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The Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement

Helping Create the “New Normal” in American Higher Education?

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Abstract

This chapter provides a detailed exploration of how a long-standing University classification approach developed in the United States focuses on university-community engagement and the effects that this has on management approaches taken the university. This chapter reports findings from a study of the elective Carnegie Community Engagement Classification. This elective classification is a voluntary activity allowing universities to self assess and be given credit for things they do well given their overall mission and profile. Since 2004, this classification provides protocol for the accreditation of university engagement activity that goes beyond the standard kinds of service learning which we commonly find in universities, and attempts to go deeper to the institutionalization efforts of engagement across the entire university. Based on institutional studies and questionnaires, this chapter explores the extent to which something similar to a Carnegie classification can help to support universities in their efforts to make engagement more central to their mission, already identified by a number of contributors in this book as a vital antecedent condition for successful engagement.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    As noted later in this chapter, there are language variations when talking about the work of community engagement.

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Correspondence to Elaine Ward .

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Appendix A

Appendix A

There are many organizations involved in promoting civic engagement in the American higher education landscape . These include at the time of writing:

At regional and institutional levels there are also a number of entities that are responsible for advancing the engagement mandate. For example:

This list is in no way exhaustive, but paints a picture of the levels and layers of civic and community-engagement activity in the United States at the moment as well as identifies who the key researchers are in framing the conversation and research agenda for the field.

Table 15.4 Carnegie community-engagement elective classification application. (Adapted from the online 2010 Documentation Reporting Form)

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Ward, E., Buglione, S., Giles Jr., D., Saltmarsh, J. (2013). The Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement. In: Benneworth, P. (eds) University Engagement With Socially Excluded Communities. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4875-0_15

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