(Download) "Principles of Best Practice for Community-Based Research (Company Overview)" by Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Principles of Best Practice for Community-Based Research (Company Overview)
- Author : Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning
- Release Date : January 22, 2003
- Genre: Education,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 223 KB
Description
Community outreach has become part and parcel of the missions of an increasing number of American colleges and universities. Several forces are driving this trend toward campus-community engagement. One is growing criticism of higher education's apparent insensitivity to the challenges faced by their adjacent neighborhoods: urban decay, environmental threats, growing economic inequality, and unmet needs of vulnerable children, families, and whole communities in areas such as education, health care, housing, criminal and juvenile justice, and employment (Marullo & Edwards, 1999). A second force for change comes from the widespread perception that the intellectual work of the professorate is unnecessarily narrow and largely irrelevant to societal concerns. This criticism is best developed in Ernest Boyer's (1990) widely-cited Scholarship Reconsidered, in which he argues that the "scholarship of discovery"--in the pursuit of new knowledge--should not be the only valued and rewarded form of scholarship. He suggests that the scholarships of integration, pedagogy, and especially application are other forms of scholarship that are undervalued and largely neglected, although they offer the potential for encouraging intellectual work that is truly useful and relevant in modern society. A third force driving the trend toward community engagement has to do with students, particularly the growing concern that despite our best intentions, graduates leave our institutions largely disengaged from political issues, disenchanted with the ability of government to effect positive change, and disinclined and ill-equipped to assume an active role in civic life. Here the implication is that we need to re-think what and how we teach in order to ensure that we truly engage students, not only with their communities but also with the learning process in general. As a result of all this, a growing number of colleges and universities have forged partnerships with a wide variety of community groups and agencies--schools, social service agencies, neighborhood organizations, businesses, and health care providers--to share institutional resources and expertise as well as provide students experiential learning opportunities beyond what is possible in traditional college classes.