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Engagement Academy>Definitions

Posted on June 22, 2009

We spent considerable time on Day One establishing some common understanding of what we all meant by engagement. This should not be surprising, I suppose, given the audience and given the term itself, which can easily and understandably be applied to a whole range of activities (none of them prenuptial).

The presenters recommended that the most straightforward definition is the Carnegie Classification, that is: “Community Engagement describes the collaboration between higher education institutions and their larger communities (accepted as a spectrum from local to global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.”

Underscored in the discussions was the centrality of the two-way interaction evidenced in the Carnegie classification. Many institutions are used to and committed to the notion of  Outreach. This is not the same as Engagement. Outreach suggests a singular direction, from University outward. This is valid and part of a University’s mission, often enough. But, we learned today, it is not Engagement.

I’ve hardly scratched the surface, but perhaps with a little more reflection, I can make more sense of this and start to suggest ways in which we might apply this conversation to our situation at UM.

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