Embracing Public Engagement Concepts, Practices, and Assessment.
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Introduction
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As a publicly supported, land-grant institution, the University of Minnesota fulfills an essential outreach and public service function for the state. The University’s mission statement (download PDF) specifies this obligation to:
Extend, apply, and exchange knowledge between the University and society by applying scholarly expertise to community problems, by helping organizations and individuals respond to their changing environments, and by making the knowledge and resources created and preserved at the University accessible to the citizens of the state, the nation, and the world.
Throughout most of its history, the University considered outreach-public service as a function of its extension and continuing education offerings. Gradually over time, however, the University, in concert with other land-grant universities across the country, began rethinking the meaning of outreach and public service and how these activities related to its research and teaching functions.
This national discussion was spurred, in large measure, by the 1990s Kellogg Foundation Commission on the Future of State and Land Grant Universities, in which the University was an active participant.
Indeed, the University has been a national leader in this reformulation. Among
its recent leadership activities:
- The University – and then-Provost Bruininks – was an early and active participant in a task force of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) and National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, which led to the publication of the report, Resource Guide and Recommendations for Defining and Benchmarking Engagement.
- The University is one of only 13 institutions nationally selected to participate in the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s pilot project to develop a new elective Carnegie classification on community engagement.
In addition to these external collaborative activities, the University has been moving internally toward a vision of itself as an “engaged university” – one that is committed to embracing the CIC definition of public engagement in all its dimensions (see below).
In 2000, following the signing of Campus Compact’s Presidential Declaration, and in response to the Kellogg Commission report, the University’s Board of Regents endorsed an internal report, Framing a 21 st Century Outreach Agenda for the University of Minnesota.
Two years later, three Board committees explored outreach issues and the University’s
role as an engaged university, as did an ad hoc Regents task force, an administrative
advisory committee on public engagement/outreach, and a civic engagement task
force. The latter task force, reporting to Executive Vice President and Provost
(and now President) Bruininks, led to the establishment, in 2002, of the Council
on Public Engagement (COPE).
This section of the self-study report provides more detailed information on COPE as well as the University’s other principal public engagement functions: service-learning, interdisciplinary centers, University Libraries, University of Minnesota Extension Service, Research and Outreach Centers, College of Continuing Education, technology commercialization activities, special programs of the Academic Health Center, on-campus events, the University’s alumni association, and the myU Portal.
Exemplary programs within each of these functions are cited, followed by an overall assessment of the University’s public engagement progress to date and possible future actions.
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Council on Public Engagement
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The Council on Public Engagement’s statement of purpose is:
To incorporate public engagement as a permanent and pervasive priority
in teaching, learning, and research activities throughout the university and
to enlist support for public engagement among all segments of the university
and in the larger community.
In order to organize and evaluate its efforts in this area, the University
adopted in 2004, the public engagement definition developed by the Committee
on Institutional Cooperation and the National Association of State University
and Land Grant Colleges:
Engagement is the partnership of university knowledge and resources with those of the public and private sectors to: 1) enrich scholarship, research, and creative activity; 2) enhance curriculum, teaching and learning; 3) prepare educated, engaged citizens; 4) strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; 5) address critical societal issues; and 6) contribute to the public good.
Currently, the Council is composed of about 30 faculty, students, staff, and administrators from across the University as well as several community members. The Council has five working groups addressing:
- Partnerships: To identify and promote conditions for successful, interactive, mutually beneficial partnerships as the main basis for the University’s connections to external groups, organizations, and communities.
- Innovations: To identify opportunities to develop new programs, as well as support continuation and expansion of existing programs that are effective in involving students, faculty, alumni, and others in engaged activities.
- Communication: To develop, implement, and evaluate the results of a more robust internal and external communications strategy focused on themes of publicly engaged research and scholarship, teaching and learning, and community partnerships.
- Recognition: To develop, implement, and evaluate the results of an integrated strategy for embedding recognition of publicly engaged work more deeply within institutional processes for incentives, rewards, and awards.
- Assessment: To develop appropriate and feasible measures of the University efforts in publicly engaged teaching, learning, and research, and the impacts and outcomes of those efforts.
Measures of COPE’s progress in helping to deepen public engagement as an institutional priority and strengthening a culture of engagement include:
- President’s Interdisciplinary Initiatives: Public
engagement is included as a dimension in all of President Bruininks’
s interdisciplinary
initiatives, launched in 2003 as a distinctive feature of his administration.
- Compact Process: All units are required to report on their
public engagement activities as part of the annual compact
process.
- Accountability Report: Public engagement is prominently
featured in the University’s annual University Plan, Performance,
and Accountability Report to the Board of Regents and the Minnesota Legislature.
The Accountable
to U Web Site is the online version of this report.
- College Liaisons: The appointment by deans of college liaisons establishes an important institutional link that furthers public engagement by communicating examples of engaged activities, nominating candidates for various awards, developing appropriate measures for assessing public contributions, and institutionalizing incentives and rewards for engaged work.
- U of M Portal: COPE is a channel on the University’s portal as part of a comprehensive communications strategy to feature and promote engaged activities.
- Seed Grants: Through a competitive process about a dozen seed grants are awarded annually for innovative projects that integrate public scholarship, civic learning, and community partnerships. The multi-disciplinary projects involve undergraduates, graduate students, or research assistants; are sustainable over time; and strengthen public engagement.
- Community Engagement Scholar Program: Significant involvement by undergraduates in community service/service learning is officially recognized by transcript notation and other acknowledgments.
- Community Service Awards: The Outstanding Community Service Awards and the
Mary McEvoy Award for Outstanding Service provide formal recognition to students, faculty, staff, and community members for exceptional public contributions.
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Service-Learning
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Service-learning is another growing dimension of the University’s public
engagement activities. The University defines service-learning as a teaching
strategy that integrates community-based learning experiences with the academic
curriculum to enhance student learning and address community issues.
The Career
and Community Learning Center (CCLC) assumed responsibility for the Twin
Cities campus-wide service-learning infrastructure in 1992. At that time there
were four faculty members offering service-learning courses. In contrast, in
2003-04 over 75 courses in 13 colleges provided opportunities for about 2,000
undergraduate, graduate, and professional students to participate in service-learning.
Nearly 60 faculty members and instructors teach courses integrating service-learning
through the Center’s Community Engagement Scholars Program. Clear assessment
guidelines, requirements, and monitoring make this program exemplary.
The Center works to sustain service-learning by developing strong relationships
with faculty, administrators, and staff and providing high-quality service to
students in service-learning courses while also deepening and expanding community
partnerships throughout the Twin Cities.
Significant time and energy is spent educating stakeholders about the guiding principles and best practices of service-learning. As these courses grow in number across campus it is essential to ensure appropriate linkages are made between course learning objectives and non-profit and governmental sector partner needs and expectations.
In 1998, the Center created the Service-Learning Faculty Fellows program to
provide incentives for faculty to create service-learning courses and fulfill
unmet community needs.
In 2002, the Council on Public Engagement‘s innovations working group
charged the Center with developing a program to recognize students who have
been significantly engaged in community work throughout their undergraduate
career.
The Community Engagement Scholars Program, launched in 2005, was created by
representatives from all undergraduate colleges, students, and some community
partners. The program encourages students to be intentionally involved while
supporting the University’s mission of public engagement and outreach.
Examples of Interdisciplinary Centers
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The University has nearly 300 interdisciplinary centers and institutes that stimulate the development of innovative programs of research, teaching, and public engagement. The centers listed below illustrate the richness of these endeavors in serving the state and nation.
The Environment :
International Development :
Ethics and Society :
Diversity :
K-12 and Children, Youth, and Family :
Public Policy Issues :
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One of the ways the University strives to be responsive and maintain reciprocal relationships with its over 150 community partners each year is to create opportunities for community partners to contribute to the operation of the service-learning program. Examples of these include:
- Helping to create, implement, evaluate, and revise the pre-service orientation and training program for students;
- Collaborating with Center staff to create a set of expectations and responsibilities
for participants involved in service-learning;
- Presenting in service-learning courses each semester and in faculty sessions on service-learning; and
- Participating in gatherings with faculty to discuss their roles as co-educators in the service-learning process.
These efforts are important for many community partners who value service-learning as a pedagogical tool, but also see the value service-learning students bring their organizations as they engage in the work of the non-profit or governmental organization.
To honor these contributions to the University, the Center introduced an “Outstanding
Community Partner Award” in 2002 to highlight the work of organizations
and their staff representatives.
In an effort to develop a more meaningful assessment process for service-learning
courses, the Center completed phase one of a three-part assessment and evaluation
process in 2004. In December 2003, the Center held meetings with community partners,
faculty, and students to find out what information they would like to find out
from an assessment of service-learning.
During spring 2004, a committee of two community partners, two faculty, and
two Center staff, with regular feedback from select service-learning students
and administrators, developed an on-line survey of students enrolled in service-learning
courses. The pilot run of the survey was completed in December 2004.
This collaborative effort will be followed by creating mechanisms to gain feedback from community partners and faculty during phases two and three to ensure each of the main constituents involved in service-learning have a formal opportunity to have their feedback shared.
These formal efforts, combined with the goal of being responsive to the ongoing requests and concerns of internal and external stakeholders, helps make a service-learning program as effective as possible.
When engagement is a central characteristic of community-University partnerships, open communication and interaction between partners is frequent, expected, encouraged, and celebrated. Concerns and challenges partners and/or the partnerships face are shared, assessed, and acted upon. When a high degree of interaction between partners exists, program operation, effectiveness, satisfaction, and outcomes are assessed, evaluated and the service-learning program is altered as deemed appropriate.
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University Libraries
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The University Libraries with 14 physical locations throughout the Twin Cities campus, make a crucial contribution to the University’s public engagement activities. In 2003, they responded to over 186,000 reference questions and offered over 1,100 class sessions. The Libraries’ instructional programs help University students and other users navigate the rich physical and electronic collections available. (University Libraries Report)
Among the University Libraries’ most significant public engagement programs are:
Action : See Challenge Two for discussion of the University Libraries’ vision and strategic goals.
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University of Minnesota Extension Service
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Extension is the oldest part of the University’s outreach mission. Although it had its start in agriculture almost a century ago, the University of Minnesota Extension Service defines its purpose more broadly today as “extending the resources of the University in order to assist Minnesotans in improving their quality of life.”
Extension has identified three specific areas in which it carries out its mission:
- Community development and vitality: “Enhancing Minnesota’s economic, social, civic, and technological capacity through research, education outreach from the University.”
- Land, food, and environment: “Using the research, education and outreach of the University of Minnesota to promote sustainable use of agriculture and natural resources to meet the needs of today’s and future generations.”
- Youth development and family living: “Shaping a sustainable future with the vitality of youth, the strengths of families, the wisdom of seniors, and the research, education, and outreach of the University.”
Extension has faced significant budget challenges in recent years. Federal funding has remained flat for over a decade. The state’s recent budget shortfalls have resulted in major funding losses as well.
As a result of these funding pressures and budget reductions, Extension developed a delivery model that provides access to high-quality programs and services by creating 18 regional centers throughout the state.
Included is a staffing plan that provides clearer lines of supervision and more accountability for performance.
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Research and Outreach Centers
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Six Research and Outreach Centers strategically located throughout Minnesota are key units of the College of Agricultural, Food, and Environmental Sciences that extend the Twin Cities campus’s research to all regions of the state.
The centers take advantage of their geographical locations to conduct interdisciplinary
research, engage in teaching, and transfer research-based knowledge to citizens.
Much of this work is done in collaboration with Extension so that the centers can function as an integrated unit to address the diverse agricultural and social needs of rural Minnesota.
The six Research and Outreach Centers (ROCs) are:
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Measures of Extension’s impact on the state and its citizens include the following during 2003: |
- 309,794 educational services provided, including participation in group educational activities and events, one-on-one consultations
- 597,593 Extension educational materials sold
- 6,385,700 visits to the Extension Web site
- 650,000 visits to INFO-U Web documents
- 28,000 INFO-U phone line calls
- 2,400 INFO-U Hmong, Somali, and Spanish language phone line calls
- 653,342 visits to the Yard & Garden Web site
- 27,196 youth in 4-H clubs
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- 144,540 youth in 4-H Youth Development programs
- 11,233 4-H Youth Development adult volunteers
- 1,037,299 estimated hours donated by 4-H adult volunteers
- $17,156,928: value of hours donated by 4-H adult volunteers
- 2,310 Master Gardener volunteers
- 91,000 hours donated by Master Gardener volunteers
- $1,564,290 value of hours donated by Master Gardener volunteers
- 41,687 participants in Nutrition Education programs.
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In addition to these research and outreach centers (and its coordinate campuses), the University has many other physical sites around the state that involve Twin Cities campus faculty, staff, students, and resources.
These sites include the College of Biological Sciences’
Itasca Biological
Stations and Laboratories, the College of Natural Resources’ Cloquet
Forestry Center, and many regional gardens, the most significant of which
is the College of Agricultural, Food, and Environmental Sciences’ Landscape
Arboretum and
Horticultural Research Center, which has developed more than 80 fruit varieties,
including the Haralson and Honeycrisp apples.
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Technology Commercialization
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An integral part of the University’s land-grant mission is to seek practical application for research results to benefit the public and the state’s economy and support regional economic vitality. University faculty and researchers are increasingly active in disclosing new technologies and negotiating licenses of the University’s intellectual property. It also generates revenue that can be reinvested in future research development.
Over the past five years, the University has made notable gains in its technology commercialization activities. The University ranks 5 th nationally and 3 rd among public institutions in licensing income, which has grown dramatically over the past five years.
The number of active license agreements has grown to 648 and the number of patents issued is also growing. However, the number of start-ups has declined every year since 2000. (link to additional licensing revenues and patent activity data)
University
Enterprise Laboratories (UEL) is one exemplary initiative, created in 2004,
to increase the University’s commercialization efforts. UEL is a research
incubator facility that houses University-related start-ups and private sector
firms.
The University’s Office of Business Development, located within UEL, strategically increases the University’s contact with technology commercialization and research organizations. The Office partners with researchers, students, entrepreneurs, and investors to achieve the long-term goal of enhancing Minnesota's economic vitality through successful University start-ups.
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College of Continuing Education
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Like other land-grant universities, the University of Minnesota
has a specific unit charged to provide continuing education programs for citizens
as one of its traditional outreach-service functions. On the Twin Cities campus,
this unit is the College
of Continuing Education (although continuing education is also offered in
one form or another through a variety of methods by nearly all collegiate units).
The College of Continuing Education defines its mission as providing
“high-quality continuing education and lifelong learning opportunities
for professional development, personal enrichment, career transitions, and academic
growth.”
It differentiates its mission from other units engaged in outreach by defining as its primary audience “ working adults who seek education on a part-time basis for career enhancement or personal enrichment.”
Each year, the College serves nearly 4,000 adults working toward personalized or applied degrees or certificates, or accessing the University's evening, distance, or summer courses for credit. Annually, an additional 6,000 adults who are not seeking academic credit take advantage of the College's short courses, seminars, workshops, retreats, and events .
Exemplary Programs. Two programs – the Great Conversations series and the online tutoring of writers – reflect the impact of the College on the University community and how it leverages technology to meet the needs of specific adult learners.
Academic Health Center
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The Academic Health Center (AHC) has many outreach and community activities that reflect its ongoing commitment to engagement in the community. Each academic unit within the Academic Health Center offers its own educational and outreach activities.
The Academic Health Center’s special contributions to the
University’s public engagement mission are made in three areas: clinical
engagement, community engagement, and curricular engagement.
Clinical Trials and Community Clinics: Clinical outreach runs across a wide spectrum from dental clinics for people unable to obtain high-quality dental care to clinical trials for a variety of diseases.
Through its clinical trials, the Academic Health Center aims
to improve the quality of life for people with a range of diseases in which
the University has expertise.
Community clinics provide services to migrant workers, the poor, the elderly, the disabled, and rural Minnesotans. Many clinics do not require people to come to the University. Instead the clinics come to them. The College of Veterinary Medicine, for example, offers a clinic for companion animals in which students visit the elderly in their homes and care for their animals as part of the Block Nurse Program.
Other clinics, like the dental clinic described below, are mobile. All of the clinics help meet community needs while providing health professional training and education.
Two of the many exemplary programs include:
AHC Community Engagement: The Academic Health Center’s
community engagement is extensive and found in all its six schools. Activities
are typically carried out by departments and by centers, but critical to understanding
the big picture of outreach in the Academic Health Center is understanding
the role of the Area
Health Education Center (AHEC) program in shaping curriculum and outreach
activities.
AHEC is a national program, begun in 1970, to improve the accessibility and quality of primary health care. The program was designed to encourage universities and educators to look beyond their institutions to partnerships that meet community health needs, working toward the goal of decentralizing health professions training and linking communities with academic health centers in partnerships that promote cooperative solutions to local health concerns.
The Academic Health Center is providing AHEC leadership in Minnesota through the development of a network of community and academic partners to promote rural health educational opportunities and address health workforce challenges unique to specific areas of the state.
Through regional partnerships, the University and its schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, public health and veterinary medicine are working with communities on strategies to ensure a vital health professions workforce into the future.
Much of the Academic Health Center’s community engagement
grows out of programming in its seven schools and centers within each school.
Hundreds of centers exist at the University, many of which are interdisciplinary
in nature. Those in the Academic Health Center offer a variety of forms of public
education on the entire spectrum of human and animal health.
Exemplary programs include the following:
Curricular Engagement and Continuing Education: The Academic Health Center has been actively rethinking how to educate health professionals for the future in ways that are interdisciplinary rather than in silos and that actively engage students and the community. (See A New Vision for Education. )
In addition, each of the Academic Health Center’s six schools
has its own continuing
education program. Several schools also provide substantial online offerings
for practicing professionals, e.g., the School
of Pharmacy and the School
of Public Health.
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Bringing People to Campus
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Large university campuses can be intimidating – where to park, how to find things, and whether or not one will feel welcome sometimes cause non-University people to hesitate to come to campus. Making the visit successful and enjoyable is an important first step to creating goodwill and future partnerships.
The University has placed increased emphasis on providing adequate signage for the visiting public and creating indoor and outdoor gathering places that make the campus welcoming and inviting. Examples of these include the renovation of Coffman Memorial Union, the Gateway Project, Scholars Walk, and Heritage Markers.
A link on the University’s
home page supplies online visitors with listings of art and culture resources,
a calendar of current events, and sports and recreational activities and venues.
The University’s home page also connects online users with campus maps
and virtual tours. In addition, the area’s major newspapers provide a
wealth of information on the University’s public events.
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Community Connections
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The University understands that part of its public engagement mission must be related to its presence in Minnesota’s major cities. In addition to the regional and statewide programs mentioned above, the Twin Cities campus has also been actively engaged in creating partnerships in the greater metropolitan Twin Cities area.
CARLA: The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) provides professional development opportunities for K-12 language teachers, post-secondary instructors and faculty, researchers, and teacher educators at the local, regional, national, and international levels. Since its founding in 1993, the Center has engaged over 3,000 teachers in a wide range of research-based, high-quality professional development programs. Over half of these teachers have been in pre-service or in-service K-12 programs. These teachers, in turn, have impacted over 1.5 million students through their language instruction. Center projects include:
Bell Museum of Natural History: The museum’s summer camps and public education programs draw thousands of school-age children to the campus and provide curriculum enrichment for use by teachers from across the state.
The Itasca Project: President Bruininks has joined over 40 community leaders – including chief executive officers of leading companies, the Governor, and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul – in this collaborative program initiated by the Minnesota business community in 2004 to:
- Provide leadership for long-term regional development and competitiveness to the metropolitan area.
- Accelerate efforts that are underway to address critical issues from a regional perspective.
- Encourage organizations to work together and better leverage their resources.
The first of the project’s six goals is to build a stronger University-business partnership. This goal is being achieved by:
- Leveraging the unique strengths of the University’s research and teaching enterprises to help improve the economic competitiveness and quality of life in the Twin Cities region.
- Understanding options for increasing University contribution to the region’s economic development (talent magnet).
- Identify and prioritize a set of specific, high-impact opportunities to build University-business partnerships for regional benefit.
- Identify and implement organizational changes, in the University and in the business community, to fully realize partnership opportunities.
Further, President Bruininks is chairing an Itasca Project’s
task force that is focused on the goal of improving early childhood development.
In addition to the Itasca Project, the University has created liaison positions with Hennepin County, where Minneapolis is located, and with the Science Museum of Minnesota in Saint Paul. Also, the University has created partnerships with the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system to support K-12 initiatives.
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Technology for Life and the MyU Portal
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The University is committed to using its technology infrastructure to support
not only teaching and research but public engagement as well. The Technology
for Life program exemplifies the University’s systematic approach to providing
technology as a tool for lifelong learning and digital citizenship.
The University believes that it can use its technologies to maintain a lifelong relationship with its graduates in order to meet their continued educational needs and provide the tools they need for success in the community and as citizens of an increasingly digital democracy.
The University provides all students with e-mail, an electronic portfolio, and with a portal, and it allows students to keep these tools when they graduate (providing they are used). Because the University has a central authentication system, and both the portal and portfolio are linked to that system, University students, faculty, staff, and graduates have tools that belong to them exclusively.
When the student graduates, the portal remains a gateway to the University’s resources, including classes, links to alumni activities, and library resources. A guest portal, open to the community, is also available. Currently, there are over 77,000 registered portal users and 2,100 guest users.
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Alumni Association
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The University of Minnesota Alumni Association creates lifelong connections with alumni, students, parents, and friends of the University. The Association:
- Serves as an advocate for educational excellence and encourages the involvement of grassroots volunteers in the University’s Legislative Network.
- Provides alumni the opportunity to participate in student mentoring and recruitment programs.
- Provides alumni the opportunity to remain involved in the University through local and national alumni groups and career development programs.
- Offers membership benefits such as discounts on Gopher gear, world travel, internet access, College of Continuing Education courses, and a subscription to the alumni magazine.
With more than 350,000 living alumni of the University, the
work of the Alumni Association is a significant component of public engagement.
Not
all alumni belong to the Association, however – many stay in touch with
the University through alumni activities offered by the college or department
they attended.
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Citizen Satisfaction
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Each year, the Office of University Relations commissions an independent survey of Minnesota residents ages 25 and older to gather information about their attitudes and perceptions of the University, the state’s funding of higher education, tuition, and other related issues. The University uses this information to gauge how well it is communicating with the public and to identify issues and areas of specific concern.
In the latest survey, in December 2004, nearly half of all respondents reported a personal connection, such as having a degree from the University, being the parent of a current or former University student, working with the University on a professional basis, or attending sporting events.
About half of respondents indicated they were “very” or “somewhat” satisfied with the University and that providing high-quality graduate and professional education, providing high-quality undergraduate education, keeping tuition affordable, and being a good manager of financial resources were among its most important roles.
Satisfaction with the University’s performance was highest in terms of having a world-class medical school and providing high-quality education at the graduate/professional and undergraduate levels.
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Public Engagement Assessment
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In the aggregate, public engagement is a big commitment at the
University. It is highly valued, spread throughout the institution, and is well
funded. Many of its public engagement programs enjoy national, even international,
reputations. However, despite the excellence of the efforts individual units
make, public engagement is, in the words of Provost Thomas Sullivan, “an
area where I believe we can especially improve.”
Listed below are eight areas of opportunity for improvement that will help the University achieve its public engagement mission and its strategic goals for the future:
Providing Additional Leadership Focus: The Council on Public Engagement has played an important role in strengthening the University’s public engagement activities. However, the Council is sometimes limited in its ability to catalyze, facilitate, advocate, coordinate, connect, communicate, and align engaged initiatives across units and with external constituencies. In addition, most units have no long-term leadership and management structures that would create and sustain public engagement programs and activities.
If the University is to do a better job of linking its expertise with external constituencies, then those links must originate from within the units. Forging and maintaining the links need to become part of the responsibilities of unit heads, something that does not happen in many units at present. The University may need to examine whether additional resources need to be applied to strengthen and provide internal leadership to these efforts.
Aligning Activities with Strategic Plan: Public engagement is part of the fabric of the University’s strategic plan. But the whole of public engagement at the University is often less than the sum of its parts. The University needs to ensure that its public engagement efforts are aligned with each other and with the strategic plan and its initiatives.
Providing Incentives and Rewards: The University has added a number of public awards and other forms of official recognition of outstanding public engagement work, but more work needs to be done on providing incentives and rewards. Some individual collegiate units and departments, for example, are introducing public engagement as a component of their tenure review process. While different units will use different approaches and methods, the University has an opportunity to do more in raising their visibility and encouraging their adoption. The Board of Regents has expressed interest in strengthening this area.
Strengthening Links Between Extension and Academic Disciplines:
Extension is an important component of the University’s public engagement
strategy. It is committed to delivering high-quality, relevant educational programs
and information to Minnesota citizens and communities. Its statewide network
of researchers, educators, and volunteers addresses critical needs by focusing
on issues where research-based education can make a difference.
Yet, Extension is often overlookied by many parts of the University,
and its many courses and programs are not listed among the University’s
course offerings, not integrated fully with the College of Continuing Education,
and only accessible if a learner knows enough about Extension to look for it
at the University. In fact, it is not always clear to the person outside the
University that Extension is part of the University of Minnesota and not something
in its own right.
Strengthening and communicating the many links between Extension and the academic disciplines related to it will enhance and preserve these important synergies.
Sharing Resources and Information Across Units:
Although the University has excellent individual programs for sharing resources,
e.g., University Libraries’ interlibrary loan program, it does not have
a comprehensive institutional resource sharing plan. Public engagement information,
teaching materials, knowledge, and best practices often exist in silos and are
not universally shared. E-Access Minnesota, for example, which is designed
to increase information literacy in rural communities, is a successful program,
but its offerings aren’t linked to University-wide continuing education
programming outside Extension or to academic unit programming elsewhere in the
University, with which it could make a natural connection.
Materials are developed and distributed by specific units, but the University could benefit from a more well-established mechanism to feed those materials to the University Libraries or to University Relations for redistribution to a larger audience as part of the University’s marketing.
Similarly, publicity is often quite good for specific events and programs,
e.g., the College of Continuing Education’s Great
Conversations program and Extension’s Master
Gardener program, but the visibility of these units’ other
worthy programs is not picked up and echoed throughout the University by other
units.
In addition, the University could do more to capitalize on its public engagement.
For example, popular events and programs that bring potential students to
campus often don’t track who attends, so follow-up by program organizers
or admissions is impossible.
Simplifying the University’s Web Presence: Increasingly, the public face of the University is its Web presence. The challenges that the Web presents are not unique to the University or even to higher education, but they must be addressed in order for the University to enhance and achieve its public engagement mission. While the University’s considerable Web presence suggests the tremendous breadth and depth of its commitment to public engagement, it also indicates that the University needs to better leverage its resources to achieve alignment and synergy across colleges and disciplines.
The University has about 1.6 million Web pages, and about 150,000
people visit the University’s home page each day. A common complaint of
online visitors (potential employees and students, business leaders, vendors,
community members) is that they cannot find what they are looking for. (For
example, a Google search for “Extension” yields 195,000 possible
links; “outreach” yields 101,000; “service learning”
yields 98,500; and “public engagement” yields 9,260.) The recently
implemented University-wide Web templates will help visitors navigate University
sites and save units money, but more needs to be done.
Second, the University lacks a policy for naming things, tagging Web sites, and achieving consistent domain names. For example, each Academic Health Center school calls its continuing education operation something different – Continuing Medical Education; Pharmacy Outreach Education; Center for Public Health Education and Outreach; Veterinary Outreach Programs; and Nursing Continuing Education. That is not to imply that these units are named incorrectly, but to point out the difficulty of searching for things on University Web sites.
Third, the University is not consistent in how it names Web sites, so that users often cannot make educated guesses about a URL. The University has just purchased and will begin deploying a new type of Google search that will allow better management of information and improved, focused searches. But there must also be a concerted effort to place this technology within a structure of policies and practices if it is to be successful.
Improving Assessment Measures: One aspect of
public engagement that needs particular attention is developing appropriate
assessment practices. The University’s active participation in several
national consortia and pilot projects will help in this regard, as will further
refinements of the University’s compact process.
Since 2002, the Council on Public Engagement has presented an
annual report to the provost, which summarizes the Council’s goals and
accomplishments for the previous year and sets forth recommendations for the
upcoming year. Starting in 2004, the University’s compact process required
units to provide information and assessments of its public engagement activities.
Public engagement assessment also occurs at the unit level, but efforts to gather
and assess these activities at the institutional level are in their earliest
stages of development.
Challenge Five | Challenge Seven
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