Demonstrating the Impact of Community Engagement: Realistic and Doable Strategies

Abstract

Most campuses are eager to answer questions like “How are students, faculty, and staff on campus working to address civic issues and public problems?”, “To what extent is our engagement making a difference?”, “How can we better support community engagement?” Discover how to track, monitor, assess, and evaluate community-engaged activities, which include curricular, co-curricular, or project-based activities that are done in partnership with the community, in order to tell a more comprehensive story of engagement. Whether you’re interested in community outcomes, student outcomes, partnership assessment, or faculty/staff engagement, campuses confront an array of challenges when trying to combine and align these questions into a comprehensive assessment plan. This session will give participants tools, strategies, and information to design, initiate and/or enhance a systematic mechanism for monitoring and assessment of community-engaged activities.