Faculty community service: At the intersection of campus and community

Institutions that increasingly recognize the importance of community service need to expand their support for faculty who do this work.

Faculty Community Service: At theIntersection of Campus andCommunity

Nathan Harris

The Council of Graduate Schools’ description (n.d.) of the faculty roledifferentiates several kinds of faculty service: “Service in the context of aca-demia generally refers to service to the institution, the external community,and the larger academic community.” Within these categories, the facultyrole toward the external community has taken on a new prominence, yet itremains a marginal activity at many campuses. This chapter describes thatrole and the issues related to it, identifying ways in which faculty commu-nity service benefits faculty, campuses, and communities and suggestingdirections that institutions can take to support faculty community service.

Types of Faculty Community Service

Faculty community service is generally thought of as individual and orga-nizational volunteerism or involvement in the community. Braskamp (1994)articulated the reciprocal goals of this work: “Faculty work of this type canserve the common good and enhance individual growth and careeradvancement” (p. 36). Ward (2003) enumerated specific types of externalservice: extension, consulting, service-learning, and community and civicservice, indicating a defining criterion: “Common to all of these forms isfaculty operating in contexts beyond the campus” (p. 1). Bringle, Hatcher,and Clayton (2007) quoted Thomas’s list of types of community service:

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“(a) cooperative extension, outreach, and continuing education programs;(b) clinical and pre-professional programs; (c) top-down administrativeinitiatives; (d) centralized administrative-academic units with outreachmissions; (e) faculty professional service; (f) student volunteer initiatives;(g) economic and political outreach; (h) applied research, and most recently,(i) service learning courses” (1998, p. 2). They further differentiatedbetween community involvement and community engagement by distin-guishing between mere location of the work (involvement) and actualparticipation by both parties (engagement). They described Boyer’s leadership(1994, 1996) in this arena: “His new vision calls for the ‘scholarship ofengagement,’ which means connecting the rich resources of the universityto our most pressing social, civic, and ethical problems, to our children, toour schools, to our teachers, and to our cities” (p. 2).

While the sites of faculty community service can range from publicschools, human service organizations, and hospitals to various nonprofitorganizations, the goal of this service is clear. Lawry, Laurison, and VanAntwerpen (2006) quoted Ehrlich’s (2000) ideas on its purpose: “Civicengagement means working to make a difference in the civic life of our com-munities and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values andmotivation to make that difference. It means promoting the quality of lifein a community, through both political and non-political processes” (p. 38).

The decline in public support for colleges and universities has broughtnew pressure for campuses to prove their value by assisting with many areasof community life using thoughtful and consistent strategies intended tohelp the community.

This chapter examines faculty community service. Professional com-munity service is based on faculty members’ providing service to the community using their specialized skills and expertise. For instance afaculty member who specializes in engineering may assist a communityorganization with the structural analysis of its building. Blackburn andLawrence (1995) described this kind of external faculty service as “muchlike consulting, only it is done pro bono, without remuneration. A lawschool faculty member aids the local school board without fee or doesvolunteer work with the American Civil Liberties Union” (p. 224). Somefaculty members do this work in partnership, for example, writing for andreceiving joint grants with local organizations and agencies to provide forthe needs of the communities where they reside.

Often faculty community service blends with other faculty roles. Forexample, community-based research at a local site involving communitymembers as research participants (research site) or co-researchers (actionresearch) and geared to shedding light on issues of interest and importanceto the community can be considered service. When community membersare co-researchers, the work they do is also engagement. For instance, acommunity mentoring organization may be the site of research on the effec-tiveness of mentoring youth, leading to revisions in its mentoring programs.

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The service and teaching roles might be intertwined when service-learningis involved. Central to the definition of this form of teaching and learning isthe joint pursuit of benefits to the community as well as student learninggoals, such as when students help publish an organization’s newsletter,which contributes to the organization and provides learning opportunitiesto the students.

These examples show that sometimes community service and thefaculty teaching and research roles are integrated. Braskamp (1994) pointsout how integral the service role is to faculty in a broader sense: “Althoughwe use the word service to describe one type of faculty work, we wish toargue that faculty members all ‘serve’ regardless of the nature of their work”(p. 35). Braskamp then describes the difference between scholarly work andcommunity service in the following way: “Communicating a set of conceptsor results of one’s research to an on-campus classroom for credit may beconsidered scholarly, whereas conducting a workshop for professionals forno credit is considered ‘service’” (p. 36). The difference lies in the directintent to benefit the community. Yet within the university, each kind ofactivity is valued differently.

How Institutions Perceive and Reward FacultyCommunity Service

Institutional policies typically do not support service as much as researchand teaching. Many faculty members are reluctant to spend much timeproviding service because they fear that it will not be adequately rewardedby their institution. Ward (2003) describes how service is rewarded incomparison with teaching and research: “In 1983, Austin and Gamsonidentified the tensions that existed between teaching and research and iden-tified service as an ‘afterthought’ as reflected in the literature.” Ward quotesBoyer and Lewis (1985), who refer to faculty service as “the short leg of thethree-legged stool.” She states that service is not understood or rewarded asmuch as other faculty work: “In spite of contemporary calls for the engagedcampus, faculty members attempting to integrate engagement into theirwork can get caught between administrative and public calls for engagementand the realities of resulting staggering workloads and academic rewardstructures that tend to devalue outreach and engagement efforts” (p. 3).

Faculty members who pursue tenure based on excellence in service areadvised to document their work carefully to make the case that it is schol-arly work. Bringle, Hatcher, and Clayton (2007) reinforce this need: “Whenprofessional service becomes more salient in a faculty member’s work,particularly for the civically engaged scholar, then the documentationshould be correspondingly more complete and rigorous. This must occurwhen the professional service activities are claimed to be scholarly” (p. 7).In many institutions, faculty are discouraged or outright prohibited frombasing their cases on service.



In addition to erecting barriers to rewards for service, institutions rarelymake arrangements to make it easier for faculty to perform communityservice. Some faculty members are forced to use creative scheduling whenincluding service-related activities in their workdays because they areexpected to give priority to their research and teaching duties. Bringle,Hatcher, and Clayton (2007) made the following observation about institu-tional support for faculty engagement:

Faculty are too often deterred from actively experimenting with civic engage-ment because of logistics (e.g., too little time, too much work; Abes, Jackson,and Jones, 2002), so institutions need to find resources that can be devotedto support faculty (e.g., student scholarships for assistance with engagement,seminars; release time) and opportunities through which faculty and depart-ments can enhance engagement activities (e.g., course development grants,engaged department grants) [p. 8].

Although service does not receive as much institutional support asteaching and research, most higher education institutions advocate somelevel and type of service inside and outside the institution. And the specificresponsibility for much of this service continues to trickle down to faculty.For many faculty, service carries an intrinsic attraction: they are motivatedto serve for personal and professional reasons.

Personal Reasons to Serve

Faculty members are motivated to perform service work for many differentreasons, ranging from personal fulfillment to perceived job responsibility.Ward (2003) quotes Huber (2001) in describing the integrative benefit offaculty service: “Faculty members who can extend their intellectual curiosityinto their service activities can unify their professional lives, bringingtogether their teaching, research, and service in a synergistic way, to the ben-efit of each aspect of their work and the benefit of those with whom theywork” (p. 3).

Bringle, Hatcher, and Clayton (2007) point to the reciprocal benefits ofcivically engaged research: “The research is conducted in such a way thatthe academic participants benefit because it meets their scholarly interestsand the community participants benefit because it meets their civic interests”(p. 7). Service-based research can help to provide research sites, access toparticipants, research questions situated in real-world dilemmas andconditions, and collaborative partners for accomplishing research tasks. Inthe same way, service-learning can provide authentic situations for facultyto engage in helping students to understand and apply concepts and ideas.Co-instructors from the community can assist the faculty member in enrich-ing the student experience.



Although documentation of all service, including community service,as scholarly work is essential, it is possible for faculty to achieve recogni-tion and reward for service, especially at institutions that align their rewardpolicies with pronouncements on the value of community service. Underthese conditions, faculty members can open the door for advancement,prestige, and monetary reward. They may also receive honoraria or grantsfor additional service. When faculty members do their part in fulfilling theirinstitution’s commitment to provide a certain level of campus or communityservice, by-products such as community job connections and other oppor-tunities might also arise.

The Impact of Service on Communities and Institutions

Many prestigious higher education institutions receive recognition forsignificant service accomplishments. Given the pressures of the account-ability movement, colleges and universities are called on to show tangiblebenefit to the communities in which they are located. Institutions that are located near urban areas often have greater opportunities to serve thecommunity because of the proximity and greater existence of communityneed. Responding to these needs builds community support and enhances thecapacity of the institution to do needed scholarship and teach in relevant ways.

Higher education institutions are wisely becoming more sensitive to thechanging needs of a more culturally diverse society. One institutional ben-efit of community service is that offering new sites for learning increases theinstitution’s capacity to respond to the learning styles of new student pop-ulations. Ibarra (2006) observes: “Today, we must look beyond operationalmodels based on outmoded ideas about one-size-fits-all educationalpipelines and focus instead on changing the cultures of organizations toaccommodate new kinds of populations that are attracted to applied or com-munity-oriented education” (p. 3).

White (2006) describes reciprocal benefits of college and communitypartnerships: “Collaboration holds promise of mutually beneficial engage-ment built on shared interests” (p. 2). Community service allows institu-tions to have significant positive impact on the community, while at thesame time, communities enhance the work of higher education institutions.As institutions commit to providing more community service, facultymembers’ engagement increases. Both the institution and the communitybenefit when faculty members perform community and professional service.

An additional benefit is found in the contribution that communityservice makes to societal goals. Ostrander (2004) quotes Campus Compact(1990): “We can think of no nobler task than committing ourselves tohelping catalyze and lead a national movement to reinvigorate the publicpurposes of and civic mission of higher education” (p. 76).



Supporting Faculty Community Service

Faculty members receive support for community service based on the com-mitment level of their institutions. In order for faculty community serviceto grow, courageous higher education leaders must create greater levels ofsupport for it. Institutions across the country that commit to given levels of community service enlist their faculty to provide the service to fulfill theircommitments; therefore, institutional support is crucial in supportingfaculty work in this area. White (2006) cited the exemplary leadership ofthe president of the Evanston (Illinois) Community Council, who stated:“Now, as partnerships with the community develop, we push differentdepartments and offices to manage them on behalf of the university, withsupport from my office” (p. 6).

A clearer articulation of the importance of community service under-lies support for faculty work. Some institutions include community servicein their missions and strategic plans. Tierney and Bensimon (1996) recom-mended this inclusion and that it be followed by strategies for its imple-mentation: “The institution needs to develop a ‘strategic perspective’ thatevolves from an institutional mission and purpose” (p. 70). In somecommunities, higher education institutions are the most significant sourceof revenue. According to White (2006), “Universities generally maintainamong the highest levels of civic reputation, political clout, expertise, andresources of any institution in their regions” (p. 2). Many community smallbusinesses rely on institutions for a major source of revenue. In the future,both the institution and the community will experience greater benefits ifthey strategize more effectively on how to work together.

Articulating the common mission is important in providing directionand support for faculty. Braskamp (1994) argued for clear alignment:“Although one individual’s service may not be rewarded in the same way asanother, the type of service the professoriate carries out should, in ouropinion, be representative of both the talents of the faculty and the institu-tion’s collective goals” (pp. 35–36). Ostrander (2004) underscored theimportance of congruence and intentional plans for change:

1. Campuses should place a high priority on recognizing and understandinglocal factors both on campus and in surrounding communities that have thepotential to drive engagement efforts and develop program emphases inrelation to them; and 2. In the absence of critical external or internal drivingfactors, launching and sustaining civic-engagement initiatives require an espe-cially compelling and fully articulated, intellectual, educational rationale ortheory of change [p. 89].

Institutions must also be clear about the rewards for faculty engage-ment in community service. Support for showing faculty how to documentthe work as scholarly in promotion and tenure and merit pay deliberations



and emphasis on the value of this work must increase. The special case ofunderrepresented faculty members who are called on to do much commu-nity service must be addressed. As Ward (2003) observed, “For a facultymember whose gender or ethnicity is unusual on a campus or in a depart-ment, this difference can translate into frequent calls to represent his/hergender or ethnicity in organizational and disciplinary affairs” (p. 2) Suchescalated demand must be met with special recognition and support.

Conclusion

There are many reasons that it is important for institutions to serve theircommunities. If they want to support faculty community service, they mustcreate strategies to provide better overall support for faculty service andrecognize and reward it as scholarly work that is crucial to the achievementof their missions. Faculty members, for their part, need to provide strongdocumentation of their scholarship of service and undertake it with thesame intentionality as their other work. Ultimately, for a more successfultransition into an era of greater faculty service, courageous higher educationleaders will need to assertively push their institutions to make it happen andsupport their faculty as they do this work.

References

Abes, E. S., Jackson, G., and Jones, S. R. “Factors That Motivate and Deter Faculty Useof Service-Learning.” Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 2002, 9(1),5–17.

Blackburn, R. T., and Lawrence, J. H. Faculty at Work: Motivation, Expectation, andSatisfaction. Baltimore, Md.: John Hopkins University Press, 1995.

Boyer, C. M., and Lewis, D. R. And on the Seventh Day: Faculty Consulting and Supple-mental Income. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Education, 1985. (ED 262 743)

Boyer, E. L. “The Scholarship of Engagement.” Journal of Public Service and Outreach,1996, 1(1), 11–20.

Boyer, E. L. “Creating the New American College.” Chronicle of Higher Education, Mar. 9,1994, p. A48.

Braskamp, L. A. Assessing Faculty Work: Enhancing Individual and Institutional Perfor-mance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994.

Bringle, R. A., Hatcher, J. A., and Clayton, P. H. “The Scholarship of Engagement: Defin-ing, Documenting, and Evaluating Faculty Work.” In D. R. Robertson and L. B. Nilson(eds.), To Improve the Academy. Bolton, Mass.: Anker, 2007.

Campus Compact. ”Presidents’ Declaration on the Civic Responsibility of HigherEducation.” Retrieved July 4, 2008, from http://www.compact.org/resources/declaration/.

Council of Graduate Schools. “Faculty Roles and Responsibilities: Preparing Future Fac-ulty.” N.d. Retrieved July 4, 2008, from http://www.preparing-faculty.org/PFFWeb.Roles.htm.

Ehrlich, T. (ed.). Civic Responsibility and Higher Education. Phoenix: Oryx Press, 2000.Huber, M. T. “Balancing Acts: Designing Careers Around the Scholarship of Teaching.”

Change, 2001, 33(4), 21–29.Ibarra, R. “Context Diversity: Reframing Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century.”

Campus Compact. 2006. Retrieved Jan. 31, 2007, from http://www.compact.org/20th/read/context_diversity.



Lawry, S., Laurison, D., and VanAntwerpen, J. “Liberal Education and Engagement: AProject of the Ford Foundation’s Knowledge, Creativity and Freedom Program.” 2006.Retrieved Jan. 31, 2007, from http://www.fordfound.org/publications/recent_articles/docs/Liberal_Education_And_Civic_Engagement.pdf.

Ostrander, S. A. “Democracy, Civic Participation, and the University: A ComparativeStudy of Civic Engagement on Five Campuses.” 2004. Retrieved Jan. 31, 2007, fromhttp://www.community-wealth.org/beta/_pdfs/articles-publications/universities/article-ostrander.pdf.

Thomas, N. The Institution as a Citizen: How Colleges and Universities Enhance Their CivicRoles. Boston: New England Resource Center for Higher Education, University ofMassachusetts Boston, 1998.

Tierney, W. G., and Bensimon, E. M. Promotion and Tenure: Community and Socializa-tion in Academe. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1996.

Ward, K. “Faculty Service Roles and the Scholarship of Engagement.” ERIC Digest, 2003.(ED 480 469.) Retrieved Jan. 31, 2007, from http://www.ericdigests.org/2004-3/faculty.html.

White, B. P. “Sharing Power to Achieve True Collaboration: The Community Role inEmbedding Engagement.” Campus Compact. 2006. Retrieved July 4, 2008, fromhttp://www.compact.org/20th/read/sharing_power_to_achieve_true_collaboration.

NATHAN HARRIS is the project director of the Upward Bound Program at IndianaUniversity Purdue University Indianapolis.


Faculty community service: At the intersection of campus and community

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