Engaging faculty in service-learning: opportunities and barriers to promoting our public mission

Community engagement has been defined as a collaborative enterprise between higher education institutes and external communities where stakeholders can experience and benefit from a mutually beneficial knowledge exchange. A researcher examined a Research 1 university faculty’s perception of community engagement in the form of service-learning and implemented an online community of practice for faculty and community members to increase the faculty’s use of service-learning. The findings revealed that, although faculty see many benefits in implementing service-learning and report interest in learning about and using this pedagogy, service-learning practices are still considered an addition to faculty workloads rather than an integrated and expected role. The faculty reported concerns about the mixed messages within the institution around the value of their investment in this practice, including the lack of recognition in promotion and their feelings around professional obligations particularly related to research publications. Although faculty described teaching as equally important to research, they also perceived that the institution valued teaching and service as less important than research. Consistent with extant literature, this research provides evidence that community engagement activities need to be embedded in faculty roles and rewards to become institutionalized. Implications for practice and research will be discussed.