LibGuides: Community Engagement, Service Learning, and Public Scholarship: Community Engagement and Service Learning Research

Best Practices

Start engaging with community partners early. Building relationships and successful projects and products take time.

Ensure ongoing documentation of engaged scholarship efforts to track changes or consistency over time.

Align engaged scholarship with discipline, department, campus, and national priorities to make the faculty member’s contribution clear.

Select dossier support mentors to learn the specific criteria, processes, and norms used for promotion and tenure reviews.

Publish and present engaged scholarship in a variety of significant academic and community venues early and often.

Select service roles carefully and translate them to scholarship opportunities whenever possible in order to demonstrate the value in everything you do.

Be aware of and manage what influences faculty scholarly work.

Source: Nancy K. Franz, Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, Vol. 15, Number 3, p. 15 (2011)

SLCE Journals

Journal of Service Learning in Higher Education
The Journal of Service-Learning in Higher Education is an online, international, peer-reviewed journal for the dissemination of original research regarding effective institutional-community partnerships. Our primary emphasis is to provide an outlet for sharing the methodologies and pedagogical approaches that lead to effective community-identified outcomes. The Journal of Service-Learning in Higher Education is a subscription-free journal with a review board made up of various academic disciplines of the member institutions of the University of Louisiana System as well as other nationally and internationally accredited colleges and universities and affiliated organizations.
Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning
The MJCSL is a national, peer-reviewed journal for college and university faculty and administrators, with an editorial board of faculty from many academic disciplines and professional fields at the University of Michigan and other U.S. higher education institutions. Since 1994, the Michigan Journal has endeavored to publish the highest quality research, theory, and pedagogy articles related to higher education academic service-learning.
Reflections Journal
Reflections, a peer reviewed journal, provides a forum for scholarship on civic writing, service-learning and public rhetoric. Originally founded as a venue for teachers, researchers, students and community partners to share research and discuss the theoretical, political and ethical implications of community-based writing and writing instruction, Reflections publishes a lively collection of essays, empirical studies, community writing, student work, interviews and reviews in a format that brings together emerging scholars and leaders in the fields of community-based writing and civic engagement.
Partnerships: A Journal of Service-Learning and Civic Engagement
Partnerships provides college and university scholars a forum for publishing research related to the varied campus-community relationships that emphasize connections and collaborations in service-learning and community engagement.
International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering
The principal goals of the Journal have been to foster inquiry into rigorous engineering design, research and pedagogy and direct those efforts toward collaboratively addressing issues experienced by marginalized communities; to nurture service learning in engineering as a distinct body of scholarly knowledge and to facilitate community building amongst practitioners; to examine the cultural appropriateness of their work, seek to collaborate with their community partners to develop economically and culturally sustainable solutions, and implement appropriate technologies in a pro-active sense.
Journal of Experiential Education
Published four times a year, the Journal of Experiential Education (JEE) is a peer-reviewed, scholarly journal presenting a diverse range of articles in subject areas such as outdoor adventure programming, service learning, environmental education, therapeutic applications, research and theory, the creative arts, and much more.

Books from the Collection

Learning Through Serving by Christine M. Cress; Peter J. Collier; Vicki L. Reitenauer
Call Number: SLCE LC220.5 .C72 2013
Publication Date: 2013
This substantially expanded new edition of this widely-used and acclaimed text maintains the objectives and tenets of the first. It is designed to help students understand and reflect on their community service experiences both as individuals and as citizens of communities in need of their compassionate expertise. It is designed to assist faculty in facilitating student development of compassionate expertise through the context of service in applying disciplinary knowledge to community issues and challenges. In sum, the book is about how to make academic sense of civic service in preparing for roles as future citizen leaders.
The Complete Guide to Service Learning by Cathryn Berger Kaye
Call Number: SLCE LC220.5 .K39 2010
Publication Date: 2010
The Complete Guide to Service Learning is the go-to resource in the fast-growing field of service learning. It is an award-winning treasury of service activities, community service project ideas, quotes, reflections, and resources that can help teachers and youth workers engage young hearts and minds in reaching out and giving back. Author, and internationally known service learning expert, Cathryn Berger Kaye presents service learning - its importance, steps, essential elements, and challenges - within a curricular context and organized by theme.
Service-Learning and the Liberal Arts by Craig A. Rimmerman
Call Number: SLCE LC220.5 .S4554 2009
Publication Date: 2009
What are the connections between service-learning and a liberal arts education? That is the central question of this volume and scholars from a variety disciplines answer it here. The scholars ground their essays in the positive assumption about the importance of service-learning in contributing to students' moral, ethical, and social development within the broader context of a liberal arts education. The practical appeal of this volume lies in the fact that other teachers and students who are interested in both developing their own service-learning courses and connecting those courses to broader issues of citizenship, democracy, and theories of justice, ethics, and morality can find advice and applications of successful service-learning endeavors within it.
Service-Learning in Theory and Practice by Dan W. Butin
Call Number: SLCE LC221 .B88 2010
ISBN: 0230622518
Publication Date: 2010
This book offers a comprehensive rethinking of the theory and practice of service-learning in higher education. Democratic and community engagement are vital aspects of linking colleges and communities, and this book critically engages the best practices and powerful alternative models in the academy. Drawing on key theoretical insights and empirical studies, Butin details the limits and possibilities of the future of community engagement in developing and sustaining the engaged campus.
Research for What? Making Engaged Scholarship Matter by Jeff Keshen, Barbara A. Holland, Barbara E. Moely
Call Number: SLCE LC220.5 .R475 2010
Publication Date: 2010
Consists of a selection of papers presented at the 9th conference of the International Association for Research on Service-learning and Community Engagement held in Ottawa, Canada, in 2009.
Research on Service Learning and Student Civic Outcomes by Julie A. Hatcher, Robert G. Bringle, Thomas W. Hahn
Call Number: SLCE LC220.5 .R478 2016
Publication Date: 2016
This volume presents research on--and deepens understanding of--teaching strategies that foster the knowledge, skills and dispositions of college graduates to be actively engaged in their communities as citizens and civic-minded professionals. The first section offers an overview of civic learning and the importance of intentional service learning course design to reach civic outcomes. The next section employs various disciplinary perspectives to identify theories and conceptual frameworks for conducting research on student civic outcomes. The third section focuses on research methods and designs to improve research using quantitative and qualitative approaches, cross-institutional research strategies, longitudinal designs, authentic data, and local and national data sets. Chapters also address implications for practice and future research agendas for scholars.
Research on Service Learning, Conceptual Frameworks and Assessment, Vol. 2A: Students and Faculty by Robert G. Bringle, Julie A. Hatcher, Patti H. Clayton
Call Number: SLCE LC220.5 .R477 2013
Publication Date: 2013
The purpose of this work is to improve service learning research and practice through strengthening its theoretical base. Contributing authors include both well-known and emerging service learning and community engagement scholars, as well as scholars from other fields. The authors bring theoretical perspectives from a wide variety of disciplines to bear as they critically review past research, describe assessment methods and instruments, develop future research agendas, and consider implications of theory-based research for enhanced practice.
Practical Wisdom for Conducting Research on Service Learning by Julie A. Hatcher, Robert G. Bringle, Thomas W. Hahn
Call Number: SLCE LC220.5 .P699 2020
Publication Date: 2020
This book provides accounts by preeminent scholars about the trajectories of their research, their methodologies, lessons learned along the way, as well as their views about the future direction of the field. The contributors to this volume represent a range of disciplines and fields including education, history, organizational leadership, political science, philanthropic studies,psychology, and public health, as well as both qualitative and quantitative traditions, and offer models of scholarly learning that contribute to a knowledge base that can guide practice and further the broader public purposes of the academy.