Over-Extending the Practitioner-Scholar: Where Do We Go from Here?

Abstract: The community engagement field evolved in the last decade, indicated in one way by significant shifts in professional organizations that support service-learning and community engagement. From the perspective of community engagement professionals and practitioner-scholars, the multi-dimensional roles challenge the ability to participate effectively in the numerous professional organizations that exist. As practitioner-scholars, we critically reflected on the changing nature of the field, interrogating how it is evolving and how the organizations are as well. We engaged in qualitative approaches of critical reflection and collaborative inquiry, questioning how the many professional organizations push and pull community engagement professionals, and explored pivot points, shared values, common thematic approaches, and opportunities for collaboration. Through a methodological approach of collaborative inquiry, involving organizational website review and analysis, we engaged in group critical reflection discussions with leaders across twelve (12) professional organizations, including thematic analysis of the responses, and mapping distinct themes. Our critical reflection analyses suggested strategies for moving forward during this transitional phase for the community engagement field. In this roundtable discussion, we hope to engage IARSLCE members on these important topics, and to continue to explore next steps for future research and synergy within the field.

Narrative: In this topical discussion roundtable session, we hope to engage IARSLCE members in the next phases of an ongoing conversation about the ever-evolving field of SLCE, and the place of practitioner-scholars within it. This discussion will build from a piece we submitted to IJRSLCE entitled "Over-Extending the Practitioner-Scholar: A Critical Reflection on the Community Engagement Field’s Evolution through the Lens of Professional Organization Leadership Transitions," in which we explored the following:

The community engagement field changed and evolved in the last decade, indicated in one way by significant shifts in professional organizations that support service-learning and community engagement. From Campus Compact to the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU), from the Carnegie Community Engagement elective classification to the Society for Experiential Education (SEE) and the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE), and others’ leadership transitions and renewed areas of emphasis within service-learning and community engagement have both shaped the field and served as a marker of change for the community engagement field’s evolution. At the same time, our positionality as community engagement professionals, serving in demanding multidimensional roles (Dostilio, 2017), challenges our ability to participate effectively in the numerous professional organizations that exist and compete for membership in the field. As practitioner-scholars who have served in various leadership roles within the organizations, we share constructive, critical reflection on the changing nature of the field, interrogating how it is evolving and how the organizations are (or are not) with it. To triangulate our own observations and reflections, we engage in qualitative approaches of critical reflection, question how the many professional organizations push and pull community engagement professionals, and explore pivot points, shared values, common thematic approaches, and opportunities for collaboration. Through a methodological approach of collaborative inquiry, through website review and analysis and then individual and group critical reflection discussions with leaders across twelve professional organizations, including thematic analysis of the responses, we map distinct themes and suggest strategies for moving forward during this transitional phase for the community engagement field.

To provide a query for provocation to frame the entirety of our inquiry we challenged ourselves, as well as those with whom we dialogue, to provide a high-level consideration or reaction to the following working hypothesis:

There is an oversaturation of professional organizations and opportunities in the field of community engagement. At best these simply provide fractured outlets for multiple stakeholders to engage in niche ways and at worst, are simple market competition that dilute the effort and potential impact of people in the field. The result of this is that there are scattered efforts toward our shared goals that unfortunately oftentimes actually reflect the dynamics of our society that we purport to want to dismantle.

Through the collaborative inquiry described above, what follows is what we unearthed in relation to this statement, as well as our recommendations for a bold vision and strategy moving forward from where we find ourselves.

The theoretical/conceptual framing for this project was at the intersection of our positionality as practitioner-scholars, critical reflection and localized inquiry methodology, and key literature that reflects pivot points in the field of SLCE. We had individual and group dialogues with leaders from 12 different professional organizations in or immediately tangential to the field of SLCE, and iterated with them a model explicating the evolution of the field, the role of community members/partners within it, the anti-oppression and justice aspirations of the field, and tensions between philosophy and infrastructure. Based on these conversations and the themes they unearthed, we propose a preliminary set of strategies, tactics, and next steps.

In this roundtable session we will:

1) Present this collaborative inquiry and high-level takeaways
2) Engage participants in dialogue around their reactions
3) Iterate with participants future lines of inquiry and brainstorm how to pursue them
4) Revisit and redefine the role of practitioner-scholars in our community, seek feedback on how to create clearer pathways to participation and recognition