Skip to main content
Center for Community Engagement
Give iServe

Resources for Community Engaged Scholarship

The WVU Center for Community Engagement (CCE) provides one-on-one or departmental course support in developing your Service-Learning course. With extensive knowledge of our community and of academic learning outcomes, the CCE can help you tailor your course to meet both the needs of the community and the needs of your students through meaningful experiential learning opportunities.

Community Engaged Research and Scholarship

"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 

Service learning is just one method of community engaged scholarship.

Key Concepts About Community-Engaged Scholarship

All scholarship, including Community Engaged Scholarship:

  • Requires high level of disciplinary (or interdisciplinary) expertise
  • Uses an appropriate methodology
  • Is appropriately and effectively documented and disseminated to (academic and community) audiences, with reflective critique about significance, processes, and lessons learned
  • Has significance beyond the individual context (breaks new ground, innovative, can be replicated or elaborated)
  • Is judged to be significant and meritorious (product, process, and/or results) by panel of peers
  • Demonstrates consistently ethical practice, adhering to codes of conduct in research, teaching, and the discipline  
[Source]

Community Engaged Scholarship is not:

  • Serving on a departmental committee
  • Serving on a university-wide committee
  • Serving on a disciplinary committee
  • Volunteering not related to your discipline or not associated with community partnerships in your academic field
  • Conducting outside work for pay, with no connection or benefit to your departmental/unit missions
[Source]

By "Community", we mean groups of people who share commonalities including:

  • Geography
  • Identity
  • Affiliation or interest
  • Circumstance
  • Profession or practice
  • Faith
  • Family/kin
[Source]

By "Engaged", we mean work that can be described as: 

  • Scholarly
  • Systemic
  • Collaborative
  • Transformative
  • Asset based
  • Mutually beneficial
  • Capacity building
  • For the public good
[Source]

By "Scholarly", we mean it is based on existing scholarship, best practices and understandings AND generative of new understandings and scholarly products for academic and public audiences.

 [Source]

Explore These Examples of Community-Engaged Scholarship

PLANNING RESOURCES

Service-Learning

Service-learning allows community partners and students to forge a mutually beneficial relationship through volunteerism. Our students experience a variety of service opportunities in West Virginia and beyond.

Read More

Next Steps

We are constantly assessing and sharing resources to help in (and out!) of the classroom. Please sign up for our ACE Newsletter to stay up to date with the most pertinent information:  Subscribe to ACE Newsletter