What do we mean by the nuts and bolts of community engagement? The basics, the building blocks, the must-haves. In this edition of The Engagement Ring, Campus Compact's Nicole Springer and Emily Phaup share their thoughts, ideas and insights on the importance of good communication between the institution and its partners, professional development for community engaged faculty, mutual benefit and reciprocity between partners, and cultivating a campus culture that values community engagement.
Bios:
Dr. Nicole Springer, Director, Institutional Capacity Building, Campus Compact
Dr. Emily Phaup, Manager, Professional Development, Campus Compact
Campus Compact website
References mentioned by Dr. Springer:
Doberneck, D. M., & Dann, S. L. (2019, September). The Degree of Collaboration Abacus Tool. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement 23(2), 93-107.
Link to the abstract for the aforementioned Doberneck and Dann article, The Degree of Collaboration Abacus Tool (from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1229786.pdf)
Diane Doberneck's bio: https://engage.msu.edu/about/people/opes/doberneck
Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, edited by Dr. Nicole Springer
May be of interest -- more on Dr. Nicole's role as editor of the MJCSL
Direct link to article-- https://ginsberg.umich.edu/article/meet-nicole-springer-our-new-mjcsl-editor
The Engagement Ring, Episode 17: The Nuts and Bolts of Great Community Engagement -- A Chat with Campus Compact's Nicole Springer and Emily Phaup
[Lively, upbeat theme music plays as program host Mary Hunt introduces the program and plays excerpts from the interview with Nicole and Emily.]
ANNOUNCER/MARY HUNT:
Welcome to the Engagement Ring, your connection to an ever-widening network of higher education professionals, scholars, and community partners, working to make the world a better place. I'm Mary Hunt. Today on the podcast…
NICOLE SPRINGER:
We're actually having conversations with our community members and our community partners and finding out what is it that they need, and how is it that we as an institution can be helpful, and not necessarily saying that we have all the answers.
ANNOUNCER/MARY HUNT:
The importance of good communication and building trusting and meaningful relationships with community partners and peers…
EMILY PHAUP:
It takes a little effort to get outside of our own department and discipline but when you do…if you can find a key colleague or peer that's doing similar community engagement work, I think those are relationships that really help the sustainability of your own work.
ANNOUNCER/MARY HUNT:
I’ll talk with Campus Compact’s Director for Institutional Capacity Building Nicole Springer and Professional Development Manager Emily Phaup about the nuts and bolts of lasting and impactful community engagement.
NICOLE SPRINGER:
Community matters and community voice is important and everything you do is in collaboration and in conjunction with them. When you start valuing the voice of the community partner is when you get to be into engagement land.
ANNOUNCER/MARY HUNT:
Here's my conversation with Campus Compact’s Nicole Springer and Emily Phaup.
MARY HUNT:
Welcome, Emily and Nicole. It's nice to have you on the podcast.
EMILY PHAUP:
Thanks for having us.
NICOLE SPRINGER:
Yeah, we're excited.
MARY HUNT:
My pleasure. What is Campus Compact, and who is it intended to serve?
NICOLE SPRINGER:
Campus Compact is a national coalition of colleges and universities who are committed to the public purposes of higher education, which is our signature tagline. What that means is we support campuses in community and civic engagement. And we do that in such a way that it's sort of tailored for who they are and the people they serve. So, whether you're a faculty member, staff member, community engagement professional, a student, administrator, upper level, whatever -- if you are involved in community and civic engagement, you can find a professional home with Campus Compact
MARY HUNT:
Campus Compact is a member organization, but I have found from being a member and non-member over the course of my professional experience, there are resources that I'm able to take advantage of in either case. You don't necessarily have to be a member. But could you talk a little bit about the resources that are available to folks, whether it’s as a member or a nonmember who is interested in community engagement and can benefit from your site?
EMILY PHAUP:
Sure, yeah. As the professional development manager, it's one of my responsibilities, and I think the most obvious answer would be our resource library on our website is just chock full of resources. We have a library of syllabi that the faculty can go and explore and find ideas for putting together a community-engaged course. We have knowledge hubs that are resources all collected around one topic or theme. And then all of our webinars that we've put on are recorded and saved there on the website. So anyone could go check those out. And a lot of our virtual live webinars and other events are open to anybody to participate in as well. So, lots of resources available for Compact members and nonmembers.
MARY HUNT:
How do you define community engagement? … Whoever wants to take that one, or both. Maybe it's more of a conversation, or it's more than just a simple definition. There's a lot to it. Go ahead, Nicole.
NICOLE SPRINGER:
Yeah, I'll hop in. I think what's complicated and easy is that community engagement oftentimes has a singular definition, but I'm not going to start there. So for me, I talk about this trajectory from service to outreach to engagement. And the thing that's different about engagement is the whose knowledge counts part. So in service, right, it was a lot of the university would do things for or to a community, right. So, it was a lot of charity sort of thought behind service. And then over time, we started talking about, well, what we really mean is outreach and so if a community needed information, the institution of higher education could provide that to them without really talking to the community partner, or talking to the community. And so we get to this point where we're now at community engagement and beyond, and that means we're actually having conversations with our community members and our community partners and finding out what is it that they need and how is it that we as an institution can be helpful, and not necessarily saying that we have all the answers. And underneath all of this in community engagement is the fact that community voice matters and community voice is important and everything you do is in collaboration and in conjunction with them. So, for me, it's that thinking about where we were and where we're going and that it's always about having community voice in our decisions as we think about what are ways that teaching and learning, and service and research can impact a community.
MARY HUNT:
A lot of people are familiar with or have heard about a definition the Carnegie Foundation has created for community engagement. I won’t put anybody on the spot to recite that. But some of the key ingredients that Carnegie points out... what does that include?
EMILY PHAUP:
Yeah, I can't recall the that specific definition right away. But some key ingredients that I hear across all definitions would be some of what Nicole mentioned... are non-hierarchical. And, you know, partners, trusting partnerships, and sustainable and I think she hit on a couple of those that we're working with and it's community identified needs rather than providing a service to.
MARY HUNT:
We talk about mutual benefit when it comes to community engagement. Just curious what your thoughts are on that. I mean, I think you could hear that and think, well, that sounds very non-idealistic. But it's really not. I mean, what you're saying is that this benefit that both sides, the community partner and institution, reap from the partnership, it's a positive thing. I mean, for instance, it might be a university that is getting access to research or an important issue that they can solve, or they can generate knowledge on, whereas the community is benefiting because they're getting, hopefully, the benefit of that knowledge. Do you want to say anything about that or…
NICOLE SPRINGER:
What's interesting is the word that you used at the end was hopefully, that the community benefits from it. I think that's the prob… when people say mutually beneficial, I think I sort of balk a little bit because… Randy Stoker started talking about this long ago. Really, our focus should be on community impact, and less on who the resource-rich organization, what the research-rich organization gets because we have those resources and we're asking a lot of community partners. I think about service learning, right. We're asking most often small community organizations who do not have a lot of staff to allow our students to come in and do whatever it is that, you know, sometimes we've talked to them, and then that's great. And so they have the capacity because they know what the capacity is, but sometimes it's like… the best way for me to explain this is when I worked at an institution, I had a community partner call me and ask me if she could say no to having students come to her organization. And I was like, of course, you can say no, but what are you saying no to? She said, I had four students today come and tell me that they're going to make me a brochure. That's not mutually beneficial, right? What the faculty member didn't think about... they're just like, oh, we're doing this good thing. And so as Emily and I were talking about, this idea that we're talking with a community partner and understanding what their needs are, or the only way that it can be mutually beneficial, because otherwise, we're extracting, extracting, extracting and sometimes we don't even share that information back from the research. Sometimes we don't... students don't really give something back as a project, final project. So I yeah, I think you probably saw my face when you're like, and I was like, no, no…
MARY HUNT:
It's a challenging phrase. It's kind of a phrase that people could really read a lot into so I'm glad that you took a moment to explain your thoughts on that, and your reaction to that. I think that helps really clarify what we hope the goal of community engagement is. I know I struggle with that term when that comes up. Go ahead Nicole, or Emily. Excuse me.
EMILY PHAUP:
I think that also brings up the issue of a transactional relationship. Mutual benefit almost sounds like okay you get 50% and I get 50%, whereas that's not realistic. And it's rarely the case. I think a lot of times as the institutional partner we have to expect to go into this relationship giving a lot more like Nicole said. It may take a year or more to build enough trust, to have that, you know, mutual benefit. And you know, we have to be patient with that in order to create a trusting sustainable relationship and not expect that right off the bat we're going to get benefit from it.
MARY HUNT:
What does a community-engaged institution look like?
NICOLE SPRINGER:
I think of that in the same way, in a similar way that I think about what does an ally look like. And who gets to call oneself an ally. And how does a community engaged institution come to be able to call itself that. Right. Is it because they do these checkmark things, which there are many things that can help institutions align sort of their practices with their values to, you know. We had the anchor institutions, this idea of community development. What are the things that we're doing with the community? But I think at the end of the day, a community engaged institution is one that their community recognizes as such. And it's beyond their own definition, their own way of thinking about it. I do think there are things that they can do to get there. I'm not saying you can't do anything and expect a community, a community that you're in to say that, but you know, there are things that conversations... that can happen with community partners, and I think part of that is, you know, Emily talks about forming these relationships. And so I think a lot of what a community engaged institution does is have authentic, transparent and these valuable relationships with community, which then nets them, or creates a space for the transference of knowledge from community to institution, and vice versa. So there's this... it's always like a two-way street for me. I know they're like definitions and things, and I shy away from definitions from time to time because I think it becomes too prescriptive.
MARY HUNT:
Maybe the way to think about it then is how does an institution build its capacity to do public engagement or community engagement? Is that more along the lines of what you're saying, Nicole? I mean, how do you get yourself… how do you get your muscles tuned up to do this kind of work? Because one thing about it is you can't just jump into it, which is apparent from what you're saying. I mean, you can't just go somewhere and say, “I know what you need. This is what you need. I'm going to send you 20 students, and they're going to do this.” I mean, how do you develop the skills, the perspective, the outlook, and the talent in the organization to be able to do this effectively.
NICOLE SPRINGER:
So let me just do a quick Campus Compact plug for this. We have something called civic action plans. And so we are… they're in the process of being sort of reimagined. But in 2016, we asked the presidents who were part of the member institutions to sign on to this idea that there needed to be an alignment of an institution's practices with its values. And through this strategic and collaborative work, civic action planning really helped these universities to start thinking about what is an integrated approach to teaching, scholarship, and practices that one, creates a civic engagement sort of ethos and culture and two, centers equity in that process. And so we are still sort of thinking about that and talking about it. And we, you know, do workshops on it. And I will tell you the biggest part of getting this work done is having the right people in the room. And the right people aren't necessarily the people that we think about. We’re talking like people who do purchasing, students, faculty, staff, community partners. What are the things that you need to do? And so we start very early with, start having conversations in this group, and think about what it is that you want to do to have a civic action plan and then kind of figure out what your goals are, plan this together with the people who are part of your community. And so a lot of it is talking, and I will always come back to talking. And as an introvert it… people always chuckle because like you talk about talking a lot, because that's where it is you have conversations. You think about what your goals are. You look at your mission statement of your institution because I will tell you service is there in every mission statement. It’s going to be there and so how do you start to actualize that in a way that becomes a culture shift? And I think so really, when you ask do people just jump in, no, you don't jump in. There's a lot of talking. There's a lot a lot of talking and when I do faculty development, I used to tell faculty members like… there was someone who I worked with that talked about running a marathon, and I know this is a podcast -- people can't see me. I am not a runner. But I was a shot-putter. And I will tell you this, I spent, year round I spent in the gym; I spent in the weight room. I spent learning the technique, perfecting the spin, doing all the things for 30 seconds in the ring. So what we're asking people to do is that hard work in the beginning, to have those conversations. And it's a lot of talking. And it's a lot of getting things right. And it's a lot of, you know, having conflict and not being afraid of it. And then getting to that point where you can say these are the things that we have come to talk about and agree upon, as faculty, staff, students, community, partners, government, whatever. And this is how we're moving forward. And so it takes a lot of prep work, a lot, a lot of prep work, but the end result is amazing. We have a repository of civic action plans that have come to us. They're just amazing the things that people can do, institutions can do. I get, like, excited about it, like, yeah, this is… we're moving in a good direction for that.
MARY HUNT:
Emily, were you going to say something?
EMILY PHAUP:
No, you know, Nicole definitely has the expertise on the more holistic institutional level of support. But you know it also comes down to the individuals in their faculty roles and staff roles. And so that's where the work I do comes into play, is really allowing the faculty and the community engaged professionals to build their skills and kind of grow that network on a campus. So we can talk about that too.
MARY HUNT:
Absolutely. What kind of professional development should scholars and practitioners seek out, whether it's from their own institution or through professional organizations, in order to improve or build some skills in the area of community engagement?
EMILY PHAUP:
Yeah, I have a couple of different perspectives on this. I just finished last year my dissertation about institutional support for community engaged scholars. And some of the highlights that came out of interviews with faculty is what they really need is a network, a supportive network of colleagues that are doing similar work because it can be so isolating on a campus when you're one of only a few doing community engaged, teaching, learning, research. So I think that network is really, really valuable, whether it's there on your campus or [unintelligible] wide. Obviously, Campus Compact offers a lot of professional development, and I can list some of those too. But I think some of the big ones for me, to really stay on top of things, kind of with current events and where things are moving staying current would be the like anti-racist and ethical community engagement frameworks and practices and those kinds of things when it comes to equity and inclusion and working with diverse and vulnerable communities. These are things I think we can't get enough professional development on. We need to continue to learn… Campus Compact is partnering and helping to put out a book this summer, which I can't wait to get my hands on, about anti-racist community engagement. And then we're doing webinars and retreats and things for faculty around that too. And then partnership development, like we already talked about just how to not honor, how to honor different knowledge ways and reflecting on our own positionality. I think reflection is such a key piece of community engagement, but we often think about reflection for the students and the experiences, and it's really important to first reflect on our own positionality and how we come to the work. And then you also mentioned community engaged scholarship and how to think about and write about your community engagement in the form of scholarship, because although it's not the goal of community gauge practitioners to get, you know, promotion and tenure out of this, it's pretty important when you think about the longevity of your career and work-life balance and you know, being valued for the work that you want to do. So finding ways that it fits within your institutional expectations is another place to focus some energy and then again, just like staying on top of current events in the community where you're working, so you can be empathetic and relate to what folks are going through when you're trying to collaborate with them.
MARY HUNT:
How about peers at your own institution, can they be a resource, whether it's through mentoring, advising, or relationship building?
EMILY PHAUP:
Yeah, for sure. I think it takes a little effort to get outside of our own department and discipline, but when you do if you can find a key colleague or peer that's doing similar community engagement work, I think those are relationships that really help the sustainability of your own work. I've heard that over and over from faculty. So seeking out those collegial relationships on campus and any campus that has an office of community engagement or somebody in that kind of role can help matchmake a little bit in that way. But then also off campus you know, we have so many networking opportunities through yearlong experiences and communities of practice. Often regionally there will be groups of community engaged practitioners that have a network. So lots of opportunities. I think that's really valuable.
MARY HUNT:
Why is collecting and sharing data about the impact of community engagement so difficult within an institution? We find… I find that's a challenge. Maybe it's because in some regards it's good news and bad news that community engagement can be very decentralized in a university. I mean you want everyone to be doing it. On the other hand, you wish you could harness all that information and share it and have it at the ready when you need it. But why is it so difficult? And do you have any tips or approaches for improving that?
NICOLE SPRINGER:
I think part of it is what you said. So it's both. I mean, even in institutions where there is a centralized office, it's still decentralized, right. It's decentralized by departments, by you know, the colleges within the university. Different people do different things. Partly it's language. So even in our beginning conversation it was what's the definition of community engagement, Well, I can tell you, you know, there are definitions of community engaged teaching and learning and community engaged research. But sometimes people do the work and don't see themselves within a particular, you know, brand of community engaged scholarship. So there's that. And then there's also this idea that we just do what we do, like we're doing the work, what is it that we need to report on? Or what is the data that we need to share when we're just doing the things that that we are doing both in a curricular setting and in a co-curricular setting? So figuring out, you know, all of that, as someone who like when I worked at an institution like that was my job was to collect the data from across the university.
MARY HUNT:
Oh, my goodness. [Laughter]
NICOLE SPRINGER:
There were days where I knew people were doing service learning, and I would say, why are you not filling out this one, you know, this short, what we thought was a short little survey, and they're like, oh, well, I mean, it's just our work, or we reported this to this other place, or we do this other thing. And, and it, you know, so there's that. And, but I think it's just language in silos. And, you know, the other part about the community impact is finding that information is complicated because there are so many different engagement points for a community partner. So, it's hard to say why a needle moved and what part an institution had in having that needle move., but I don't think that's reason enough to not collect that data, and not to figure out what community impact is. And so I have a separate hat, which I'm going to sort of put on for two seconds, and I'll take it off again. I'm also the editor of the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning. And so, one of the things that we always talk about is we are just chomping at the bit for people to start writing about community impact. Please write those articles. Please start really figuring out your research in such a way that those questions come into your research because it's important to know what happens with students; it's important to know what happens with like a particular issue. But that issue is affecting a community. So I think we're still also looking for that community impact research and information to be published and to come out. So, that's my slight plea to people who are doing the work is get that community impact data.
MARY HUNT:
We have conversations that, you know, are we could we be better at telling our story of community engagement. And of course we could. But it isn't necessarily just for us. We go back to that kind of conversation we had earlier about being mutually beneficial. It isn't just for selfish purposes. But by telling our story we're also alerting people, hey, we're here, we can be a resource. There are many ways. There are many resources we have. Tap us, you know, we can work together. So that's an important aspect of it. Why is it so difficult do you think? Or do you see other universities, institutions that have a hard time telling their story of community engagement?
EMILY PHAUP:
I think on the faculty end if you look at the research about motivations for community engaged scholarship, it's not so much about telling our story, you know, and it's a lot of altruistic kind of, kind of motivations. And so I think a lot of individuals are just immersed in the work and their biggest priority is the relationship and the partnership with their community. And so they're going to focus their extra energy there rather than filling out that form or going and reporting to the Office of Community Engagement or adding it to their CV. That's all secondary, if they have time, you know. That's kind of my general impression. But it makes it a lot more difficult, you know, from the institutional perspective, when you're trying, when it's so important, and you just described some of the value of collecting that.
MARY HUNT:
Well, it does reaffirm that it takes more than one person to do it effectively. Because you may be the scholar, but you need help promoting it, sharing your research, accessing other research or other resources from someone else in the university, the college, or the institution. So it is interesting, it isn't just something you can do in isolation. It's not a one man show here.
EMILY PHAUP:
I guess we can also think about the like, what is impact on community. And like, how are they able to express that or not, you know, a data point isn't really going to tell the whole story of the impact. And the impact may continue for years after you collect that information. So for a community member to describe, or for a faculty member, even to describe what the impact on the community is, would be, I'm just trying to wrap my head around that if I was designing a research project about, you know, community impact. That's pretty challenging to collect that information too.
MARY HUNT:
Let's talk about that because I think oftentimes, you know, we hear community partners don't feel they have adequate communication with the university. So how do you ensure that? What kind of measures can you put in place to make sure there is good communication back from the partner you're working with so you're not just seeing it through your own lens?
NICOLE SPRINGER:
So there's good communication with the community partner that you're working with, right. It's that, it's that conversation, it's the, so you don't get to make a… you as a faculty member should not write a community impact indicator on your own. Right. This is also done in collaboration with your community partner. There is a great tool. I think it was Doberneck and Dann, ah Sheri Dann and Diane Doberneck from Michigan State University. And I will give you that link to that article if you have not read it. They have an abacus tool, where the community partner is on one side and the institution is on another side, and there are various different other ways that you can have different people and then you think of an abacus. And you, so you in communication with your community partner decide where that sort of balance is, and that balance isn't going to be 50/50, right. Maybe the community partner has three little beads connected to writing research questions. Maybe the community partner has seven little beads, maybe, you know what I mean. And so depending on where you fit, or how that works out for you and your community partner, you make those decisions together, and you write those community impact questions together. And that's if you're doing true community engagement, that's how that works out. That's where the like… so when you talk about the difference between service and outreach, and like, quote, unquote, traditional research, right. When you start valuing the voice of the community partner, is when you get to be in engagement land.
MARY HUNT:
It always comes back to good communication, it seems. This is “The Engagement Ring,” so I ask our guests for their gem of the day. All puns intended with that. So what would you want to share with the audience, whether it was piece of advice, an experience, a story, recipe -- I don't know, it doesn't matter to me. Well, what would you share that we could come away richer for knowing from your experience?
NICOLE SPRINGERS:
Can I say one really quick?
MARY HUNT:
Absolutely.
NICOLE SPRINGER:
So because this is a recent one, and it's something that plays on repeat in my mind, and especially it’s for faculty members who are doing community engaged scholarship, who are writing about their work. And I was on an editor's panel and one of the participants was like, I feel bad, I don't want to add to my community partner’s workload in asking them to co-author something with me. What does that even mean for them? Is that something that they would want to do? And one of the panelists said, you are actually doing them a disservice by not asking. You are not being authentic with them and saying, you know, this is part of our… that conversation. This is part of my life as a faculty member is that I will write about this. How would you like to be involved in that? Maybe we sit down over a cup of coffee, and I turn on my recorder and we just have a conversation and then I figure out how that fits in or maybe there's something you want to write or maybe… but not allowing your community partner to see that academic side of you is not being true to that process as well. And I remember just sitting there shocked like, oh, because I never thought of it as like, you know, I understood like this reciprocity and the idea of like we're working with each other. But the concept of your community partner’s work with you is a gift. And you should be doing what you can to share that with others and let them know that's what it is really, because without them, the work wouldn't get done. And just saying, yeah, don't assume that they don't want to be a part of it. And so for me, it was like, alright, so how do we get more community partners to be, you know, let their voices be heard, because we talk about community partner voice, and we talk about it in that communication, but one-on-one or, you know, faculty to community, but not in that communication to the broader audience in the scholarship world. So that was something that has stuck with me for now, like, I don't know, six months since I last heard it.
MARY HUNT:
Emily…
EMILY PHAUP:
I think a big takeaway that I would share is about mentorship, like peer mentorship, and shadowing. I think that's something that's really supported me in my career, and I've seen like, people kind of craving as they're getting started in this work. I think you get a lot of value out of watching a successful partnership and relationship for a while, and maybe, you know, like collaborating with somebody who has a lot of experience in this work. So that can be with a colleague on your own campus, or through one of these networks. There's actually more like formalized mentorship programs out there for community engaged scholars. But yeah, I would really encourage folks who are newer in the field to yeah, really, like dive into a project that's already successful and sustainable and take away what you can before starting your own relationship in a community.
[Theme music fades in and plays under Emily’s remarks.]
EMILY PHAUP:
The other thing I heard, I was at a Pathways for Public Service working group meeting recently, and one of the partners there, working group members shared a quote that I can't think of who it came from, but I think they said, “Relationships move at the speed of trust, and success moves at the speed of relationships.” So it just really highlighted for me the significance of that trust-building process early in a community partnership.
MARY HUNT:
Thank you, ladies. Those were great gems to leave us with and we really just scratched the surface. There's lots more I could ask you about and I hope I can talk with you again sometime soon. Thank you so much, Emily Phaup and Nicole Springer from Campus Compact for being my guests today.
NICOLE SPRINGER:
Thank you. This was great.
EMILY PHAUP:
Thanks. Yeah, it was a pleasure.
ANNNOUNCER/MARY HUNT:
Dr. Nicole Springer is Campus Compact’s director for institutional capacity building. In this role, Nicole provides leadership for member campuses around tracking and assessing the impact of community engaged scholarship, strategic implementation of community civic engagement to foster development of an engaged institution and facilitating a national community of scholars and leaders committed to this work. Emily Phaup serves as the professional development manager at Campus Compact. Emily supports civic and community engagement practitioners seeking to enhance their skills, knowledge and critical commitments in ways that emphasize equity and yield better outcomes for students, institutions and communities. Visit Campus Compact online at compact dot org. The Engagement Ring is produced by the University at Albany's Office for Public Engagement. If you have questions or comments or want to share an idea for an upcoming podcast, email us at UAlbany O P E at Albany dot E D U.
[Theme music fades out.]