Defining Engaged Scholarship at ETSU
A sub-committee of faculty and staff interested in uplifting the scholarship of engagement
at ETSU began by examining established definitions of engaged scholarship from several
authoritative sources including:
Carnegie Foundation (2007): Engaged scholarship involves collaboration between higher education institutions and their larger communities (local, regional, state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of reciprocity.
Campus Compact: Engaged scholarship encompasses scholarly activities focused on the social, civic, economic, educational, artistic, scientific, environmental, and cultural well-being of people and places beyond academia. It aims to create and disseminate new knowledge to address social issues through collaborative relationships between university and external partners. It seeks impact beyond academic publications, emphasizing societal relevance and public engagement.
Engagement Scholarship Consortium: Defined by the Kellogg Commission, engaged scholarship promotes strong university-community partnerships anchored in rigorous scholarship to build community capacity and benefit society. An engaged institution responds to student needs, enriches student experiences by integrating research into curricula, and forms faculty-student-community partnerships to address critical issues.
Boyer’s Model: Boyer identified four types of scholarship: discovery, integration, application, and teaching. The scholarship of engagement connects university resources to pressing social, civic, and ethical problems, fostering continuous and creative communication between academic and civic cultures to enrich quality of life.
Additionally, the group reviewed how engaged scholarship is defined at other institutions such as the University of Colorado Boulder, Purdue University, Stockton University, Loyola University, and James Madison University.
The Committee's Approach:
The group chose to use the terms "research, scholarship, and creative activity" as
these are familiar and well-established on the ETSU campus. This terminology encompasses
all types of scholarly production at ETSU. Teaching was excluded as it is addressed
in a separate deliverable for our Quality Enhancement Plan.
The committee's task was to identify scholarship that meets criteria for meaningful engagement with the community. Based on the definitions reviewed, we determined the following essential components for any scholarship to be termed "Engaged":
- Addresses Significant Societal Needs: Scholarship must be intentionally designed to address relevant, timely, important and often complex societal issues.
- Developed in Collaboration with Community Partners: Scholarship must involve collaboration with community partners, with problems, goals, and methods jointly defined.
- Utilized and Practically Applied: Scholarship must aim to improve the lives of people in our region and beyond, aligning with ETSU's mission of achieving societally-relevant outcomes. Engaged Scholarship must seek impact beyond academic publication, aiming to expan and utilize knowledge for societally-relevant outcomes.
The final adopted defintion, while not exhaustive, is intended to be clear, concise, and conducive to visualization (see Venn diagram). The committee aimed to incorporate familiar language that conveys a clear sense of purpose for our institution. This simplified definition is designed to be easily understood and recited by the ETSU community.