• provide a focused opportunity to integrate community engagement into departmental work, including enhanced coherence in the major/program and associated curricula;

• enable departments to train less experienced faculty in the pedagogies of community engagement;

• give resources (time, money, and expertise) to implement departmental change efforts, as well as faculty reward systems;

• and provide networked support throughout this work.
  

 

Elements of the Initiative:

The Initiative consists of the Engaged Department Institute, supported Action Planning, a Grant program, Curriculum Reform Institutes, and a final product of revised curricula for the major or minor (or sequence of courses). In addition to these elements, there is an option for teams to participate in an institute, action planning, and grant program looking at promotion and tenure.

Sequential Elements of the Engaged Department Initiative

Grant Program and Deadlines:

Grant money is available to departments or academic units to work on related goals. We have two options for applying to be part of this initiative with separate deadlines for submission of Grant Proposals, attendance at an Engaged Department Institute and submission of team action plans. Action plans are funded up to $2000 for 08-09, and up to another $1500 for 09-10. Action plans must be approved to be funded.

1) Option #1: Submit Grant Proposal by November 30, 2007 and attend the Engaged Department Institute at Bates College in Maine on January 3-4, 2008. Action plans from teams will be due April 14, 2008 with grant money for year one awarded in May 2008.

OR

2) Option #2: Submit Grant Proposal by February 29, 2008 and attend the Engaged Department Institute at Keene State College in New Hampshire on June 4-5, 2008. Action plans from teams will be due September 29, 2008 with grant money for year one awarded in October 2008.

 

Request for Proposals (PDF)
Request for Proposals (Word)

Due Dates: November 30, 2007 or February 29, 2008

Frequently Asked Questions

 

Engaged Department Institutes:

January 3-4, 2008
Bates College, Lewiston, Maine

OR

June 4-5, 2008
Keene State College, Keene, New Hampshire

The purpose of the Institute is to help participating departments develop strategies to (1) include community-based work in both their teaching and their scholarship, (2) include community-based experiences as a standard expectation for majors, and (3) develop a level of unit coherence that will allow them to model civic engagement and progressive change at the department level. The Institute will be facilitated by national experts and will cover topics such as:

• The academic and civic effectiveness of community-based work
• Discipline-specific models of service-learning integration
• Supporting community-based work at the faculty and student levels
• Assessing community-based work at the faculty and student levels
• Community-based work as a vehicle of curricular integration
• The community partner as departmental resource; the department as community resource

At the Institute, Departments will begin designing a faculty development and action plan based on their self-assessments. In the spring and fall of 2008, we will offer an Introductory Curriculum Reform Institute for those faculty members in each department who are unfamiliar with service-learning pedagogy.

Attendance at an Engaged Department Institute is required for 4-6 members of each team accepted into the Engaged Department Initiative.

Draft Agenda for the Engaged Department Institutes

See the October Bidders Conference Page for further reference.

Please contact Cheryl Whitney Lower at clower@middlebury.edu or (802) 443-2507 for additional information.