The Guide helps faculty measure engaged scholarship
The Office of Engagement at Purdue has created a publication designed to help faculty and others understand, measure and embrace the scholarship of engagement.
The Guide: Documenting, Evaluating and Recognizing Engaged Scholarship is a booklet co-authored by Steve Abel, associate provost for engagement and Rod Williams, an engagement faculty fellow and wildlife extension specialist for the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources.
Abel defines the scholarship of engagement as a reciprocal relationship with communities that yields innovations with disciplinary expertise, can be replicated, documented, is professionally and/or peer–reviewed and has evidence of impact.
“We certainly see plenty of evidence of engaged scholarship as our faculty help address situations that affect Hoosiers and their daily lives,” Abel said. “We wanted to create a resource to help capture, measure and document their efforts outside of the classroom and lab.”
The Guide provides tips on how to assess scholarly work, including rubrics or scorecards, discussions on faculty relationships with communities and how impactful the project was.
The Guide was shared with faculty earlier this semester and received positive feedback.
“I see The Guide being an invaluable resource for faculty like myself who have academic appointments that have a primary engagement component. The Guide will also help faculty to better communicate the breadth of the work they do with communities,” said Levon Esters, associate professor of agricultural sciences education and communication. “I also think The Guide will be a useful tool for primary committees and department heads in that it will help them to be able to more accurately assess the breadth of engagement work done by faculty.”
For more information or to download a digital version of The Guide, visit the Office of Engagement’s website.
