This is a presentation about the Bonner High-Impact Initiative. This presentation will be given by Ariane Hoy and Mathew Johnson at various colleges, including Allegheny College.

1. The Bonner High-Impact Initiative
An Overview and Vision
February 9, 2012

2. The Bonner High-Impact
Engagement Initiative
✤ Introduction to the Bonner Network
✤ A proven program model
✤ Where this idea came from
✤ Our theory of change and strategy
✤ How you are and can be involved

3. Introduction...
to the core of Bonner

4. Introduction to Our National Network
Bonner Scholar and Leader Programs at more than 60 institutions of higher education
A Live Google Map

5. Who is a
Bonner?
✤ A committed undergraduate—
likely from a low-income
background (85%+)
✤ Joins a cohort-based program
✤ Serves 8-10 hours every week,
across four years
✤ Interns with local, national and
international organizations during
the school year and full-time in
summer
✤ Participates in education, training,
meetings, reflection
✤ Is more likely to graduate and have
better grades

6. The Bonner
Network
✤ 60 active Bonner Scholar and
Leader Programs; 15 start-up
✤ Diverse liberal arts institutions,
public and private
✤ 3,000+ students
✤ Focus on under-represented
students: low income, students
of color, First Generation
✤ 5,000+ alumni
✤ 25 endowed campus programs
at $163 million total

7. A proven program model...
with elements to scale

8. Proven
Program Model
✤ Student learning,
development and
leadership
✤ Reciprocal community
partnerships and
impact
✤ Campus infrastructure
and culture of service

9. Student Impact
Longitudinal assessment involving 25
campus programs; pre and post
assessment
✤ Four years are significant
✤ Proven skill learning
(developmental model)
✤ Commitment to social justice
✤ Dialogue across difference
✤ Structured and unstructured
reflection
✤ The importance of mentors
✤ Civic-minded professionalism

10. Deep
Partnerships
✤ 910,620 hours of service in
2011
✤ Developmental multi-year
partnerships
✤ Partners as co-educators
✤ Connecting all available
campus assets to community
needs
✤ Direct service, CBR, service-
learning projects, policy
research

11. Campus
Infrastructure
✤ Infrastructure for community
service and academic
community engagement
✤ FIPSE funded model for civic
engagement minors and
certificates
✤ Seeding community based
research over 15 years at 30+
institutions
✤ Staffing model that builds the
capacity, range and depth of
campus program

12. Alumni Impact
30 campuses, 1066 Participants; 22-50
years old; 32% response rate
✤ 33% in non-profit sector careers
✤ 32% in government careers
✤ 25% in for-profit careers
✤ Career choices driven by a
desire to affect positive change
✤ 90% demonstrating civic action
in past 12 months
✤ joined organization; signed petition; did not
buy a product due to company values;
contacted a public official
✤ 90% voted in last election

13. Bonner Alumni Remain Engaged
volunteering at notably higher rates than average U.S. citizens
Average Volunteering Rates vs. Bonner Graduates
50
37.5
25
12.5
Average Citizen=26.3%
0
Average College Graduate=42.3%
Bonner Graduates=49.2%

14. Where this idea came from...
listening to our network

15. Origins of the
Initiative
✤ Vision—Aim to
be at the cutting
edge of
institutional
change
✤ Data—NASCE
✤ Learning—HIPs
✤ Practice—HICEPs

16. Why change is
needed?
✤ Higher education at
a Crucible Moment
✤ Financial challenges
✤ Structural changes
✤ Performance crisis
✤ A unique
opportunity

17. Data—National
Assessment of Service &
Community Engagement
✤ Developed by Siena Research
Institute as a gauge of institutional
engagement
✤ Implemented by 35+ institutions
✤ 14K completes—now the largest
national data set on civic
engagement
✤ Telling findings—more than half
of students are never engaged
✤ Average POP score - mid 20’s
✤ Structure matters

19. Learning—Academic
Community Engagement
at a Crossroads
✤ Three Learn & Serve grants and fifteen
years working on CBR (building for
PolicyOptions)
✤ FIPSE-funded civic engagement minor
and certificate (like VESA)
✤ Assessment points to the importance
but limits of course-based service-
learning
✤ Broader calls in the field for the re-
imagination of service-learning
✤ The most successful initiatives (BTtoP,
Greater Expectations) cross boundaries
and inform institutional change

20. Engaged Learning—
High Impact ~ first year seminars
Practices (HIPs) ~ common intellectual experiences
~ learning communities
~ writing-intensive courses
✤ Generated from the Liberal ~collaborative assignments & projects
Education and America’s ~ undergraduate research
Promise (LEAP) Initiative, a ~ diversity/global learning
project of the American
Association of Colleges and ~ internships & project-based learning
Universities (AAC&U) ~ service-learning & community-based
learning
✤ Proven to be effective with ~ capstone courses & projects
higher than expected student
learning and success,
especially with under-
represented students
✤ ALL of them could be
connected with community
engagement

21. Practice—The Field is
Pushing Towards Results-
Oriented Approaches
✤ The recession and troubled economy
has driven increased demand on non-
profit and government organizations’
services
✤ Shrinking public funding and
declining revenues have contributed
to tightening expenditures and cuts
✤ Nonprofit mergers are increasing—
driven not only by fiscal concerns but
by aims to improve efficiency
✤ Campus-community partnerships with
long histories still need strategies and
tools to measure their contribution and
social impact

22. Practice—High Impact
Community Engagement
Practices (HICEPs)
✤ Developed by the Bonner
Foundation and Network’s ~ developmental sustained partnerships
20+ years of building and ~ developmental multi-semester placements
managing developmental ~ site and issue based teams
campus-community
partnerships ~ student team leaders
~ community listening / institutional voice
✤ Position campus and
community in democratic ~ capacity building projects (health index)
engagement, characterized ~ community-based participatory research
as: projects
✤ reciprocal ~ policy research assignments & issue briefs
~ research on proven program models
✤ problem-solving oriented ~cross campus collaborations on projects
✤ knowledge co-creation (i.e., Sophomore Exchange, Capstones)
✤ many types of public
spaces

23. Bridging across frameworks
A goal to draw out the opportunities for campuses and communities to be fully engaged

24. Our theory of change...
strategic campus-community teams

25. High-Impact Strategic Goals
✤ Scale proven best practices in community
engagement by integrating them across the
curriculum
✤ Create more faculty participation in community
engagement that is connected to evidence-based
practice
✤ Help campuses create and demonstrate community
impact

26. Four Major Strategies
✤ Integrate high-impact ✤ Build, support, and
educational practices and leverage campus
high-impact community transformation teams
engagement
✤ Be an active convener
✤ Use data and evidence- and catalyst for a national
based practice to drive learning community—
institutional strategy spurring partnerships
towards full engagement across the field that move
community engagement
towards greater impact

27. Strategy 1
Integrate high-impact educational practices and high-impact community engagement

28. Illustration of Connections
First Year Seminars First Year Trips / Immersions
Common Intellectual Experiences Site/Team Based Project Design
Learning Communities Cohort Training Meetings
Writing Intensive Courses Policy Research Assignments
Collaborative Projects Issue Briefs/Program Models/CBR
Undergraduate Research Capacity Building Projects
Diversity /Global Learning Junior (Elective) Trips / Internships
Sequence of developmental placements,
Internships / Project-Based Learning
tied to coursework
Capstone Courses Capstone Service Projects

29. Strategy 2
Use data and evidence-based practice to drive institutional strategy for full engagement

30. Types of Data
NSEE Institutional learning performance
NASCE Institution wide student engagement
Survey of Community Partners Satisfaction; Capacity contributions
Survey of Faculty Institution wide faculty engagement
Strategic Planning Issue Briefs/Program Models/CBR
Proven Program Models Capacity Building Projects
Indicators (Public Data) Junior (Elective) Trips / Internships
Community Impact Assessments to be gathered and shared

31. Year 4 on...continue to participation in Year 1
national learning community • Build team &
Year 3 campus climate
Student • Data collection &
•Attend institute
• Sustainability planning
Professor Partner
vision & plan • Identify assets
• Refine HIcePs, projects Student • Attend institute
Staff
possibly others • Select & do first
• Begin to HIceP
Partner Professor
implement
impact Staff
assessment Year 2
• Expand team & participation
• Attend institute
• Select & do next two HIcePs
• Document and share learning (conferences,
Strategy 3 publications)
Build, support, and leverage campus transformation teams

32. Strategy 4
Be an active convener
and catalyst for a
national learning
community—spurring
partnerships across
the field that move
community
engagement towards
greater impact
Year 1 Cohort

33. •Association of American Crucible Moment, HIPs
Colleges and Universities
• American Association of
State Colleges & American Democracy Project
Universities
• Bringing Theory to Psychosocial Well-being, Assessment
Practice Models
• IARSLCE Research and theoretical base
Collaboratories, faculty development
• Imagining America paths, tenure & promotion
Full Participation, institutional
• NERCHE transformation, Carnegie Classification,
Democratic Engagement
• Open Indicators Community impact models using
Consortium public data, open source
Strategy 4
National Learning Community

34. How you can be involved...
supporters, champions,
activists, critical thinkers...