Campuses that pursue the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification will in some form take full inventory of their engagement efforts in order to address the range of questions posed by the Carnegie Foundation. At an institution as large, diverse, and decentralized as North Carolina State University, this was no small undertaking. NC State's…

In 2005, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) stirred the higher education world with the announcement of a new classification for institutions that engage with community. The classification, community engagement, is the first in a set of planned classification schemes resulting from the foundation's reexamination of the…

The process of assessing and benchmarking community engagement can take many forms. To date, more than two dozen assessment tools for measuring community engagement institutionalization have been published. These tools vary substantially in purpose, level of complexity, scope, process, structure, and focus. While some instruments are designed to…

Despite the fact that universities and their various communities have much to offer and much to gain from partnering, the number of submissions for the Carnegie elective Community Engagement Classification suggests that partnerships are not ubiquitous in higher education. This is not surprising. Creating a productive, healthy, and sustainable…

The traditional question inferred by attention to institutionalization is, "Will it last?" or "Will it die out when there is a new leader or when the grant ends?" In the case of community engagement, attention to institutionalization reveals a more complex portrait of organizational change that includes a critical reflection on not only the…

Research suggests that institutional commitment to community engagement can be understood by examining levels of student, faculty, and community involvement in engagement; organizational structure, rewards, and campus publications supporting engagement; and compatibility of an institution's mission with this work (Holland, 1997). Underlying all of…

In nature, waves are transmitters of energy. Once the energy moves through the medium, that medium often returns to its previous state. The first wave of community-engaged institutions has transmitted great energy across the U.S. higher education system. And in contrast to what occurs in nature, these classified institutions often do not go back…

Higher education leaders seeking to reshape institutional identity and establish community engagement as a core institutional value ultimately have to address how to embed the values of community engagement in the institutional reward policies that define the faculty roles of teaching, scholarship, and service. Furthermore, since the research…

According to the Carnegie Foundation, faculty job satisfaction has declined drastically over the past few decades at institutions of higher education (Shuster and Finkelstein, 2006). Researchers have also found that faculty satisfaction is critical to the vitality of colleges and universities (Clark, Corcoran, and Lewis, 1986; Farrell, 1983).…

At Carnegie Mellon University, collaborative strategic planning promotes institutional distinction through the development of focused departments that exploit university strengths and opportunities. Implications of decentralized university organization and the need for centralized leadership are discussed. (MLW)

A discussion of the diversity of today's church-related colleges and universities looks at basic institutional characteristics such as Carnegie classification, range of denominational affiliation, enrollments, and tuition. Four taxonomies developed to classify and organize the wide range of church-related colleges are also examined. (MSE)