Faculty Roles and Faculty-Related Topics

Abstract

Faculty who practice service-learning and community engagement are engaged scholars who focus their teaching and research on the renewal of democracy and social and environmental issues of relevance to the broader public. Their scholarship comprises a vehicle for their personal commitments and, in some cases, their respective institution’s commitments to the civic purposes of higher education. Faculty who effectively use service-learning and community-engaged pedagogies prioritize active, experiential methods, including student inquiry and community action. They embrace broader epistemologies that honor a diversity of perspectives including different ways of knowing and community-based knowledge. The research practices of faculty in service-learning and community engagement are typically more collaborative and action-oriented than is traditional in academic disciplines; the aim of research is the enhancement of the polity or public life achieved through continuous cycles of inquiry and action. Despite support for community-engaged work in the scholarship on higher education (Boyer, 1990), faculty who practice these approaches often face institutional barriers to tenure, promotion, and other rewards.