Community-Engaged Scholarship

Below is a brief overview of what community-engaged scholarship is and what it looks like. 

Community-engaged scholarship combines engagement and scholarship within or across communities through research/creative activities, teaching, and/or service that are conducted in partnership with non-academic organizations, scholars, and practitioners. Such partnerships create opportunities for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources that make a positive contribution to both our university and to the public good. 

Community-engaged scholarship has several attributes that may distinguish it from traditional scholarship:

• The work is often difficult to compartmentalize because it blurs the lines among research, teaching, and service.
• The work often crosses disciplines.
• The work requires purposeful relationship-building with partners.
• Products may be shared in non-traditional venues and formats.
• Products are often co-created with community partners.

In addition to these non-traditional characteristics, good community-engaged scholarship involves inquiry, demonstrates current knowledge of the fields/disciplines, seeks feedback from community partners, invites peer collaboration and review, and is presented in a form that others in the community can build on.

Examples of community-engaged scholarship may include, but are not limited to, the following products and services:

• Presentations/trainings/workshops
• Artistic and digital creations
• Public policy
• Publications
• Patents and entrepreneurial endeavors