MUJ


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Exploring Community-Engaged
Scholarship as an Intervention to
Change and Improve Communities

2014 Recipient of the Ernest A. Lynton Award for 
the Scholarship of Engagement of Early Career Faculty

Jomella Watson-Thompson

Abstract
For most colleges and universities, community-engaged scholarship (CES) is a value

that supports the public mission of academic institutions. However, shifting CES from

a core value to a guiding principle requires demonstrable support and structural

modifications to academic practices and policies. Through this reflective paper, I will

propose some considerations for how academic institutions may develop and support a

culture of community-engaged scholarship to collaboratively contribute to meaningful

and lasting improvements with communities.

It is a great honor and blessing to be the recipient of the 2014 Ernest A. Lynton Award
for the Scholarship of Engagement of Early Career Faculty. Ernest A. Lynton
proposed, “We need to think of knowledge in an ecological fashion, recognizing the
complex, multi-faceted, and multiply-connected system by means of which discovery,
aggregation, synthesis, dissemination, and application are all interconnected” (1994,
10). Community-engaged scholarship (CES) supports the integration of research,
teaching, and service for community impact through mutually beneficial and
reinforcing activities supported through community-academic partnerships. I am
grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with knowledgeable, skilled, and committed
community partners who meaningfully contribute to change and improvement in
communities. The award process has occasioned the opportunity to reflect and further
refine my approach to community-engaged scholarship as an early career tenure-track
professor at the University of Kansas in the Department of Applied Behavioral
Science. Through this paper, I will share my experience and distill what I have learned
as a community-engaged scholar, as well as propose considerations for how to further
advance the scholarship of engagement. 



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Supporting Community-Engaged Scholarship
through Research, Teaching, and Service
Based on cross-disciplinary training in behavioral psychology, community psychology,
and urban planning, I was exposed to community-engaged scholarship in both my
undergraduate and graduate studies by my faculty mentors, Drs. Jacqueline Franklin at
Jackson State University and Stephen Fawcett at the University of Kansas. As an
urban affairs major at Jackson State University in Mississippi, I developed a strong
commitment to supporting place-based efforts that involve and serve the community as
the primary audience and benefactor of academic activities. Then, through graduate
studies at the University of Kansas in urban planning and later in behavioral
psychology (applied behavioral analysis), I began to understand the importance of
involving the community in identifying and addressing community-validated problems
of social significance. As a graduate student, I served as a graduate research assistant
with Dr. Stephen Fawcett and the Work Group for Community Health and
Development at the University of Kansas (KUWG), and I am now an associate
director with the research center. The KUWG promotes change and improvement in
community-determined outcomes by providing capacity-building supports to
individuals and groups in the community. For example, colleagues at the KUWG have
collaboratively supported the development of the Community Tool Box
(www.ctb.ku.edu), a free online resource that provides more than 7,000 pages of
practical community capacity-building tools available in English, Spanish, and Arabic. 

Community-Engaged Research
With the KUWG, I collaborate with community partners to support community-based
intervention and evaluation efforts in the areas of adolescent substance abuse
prevention, community violence prevention, positive youth development, and
community capacity-building. Through my affiliation with the KUWG, I was trained
in community-based participatory research (CBPR) and evaluation (CBPE) methods as
a graduate student, which now undergirds my approach as a community-engaged
scholar. Community stakeholders are equitably engaged as participants in all phases of
the research process, including in the assessment and identification of the community
problem; development and implementation of the intervention; review and
interpretation of data; and in the communication and dissemination of information to
key audiences. Figure 1 presents an integrated framework that guides my approach to
engaged scholarship based on the Framework for Collaborative Public Health Action
in Communities (Fawcett et al. 2000, 82) and the Model for Participatory Evaluation
(Fawcett et al. 2003, 24). Now, I train both undergraduate and graduate students in the
use of these models to support the development and implementation of community-
based initiatives. Through collaborations with community partners, I have empirically
examined the implementation of both models in supporting community-based
participatory research (Watson-Thompson et al. 2013b) and evaluation activities
(Watson-Thompson et al. 2013a).



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Figure 1. An integrated model presenting the Participatory Evaluation
Framework for Collaborative Action that presents the five-phase framework
for collaborative action and a six-step model for supporting participatory
evaluation efforts with community partners. 

Source: Adapted from Fawcett et al. 2000, 82; Institute of Medicine 2002, 186;
Fawcett et al. 2003, 24, and Fawcett et al. 2010, 3.

In the first phase of the model, community and academic partners collaboratively
assess and prioritize community-level problems and goals to be addressed. The
community problems are framed in a manner that allows diverse participation in
addressing the issue across community sectors and multiple academic disciplines. The
community partners also are engaged with academic partners in shaping the research
agenda by collectively developing the research and evaluation questions to be
examined. In this phase of the framework, the agenda for the collaborative effort to be
supported through engaged scholarship is further clarified through the development
and use of a logic model and strategic action plans. The logic model provides a visual
summary of the intervention approach that will be used by the academic and
community partner to address the problem or goal area.

In the second phase, community and academic partners support targeted action in the
community through community-based implementation of research interventions by
community partners. In the third phase, targeted action leads to community and



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systems changes, defined as new or modified programs, policies, or practices.
Community and system change serves as a key measure of how the environment is
being modified to support improvements in community-level outcomes. As an ongoing
part of the process, data are collected by community partners and collaboratively
shared and reviewed with academic partners to understand how the initiative is
contributing to improvements in prioritized community-level outcomes. Community
partners are trained in the use of the Online Documentation and Support System
(ODSS), a community-friendly web-based data collection portal developed by the KU
Work Group to support participatory evaluation activities. The ODSS produces
automated graphs and reports based on data collected in the system to enable
community partners to easily access and use data to support a variety of research and
practice activities (e.g., funder reports, board reports). The data are used by both
community and academic partners to guide decision-making and adjustments in
implementing community-based interventions.

As an example, I work collaboratively with community partners, such as the
Aim4Peace Violence Prevention Initiative through the Kansas City, Missouri Health
Department, to support community-participatory evaluation efforts to reduce
homicides and firearm aggravated assaults in a priority neighborhood. Based on a
community-led assessment process, unresolved arguments and conflicts were
identified to substantially contribute to homicides and aggravated assaults in Kansas
City, Missouri. After reviewing appropriate violence prevention initiatives, community
partners identified the Cure Violence (formerly CeaseFire Chicago) model as
appropriate to adapt and implement in Kansas City. The academic and community
partners engaged jointly in developing a logic model and an evaluation plan to guide
local implementation and adaptation of the intervention. The community partners
regularly documented the implementation of community-level change activities
facilitated by the initiative such as the implementation of conflict mediation trainings
with youth in local schools or policy changes within the local government to support
improved hiring processes for individuals with a criminal record. Based on the
evaluation plan, community partners regularly recorded the implementation of
community facilitated intervention activities in the ODSS. Between 2008 and 2013,
the initiative collaboratively facilitated 186 program, policy, and practice changes in
the community to support violence prevention efforts. The process and community-
level outcome data recorded in the ODSS, including community change and
behavioral outcome data, were regularly reviewed by both the community and
academic partners to guide decision-making. The ongoing process of working jointly
as community-academic partners to collect, review, and make sense of the data has
resulted in program enhancements, which have contributed to improvements in
community-level outcomes (i.e., reductions in homicides and aggravated assaults in
priority area). After five years of program implementation, the two geographical areas
prioritized by Aim4Peace, which historically experienced disproportionately higher
rates of violence as compared to other areas in the city, experienced between a 42 to
50 percent decrease in the number of homicides. Through the collaboration with
Aim4Peace, we have engaged in a variety of community-guided research activities,
including the co-submission and award of grants, co-authorship on published articles



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(Watson-Thompson et al. 2013a, 2013b), co-presentations at both academic and
community-based meetings, as well as the engagement of service-learning students in
supporting Aim4Peace activities.

Reflections and Challenges in 
Supporting Community-Engaged Research
Based on principles of community-based participatory research, it is critical to develop
genuine and maintained relationships with community partners based on a shared
agenda that is mutually beneficial. For many communities, particularly those in urban
areas, it is necessary to develop relationships and research agendas that are not solely
contingent on the researchers’ needs or the availability of grant funding. Otherwise,
short-term and sporadic community partnerships further contribute to community
perceptions of academic mistrust. My mentor, Dr. Franklin, described this imbalance
of academic-community relationships and power as “pimping the community.”
Fortunately, I had developed a core base of community partners and projects that were
established prior to my tenure-track faculty appointment. However, even with already
established community partnerships, ongoing dedicated time is required to support
community-based research and evaluation processes, as well as to maintain trust and
rapport. After community research partnerships are established, a substantial
investment of time is required to maintain the relationships, which often takes the form
of community-engaged service (e.g., serve on community boards, develop community
reports). For faculty colleagues who evaluate community-engaged research activities
for merit review or reappointment, promotion, and tenure (RPT) processes, the types
of challenges experienced that may result in more modest publication schedules may
not always be well understood. Furthermore, there are often not departmental or more
broad university models for how to evaluate community-engaged research activities to
assess not only the scholarly, but as important, the public impact.

Although there are many benefits to community-based participatory research and
evaluation, the advantages are often restricted by unparalleled university expectations
and conditions for competing research obligations by faculty. One of the main benefits
of community-engaged research is that it increases the likelihood for intervention
effectiveness and sustainability by community partners. However, for many academic
institutions, the primary indicator of research impact is based on traditional measures
of the quantity of peer-reviewed journal articles, and scholarly impact based on article
citations and journal impact factors. Although there are some progressive colleges and
universities that have supported community-engaged scholarship as a component of
RPT processes, many academic institutions, particularly research universities, have not
implemented clear contingencies that promote and incentivize engaged scholarship
(Saltmarsh et al. 2009, 29). Furthermore, the development of community-friendly
materials (e.g., assessments, evaluation reports) valued by community partners and
demonstrated to have public impact often competes with the production of
publications for academic audiences. Although materials developed by community
partners often can be converted to scholarly manuscripts for submission to peer-



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reviewed journals, it can be a time-consuming process to adapt materials for multiple
community and academic audiences. Saltmarsh et al. (2009, 28) suggests that
“community-engaged scholarship redefines what constitutes a ‘publication’ and
redefines who is a ‘peer’ in the peer review process.” However, in my experience,
many academic institutions and departments have not fully implemented this type of
reciprocity in the assessment of community-engaged scholarship activities. 

Additional challenges commonly experienced by community-engaged researchers are
related to research methodologies, data collection measures and time periods. Based on
a community-based participatory approach, stronger experimental (e.g., randomized
control trials) and quasi-experimental (e.g., interrupted time series with switching
replication) designs may not be deemed appropriate by community partners. The result
of less rigorous research methods may limit publications in journal outlets with higher
impact scores (Jacquez 2013, 19). For instance, in supporting violence prevention
initiatives, randomization or delays in the implementation of the intervention with
individuals or groups may be unethical. Relatedly, community-based research
outcomes often are best supported through longitudinal studies (e.g., annual rates of
substance use, rates of homicides) which may limit the ability to rapidly produce
publications. As an example, I co-led the evaluation of a five-year federally funded
underage drinking initiative for the state of Kansas through the Department on Aging
and Disability Services (formerly Social Rehabilitation Services). The key outcome
measure identified by community partners was annual rates of 30-day alcohol use.
During the study period, our team supported the publication of articles related to the
community process (Anderson-Carpenter et al. 2014); however, the evaluation
questions of interest to community partners focused on community-level behavioral
outcome data over the five-year grant period. In another experience, a community
partner achieved significant outcomes in reducing rates of a problem behavior,
however, due to political reasons the partner elected to not publish or more broadly
disseminate the results of the study, but used the data internally to examine, validate,
and improve the initiative.

Community-Engaged Teaching
As a faculty member in the Department of Applied Behavioral Science, the scholarship
of teaching through service-learning and outreach activities is highly valued and
commonly accepted. Faculty mentors in the department both provided guidance and
set precedence for innovative ways to integrate service-learning and outreach into the
course curriculum. Community-based teaching and learning are core components of all
my courses including my community leadership, community health, and development
competencies, practicum in community health and development, and community-based
independent study courses. In each course, an array of service activities is offered that
students can choose to support including direct service, indirect service, and/or
participatory research activities. For instance, in my community development
competencies course, students can engage in direct service through eight hours of
service monthly for a total of 24 hours over the semester, or in indirect service by
developing a grant proposal for a partner organization. Students often have varying



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histories and service experiences; therefore, meeting students where they are and
allowing them to select from a menu of service opportunities within the course makes
it more likely that they will maintain involvement in reinforcing types of community
engagement longer-term. From my observations, a “one size fits all” approach to
service-learning is ineffective (Longo 2007, 131). Students who complete the series of
courses I instruct are provided with varied opportunities for diverse community-
engaged learning experiences through repeated exposures and opportunities, which
also contributes to establishing a behavior and history of reinforcement.

Through the course requirements, students are challenged to collaborate with diverse
communities, groups, and populations. At the University of Kansas, my home campus
is located in Lawrence, Kansas, which may be considered part of the regional
metropolitan corridor, but is located approximately 45 minutes from the urban core of
Kansas City. In several of my courses, students are challenged to participate in
community efforts related to issues affecting diverse metropolitan communities and
populations, which is often a novel experience for many students who are from rural
and homogenous parts of the state. Through the application of knowledge, students are
reinforced by meaningful and immediate application of course content, which thereby
enhances their understanding and commitment to community engagement. For
instance, a student from Kenya and another student from the Cheyenne River Sioux
tribe in South Dakota both received awards from agencies to support youth
development efforts in their home communities based on proposals developed through
supports offered in the community health and development competencies course.

Through community-engaged learning, opportunities are occasioned to enhance the
knowledge, skills, and ability of not only students, but also community members and
partners. The Community Tool Box (http:// http://ctb.ku.edu/en) curriculum, developed
by the KU Work Group and collaborative partners, is used to train both undergraduate
and graduate students through community-based trainings and capacity-building
technical supports with community partners. Both formal and informal opportunities
are occasioned to engage community members in community-engaged teaching and
training. For instance, a graduate certificate in community health and development is
offered to non-degree seeking students and community members through the graduate
school and the Department of Applied Behavioral Science. Furthermore, more
informal community-based training and technical support often is provided to
individuals and groups such as coalitions in the community often through not only
teaching, but also community-engaged research or service activities. The training
formats support product-based learning so that the students or community members
trained contribute to developing materials such as a grant application, community
project proposal, or community assessment, which further extend opportunities for
community-engaged learning and service after the course is completed. 

Engaged scholarship in teaching supports the involvement of practitioners in
academia, which serves as a bridge for the university and the community. Several of
my research partners engage students in service-learning activities, which helps to
ensure that community partners are able to reap the multiple and simultaneous benefits



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of community-academic partnerships. Service-learning provides the opportunity for
students to sample community-based settings, professions, and occupations, as well as
establish meaningful contacts and connections in the community. Similarly,
community engagement affords community partners the opportunity to informally
influence student learning, as well as provides opportunities to access and train
students who may be potential future employees. In some of my courses, community
partners are also more formally integrated into the classroom experience as guest
lecturers, panelists, and advisors or consultants on community-based course projects.
For example, a community partner, who is a physician, has provided guest lectures on
socioeconomic determinants of health and disparities. Similarly, for student grant and
project proposals, student groups meet with partner organizations periodically
throughout the semester during class using Skype to discuss project development.
Also, in my practicum courses, students are co-supervised by an instructor and
community supervisor, who collaboratively provide guidance to the student in
developing a community-based product (e.g., assessment).

In my courses, community partners are provided multiple opportunities to evaluate
student performance, as a component of a student’s grade, through both written and
oral feedback mechanisms. Furthermore, students are prompted to support ongoing
critical reflection throughout the semester, which culminates through a service-learning
and course reflection poster fair. Often, community-engaged teaching activities may
result in additional requirements and time commitments of the faculty to support the
community-academic partnerships and responsibilities. For example, it is necessary for
faculty to establish and maintain community relationships, identify and coordinate
appropriate service-learning activities, and ensure student development of high-quality
community products and activities, which often necessitates a more intensive process
for student review, feedback, and reflection.

Reflections and Challenges in 
Supporting Community-Engaged Teaching
From my observations, community-engaged teaching may be most immediately
impactful on students who otherwise may be considered at risk for achieving academic
success. It has been evidenced that service-learning can increase self-efficacy (Knapp,
Bradley, and Levesque-Bristol 2010, 238). For potentially at-risk students, community-
engaged learning serves as a reinforcer and provides more immediate meaning and
purpose to their coursework and academic experiences. For instance, in my community
leadership course, there was a student who took the course the first semester after
returning to the university from academic probation. The student indicated that upon
returning she felt overwhelmed and had decided to leave college, but through course-
engaged learning opportunities afforded through the course she found value and utility
in her academic experience, which reaffirmed her purpose for completing college.
Although service-learning is an important learning goal for all students, community-
engaged learning may be particularly important in the retention of racial and ethnic
minority students (Ward and Wolf-Wendel 2000, 272). Service-learning may also



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provide a dual-purpose as a student marketing and retention tool, in addition to
supporting student learning outcomes. Therefore, it is important to consider how to
communicate and promote the importance of service-learning from the integrated
perspective of other academic departments such as admissions, academic advising,
multicultural affairs offices, and college/university career centers. 

Although the basic concept of service-learning, as compared to community-engaged
research or service, is more commonly understood and valued among university
faculty and administrators, there is less consensus about how to assess the impact of
service-learning courses on community and student outcomes. The majority of
students are appreciative of the opportunity to engage in more applied learning
formats. However, for some students, service-learning often requires a shift in the
student paradigm for learning in a way that is not always immediately appreciated by
all students, particularly for those for whom community engagement is novel or for
those who have had prior adverse experiences. There are some students who do not
embrace the challenge service-learning offers to move from the classroom to
application in the community. Each semester, there is always a subset of students who
become intimidated by the fluidity in the course that allows for moving project
deadlines if a community process such as collecting data or facilitating community-
engaged processes takes longer than originally anticipated. When I first began
teaching, this tension often frustrated me. After seeking consultation from colleagues
in the Center for Teaching Excellence, it became more apparent that student
perceptions of their course and service-learning experiences should not be the primary
indicator of instructor or course effectiveness. The director of the KU Center for
Teaching Excellence challenged me to identify other complementary mechanisms for
assessing the purpose of the courses as it related to both student outcomes and
community impact. 

Community-Engaged Service
As a community-engaged scholar, community-based service is often integrated into both
research and teaching activities. The traditional distribution of research, teaching, and
service as discrete activities is not often realistic as the faculty role and responsibilities
are reinforced through interdependent and synergistic community-academic
engagements. For instance, I serve on the executive and advisory boards for several
community and faith-based organizations in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Through
affiliation with the boards, I am able to broker just-in-time community-academic
relationships and supports for partners, as well as provide community capacity-building
expertise. Furthermore, in several courses, I provide community partners with indirect
consultation by guiding students in the development of grant applications, community
assessments, and program evaluations. Additionally, I often serve as a resource for
academic colleagues who seek community credibility to connect or engage with different
communities and groups. In general, community-engaged scholarship enhances the
social capital of community and academic partners by facilitating the bi-directional
exchange of information and resources for community benefit. 



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Over the past couple of years, I have worked closely with community-based partners
and students to develop a couple of service-based youth development initiatives which
have supported the scholarship of integration and application. One initiative is LEAD
UP (Leadership, Education, and Adolescent Development for Unlimited Possibilities),
which focuses on providing youth leadership and college prep training and support to
racial and ethnic minority youth in eighth through twelfth grades. The initiative began
to address immediate needs observed working with youth in the Kansas City metro
area who had very limited knowledge and guidance for how to prepare for life after
high school. Interestingly, it was noted that academic institutions were not accessible
to many youth. Even though the institutions were geographically available or within
close proximity, many youth had still not visited an academic institution. Furthermore,
neither the youth nor the majority of parents had access to individuals in college
settings or were knowledgeable of how to select an appropriate postsecondary option.
LEAD UP provides youth with biannual college visits, ongoing undergraduate student
contact and coaching, positive youth peer networks, and parent supports. Through the
initiative, we partnered with multiple KU offices including the Admissions
Department, McNair Scholars Program, Student Money Management Services, the
Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Department of Applied Behavioral Science, and the
KU Work Group for Community Health and Development. 

The development of the initiative has provided rich undergraduate leadership and training
opportunities, as well as research experience. Based on the initial pilot of the program
with a small group of African American youth from the Kansas City metro area, the
program was expanded to also include youth from the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe in
South Dakota based on the initiative and securement of a small grant by an undergraduate
student, Jordyn Gunville. She thought the program could greatly benefit the youth from
her home community and reservation, and she began to develop a proposal in the
community health and development competencies course to expand the approach and
population served through the program. After developing the proposal in the course, she
submitted and received funding for the proposal. Then, through a series of independent
study courses, she and another undergraduate student supported the development and
implementation of the initiative. The program approach is now being refined in
partnership with community and faith-based partners both in the KC metro area including
Tabernacle Community Development Center, Inc., and Made-Men, Inc., as well as with
the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe Title 1 program. Ultimately, the goal is to develop and
pilot an effective approach to support community-based college access programs. 

Reflections and Lessons Learned in 
Supporting Community-Engaged Service
Although community-engaged service may seemingly be the most apparent form of
engaged scholarship, at times there are misconceptions regarding its merit. From my
experience, community-engaged service may be minimized and discredited as an
appropriate form of scholarly service by those who are unable to distinguish it from
general community service. Boyer (1996) indicates that “a sharp distinction must be



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drawn between citizenship activities and projects that relate to scholarship itself….To be
considered scholarship, service activities must be tied directly to one’s special field of
knowledge and relate to, and flow directly out of, this activity (22).” Based on my work,
I serve on executive and advisory boards and offer pro bono consultation for several
community and faith-based organizations. Generally, I provide capacity-building training
and technical supports in community assessment, logic model development, strategic
planning, and evaluation. Often, students are also involved with me in providing the
community and capacity-building supports, which allows them to begin gaining practical
experience in applying community health and development competencies. In this way,
community-engaged service supports the scholarship of application. 

Although I still engage in more traditional forms of academic service, there are often
competing time demands between community-based and traditional academic service
activities. I generally participate in broader university service activities that may
influence institutional practices and policies related to community-engaged
scholarship. As examples of university-level service, I have served on the Community
Engagement and Equality Working Group to guide university sustainability activities,
the Leadership Studies Steering Committee to inform curriculum development, as a
departmental ambassador for the Center for Teaching Excellence, and as a
departmental representative for the KU Advocacy Corp, which pairs community
agencies with academic departments to support advocacy and outreach. 

Structural Challenges and Opportunities 
to Support Community-Engaged Scholarship
Although I am fortunate to work in a supportive academic environment, I have
experienced some tensions in facilitating community-engaged scholarship as an early-
career tenure track professor. Initially, when I received my faculty appointment, I was
guided by more senior faculty to create some dissonance in my community and
academic activities. I received multiple cautions from a variety of colleagues to reduce
community-engaged scholarship activities with the guidance of “do what you have to
do now, so that you can do what you want to do later.” The subtle message being
communicated was to ensure that I was maintaining my publication record, and then
post-tenure I could enjoy the benefits of academic freedom (i.e., community-engaged
scholarship). The discouragement by senior colleagues to not pursue engaged
scholarship activities until post-tenure is common advice for tenure-track faculty
(Foster 2012, 22). The feedback from senior colleagues is not ill-intentioned but is
rather an attempt to ensure the success and matriculation of tenure-track faculty in
academia based on the structural system, which often may not have mechanisms to
holistically evaluate CES as part of the RPT process. However, as a community-based
participatory researcher with already established community partnerships and
commitments, it was not appropriate to subdue community engagement activities.

During my first couple of years as a tenure-track professor, the University of Kansas
was beginning to engage in preliminary dialogues regarding engaged scholarship for



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public impact. Since this time, there have been intentional efforts at the University of
Kansas to examine engaged scholarship as part of the institutional strategic planning
process. For instance, at the University of Kansas there were forums, planning
sessions, and funding mechanisms to support interdisciplinary strategic initiatives,
which did enhance collaboration and activity in the scholarship of integration.
However, although engaged scholarship was conceptually embraced by university
administration, there was not necessarily a clear and consistent definition and a mutual
understanding of engaged scholarship across multiple levels of the university. In
general, the linear view of faculty responsibilities was maintained in the structural
systems, which results in the independent assessment of research, teaching, and service
as discrete activities, which may limit fully understanding the integrated contributions
of community-engaged scholars (Saltmarsh et al. 2009, 32). I participated on several
campus-based community engagement work groups that recommended strategies to
translate and promote cultural practices within departments and units. The university
has interest in supporting structural interventions and transformations, but it will take
time to fully integrate various strategies for evaluating and promoting CES across
multiple levels and systems.

As an early career tenure-track professor, I would have been less likely to have
embraced community-engaged scholarship if I had not been previously reinforced by
meaningful CES partnerships and experiences as a graduate student and early career
researcher. At pivotal times in my career, I received critical supports from the KU
Center for Civic and Social Responsibility and the Center for Teaching Excellence,
which provided me with both collegial validation and a peer network of support as an
engaged scholar. As an early career tenure-track professor, opportunities for external
validation of CES, such as through the Campus Compact and Ernest A. Lynton
awards, are also important in further recognizing efforts to advance the scholarship of
engagement. The collaborative efforts supported by the New England Resource Center
for Higher Education (NERCHE), the Center for Engaged Democracy, and the
Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities has provided opportunities to extend
my network of engaged scholars and supported an enhanced and renewed commitment
to contributing to advancing CES. The Lynton award also provided opportunities to
broker communications with university leaders at KU, including Chancellor
Bernadette Gray-Little and Dean Danny Anderson, regarding the continued value of
CES on campus, which also helped to further validate the merit of community
engagement as part of the university mission.

Recommendations to Further 
Advance Community-Engaged Scholarship
Based on my experience, I will propose some considerations for how academic
institutions may further support a culture of community-engaged scholarship. Figure 2
presents four factors or enabling conditions that may be helpful in addressing potential
barriers to engaged scholarship. As shown in the model, first it is important for
academic institutions to collectively examine the community context and conditions



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that may promote or impede community engagement at academic institutions and in
communities. Next, colleges and universities should be proactive in developing,
adopting, and implementing both principles and models of community-engaged
scholarship. Then, it is critical to demonstrate institutional commitment and support for
community engagement at multiple levels of the university including within schools,
departments, and other academic units. Lastly, academic institutions should ensure clear
mechanisms for documenting, measuring, and evaluating the collective contributions of
university partners in facilitating engaged scholarship for community impact.

Figure 2. Enabling factors or conditions that academic institutions can
support in advancing community-engaged scholarship



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Examine the Community and 
University Context and Conditions
For disenfranchised communities and groups, particularly in urban areas, it is critical
that academic institutions support conditions to sustain academic engagement and
commitment in a place, over time, and across people. Many urban areas have been
characterized by historical disinvestment, which has resulted in inequities and
disparities in outcomes including education, income, employment, housing, health, and
safety. Years of systemic inequities in conditions and communities cannot be
ameliorated without a commitment of strategic investment in concentrated places over
time. Colleges and universities have the opportunity to be anchor institutions that
“persist in communities over generations, serving as social glue, economic engines, or
both” (Cantor, Englot, and Higgins 2013, 20). Universities are strategically positioned
to serve as anchor institutions that bring interdisciplinary collaborators together
through public and private partnerships (Coalition of Urban Serving Universities
2010). As anchor institutions, university-based community-engagement efforts cannot
be here today and gone tomorrow, or we further perpetuate the negative histories
already experienced in many communities, particularly in urban settings. 

For some academic institutions, such as regional major research institutions, there may
be reluctance to commit to strategic investments in defined communities due to
political constraints. However, the potential for community impact through
interdisciplinary initiatives and community collaboration is minimized when there is a
lack of university commitment and coordination of activities in prioritized
communities. The prioritization of communities by academic institutions does not
suggest that faculty, staff, and administrators cannot continue to engage in a variety of
community settings, but rather that intentional opportunities are sought to coordinate
commitment and investments in strategic places within and across communities. Often,
there are multiple faculty or researchers engaged in the same communities and
working with mutual community partners; however, the academic supports and
resources provided in communities are often uncoordinated, which limits the ability of
colleges and universities to understand their collective contribution in supporting
change and improvement in communities. Urban communities provide rich
opportunities for co-learning through CES because of the highly dense concentration
of residents and organizations that can collaborate through university partnerships.

It is important that academic-based faculty and personnel engage in collaborative
processes to understand the setting, context, and conditions of prioritized communities
in which they work or endeavor to engage. Prior to involvement with prioritized
communities and groups, academic partners should examine the community factors
including the cultural, geographical, and political histories of the community. The
academic partner should be immersed as the community learner with the endeavor to
be “local,” which provides an opportunity for academicians and administrators not
only to learn the community, but also to take the role as learner first. According to
Mark Smith (1994, 125), 



25

[Being local] involves learning in detail about the participants [the community],
their lives, their histories, and their relationships to one another. It includes
learning the characteristics that define a place [or group]: family, neighborhood,
community culture . . . . Being local is a skill used for community connection,
often between educational institutions and local communities. 

Occasioning opportunities to learn about the community from and with community
partners shifts the locus of expertise from the academic to the community partner(s)
and will enhance the cultural knowledge and awareness of university personnel.
However, such a learning process would require a commitment and investment of time
from university faculty and administrators to permit the academician to be a learner
first, which is not generally permitted by RPT and other constraints.

It is also important to examine and understand the history of engagement in the
community, including prior and existing community-academic partnerships and
activities. For instance, in my community leadership course, students develop digital
stories, brief multimedia narratives with community-based partners to document and
promote their collaborative community leadership efforts. For some community
partners, the digital stories have been helpful in both recording community and
organizational history and communicating their successes to others. Similarly, digital
stories or brief informational videos developed with community partner groups
through multidisciplinary service-learning collaborations could be components of new
faculty, staff, and student orientations. 

Developing and Implementing 
CES Principles and Models
For most colleges and universities, community-engaged scholarship is a value that
supports their public mission. As a value, academic institutions recognize and
communicate the importance of CES as important for supporting research, teaching,
and service activities. However, for many campuses, shifting CES from a core value to
a guiding principle requires demonstrable support and modifications to university
practices and policies, particularly in regard to faculty reward systems. In 2014, the
annual conference for the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities was held
at Syracuse University. I was delighted to receive the Lynton award at a university that
has institutionally prioritized and demonstrated the scholarship of engagement.
However, for many institutions the scholarship of integration, which supports an
interdisciplinary approach to engaged scholarship is yet evolving. 

Ultimately, universities endeavor to contribute to improving population-level health
and development outcomes such as poverty, violence, chronic disease, environmental
justice, and a host of other issues. Effective problem-solving to address the confluence
of urban issues requires a multi-sectoral and interdisciplinary approach to address the
interrelated factors that challenges health and development, particularly in urban
settings. Many of the efforts singly addressed by academicians in departmental silos



26

are synergistic with other research and service efforts also occurring in the same
university and community. When university efforts in a community are uncoordinated,
it poses a barrier to participation and collaboration by community partners. Therefore,
it is important to ensure conditions that promote a coordination of resources, internal
and external information sharing, and systematic examination of university-based
efforts to better understand collective contributions and engagement in communities.

Academic institutions should develop, adopt, and implement a framework for
community-engaged scholarship that validates and supports an institutional approach.
The implementation of a CES framework may assist in guiding academic institutions
in the process of engaged scholarship. Furthermore, the operationalization of CES
activities may enhance understanding for both new and existing faculty for how to
support, recognize, and evaluate CES activities. An institutional approach to CES,
promotes intra-university collaboration across disciplines, faculty, and students, as well
as with community partners. A university-level approach to CES promotes integrated
and collaborative scholarship activities across disciplinary fields and units (e.g.,
student affairs, multicultural affairs, admissions) within the university. 

Using the Participatory Evaluation 
Framework for Collaborative Action to Guide CES
The Participatory Evaluation Framework for Collaborative Action (see Figure 1) was
presented earlier in this paper. Although this model has been used primarily to
examine participatory evaluation and community change processes, it also may
support community-engaged scholarship more broadly, particularly at the institutional
level. According to Cantor, Englot, and Higgins (2013, 20), “an essential first step in
making the work of universities as anchor institutions stick is creating a model of
reciprocal, participatory engagement.” The framework offers a process for
systematically examining the collective contributions of CES in supporting
improvements in prioritized community-level outcomes.

In the first phase of the model, university and community-based partners are
collaboratively engaged in determining the prioritized goals and issues to be addressed
through CES. Academic and community-based partners work jointly to assess the
assets as well as needs or issues present in the community. As a part of the assessment
process, multiple academic disciplines and community sectors are involved in the
process of identifying, collecting, analyzing, and interpreting information. The mission
and type of academic institution will influence the parameters for how the community
of place is defined, which may be as bounded as a neighborhood, or as expansive as a
state or region. The aim of the assessment process is to engage both university and
community partners in determining the socioeconomic priorities to be addressed
through CES. Furthermore, the community needs and resources assessment can help to
better ensure that faculty, staff, and students are meaningfully contributing to
community-determined areas of support through engaged scholarship activities. Based
on the collective prioritization of goals, community and university partners



27

collaboratively name and frame the issues to be supported through CES. The way an
issue is named and framed determines how it will be supported and by whom from the
community and academic institution. 

Based on a participatory approach, both community and academic partners contribute
to identifying and examining appropriate research questions of mutual interest. The
identification of institutional-level research interests is not intended to limit the
autonomy of academic partners, but rather permits systematic examination of the
collective impact of CES. Then, the development of a logic model and plan by
academic and community partners supports a coordinated CES approach. Generally, a
logic model summarizes the inputs including the resources and CES activities or
strategies to be supported by both academic and community partners. Based on the
activities, the logic model also specifies related outputs and results, as well as the
intended impact outcomes of CES activities. The logic model may be more fully
explicated through the development of a community engagement strategic plan. The
CES approach summarized in the logic model and related plan should be guided by
multiple levels of community and campus participation including from community
stakeholders, particularly from underrepresented or often overlooked groups, as well
as students, faculty, and staff.

In the second phase of the model, collaborative action is facilitated to support
implementation of the activities and strategies identified through the logic model and
plan. The activities supported in this phase by academic and community partners may
include the implementation of research interventions, service-learning and outreach
activities, and/or community-engaged service by faculty, staff, or students. Targeted
action supports the implementation of community and systems changes, defined as
new or modified programs, policies, or practices. It is important that methods are
identified to systematically document and measure both the community-engagement
process and the implementation of community-level interventions. The systematic
documentation of community engagement activities (phase two) and contributions to
community and system changes (phase three) permits examination of how the
academic and community environment are contributing to improvements in
community-level outcomes. As data are collected from both community and academic
partners regarding community engagement activities and outcomes, it is important to
collaboratively share and review the data. Then, the data should be used to guide
adjustments and inform decision-making by both community and university partners.
Ultimately, community engagement activities and interventions supported through
community-university partnerships are elements of a comprehensive multicomponent
intervention to change and improve community conditions. However, academic
institutions often do not take advantage of the opportunity to systematically examine
the collective contribution of community-academic efforts in a strategic place. 

In the fourth and fifth phases, the implementation of community/system changes
contributes to widespread changes in behaviors of individuals and groups (both in
academia and the community), which results in improvements in community-level
outcomes. The simplest, but possibly most commonly overlooked, aspect of the model



28

is then to ensure opportunities for community and academic partners to jointly celebrate
and communicate successes to audiences and key stakeholders. The collaborative
celebration of shared community-academic successes through mechanisms that are
mutually agreed upon and collaborative reinforcement builds a positive history for CES.
Community-determined approaches for engaging community and academic partners
through community-university collaborations have demonstrated effectiveness in
improving urban conditions (Coalition of Urban Serving Universities 2010). 

Demonstrate Institutional 
Commitment and Support for CES
The institutional history and commitment for investing in priority communities served
by a college or university should transcend and endure past any individual
administration, faculty, staff, or student. For example, when supporting service-learning
student placements with community partners, as the instructor, I broker the student
placements with community partners to ensure appropriateness of fit, support
mechanisms for student and community partner feedback, as well as to maintain rapport
with the community partners. Although it requires more upfront time by the instructors,
this support ensures that the relationship with the community partner is not contingent
on any individual student. Furthermore, I am also able to manage the placement of
students with community sites to not inundate community partners with duplicative
service-learning student requests. Similarly, community engagement at colleges and
universities is enhanced by coordinated university supports. Then, the quality and value
of community-academic partnerships and CES activities is not as contingent on funding
mechanisms or individual relationships between academic and community partners.

Institutionalizing CES requires a university culture that supports and reinforces
community engagement across multiple levels of the university system, including
university administration, schools, colleges, and departments. Although many academic
institutions seemingly value engaged scholarship, there is a clear and persistent
disconnect in its merit based on the academic reward systems, particularly at research
universities. At colleges and universities where CES is a principle, community
engagement is an institutional expectation, rather than option, and is apparent by
structural processes such as in the annual merit and RPT processes. Saltmarsh et al.
(2009, 28) suggests that “community engaged scholarship redefines what constitutes a
‘publication’ and redefines who is a ‘peer’ in the peer review process.” For instance, the
submission of letters for RPT tenure dossiers from community partners as peer experts
would be an indicator of institutional commitment to CES. 

Colleges and universities should identify and commit to structural changes (i.e.,
programs, policies, and practices) that support CES. Foster (2012, 24) suggests that
“structural interventions can come from campus units that value community-engaged
scholarship, from scientific and academic leadership organizations, and from the federal
government.” It is paramount to identify incentives not just for individual scholars but
also for mid-level administrators such as department chairs who often influence



29

departmental practices and norms, including merit evaluation and RPT processes. For
instance, group-based recognition and awards (e.g., honor rolls) for departments or
units that support community engagement within academic settings may facilitate
broader support and prioritization, particularly if the information were available to
prospective students and majors. Also, institutional supports such as CES post-docs or
fellows who could assist faculty in developing or coordinating CES activities may offer
a critical support that may enhance CES activities of multiple faculty within a unit.
Furthermore, permitting opportunities and supports for non-faculty staff to support
community engagement activities may further permit a culture of engagement across
multiple levels of personnel. For example, a campus that promotes a culture of
community engagement may implement flex time policies that allow staff to engage in
community advocacy and engagement activities. At the University of Kansas, the
majority of advocates in the KU Advocacy Corp, coordinated by the Center for Civic
and Social Responsibility, are staff-level personnel. The KU Advocacy Corp pairs
community organizations with university faculty, staff, and students to broker
community-university engagement and advocacy supports. 

Another clear indicator of campus commitment to CES is through program degree
requirements. Many four-year colleges and universities have successfully integrated
requirements for community engagement, generally in the form of service-learning, as
a core component of undergraduate training. Similarly, over the past couple of
decades, community colleges have increasingly integrated service-learning in the
curriculum requirements (Prentice and Robinson 2010). However, there are often less
direct requirements for CES as a core component and requirement of graduate training
programs. It is strategic to expose and train graduate students in the process and
importance of community-engaged scholarship as the next generation of engaged
scholars, tenure-track faculty, and administrators. A longer-term approach to shifting
the campus culture and perception of CES is to train future academic leaders and
scholars in this area. For example, at the University of Kansas, all doctoral students
must fulfill research and responsible scholarship requirements as a part of the graduate
program. Although departments specify the criteria for satisfactory completion of this
requirement, common elements are generally demonstrating competency or the
completion of courses in ethics and responsible scholarship in conducting research. An
example of an institutional change supporting CES would be to expand options to
fulfill the requirement that include courses or experiences in community-engaged
scholarship as an additional option or explicit type of responsible scholarship.

Document and Evaluate CES 
Contributions and Community Impact
A common challenge experienced by many universities is how to systematically
document and examine, across disciplines and interventions, the collective contributions
of CES to support transformation in communities. Often times, there are multiple and
simultaneous campus-supported research and service efforts occurring within a
concentrated community. Although CES efforts may serve the same populations and



30

contribute to similar or complementary community-level outcomes, there is often not a
centralized process for documenting campus-based inputs, including the investment of
academic resources and activities supported in communities. Therefore, academic
institutions would benefit from regarding community-engaged scholarship activities as
a comprehensive community intervention.

The development and implementation of community-based logic models and plans are
important for identifying the short- and longer-term outcomes intended to be impacted
by CES, including knowledge and skill attainment, attitudes and perception changes,
and behavior changes occurring in both the community and on campus. Both the
process and outcomes of community-academic partnerships are important to document
and examine. For many academic institutions, CES-related activities such as service-
learning are at least noted in strategic plans at some level. However, it is often less
clear how CES contributions and impact on student learning and community outcomes
is measured and evaluated. 

Although many colleges and universities recognize the importance of community-
university partnerships, it is less clear how to systematically evaluate the collective
contributions and impact of community engagement. Often times, community-
university partnerships are organic and develop incrementally over time based on
individual faculty and/or staff interests, commitment, and resources. Aggregate efforts
to improve communities are generally not well documented or examined within and
across academic units. A need persists to refine approaches for systematically
examining both the process and collective outcomes of community engagement.
Systematic methods and measures of community engagement would allow both
academic and community partners to understand the collective contribution of
community-university partnerships in transforming communities. 

The reflective process occasioned by the Lynton award application process and
awardee presentations has provided me with the opportunity to reflect on how to
enhance CES practice in my own work. An area that I am eager to further advance in
promoting community-engaged scholarship at my academic institution, and more
broadly in the field, is in the documentation and evaluation of CES activities. For
example, in the courses I instruct, students complete service-learning activity logs and
reflective processes through online discussion boards and poster presentations.
However, I have not instituted a systematic data collection system to support the
quantification and deeper analyses of student inputs and outcomes across courses and
over semesters. Similarly, for the participatory research collaborations that I support, I
work with partners to systematically document their efforts to facilitate community
change and service activities, but have often overlooked also documenting the
academic inputs provided to community partners such as through capacity-building
training and technical support.

Based on my work with the KU Work Group for Community Health and
Development, I am pretty well versed in developing community-level data collection
and evaluation systems to document and measure the process and impact of



31

community-based interventions. For instance, our research center has supported a
community-academic partnership with the local public health department to facilitate
the implementation of a community health assessment and plan that is being
implemented in the community through multi-sector collaboration. Through this
process, my colleagues have collaborated with the health department and community
partners to implement a community-level data collection and reporting system to
document community and system changes (i.e., program, policy and practice changes)
and service activities being implemented across the community. The system provides a
community accessible portal to record and analyze activities implemented by multiple
partners, including the health department, public housing authority, and public schools,
contributing to improving community-level health outcomes. Our primary focus has
been on ensuring that the community story and contributions to change and
improvement are systematically recorded. However, we had not yet considered how to
also support systematic data collection of the academic-based inputs in the community
that may also be supporting the community transformation and improvement process.

Now, in this semester, I will begin to work with both academic and community-based
partners to align documentation practices to permit a more holistic examination of both
the community and university-based activities contributing to implementing strategies
to support community health improvement. For instance, as a pilot project, I will
modify the reporting practices in my courses to support integration with the
community data collection system. By supporting a practice change in student service
and outreach reporting in my course, we will at least be able to better understand how
nearly 100 students contribute to supporting community health strategies and
outcomes through community-engaged service activities. 

In the strongest form, CES can enhance the capacity, or collective skills, capabilities,
and resources, of both academic and community partners. However, it is critical to
continue to identify approaches to measure the community and academic impact of
community capacity and change processes on both community and university (such as
student learning ) outcomes. Through intra-disciplinary collaboration, we have the
potential to develop strong systems and approaches for examining the process and
outcomes of community-academic partnerships. Many disciplines such as community
psychology, public health, education, applied behavioral analysis, social work, urban
planning, and many more are well-positioned to contribute to our collective
understanding of how to measure CES process and outcomes. There are already
established constructs and measures for concepts such as community capacity,
community and self-efficacy, community-based participatory research, social
validation of goal attainment, and community change and transformation processes
and outcomes, which could be adapted for this context. However, what is absent is not
the ability to measure and examine CES, but the integrated framework that guides
what and how we should measure our collective efforts to demonstrate and evidence
collective impact and contributions to improvements in communities. 



32

Conclusion
In addressing the plethora of health and development issues that often plagues our
communities, we must continue to advance CES through the scholarship of discovery,
integration, teaching, and application (Boyer 1996, 17; Lynton 1994, 11). In many
communities, a confluence of factors, often related to structural determinants including
historical and social policies and socioeconomic disparities in education, employment,
housing, and access to resources, including social capital, continues to challenge the
collective health and development of communities. Despite the varied problems
experienced in communities, there are many assets including human and institutional
resources that are critical in addressing the social and physical ills that perplex our
society. Colleges and universities are key institutions that are uniquely positioned to
contribute to addressing some of the underlying factors of structural and
socioeconomic determinants. However, community partners are best positioned to
reify and validate the importance, utility, and effectiveness of our interventions, which
is ultimately evidenced by community adoption, implementation, and sustainability. I
am reminded of the quote by George Berkley that states, “If a tree falls in a forest and
no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” In parallel, I now ask you, if we, as
academicians, do good scholarly work that is published and academically reputable,
but it is not shared, known, or implemented by practitioners in applied settings and in
communities, then did our scholarly work ever really exist?

Based on an ecological perspective, the ability of colleges and universities to fulfill
their research, teaching, and service missions is embedded within the process of
supporting transformation and improvements in communities. Academic institutions
offer a resource-rich environment, with a hub of individuals committed to addressing
some of our most complex societal problems. As academicians, we are expected to
contribute to advancing knowledge that is shared with students and scholars in our
respective disciplines. However, it is as important that we ensure that we are good
stewards of our knowledge and resources, which means ensuring that our academic
institutions most directly and immediately contribute to improvements in the
communities in which we work and live. 

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Author Information
Jomella Watson-Thompson, Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied
Behavioral Science, has a PhD in behavioral psychology and a master’s in urban
planning. She conducts participatory research and evaluation in the areas of
neighborhood development, positive youth development, and adolescent substance
abuse and violence prevention. 

Jomella Watson-Thompson
Department of Applied Behavioral Science
University of Kansas
1000 Sunnyside Ave, 4001 Dole Center
Lawrence, KS 66045 
E-mail: jomellaw@ku.edu
Telephone: 785-864-1563
Fax: 785-864-5281