INSTITUTIONAL PORTFOLIO.

Introduction

There is growing recognition that institutions of higher education are called to be good citizens in their surrounding communities. The role of citizen engenders both rights and responsibilities. As one of the nation's leading urban universities, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) takes seriously its responsibility to relate its academic work to communities in ways that are mutually beneficial. Collaborative work in and with communities, including scholarly work, is consistent with the goal that IUPUI be a model urban university, provide leadership to others in all facets of integrating service with teaching and research, and engage educators, staff, and students in activities that benefit their communities as well as themselves. As articulated in the campus Mission, Values, and Goals , "IUPUI values the opportunities afforded by its location in Indiana's capital city and is committed to serving the needs of its community", and "IUPUI serves as a catalyst for collaboration in teaching, research, and service among its faculty, students, and staff."

In order to fulfill this vision, IUPUI has allocated campus resources and created campus infrastructure to support civic engagement. These Milestones represent a significant level of campus commitment to this effort. Executive Vice-Chancellor and Dean of the Faculties William Plater appointed a Civic Engagement Task Force in November 2000, involving faculty representation from most schools, to prepare for the NCA Self-Study. This task force defined civic engagement as active collaboration that builds on the resources, skills, expertise, and knowledge of the campus and community to improve the quality of life in communities in a manner that is consistent with the campus mission . The definition of civic engagement indicates that this work encompasses teaching, research, and service (including patient and client services) not only in but also with the community. The scope of this work is captured in the following diagram of civic engagement. Civic engagement includes university work in all sectors of society: nonprofit, government, and business.

Through civic engagement, IUPUI can distinguish itself in creating interdisciplinary approaches to generating and communicating knowledge that meaningfully contributes to the well being of society. Such scholarship informs the disciplines and professions, engages students in active and relevant learning, builds upon community assets, and provides a means by which higher education can apply knowledge and resources to address civic issues.

A. Purpose of the Self-Study

There are multiple purposes for the campus to select civic engagement as a Special Emphasis of the NCA Self-Study. As a result of campus participation in the Urban Universities Portfolio Project (UUPP), civic engagement was identified as a distinctive aspect of urban universities. Participation in the UUPP also demonstrated the value of documenting campus work in a web-based portfolio as a means of public accountability to a wide range of constituents. Focusing on civic engagement for the NCA Self-Study is valued as a way to build upon lessons learned from the portfolio project and to improve the work of civic engagement, which is an area of high priority for the campus. The civic engagement section of the IUPUI Portfolio represents a new model for understanding this aspect of university work within higher education. Other campuses will be able to access the IUPUI Portfolio and learn from this model so that they, too, will be able to represent civic engagement more accurately to internal and external constituents. The IUPUI Portfolio for civic engagement is comprised of two parts: (a) NCA Special Emphasis Self-Study, and (b) Civic Engagement Inventory . Both contribute to documenting current campus involvement and promoting further collaboration to strengthen campus-community partnerships. One important purpose of the Self-Study is to systematically document the current level of civic engagement activities. The Civic Engagement Inventory is an interactive format that allows deans, directors, faculty, and staff to continuously update information on civic engagement activities through this web-based inventory. Having the Civic Engagement Inventory is a significant institutional accomplishment because, until recently, there has been no uniform compilation of civic engagement activities across the campus. AnnualIUPUI Performance Reports have compiled much of this information in recent years via annual reports completed by deans for the Vice-Chancellor for Institutional Planning and Improvement. In 1998 and 1999, the Center for Service and Learning distributed a pilot survey to dean, chairs, and directors that became the basis for the web-based portfolio format ( 1998 Community Service Survey). In addition, since 1997, the Center for Service and Learning has supplied an annual report to Indiana University on the number of students, faculty, and staff involved in service learning and voluntary service activities ( Indiana University Annual Report on Community Service and Service Learning [PDF]). However, these activities represented only a portion of all civic engagement activities across campus.

Another purpose of the NCA Self-Study is to increase understanding of the wide variety of campus-community collaborations. The NCA Self-Study provides information on civic engagement activities of campus units, campus resources, examples of successful projects, plans to improve the work, and strengths and challenges that currently exist. The Civic Engagement Inventory provide a means for representing civic engagement activities to internal and external audiences by organizing these activities along key dimensions: department/school, types of civic engagement activities, social issues, keywords, community partners, and geographic location. Campus-community activities can be searched on a particular issues (e.g., homelessness, crime prevention) or searched to identify who on campus is involved with which community agency (e.g., Hawthorne Community Center). The database will also allow the community additional access to campus resources associated with civic engagement activities. Members of the campus community can understand how civic engagement is manifested in teaching, research, service, and combinations of these activities. Increased understanding can promote further campus-community collaboration, support the development of interdisciplinary projects, and increase the likelihood that civic engagement is documented and valued as scholarly work.

In addition, the IUPUI Portfolio provides recognition to those students, faculty, staff, and community partners who participate in civic engagement activities. These practitioners provide examples of how academic activities can provide mutual benefits to multiple constituencies inside and outside the campus. The IUPUI Portfolio will also serve the purpose of providing an ongoing mechanism for accumulating information about the quality and impact of this work. Knowing how well these activities are being performed provides a basis for establishing the quality of the work, gives feedback about specific strengths and areas that need improvement, and provides benchmarks for monitoring progress. The IUPUI Portfolio on civic engagement provides sources of evaluation evidence, when available, for civic engagement activities.

B. History and Current Organization

Civic engagement is part of the history and current organization of IUPUI. As a campus built upon practice-based education in professional schools (e.g., Dentistry, Education, Medicine, Nursing, Public and Environmental Affairs, Social Work), civic engagement at IUPUI is a valued aspect of undergraduate and graduate education programs. Campus Mission Statements (1990, 1995) contain clear statements about how IUPUI must define its work by applying its knowledge for the improvement of society and communities. The history of IUPUI demonstrates that many faculty, staff, and students have found innovative ways to relate community work to their teaching, research, and service. IUPUI's professional schools each have longstanding heritages of working in and with the community, including patient and client services. The availability of technology means that there are no geographic boundaries to the reach of civic engagement, although IUPUI has a special interest in its immediate surroundings.

During the past decade, IUPUI has distinguished itself nationally as a campus that values the importance of integrating community service into the educational culture of the campus. Institutional leadership ( State of the Campus speech by Chancellor Bepko, scholarly work by Dean Plater) has provided a clear vision for the importance of community involvement and institutional funds have been allocated to support this vision. As a result, the IUPUI campus and central Indiana communities have benefited from the leadership of Chancellor Bepko and Dean Plater and their vision for how IUPUI could enhance its civic engagement. The Office of Service Learning was established in 1993 to support the development of service learning classes. The Office of Community Service was established in 1994 to promote voluntary service among students, faculty, and staff. The Office of Neighborhood Resources was established in 1995 to work strategically to build campus-community partnerships with neighborhoods in close proximity to IUPUI. The Center for Service and Learning was created in 2000 to combine the work of these three offices. As the central unit on campus to promote all forms of service (i.e., to the institution, discipline/profession, community) among students, faculty, and staff, the CSL provides important centralized leadership for the IUPUI campus, as is evidenced in the Milestones associated with civic engagement. Further information about the mission, values, and goals of the Center for Service and Learning are available in the CSL 5-Year Strategic Plan (PDF). The Center for Service and Learning coordinates the following campus activities:

• service learning classes
• community service scholarships
• community-university partnerships (Office of Neighborhood Resources)
• community based Federal Work Study programs
• scholarship on service and service learning
• campus-wide days of service

Many civic engagement activities are developed and sustained through the work of campus Centers . Under the leadership of William Plater, the Executive Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Faculties, Center directors and their staffs from the Center on Philanthropy, Center for Service and Learning, Center for Urban Policy and the Environment, Indiana Business Research Center, the Polis Center, and Public Health are meeting to determine how their work can be better coordinated and to learn from one another about using effective strategies in budget management, sustaining campus-community partnerships, collaborating on community issues and grant proposals, and representing work to internal and external audiences. Each of these campus Centers, through the involvement of students, staff, and faculty, contributes in important ways to central Indiana, the region, and international constituencies.

The executive leadership of IUPUI has also played a leadership role regionally and nationally. Chancellor Bepko is chair of the Joint Commission on the Urban Agenda for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. He is also a member of the NASULGC Board of Directors. Dean Plater has participated in numerous activities associated with civic engagement that have focused on the critical role of chief academic officers through Indiana Campus Compact, Minnesota Campus Compact, the national Campus Compact, and national conferences.

C. Previous and Ongoing Initiatives to Examine Civic Engagement Practices at IUPUI

During the past decade, campus administrators have intentionally placed IUPUI in regional and national forums related to the public purposes of higher education. Beginning in 1993, the campus sent a team to the third Campus Compact Summer Institute on Integrating Service Into Academic Study. A Campus Action Plan was formulated, and an early action step was to create the Office of Service Learning.

In 1994, the IUPUI Task Force on Service, jointly appointed by the Dean of the Faculties and the President of Faculty Council, was charged to develop a concept paper on service as a campus responsibility and as a component of the IUPUI mission. This document would be used, first, to stimulate discussion among faculty, librarians, and academic administrators, and second, to help IUPUI make collaborative decisions about recognizing service within the formal advancement structure. During 1997-1998, an Indiana University Strategic Directions Initiative project expanded the campus work of the IUPUI Task Force on Service to the entire Indiana University system. Service @ Indiana University: Defining, Documenting, and Evaluating summarizes the three-year project, presents a framework for subsequent discussion and development of the role of service in the mission and practice of each Indiana University campus, provides examples of faculty documentation of professional service, and provides resources for conducting campus-based workshops to assist faculty in preparing documentation. This work has also resulted in significant changes in the campus Promotion and Tenure Guidelines and the campus format for the Faculty Annual Summary Report completed each year by all faculty.

In Fall 2000, the IUPUI Civic Engagement Task Force , involving faculty and staff representing most schools on campus, was formed to examine methods to plan for the NCA Self-Study, to consider how to document civic engagement activities (e.g., reports, web displays of information), to evaluate the quality of civic engagement activities, and to envision a civic engagement agenda for the campus and its surrounding communities.

Barbara Holland (Director of the National Service Learning Clearinghouse, appointment as Senior Scholar with the IUPUI Center for Service and Learning) developed a matrix identifying key organizational factors that promote civic engagement. In summer 2002, Deans from each schoo l were asked to complete a rating form adapted from her work to assess the level of emphasis in their units on civic engagement in mission, promotion and tenure, organizational structure, student involvement, faculty involvement, community involvement, and publicity. The ratings (1 through 4, with 4 reflecting greater centrality) were obtained for current status and for where the unit would expect to be in 3-5 years. The following table averages across the component parts of the Holland survey for the responding schools:

Emphasis on Civic Engagement at IUPUI
(Responses by Deans to the Holland Survey - Summer, 2002)

IUPUI has been an active participant in deliberations in higher education on the nature of various aspects of civic engagement. Presentations at academic and disciplinary conferences and consultation with other colleges and universities have provided faculty and staff with opportunities to reflect on IUPUI's work, describe and explain program developments, and exchange information that contribute to program development in civic engagement. These forums have included:

• Colloquium on National and Community Service
• American Association for Higher Education Conferences (National Conference, Forum on Faculty Roles and Rewards, Assessment Forum)
• Campus Compact National Gatherings
• National Society for Experiential Education
• Governor's Caucus on Education
• Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action
• Freshman Year Experience Conference
• Best Practices in Outreach and Public Service: The Scholarship of Engagement Conference
• Campus Compact's Advanced Institute on the Engaged Campus
• International Conference on the University as Citizen
• First Annual International Conference on Service-Learning Research
• Campus-Community Partnerships in Health
• HUD's Community Outreach Partnership Centers National Conference

In addition, journal publications, books, manuals, and other resources have described components of campus work and conceptually explored and extended that work beyond local accomplishments. The results of campus initiatives in service learning and civic engagement have also been published in academic journals. Topics of these publications include ( Center for Service and Learning publication page)

• establishing an office of service learning (Bringle & Hatcher, 1996),
• theoretical underpinnings of service learning (Bringle & Velo, 1998; Hatcher,1997),
• faculty recruitment and development for service learning (Bringle et al., 2000; Bringle & Hatcher, 1995; Bringle, Hatcher, & Games, 1997; Hatcher, 1999; Foos & Hatcher, 1999),
• reflection in service learning classes (Bringle & Hatcher, 1999; Hatcher & Bringle, 1997),
• campus-community partnerships (Bringle & Hatcher, 2002),
• institutionalization of service learning (Bringle & Hatcher, 2000),
• research on service learning (Bringle & Hatcher, 2000; Bringle, Phillips, & Hudson, 2001),
• community service for entering students (Hatcher, Bringle, & Muthiah, in press)
• disciplinary perspectives on service learning (Bringle & Duffy, 1998; Bringle & Kremer, 1993; Magjuka, Bringle, Hatcher, & McIntosh, 2001).

In addition, as a result of collaboration with Indiana Campus Compact on the Universities as Citizens project, a critical exploration of Boyer's vision of the engaged campus resulted in Colleges and Universities as Citizens (Bringle, Games, & Malloy, 1999). IUPUI is the institutional home of Metropolitan Universities , a journal edited by Barbara Holland. This journal highlights intellectual work that demonstrates new knowledge to further collaboration between campus-community partnerships in addressing metropolitan problems through teaching, research, and service. A number of staff in University College provide the necessary institutional support and resources for the quarterly publication of Metropolitan Universities .

This academic work has positioned IUPUI as a collaborator in regional projects (e.g., Midwest Consortium, K-12 Partnerships Conference), national projects (e.g., National Review Board for Civic Engagement, National Research Advisory Board of Campus Compact, Campus Compact/AAHE Consulting Corps, Kellogg Peer Review of Professional Service), and international projects (e.g., Community-Higher Education-Service Partnership project in South Africa, Indiana University's work on South East European University in Macedonia). As a participant in these activities about service learning and civic engagement, IUPUI's relationships to other organizations and associations (e.g., Campus Compact, American Association for Higher Education) has been enhanced.

The institutional commitment and intellectual work on service learning and civic engagement have gained the campus numerous distinctions. Most recently, in September 2002, U.S. News and World Report ranked the service learning program at IUPUI as the 8th best program in the nation among all colleges and universities. Accomplishing this high level rating after only eight years of work is a demonstration of the national recognition the campus work has had towards furthering service learning and civic engagement in higher education. Other awards and recognition have included the following:

• In 1998, American Association of Higher Education, Campus Compact, and the National Society for Experiential Education surveyed 27 colleges and universities nominated by community service and service learning experts to better understand service learning on campuses. The service learning program at IUPUI was one identified as a Model of Good Practice.
• IUPUI was one of four campuses selected to participate in the Kellogg Peer Review of Professional Service project. Under the direction of the Dean of the Faculties, four IUPUI faculty members were selected to participate in the Kellogg project, along with faculty from Michigan State University, Portland State University, and University of Memphis. Michael Cohen (Education), Sandra Burgener (Nursing), Florence Juillerat (Science), and Roger Jarjoura (SPEA) worked during 1996-1998 to prepare documents on community service projects that appear in Making Outreach Visible, A Guide to Documenting Professional Service and Outreach , published by the American Association for Higher Education.
• In 1999, the IUPUI Office of Service Learning was selected as one of eight U.S. campuses to be part of the Community-Higher Education-Service Partnership (CHESP) program in South Africa. IUPUI hosted a delegation from the University of the Free State in 1999. Professor Bringle and Julie Hatcher were appointed Associate Faculty members in the Leadership Center at the University of Natal to teach in a unique graduate program designed to build leadership capacity for community-university engagement. Apart from contributing to the overall conceptualization of the program, they taught three of the modules: one module using IUPUI as a case study for community-university engagement, one on the process of higher education transformation in terms of community-university engagement, and one on the development of service-learning curricula.
• In 2001, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities selected IUPUI as a campus that demonstrated a high level of commitment to civic engagement and a team of researchers conducted a site visit on campus to gather information for a strategic guide to inform others about civic engagement in higher education.

Self-Study of Civic Engagement

Civic engagement is active collaboration that builds on the resources, skills, expertise, and knowledge of the campus and community to improve the quality of life in communities in a manner that is consistent with the campus mission . This definition of civic engagement, which was developed by the IUPUI Civic Engagement Task Force, indicates that this work encompasses teaching, research, and service (including patient and client services) not only in but also with the community. Civic engagement encompasses three fundamental building blocks: (a) the professional and institutional ability to carry out this special work; and (b) the resources to collaborate with community during all phases of the work to ensure appropriate outcomes. In addition, although civic engagement occurs without geographic boundaries, (c) IUPUI is ideally situated as a public institution in a metropolitan setting to involve communities in Indianapolis, central Indiana, and the entire state in shaping an agenda for what IUPUI is and should be doing in the area of civic engagement.

The Civic Engagement Task Force created the framework and outline for the Self-Study during 2000-2002 in consultation with the Future Group, the Chancellor's Advisory Council, the campus coordinating committee preparing for the NCA review, and faculty in various units. The narrative of the Self-Study is organized by the following outline and includes goals for each area, a summary of previous and current activities, and a summary of plans to further the work.

I. Enhance Capacity for Civic Engagement

A. Demonstrate advocacy and support for civic engagement in all aspects of institutional work.
B. Expand internal resources and infrastructure for civic engagement
C. Secure external funding for civic engagement
D. Document the quality and impact of civic engagement activities.

II. Enhance Civic Activities, Partnerships, and Patient and Client Services Locally, Statewide, Nationally, and Globally

A. Offer academic community-based learning opportunities
B. Engage in community-based research, scholarship, and creative activities in both public and private sectors at local, state, national, and global levels.
C. Provide professional services to local, state, national, and global communities.
D. Create opportunities for community service at local, state, national, and global levels.

III. Intensify Commitment and Accountability to Indianapolis, central Indiana, and Indiana

A. Establish widespread community participation in development, implementation, and evaluation of civic engagement.
B. Establish widespread campus participation in development, implementation, and evaluation of civic engagement.
C. Conduct regular forums on the campus community agenda for central Indiana.

Go on to: Enhance Capacity for Civic Engagement