color-blindness” (p. 613)
(3) Color-blindness as a pernicious form of
discrimination because color blindness
removes one’s ability to question racialized
experiences

5. Service-Learning Vignette
Vignette illustrates the good intentions, positive potential, and mis-educative potential of
service learning alongside the whiteness that pervades the pedagogy:
(1) Soc 152, Sociology of Education taught by Dr. Sharon Daniels (8 years)
(2) Integrated SL projects 2 years ago to help students learn social mobility, stratification,
social capital, and other concepts
(3) “Students are free to serve at any school but Daniels explains that the campus service
learning office has created a partnership with Wilson Middle School, a school with a
mostly African American and Latino student body, just a few blocks from campus.” (p.
617)
(4) Students react to what they observe in the school and, “Several of Daniels’ white students
discuss conversations they had with Wilson students and express their sadness at the
home lives of some students, whether because the family is poor, a parent is missing, a
sibling uses drugs, or a friend has experienced violence. Daniels noticed that most of the
students of color in her class remained silent during the discussion” (p. 618)
(5) “Daniels saves the last reflection session of the class to focus on the intersection of
race with the service learning project” (p. 618)…

6. Relevance to Bonner
•The authors argue that faculty and practitioners must recognize
and disrupt normative whiteness in service learning; become
skilled at having conversations about race; asking questions;
challenging mis-education
• Even though the Bonner Program tends to have more students
of color than the student body at an institution, these same
dynamics often play out in service and service-learning. We have
to ask how our programs or institutions may be perpetuating
this privilege of color-blindness and whiteness.
•The field of community engagement itself appears to play
out this privilege, in terms of its leadership; important for staff to
know this scholarship and its authors

7. Discussion
(1)What can you do, as
Directors, to address
the normative
whiteness in service/
service-learning on your
campus? How might
you use this scholarship
to have conversations
with faculty and other
leaders?

8. The Arc of the Academic Career Bends Toward
Publicly Engaged Scholarship
Eatman seeks to educate the field about the
growing presence of publicly engaged scholars in
graduate school and as new faculty:
1) “there is a growing core of individuals who
conduct research and involve themselves in
engaged community work both in the academy
and in the larger society;
2) there is room within a continuum of
scholarship for their work;
3) understanding their mindsets, needs, roles,
and aspirations is an essential aspect of
supporting the development of knowledge
creators and nurturing the emerging citizenry
of academe” (p. 26)

9. Why the Continuum Matters
Eatman connects this argument to the work of some to change tenure, including by
Imagining America’s Tenure Team Initiative (TTI) on Public Scholarship, co-chaired by
Nancy Cantor and Steven D. Levine. He presents 10 Key Elements of PES:

10. 10 Key Elements of PES (cont’d)

11. The Study
Building on the TTI report, national study by
Imagining America offers preliminary data
about faculty pathways(Eatman, Weber, Bush,
Nastasi, and Higgins 2011)
•Study employed focus groups to establish a
mixed-methods survey instrument
•Piloted nationally and used to develop
interview protocols.
•Research analyzed 434 responses to a 54-
item web-based survey and 54 structured
telephone interviews with participants who
self-identify as publicly engaged scholars
•65% Female; 10% African American; 5% Asian
or Pacific Islander; 6% Latino; 65% White.
•29% Humanities; 27% Social Sciences; 19%
Education

12. Findings & Relevant to Bonner
“What experiences shaped
your interest in publicly
engaged scholarship in a
significant way?”
•Graduate work (76.22%)
•Professional mentors (63.11%)
•Community service (60.89%)
•Collegiate experiences
(53.56%)
•Cultural involvements (53.33%)
•Work or internship experiences
(45.78%)
•Family members and friends
(39.11%)
Six Themes Emerged:
•Mentorship - faculty described their
importance
•Bridging worlds - faculty want to
connect their values and work
•Sphere of commitment - faculty want to
engage locally and understand
historical context
•Institutional recognition - faculty need
support for advancement
•Creativity and flexibility - PES fuels
their enjoyment
•Motivation - faculty understand the
benefits of using public scholarship for
teaching and student success

13. Discussion
(2)How do these
insights from the
study resonate with
your perceptions of
faculty and their
work at your
institution? How
might you use this
information?

14. Current Practice and Infrastructures for Campus
Centers of Community Engagement
Welch and Saltmarsh provide overview of current
practice and essential infrastructure of campus
community engagement centers:
•Authors identified key characteristics and the
prevalence of activities of community
engagement centers at engaged campuses
•Reviewed professional literature
•Analyzed over 100 successful applications for
the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement
of Teaching elective Community Engagement
Classification
•Data can be used as a baseline for centers and
institutions of higher education to assess their
current structures and programs

15. Framed as a Lit Review and Study
Welch and Saltmarsh start by reviewing growth of field and pose
two questions:
•What are the defining features of the organizational structures
created by campuses for the purpose of facilitating connections to
communities at the local, regional, national, and global levels?
• To what extent are the activities undertaken through these
institutional structures connected to institutional or community
change initiatives?
• The review revealed a total of 66 key characteristics at
community engagement centers on college campuses, as
identified in Table 1.

16. Literature >> Architecture; Center Infrastructure;
Center Operations; Center Programming

17. Growing Academic Integration
Field evolution: Just over half
(53.9%) of the directors have
a doctorate, and slightly less
than half (47%) have a
master’s degree.
Field evolution: Centers have
moved under Academic
Affairs and just over half
(57.1%) of the respondents
indicated that community
engagement courses are
“designated”

18. Evidence of Increasing Institutionalization
Field evolution: These 10 ten
characteristics were found:
Budgeted institutional funds
Administrative support
Programming staff
Faculty Development
Faculty Leadership
Student Decision Making
Assessment
Academic Affairs Reporting
Database/Tracking
Adequate Office
Course Designator
Fundraising
Communication/Outreach
Transportation
Cross-Campus Collaboration
Course Development Grants

19. Relevance to Bonner
•This study was fueled, in part, by the Bonner High-Impact Initiative,
where Welch and Saltmarsh began conversations for its planning
•The first publication of the study was in Deepening Community
Engagement in Higher Education: Forging New Pathways (Hoy
& Johnson, 2013), a volume coordinated by the Bonner
Foundation
•The findings signaled important evidence for both the traction
of the field and the need for some centers to step up efforts to
gain the resources and characteristics cited as evidence of
campus-wide engagement
•Since this time, the National Inventory of Institutional
Infrastructure for Community Engagement (NIIICE) has been
developed and offered at hundreds of other campuses

20. Discussion
(3)Why or how is this
article important to
your institution’s
center and
infrastructure? How
might you use this
scholarship with
senior leaders on
your campus?

21. Find these and other literature!
Bonner Pipeline Project on the Wiki!