Using a Conceptual Framework to Design, Implement, and Evaluate Professional Development Programming for Community Engagement

Abstract: In this lightning talk, we will discuss our approach to designing, implementing, and evaluating professional development programming for community engagement at the University of Alabama. The guiding framework for UA’s Division of Community Affairs is the 4Rs - Relevance, Reciprocity, Research, and Resilience. This foundation guides our approach to building sustainable programming through our Emerging Community Engagement Scholars, Community-Engaged Learning Fellows, and Public Engagement Learning Community Programs.

Narrative: The University of Alabama’s Division of Community Affairs supports or co-sponsorts three cohort-based professional development programs focused on various aspects of community engagement and engaged scholarship. Each of these programs is open to faculty members, staff members, and graduate students. As the name implies, the Community-Engaged Learning Fellows (CELF) program is focused on teaching and learning in community engagement. CELF provides participants with a deeper understanding of the theoretical foundations and existing literature related to community-engaged learning, practical recommendations, and resources for building partnerships and implementing community-engaged learning in their programs or courses. CELF recognizes that community-engaged teaching and learning happens in curricular, co-curricular, and extra curricular settings; therefore, we welcome participants who are developing programs that may not be course-based or credit-bearing.

The primary audience for the Emerging Community Engagement Scholars (ECES) program is advanced graduate students and early career faculty and staff members. This program allows participants the space to develop a community-engaged scholarship project in which they are currently engaged, or are interested in implementing. In addition to developing and sustaining projects, participants are provided guidance on centering engaged scholarship in their careers.

The Public Engagement Learning Community (PELC) just completed its pilot year. In this program, we define public engagement as the many ways the activities and benefits of higher education and research can be shared with the public in a two-way process of interaction and listening. Participants learn about approaches to talking about their research to a broader audience, and explore why this is an important part of who they are as scholars.

These programs are all relatively new (initiated within the last five years), and participants have consistently reported that they have been valuable learning opportunities. As our programming has continued to develop, we have been intentional about using our Divison’s theoretical framework as our conceptual foundation.

In the University of Alabama’s Division of Community Affairs, our work is framed by the 4 Rs – Relevance, Reciprocity, Research, and Resilience. Relevance refers to work that is meaningful to and co-identified by our community partners, but also includes relevance to our academic disciplines and co-generation of knowledge. Reciprocity requires all stakeholders be involved in identifying the needs, co-creating possibe solutions, and implementing the program. Each stakeholder is a full partner in the program, both contributing to its success and benefitting from the results. Research means that our work is built on previous knowledge, assessed and evaluated using rigorous approaches, and produces new knowledge that contributes to the literature. Resilience is about building and sustaining lasting partnerships and solutions, and recognizes the cyclical nature of community-engaged scholarship.

Initially, each professional development program was somewhat isolated from the others. There was clear overlap in some of the material covered (e.g., building and sustaining partnerships), but they were not intentionally connected to each other. Based on feedback from participants, this was a need, and would serve as a way to purposefully develop a community of engaged scholars across campus. Our first step in this direction was to begin an annual Engaged Scholarship Showcase (ESS), which precedes our Division’s Excellence in Community Engagement Awards Luncheon at the end of the Spring semester. At the ESS, program participants are invited to give lightning presentations on what they’ve learned over the year, focusing on one of the 4 Rs during their talk.

This year, we will also hold a combined mini-retreat for participants in all three programs to bookend the year. This mini-retreat will allow for common learning among the different programs, and introduce everyone to the 4 Rs together. In addition, we have adjusted the sequencing of the programs to be built on modules focusing on each of the 4 Rs. For example, in the Relevance module, we focus on motivations for engaged scholarship; in Reciprocity, we discuss building and sustaining partnerships; for Research, we emphasize that all of our content is based on empirical evidence; and for Resilience, we focus on building a departmental culture that supports engagement.

Similar to the design of the programs, the assessment and evaluation of the effectiveness of the professional development cohorts has largely been individualized to the goals of the particular program. Moving forward, we are working to build a assessment and evaluation approach that 1) provides more of a comprehensive understanding of the impact of our progamming, and 2) is tied back to the 4 Rs. In this lightning talk, our primary focus will be to discuss our approach to designing, testing, and refining these annual program evaluations. We hope to provide attendees with a framework for how they might approach the design, implementation, and evaluation of their own professional development programming for community engagement.