Copyright © 2016 Metropolitan Universities Vol. 27 No. 2 (Summer 2016), 7-18, DOI: 10.18060/21123 Promoting a Culture of Engaged Scholarship and Mentoring Junior Faculty in the Reappointment, Tenure, and Promotion Process at a ‘Teaching First’ University Lisa Krissoff Boehm and Linda S. Larrivee Abstract This paper analyzes the processes and outcomes involved with mentoring junior faculty in the reappointment, promotion, and tenure (RPT) process at a comprehensive state university and creating a culture supportive of engaged research. Although the university in this case study is governed by a collective bargaining agreement that prohibits the development of new written policies on RPT, the deans and other academic leaders can promote significant change through cultural means. The article will examine: the place of engaged scholarship within the reappointment, tenure, and promotion processes of the university; the university’s commitment to a cross-institutional research approach; the mentoring of faculty conducting innovative community projects; the university’s recent strategic plan initiative funding of collaborative cross-college and community projects; partnership with the city of Worcester’s Department of Public Health on applied scholarship related to five domains of public health currently established as the focus of efforts by the city and the region; and the innovative CitySpeak devised theater project. At this state university, strong leadership helped support a deepening culture of engaged teaching and scholarship and helped faculty negotiate the road of RPT. Introduction Mentoring junior faculty in scholarship and research and its place in the reappointment, promotion, and tenure (RPT) process at a comprehensive state university with a tightly-held and long-term focus on teaching can be a challenge, especially when faculty members must also teach twelve credits each semester, advise students, and provide service to their departments and to the university. Worcester State University’s (WSU) faculty is governed by a faculty union and a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that provides a basis for calculating workload as well as an outline of tenure and promotion review requirements. This CBA governs all nine of the institutions within the state university system in Massachusetts and is periodically updated. Because WSU relies on this CBA, and local faculty and administrators cannot alter the language of RPT, local deans who support engaged scholarship and teaching must assert leadership in fostering this culture and must continually mentor faculty who take on this type of work. The deans must mindfully mentor within the bounds of the CBA, which would even preclude direct education of the promotion and tenure committees on best practices for engaged scholarship, or guidelines on how such work can be assessed. WSU has a strong history of local, urban leadership and now seeks to be a model for other institutions and a champion of local and regional partnerships. But it must make strides to promote engaged scholarship culturally rather than via direct policy change. Cultural change, as other assert, is the most important aspect of the move of institutional support of engaged scholarship (Eckel, 1998). WSU, established in 1874, has a lengthy history of interaction with its urban community, having begun as a normal school educating teachers for the area’s public school system in 1874. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts first established the institution as the Worcester Normal School in 1874, with the express purpose of preparing educators for public schools within the community. As the city’s population grew rapidly following the Civil War, the institution faced climbing enrollments. During the depths of the Great Depression, the normal school became Worcester State Teacher’s College and moved to its current location in the leafy, residential western corner of the city. The residential setting can be challenging in 8 that transportation is now more vital for continued engagement within the city’s central business district. New commitments to a college consortium bus system (WSU is a member of HECCMA, the twelve member Higher Education Consortium of Central Massachusetts), will help ease this problem. In 1963, the teacher’s college adopted a liberal arts and sciences focus, and the word “teachers” was removed from the college’s official name. Due to its many graduate programs and offerings, Worcester State College became Worcester State University in 2010 (http://www.worcester.edu/Our-History/). Changes in institutional perception stemming from the 2010 adoption of university status came rather rapidly. Long-term faculty worried that added pressures to publish would follow. Would the RPT process be drastically changed via administrative fiat? Because the CBA governed all aspects of the process, no drastic, one-way change could occur. However, the real impetus for greater focus on research came from the faculty members themselves. With regular retirements and a growth in the faculty numbers, the majority of faculty members were recent hires. Given the current reduction of the size of Ph.D. classes in many fields, highly qualified candidates with strong teaching and research portfolios applied for teaching positions at the university. The faculty wanted to work on their scholarship in addition to teaching, and to have their research count strongly in the RPT process. The CBA structure entails that faculty going up for RPT be assessed on teaching, advising, research, and university/community service. Faculty members who may have some unevenness in their portfolio assert that the strength of one area counters some weakness in another. Engaged research, as it can testify to strengths in multiple categories—with research being the most obvious category, but also including teaching, advising and university/community service—can notably improve an RPT dossier. Much of this research had an urban bent, which coincided with the university’s location. In 2014, the city of Worcester was the second largest city in New England, after Boston, with a population of 181, 045 (Suburbanstats, 2015). The university’s largest group of students hails from Worcester County. The university’s Fall 2013 student profile stated that the institution had 4,115 full time undergraduates, 1,441 part-time undergraduates, 153 full-time graduate students, and 738 part-time graduate students, for a total headcount of 6,447 (WSU, WSU Fact Book, 11). WSU is categorized as a “Master’s M: Master’s Colleges and Universities (medium programs)” institution by the Carnegie Classifications. The university’s mission statement reads as follows: “Worcester State University champions academic excellence in a diverse, student-centered environment that fosters scholarship, creativity, and global awareness. A Worcester State education equips students with knowledge and skills necessary for lives of professional accomplishment, engaged citizenship, and intellectual growth.” The 2015-2020 strategic plan, approved by the university’s Board of Trustees in October 2015, asserts that “engaged citizenship” is a core value of the institution. The plan’s architects, drawn from throughout the campus community, established the second overarching goal of the strategic plan as the quest to “leverage our distinctive strengths, both to enhance our reputation and to prepare our students to lead, serve, and make a difference in the world” (WSU Strategic Plan). Given the community- based focus of the institution, academic leaders understand that many faculty members will take part in engaged scholarship, and that this form of scholarship is likely to constitute a significant portion of the research presented within their reappointment, tenure, and promotion portfolios. Presently, engaged scholarship is not explicitly defined at WSU within the CBA. Because academics currently use a number of terms and definitions to describe the concept of community engaged scholarship (e.g., Ahmed & Palermo, 2010), confusion abounds regarding what counts toward tenure and promotion in this area. Given institutional history, engaged scholarship is so intrinsic to the mission of WSU and the type of scholars hired by the institution that it is not difficult for the deans to encourage faculty to produce such projects. However, faculty often need guidance with (1) What counts as engaged scholarship, (2) How to present this work within the context of their other scholarship for http://www.worcester.edu/Our-History/ 9 reappointment, tenure, and promotion, and (3) How to write and present their engaged scholarship at a wide variety of academic conferences. WSU’s Academic Affairs Division is divided into two schools. The School of Education, Health, and Natural Sciences (EHNS) is comprised of ten academic departments and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) is comprised of eleven departments. Both schools embrace WSU’s commitment to a cross-institutional approach. Examples of the cross-institutional approach include a partnership with the city of Worcester’s Department of Public Health on applied scholarship related to five domains of public health currently established as the focus of efforts by the city and the region, as well as the interdisciplinary CitySpeak project, a joint effort by the Department of Visual and Performing Arts and the Urban Studies Department. Academic administrators have encountered some problems in building a culture which values engaged scholarship. These problem areas have included cross-divisional clashes and a lingering culture in which research agendas were somewhat suspect. Both these sources of conflict have abated in recent years. These themes are explored in more depth below. By working closely together, the deans of both schools have proactively sought to assuage these issues by working closely with individual faculty members and in group meetings devoted to discussions of ways in which faculty can think about what it means to be a community engaged scholar (Blanchard, et. al., 2009). Creating a Culture Devoted to Engaged Scholarship Almost all faculty members at WSU receive their doctorate degrees at R1 institutions. Therefore, acclimating new faculty members to the particular demands of a career at a teaching-first, comprehensive state university presents challenges. This kind of institution may be an unknown quantity for many new faculty members. Thus, the deans and other academic affairs personnel developed a series of events to assist newer faculty with the transition to this institutional culture type. The fall semester begins with an open house to welcome new faculty members, at which the school deans outline the demands placed upon them and provide information on where new faculty members can go to ask questions. After this event, the school deans meet with new faculty members individually and in small groups to extend the mentorship in ways particularly fitted to individual disciplines. In a partnership with WSU’s Center for Teaching and Learning, small, interdisciplinary research groups provide additional support. The mentorship process regarding the junior faculty’s scholarship expectations is complex, due to the university’s origins as a teaching institution and its continued commitment to offering the highest quality classroom experience to students. In all faculty evaluations, teaching will always rank highly. However, students also expect that classroom experiences are informed by the professor’s continued research portfolio. Undergraduate and graduate students desire the opportunity to conduct research with faculty members, thus expect mentorship from experienced professors. Indeed, in many undergraduate fields of study, students who do not engage in research as undergraduates have little chance of entering into graduate programs, particularly doctoral ones. WSU supports these research efforts with competitive grants funded by the university’s advancement office. Similar to other institutions across the country, WSU’s academic administration faces a complex dance with the faculty union as to what scholarship expectations can reasonably be made of faculty at an institution with a four-four (twelve credits per semester) teaching load. The deans’ explanation that strong research and strong teaching go hand in hand—particularly when the research is community-based and can involve the students—is an attempt to ease worries about managing competing demands. Despite the excellent preparation of the tenure-track professors, newly minted doctoral-level scholars have difficulty with the balancing act necessary to keep an active research agenda afloat while teaching four classes per semester. Worries abound. Anxieties are eased by focus on practicalities and the 10 emphasis of positive role models. The deans of both schools themselves shouldered heavy teaching loads while making strides in scholarship; it is important that deans have shared in this experience. In their leadership, the deans are able to draw on examples from their own personal background of balancing researching and teaching, and tying the two together by involving undergraduates and graduate students in research projects. Academic leaders must lead by example and previous experience; without such experience, the exhortations to produce research can ring hollow. The deans seek to create a climate that recognizes the importance of civic engagement and the sharing of process and completion of research projects with campus peers. A renewed project of “Shared Scholarship,” co-sponsored with the active campus Center for Teaching and Learning, highlights scholarship produced on campus, as do small, on-campus conferences such as the Women’s Studies Mini- Conference. Full-time faculty members from all fields are welcomed, as are adjuncts. Deans share scholarship achievements via weekly or semi-weekly “Dean’s Notes.” Campus marketing is included on its emailed Dean’s Notes distribution so that recent community scholarship, and indeed scholarship of all types, can be highlighted on the university’s website. The deans serve on the Communications Working Group, and thus are able to stress the importance of engaged scholarship to a broad cross-section of staff working on campus communications. Some achievements are posted within the area of the outward facing website titled “Noteworthy”, while others, most often those that involve community or globally engaged scholarship, are featured on the front pages of the university website. For example, one faculty member has worked as a leader of the Armenian Genocide Study Group, producing engaged scholarship that has ramifications for Worcester’s large Armenian immigrant population as well as global impact. His work was featured on the front page of one of the university’s publications. At present, Worcester State does not set strict guidelines on the types or numbers of publications that would constitute a minimum standard for tenure. However, according to the faculty union contract, all professors are expected to have an active research agenda and to provide evidence that their scholarship has, in the words of the CBA, "quality, significance, and relevance" as judged by peers in their field. Research cannot be "desk drawer" research, but must be accepted by peer-reviewed conferences, organizations, and publishers who are known to be highly respected in the scholarly realm. Because of the CBA’s strong institutional importance, like many institutions with a union contract, WSU cannot develop more articulated documents that strictly define assessment measures for engaged scholarship as other institutions have done. Nor are figures like journal impact scores used in the RPT process. (Boyer, 1990; Saltmarsh, 2009; Gelmon, 2013, Holland, 2012). In addition to assisting professors looking to maximize engaged scholarship for publications and conference publications, the deans encouraged professors at the university to blend engaged scholarship with their teaching. In a teaching first institution, preparing for class, teaching courses, and grading constitute the majority of a professor's time. Deans’ efforts are well-spent mentoring faculty in engaged scholarship and teaching. This is especially true when the institutional mission relies on the continued connection with the local and regional community. At WSU, through provost support, the creation of centers as vehicles for entrepreneurial efforts and vehicles for funding has helped support this commitment to mission. For example, the Center for STEM Research and Practice supports faculty scholarship related both to individual science faculty members who work with graduate and undergraduate students in laboratories and/or the field, as well as for scientific projects that address the needs of the community such as examining the microbes in the soil in local playgrounds. Efforts to link engaged scholarship with the university's mission broadens opportunity for funding. Taking time to establish institutional clarity on mission, and the place of engaged scholarship within the RTP process, maximizes funding opportunities. Outside funders appreciate the clarity of mission that established centers bring to a university. Deans can help solidify the scope of engaged scholarship projects by supporting the articulation of new centers and the establishment of well-articulated yearly 11 goals. At WSU, many centers report directly to the appropriate dean. Center directors receive course releases to run centers and can use this work as part of their reappointment, promotion, or tenure materials. The CitySpeak Project CitySpeak is Worcester State University’s project to work with the city of Worcester and address urban issues through the arts. The project derived from conversations with urban residents from a wide variety of backgrounds. Many of these urban residents do not have a traditional place at the table. Due to their youth, poverty, immigration status, ethnicity, advanced age, and other factors, their viewpoints are not routinely sought in policy setting. Worcester has recently entered a quite tumultuous period, as residents of the city confront racial discrimination. The events in Ferguson, Missouri in the late summer of 2014 resonated with many urban dwellers inside the central Massachusetts city. The CitySpeak begins with dialogue and culminates in devised theater pieces that allow for further dialogue and deeper reflection. The act of the dialogue is in itself therapeutic and produces new knowledge. But by inviting policy makers to the theatrical events, and sharing with them the fruits of the events—research, films, scripts, photographs—theater can influence policy decisions. In this way, art acts as a megaphone, increasing the impact of community voices. Art brings community awareness to urban issues and creates a forum for producing solutions that many can support. The Department of Urban Studies and the Department of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) are engaged in a collaboration to research, prepare, and produce a piece of devised theater, also tentatively titled “CitySpeak” (i.e., the name of the entire collaborative project as well as the name of the theatrical production) that engages the local community to help identify urgent city-wide issues and provide a forum for their discussion and resolution. Money from the Strategic Plan Implementation Fund (SPIF)— the project was awarded key seed monies ($9,970) from the SPIF fund and is seeking additional funding from outside sources—is assisting the program in developing a collaboratively taught series of three courses in order to enable WSU students to engage multiple community partners in authentic ways, collaborate in focus groups, interviews, and discussions, analyze responses, and ultimately create a fully- realized theatrical production capable of traveling to audiences outside WSU. A key portion of the project includes a photographic exhibit documenting the themes reflected by the voices collected from the city. Additionally, funds will be used to document the process for use in conference presentations that will reach multi-disciplinary audiences to gauge the impact of this project as a model for community planning through artistic engagement. In terms of the strategic plan, this proposal fulfills the following goals: 1) the project channels scholarly creativity in new, exciting, and potentially important directions; 2) the team will serve as a dynamic, valued partner with and resource to Worcester, the region, and the world. Partnering with the university’s sister institution, the University of Worcester, England, will give the project a global component. As an interdisciplinary project developed collaboratively in the Departments of Urban Studies and VPA, CitySpeak represents an innovative approach to collaborative teaching. Through this project, students will be able to develop creative scholarship by fusing interdisciplinary approaches to urban issues and devised theatre in order to affect local policy and civic change. As with creative, community- based work like the Tectonic Theatre Company’s Laramie Project or Sojourn Theatre’s work on arts- based civic dialogue, the play(s) can have resonance outside the community as well. It can provide a model for other communities to conduct similar projects (Kaufman, 2001). The work builds on Northwestern University professor and founding director of the Sojourn Theater, Michael Rohd and the Center for Performance and Civic Practice, which “aims to make visible the power 12 of the arts to demonstrably increase civic capacity.” (www.thecpco.org.) The center works on behalf of the non-arts partner and thus advocates and capacity builds for the community (Rohs, 1988). This project brings together two HSS departments in an interdisciplinary collaboration. This partnership is made even more interesting due to the fact that these departments are already interdisciplinary, in and of themselves. The VPA department combines visual, performing, and musical artists and theorists, while the Urban Studies department features public policy professors, anthropologists, social workers, city planners, and historians. “CitySpeak: A New, Interdisciplinary Model To Address Urban Issues Through The Arts” will use theater to help identify urgent city-wide issues and assist in resolving these problems. As we attempt to situate our university at the heart of the city of Worcester, creative projects such as these will be essential. This work will also help to bring us closer to our sister institution, the University of Worcester, England, as they may launch similar initiatives, drawn from our model. The use of theater as a method for exploring urban issues is a unique idea, and one that has rarely been tried in such a self- conscious way. CitySpeak is well positioned to establish the university as a leader in such results- oriented, community-based theater, and arts-based community planning. Such an approach is inherently innovative for both VPA students/practitioners and Urban Studies students/practitioners because it combines the different approaches to ask new questions of new audiences, in the hopes that the answers are more comprehensive than either could get on their own. The public nature of the stakes of both a fully-realized theatrical production derived from real-world civic issues with the potential to impact public policy will inherently motivate students to strive for academic excellence. The unique natures of the individual departments (Urban Studies and VPA) make such a collaboration possible and fruitful. With no other department like it in the Mass Higher Ed System, Urban Studies necessarily combines rigorous research with field work to understand the complexity of our increasingly urban world. Similarly, VPA, with its interdisciplinary core, creates an academic environment that focuses on the connections between scholarly pursuits and applied creative work in order to bridge the scholar/practitioner divide in the arts in higher education. In conversations with the faculty members and the dean, the dean was able to highlight ways in which the project was a community engagement initiative and a scholarly endeavor for the faculty members, as well as an innovative teaching methodology. In other words, in this particular case, a professor of history and a professor of theatre were able to combine forces to produce a highly complex and innovative community engagement project that they also were able to present at scholarly conferences in their respective fields. Bringing the two approaches together in this project leveraged the resources of both faculty members, while helping students develop fundamental twenty-first century skills, including interdisciplinarity, critical thinking, empathy, real-world problem solving, and how to be an actively engaged citizens of their local and global communities. In the end, CitySpeak will contribute to WSU’s reputation as a valued and vital community resource, while also cultivating a sense of community and cultural life on campus for our faculty, staff, students, and community partners. CitySpeak projects provide excellent teaching opportunities which can be documented for RPT. It also serves as a living laboratory, and provides fodder for scholarly publication the faculty can use in their RPT applications. It did take direct mentorship for the faculty involved in the project to see the work as engaged scholarship, and to consider the myriad ways the work of community engagement can be translated into assessable products suitable for RPT. The dean’s intervention however, not only established a pipeline for further grant funding, but also a slew of publication opportunities that could take a career to take advantage of. WSU and the Worcester Department of Public Health: CHIP in Action. In the university’s School of EHNS, a multifaceted project was launched by the dean that led to nearly endless opportunities for engaged scholarship for professors throughout the institution. The dean brought her knowledge and connections of city plans to bear in building these opportunities. In 2007, officials from the Massachusetts http://www.thecpco.org/ 13 Department of Public Health set five strategic priorities that they determined best reflected the underlying challenges facing 21st century public health. This report became known as the Community Health Assessment (CHA). (Massachusetts Department of Public Health, 2010). Individual urban communities within Massachusetts (note that all communities in Massachusetts are legally within towns) established goals in line with the CHA. The communities sought to provide important information of the health of Massachusetts’ residents. The City of Worcester’s Department of Public Health (WDPH) developed its Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) to both improve the health of Central Massachusetts’ residents and to provide data to support the improvement. Table 1 displays the program’s five domains: Table 1 WDPH Community health improvement plan: Domains NAME GOAL Domain 1 Healthy Eating and Active Living Create and environment and community that supports people’s ability to make health eating and active living choices that promote health and well-being Domain 2 Primary Care and Wellness Create a respectful and culturally responsive environment the encourages prevention of chronic disease, reduction of infant mortality, and access to quality comprehensive care Domain 3 Behavioral Health Foster an accepting community that supports positive mental health and reduce substance abuse in a comprehensive and holistic way Domain 4 Violence and Injury Prevention Improve safety, reduce violence and injury, and inform public perceptions by educating and mobilizing the community around effective, targeted prevention and intervention Domain 5 Health Equity and Disparities Improve population health by systematically eliminating institutional racism and the pathology of oppression and discrimination by promoting resources in the community, and significantly reducing the structural and environmental factors that contribute to health disparities (Greater Worcester CHIP Annual Report, December 2014) The Council on Linkages between Academia and Public Health Practice, a coalition of twenty national organizations, sought to further academic practice and collaboration in order to assure a well-trained, competent workforce and a strong, evidence-based public health infrastructure. The Council accomplished this by strengthening existing links and establishing new connections between academia, public health and the healthcare community; developing and advancing innovative strategies to build and strengthen public health infrastructure; and supporting workforce strategies for continuing public health education. The WDPH is replicating evidence-based best practices from this national model through unique partnerships in the Worcester community, such as the one with WSU. National research shows that creation of an "Academic Health Department" provides benefits for partnering institutions and the communities they serve as a result of these affiliations. Examples of these outcomes include: increased capacity for performing core public health functions and meeting community health needs; an ability to maximize and target the use of scarce resources; additional and better qualified professionals providing public health services; public health graduates better prepared to enter the workforce with a solid foundation and skills in public health theory and practice; and improved public health for community 14 residents. The work at WSU came to fruition with the financial support of a number of organizations, including the Greater Worcester Fairlawn Foundation and Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts both of which funded the WSU project known as CHIP in Action. The collaboration between WSU and the WDPH addressed the need for expertise and manpower to conduct research, manage community surveys, implement evidence based strategies, and create collaborative community-based projects that ultimately advance the goals of the five domains within the WDPH CHIP plan. WSU faculty and students examined the needs outlined by the WDPH to create a systematic approach for creating programs and solutions that support the health and wellness of the Greater Worcester area. The mission of the WSU-CHIP partnership was to develop urban leaders who focus on health and wellness through service. The innovative project was built on an interdisciplinary approach, with oversight by the Dean of the School of Education, Health, and Natural Sciences (EHNS). A WSU-CHIP Fellow provided year-round support to further the WSU-CHIP mission. During its first semester, twelve faculty leaders (representing ten academic departments) worked with individual students, small teams of students, and entire classes of students. The faculty leader and students focused on one of the five domains as described in the WDPH CHIP plan. Working with the WDPH, the faculty leaders identified areas of research to develop work plans and activities in the community. The structure included: Domain I-Healthy Eating and Active Living: Health Sciences, Public Health, Urban Studies, World Languages, and Psychology; Domain II-Primary Care and Wellness: Nursing, Community Health, World Languages and Biology; Domain III-Behavioral Health: Health Sciences, Psychology; Domain IV-Violence and Injury Prevention-Public Health; and Domain V-Health Equity and Disparities: Nursing and Public Health. To date, this partnership has created a variety of projects. These included: Table 2 Departmental partnership projects Student Involvement Department 1 Department 2 Domain Health Sciences Psychology 1, 2, & 3 Group Nursing Urban Studies 1 Group and Individual Biology Nursing 3 Group and Individual World Language Psychology 4 Group Urban Studies* Health Sciences 4 Group Health Sciences Communication 4 Group Business Health Sciences 2 & 5 Group and Individual Urban Studies Health Sciences 1 & 2 Individual Psychology Health Sciences and World Languages 1 Group Psychology 2 Group Health Sciences Urban Studies 5 Group 15 To highlight one example, after a university-wide open meeting hosted by the deans to explain the concept of community based research related to the five domains of the CHIP, two professors in the biology department developed a project for a microbiology class, whose students were all from the nursing department. The class project “adopt a microbe” required that each student select a microbe that caused a disease in humans, specifically one that is often a problem for college-aged students such as meningitis. Each student researched the microbe and the class developed brochures to inform their peers about signs of the resulting disease, prevention of the disease, and when to see a doctor. This project fit well with the “primary care and wellness” domain listed in the chart above. The brochures were shared with the WSU community through its health department as well as with the WPHD. However, some of the students became so interested in their subject that, together with their professors, went a step further. In studying their selected microbes, ones that caused sexually transmitted diseases, they realized that many of their peers were not well informed about the issues. Together with their professors, the students collected data about such issues as students’ knowledge and use of safe sex practices. The data was used to develop an educational program, which again was shared with the WPHD. The dean was able to support the students and faculty members by providing summer stipends, materials for the projects, and money to travel to conferences to present their work. Thus, the project benefitted the community at large, the students (by developing research and presentation skills necessary for either graduate school or careers), and the faculty members who could add these presentations (and hopefully publications) to their curriculum vitae and RPT applications. Conclusion With devoted leadership from the university president, a clear understanding that the university wishes to promote partnerships between the university community and the public sphere, and long hours, focus, and encouragement by university deans, faculty can share vital knowledge with the broader community while at the same time deepening their scholarship. Although the WSU projects remain in their early stages, faculty are beginning to see how they can use the data collected through community-based research projects to author pieces for traditional journals. Not only, then, do community-based projects offer innovative teaching opportunities, they also foster opportunities to publish. Community-based research is time intensive, but can yield great rewards. Faculty who invest the time can garner high teaching evaluations alongside data for peer-reviewed publications and presentations. Faculty members are now using community based research projects in their dossiers for personnel actions. Publications resulting from community based projects may venture away from traditional manuscripts. The deans have worked closely with faculty members to challenge their ideas of scholarly output. The deans encourage faculty members to think about the needs of the community as well as the needs of the students and the traditional requirements for tenure and promotion. For example, one of the deans spoke to an untenured faculty member about a request from the WDPH for information on childhood obesity. The faculty member was able to design a classroom based research exercise, which in turn was presented at two scholarly conferences both on the topic or childhood obesity as well as on the topic of innovative teaching. The community benefitted when the research projects were presented to the community in a format available to teachers and parents of young children. In addition, materials developed by students during the project were translated by other students into Spanish, making the materials that much more accessible to the community at large. Overall, the deans actively seek ideas about community needs and help faculty members understand the relevance of those needs to their teaching and scholarly work. Many faculty members had thought in narrow terms of scholarship, but with support from deans, now think about how their engaged scholarship and innovative teaching methods themselves are relevant to share with peers in conferences and 16 publications. Indeed, many scholarly professional journals now include sections on pedagogy, which in this university’s case is viewed favorably within an RPT application. The deans also encourage faculty members to write about and present innovative teaching methodologies. Faculty members now seek to present their experiences at conferences, write manuscripts on their community engaged teaching methodologies, and write guides on the nuanced processes developed during their work to inspire other academics employing similar methodologies. Therefore, where once scholarship was viewed as an esoteric enterprise, faculty members can think about the relevance of their work to the greater community. Note: The work in this paper has been supported by the Greater Worcester Fairlawn Foundation, the Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts, and the Strategic Implementation Fund of Worcester State University. The authors would like to thank Drs. Thomas Conroy, Ellen Fynan, Roger Greenwell, Sam O’Connell, Nicole Rosa, and Henry Theriault, whose work is highlighted above. 17 References Ahmed, S.M., & Palermo, A. S. (2010). Community engagement in research: Frameworks for education and peer review. 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Retrieved from http://www.worcester.edu/Strategic-Plan/. http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2009.178137 http://www.bigappleplayback.com/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2013.806202 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/he.355 https://suburbanstats.org/population/massachusetts/how-many-people-live-in-worcester https://suburbanstats.org/population/massachusetts/how-many-people-live-in-worcester http://www.worcester.edu/Our-History/ http://www.worcester.edu/Strategic-Plan/ 18 Worcester State University. 2003. WSU fact book. Worcester, MA: Worcester State University Printing and Publishing. Author Information Lisa Krissoff Boehm is the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and Professor of History at Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York. The author of urban histories, including the latest, America’s Urban History, Boehm previously served as Interim Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at Worcester State University, Professor and Chair of Urban Studies at Worcester State University, and Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of History at Emmanuel College. Lisa Krissoff Boehm, PhD Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences Manhattanville College 2900 Purchase Street #316 Purchase, NY 10577 Lisa.Boehm@mville.edu Linda S. Larrivee is the Dean of the School of Education, Health and Natural Sciences at Worcester State University in Worcester, Massachusetts. She previously served a Professor and Chair in the Worcester State University Department of Communication Disorders. Larrivee has published articles in refereed journals and edited texts and has spoken both nationally and internationally on the subjects of psychometric considerations in assessment as well as the relation between language development and reading development. She also is active in the scholarship of teaching and learning. Linda S. Larrivee, PhD Dean, School of Education, Health, and Natural Sciences Worcester State University Worcester State University 486 Chandler Street Worcester, MA 01602 508-929-8257 linda.larrivee@worcester.edu mailto:Lisa.Boehm@mville.edu mailto:linda.larrivee@worcester.edu