Community Engaged Scholarship
The Nashman Center provides support and advocacy to promote Community Engaged Scholarship. GW has a proud tradition of mutually beneficial partnerships between scholars and community members, through service-learning courses, participatory action research, professional practice and creative work.
COVID-19 Update
Please note, during the campus closure and physical distancing due to COVID-19, we are distributing additional resources on virtual community engagement opportunities as well as assignment alternatives and readings to stir reflections on civic responsibility, social justice, and effecting social change.
The Symposium on Community Engaged Scholarship
Connect
Definition
Community Engagement describes the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national and global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.
The purpose of community engagement is the partnership of college and university knowledge and resources with those of the public and private sectors to enrich scholarship, research and creative activity; enhance curriculum, teaching and learning; prepare educated, engaged citizens; strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address critical societal issues; and contribute to the public good.
– Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching –
Standards of Practice
As engaged scholars, we believe that community engagement in higher education is not an "add-on" but a fundamental part of the knowledge enterprise. It is both the purpose of scholarship and the path to scholarship. In all initiatives, we are collectively committed to the following standards of practice, established by a Nashman Center faculty advisory committee in 2017 and grounded in the Campus Compact Principles of Good Practice. (Heffernan, 2001)
- Initiatives address a real, community-identified need
- Initiatives are scholarly activity
- The campus-community partnership is a reciprocal relationship
- Students and faculty are prepared for responsible engagement
- Students and faculty engage in on-going reflection and meaning-making
- Scholarship is disseminated for public benefit
