This article shares wisdom from three leaders in the Baltimore nonprofit sector on university engagement with local communities. In conversation with the directors of Towson University's Grant Writing in Valued Environments (G.I.V.E.) program, the community leaders give practical advice to be used in grant writing and community engagement efforts,…

Despite the growing volume of global research on community engagement and its outcomes, studies emerging from the Global South, particularly India, are sparse. This article makes a valuable contribution toward enhancing a scholarly understanding of engagement in India by highlighting the findings made through a qualitative study at eight Indian…

Public engagement is becoming a critical element of U.S. universities' missions. Defining public engagement has become increasingly complex, however, and navigating the significant and diverse literature on public engagement can be daunting. This essay addresses this challenge as well as two others that make public engagement difficult for those…

Higher education is witnessing a shift towards greater public engagement. Public scholarship, research conducted with and for the public, presents a compelling opportunity for doctoral programs in education. This article examines public scholarship and the public scholarship dissertation as a distinctive approach that transcends traditional…

There is a disconnect in higher education between higher education professional practices and valuing the community impact of engaged scholars. In this reflective essay, the authors highlight personal experiences with the process of working toward and earning promotion and tenure in academic settings. Those personal experiences are then…

Higher education institutions are becoming increasingly embedded in their surrounding communities in order to learn from and respond to their often complex problems. Potential mutually beneficial--or reciprocal-- collaborations between students, faculty members, and communities are being set up, but few researchers have explored how community…

The current trend among conservative politicians to erase Black history and ban books by Black authors from public schools and libraries in states like Florida and Texas is the latest in a long history of assaults on the civil rights and education of Black people. Laws like Florida's Individual Freedom Act, (H.R. 7/S.B. 148, 2022), commonly known…

This article explores the collaborative process behind the development and promotion of "Anti-Racist Community Engagement: Principles and Practices," an edited collection produced by an interracial team of editors and authors of 22 chapters. Through reflective narratives and critical conversations, we highlight the transformative…

Community-Based Research (CBR) presents a wide range of benefits in higher education to students, community partners, and universities. Yet on our campus (and many others), CBR remains less common than other high-impact practices (HIPs) such as service learning and undergraduate research due to lack of effective institutionalization. Moreover,…

Community and campus partners can benefit from place-based community engagement to enact a commitment to racial equity and community-driven decision-making. Racial equity is paramount in place-based community engagement. However, very little attention has been given to how whiteness in the ideological foundations of higher education shapes the…

There is limited understanding of the connections between community engagement and racial DEI at colleges and universities working to institutionalize engagement. Community engagement is not being institutionalized within an educational system that is a blank slate, nor does it operate within a vacuum. Community engagement operates within a…

Many reviewers of applications for ethical approval of research at universities struggle to understand what is considered ethical conduct in community-based research (CBR). Their difficulty in understanding CBR and the ethics embedded within it is, in part, due to the exclusion of CBR from researchers' mandatory research ethics training. After…

In the face of troubling public sentiment regarding the usefulness of college, this article shares a model for incorporating intentional and sustainable community-engaged learning (CEL) into the curriculum through a yearlong professional development faculty fellowship program. The authors share their experiences moving through the training,…

As community-based global learning (CBGL) programs become more common on college/university campuses and utilize the UN's Sustainable Development Goals to guide programmatic outcomes, open-access evaluation instruments that both benchmark and effectively measure programmatic enhancements over time are needed. The 147-item Community Engagement and…

The COVID-19 pandemic set higher education institutions on an unprecedented path requiring of them to identify alternative strategies and implement various initiatives to sustain their academic projects. With the widespread devastation of the pandemic, the purpose of universities within their communities were again in the spotlight. A sensibility…