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Community-Engaged Knowledge Mobilization for Health Equity: A Mixed-Methods Evaluation of the City Symposium Series
No full textFinding ways to move knowledge-to-impact is a key priority for research funding agencies, universities, and academics. However, academic engagement with the broader community is not without tensions and challenges, including arriving at mutual benefit and relevance, and addressing power dynamics and often incompatible communication practices. This study used a mixed-methods approach to examine a unique event series of public dialogues that brought together diverse community and academic perspectives around health equity issues. Findings suggest the series successfully merged strategies from both the knowledge mobilization and citizen engagement/public involvement domains to spark conversations in one community regarding health equity and social justice. We provide initial descriptive evidence that the format was successful in achieving its proximate goals, and was appreciated by those who participated and attended. We position this type of activity as a promising strategy to effectively bring academic research to the broader local community
Community Engagement on the Mexico–U.S. Border: Nepantla Identity as Justice-Oriented Citizenship
No full textPrevious research has highlighted best practices for community engagement, problematized server/served approaches to communities, and identified both barriers and benefits for students engaged in this coursework. What is lacking, however, is a deeper examination of students who participate in community engagement in their own home communities. The purpose of our study is to better understand the impact and outcomes of community-engaged coursework through the lens of our students’ intersectional identities. We argue that their unique social positions as both students and community members on the Mexico–U.S. border offer a window into understanding how students may participate in community-engaged coursework differently when they are members of the communities they are engaging with
Community Engagement and Dental Care: Early Insights From an Oman–Zanzibar Initiative
No full textOman Dental College partnered with local health agencies in Zanzibar, Tanzania, for an international dental outreach project. This early-stage engagement aims to address Zanzibar’s pressing dental health needs and to provide a transformative educational experience for student volunteers. Informed by the intertwined histories of Oman and Zanzibar, the project delivered preventive and curative dental services, emphasizing the need for sustained oral hygiene education. Initial impact measurements revealed the high prevalence of dental decay, highlighting a need for preventive measures. Volunteers reported educational gains and a deeper understanding of Oman–Zanzibar heritage. Challenges such as electricity, internet connectivity, and sterilization conditions were identified for future improvement. This project provides valuable lessons for community engagement, especially the importance of preparation, adaptability, and long-term community involvement for sustained impact. Future directions include training local health care workers and developing community-based oral hygiene programs
Fluid Practices of University–Community Engagement Boundary Spanners at a Land-Grant University
No full textResearch on higher education community engagement (HECE) rarely places university or institutional voices in conversation with the community partners’ voices. Boundary-spanning frameworks such as Weerts and Sandmann’s (2010) for universities and Adams’s (2014) for community partners help boundary spanners, but such models draw boundaries between community and university spanners and the beneficiaries of their work. Contrary to a resource-based view of value creation, which posits that organizations with more resources create more value, beneficiary-centric views see the beneficiary as central to value creation (Lepak et al., 2007). In this essay we incorporate a beneficiary-centric lens into HECE boundary-spanning practices to advance a critical theory of value creation that considers for whom, for what, and to what effect beneficiaries may create value (Le Ber & Branzei, 2010). We advocate for an integrated framework that unites university and community partners and places the beneficiary at the center of all engagement efforts
Foreword: Special Issue on Community-Engaged Scholars, Practitioners, and Boundary Spanners: Identity, Well-Being, and Career Development
No full textForeword
Retirement Planning: A Moderated Mediation Model of Cognitive Beliefs, Retirement Planning Attitude, and Money Availability
No full textRetirement planning has been extensively studied in developed countries; however, it received scant scholarly attention in developing nations. Thus, this study examines the role of cognitive factors in retirement planning intentions in the context of a developing country, focusing on financial risk tolerance and self-efficacy within the cognitive appraisal theory framework, considering the mediating role of retirement planning attitudes and the moderating impact of financial resource availability. A survey was conducted in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with 301 valid responses analyzed using a Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) approach. Findings reveal that retirement planning attitudes mediate the relationship between cognitive factors and retirement planning intentions. Interestingly, risk tolerance negatively impacts retirement planning intentions through attitudes, while financial self-efficacy shows a positive influence. Furthermore, the availability of financial resources moderates these relationships, indicating that retirement planning attitudes significantly influence intentions when financial resource availability is low. This research contributes to the understanding of retirement planning in a developing country context, highlighting the importance of cognitive factors and financial resources. It suggests that tailored retirement planning strategies should consider individual financial conditions and cognitive beliefs. The insights are valuable for policymakers and financial advisors, particularly in developing nations
Civic Engagement as a Course-Level Strategy for Integrative Learning
No full textEngaged learning seeks to cultivate integrative approaches that require students to use multiple points of view or approaches in their coursework. Similarly, civically engaged courses ask students to consider public problems that involve multiple stakeholders, institutions, and policies. We are interested in whether courses designed to meet civic engagement goals might also improve student self-assessment of integrative learning at our institution and could serve as a developmental step toward more holistic strategies. To test our hypothesis that student participation in civic engagement would improve student self-assessment of integrative learning, we compared summative student survey scores from students enrolled in similar courses with and without a civic engagement component (n = 275). Boxplot and statistical analysis (unpaired two-sample Wilcoxon test) were used to determine if civic engagement pedagogy made any meaningful impact on integrative learning. Our results show strong overall improvement in survey scores after civic engagement courses
Providing Faculty-to-Faculty Support: Moving the Needle Forward in Service-Learning From Limited Exposure to Implementing a Campuswide Program
No full textThe benefits of service-learning have been well documented in the literature in terms of student outcomes (i.e., increasing retention rates). The purpose of this article was to gather the experiences of faculty who participated in the Service-Learning Faculty Scholars program, a faculty development program designed to infuse service-learning into their courses and across campus at a midsized university in the Midwest. Faculty participated in a faculty cohort model. Listening sessions were held to gather faculty input, and a total of seven faculty participated. Participants were asked a series of open-ended questions. After a thematic analysis of the data, several themes emerged: service-learning competency/development, challenges, cohort effect, scholar experience, program-level support/resources and training, student experiences, community partner relationships, and faculty reflections on course design. Limitations and future research are discussed
Collective Impact as a Novel Approach to Seeding Collaboration for Boundary Spanning
No full textResponding to longstanding calls to develop institutional support for boundary-spanning faculty and staff in ways that enhance collaborative community–university engagement, our study investigated a novel, facilitated approach to building community–university collaboration derived from the collective impact framework. In particular, we present new research on faculty and staff perceptions of a collective impact process that was designed to seed community–university collaboration around pressing public problems. Through semistructured interviews, 23 faculty and staff shared reflections on their participation in the collective impact process. Faculty and staff narratives touched on four categories of boundary-spanning behaviors, including technical-practical, socioemotional, community, and organizational orientations. The presence of these categories of behaviors reinforces the centrality of boundary-spanning concepts to efforts to advance community– university collaboration. Based on this research, we recommend organizational practices that can support professional development innovations for boundary spanners to enhance public good impact