Cathy Jordan, PhDAssociate Professor of Pediatrics

Director, Children, Youth and Family ConsortiumUniversity of Minnesota

Member, Community Campus Partnerships for HealthCo-Director, Faculty for the Engaged Campus

Community-engaged Teaching and Scholarship: Making it Count

in Promotion and Tenure

Agenda

-Define terms relevant to engaged research and teaching-Discuss scholarship from engaged teaching-Present challenges facing community-engaged scholars-Describe Faculty for the Engaged Campus-Introduce CES4Health.info

Definitions

-Engagement

Community engagement is the application of institutional resources to address and solve challenges facing communities through collaboration with these communities

- Scholarship

"Scholarship is teaching, discovery, integration, application and engagement; clear goals, adequate preparation, appropriate methods, significant results, effective presentation, and reflective critique that is rigorous and peer-reviewed.” (Boyer)

Or,

Scholarship = creative intellectual work that contributes significantly to knowledge in the field and has impact, is communicated and valued and is reviewed by peers.

- Community-engaged Scholarship

"Community-engaged scholarship (CES) is scholarship that involves the faculty member in a mutually beneficial partnership with the community.”

This could be within a research, teaching, programmatic or other kind of activity.

Linking Scholarship and Communities: The Report of the Commission on Community-Engaged Scholarship in the Health Professions

Finding Scholarship in Engaged Teaching

Common misconception – engaged teaching methods such as service-learning are not necessarily scholarship.

Must use a scholarly approach (grounded in work that came before)Must document and create product that can be disseminated and subjected to critique

Challenges of P and T for CES• Review committees don’t understand CES

– Misconceptions about rigor– Confusing CES with “just service”– You see connections between discipline and

engaged work; others may not

Challenges (continued)

• Faculty don’t understand CES– Not producing scholarship from engagement, or

confusing engagement with scholarship (service-learning example)

– Not integrating engagement into research and teaching; making it an add-on

– Not documenting engaged scholarship in c.v. or dossier

Challenges (continued)

• The traditions of the system– Need for expanded definition of impact (not just

publications and journal impact scores) • Demonstrate community impact

– Need for acceptance of alternative forms of scholarly products (not just peer-reviewed journal articles)

Challenges (continued)

– P & T is about you as an individual. Engaged work is usually a group effort and credit for its impact is shared.

– Requirement to demonstrate leadership in field and national/international reputation• In CES, leadership/reputation tend to be local. Must

be intentional to expand reputation

Faculty for the Engaged Campus History:

– 2004-2007: Community-engaged Scholarship for Health Collaborative

– Funded by US Dept of Ed FIPSE program

– Under auspices of Community- Campus Partnerships for Health

• 9 health professions school worked to, collectively and on individual campuses, support CES through culture and institutional change

• 3 gaps identified

– Faculty development pathways– Mentors and dossier external reviewers– Mechanism for peer review and broad dissemination of

innovative products

Faculty for the Engaged Campus

2nd FIPSE grant – 3 parts = the 3 gaps

• Competency-based CES faculty development – 6 universities received small grants

• CCPH Database of Faculty Mentors and Portfolio Reviewers

• .

What is CES4Health.info?

• Mechanism for the rigorous peer review and online dissemination of innovative products of health-related (broadly defined) CES that are in forms other than journal manuscripts– Documentary, training video, curriculum, manual,

guide, report, website, toolkit, policy brief

Outcomes Faculty and grad students who author products that

are published through CES4Health.info can note them in the peer-reviewed publications section of their curriculum vitae and describe them as peer-reviewed scholarly products.

• CES4Health.info provides authors with a measure of impact by tracking how often each product is accessed and how it is used.

Outcomes (con’t) Useful products will be more broadly disseminated,

increasing the likelihood that they will be taken up, used and have impact in more communities

Development of CES4Health.info• Fall 2007 – Fall 2008

– Design team: community and academic– Designed review criteria, author instructions,

application, rating form• Winter 2008 – summer 2008

– Pilot testing, portal development, beta testing– Recruited authors and acad/comm reviewers (60)– Many, many reviewer training calls

• Sept 2009 – now– Focus on populating site– 21 products submitted

• 3 Accepted• 12 Accepted with revision• 2 rejected• 4 under review

• November 3, 2009 – public launch!

Submission and Review

• Author submits online application and product• Application provides info about:

– Development of the product– Significance/impact of the product– Rigor of the work that led to the product (allows

assessment of scholarly nature of the work)

• Review process mirrors typical journals• Editorial staff – editor, 3 associate editors,

editorial board• Editor screens for community engagement

and health related criteria• Products assigned to 3-4 reviewers

– 2 academic– 1-2 community

Using P & T to Shift Culture

• When faculty make their best case for P and T as community-engaged scholars, they:• Educate administrators and P & T committees• Focus attention on increasing the university’s relevance and impact• Focus attention on enhancing learning outcomes• Raise visibility of CES• Enhance credibility of CES• Create a career advancement pathway for those who will come later• Possibility create a need for changes in P & T guidelines