Published Article: Voices of Partnerships within the Critical Service-Learning Framework

Congratulations to the Whitely Community Council’s Ken Hudson and Frank Scott, as well as Ball State Associate Professor Kiesha Warren-Gordon (Criminal Justice) for their recently published article in the Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education! “Voices of Partnership within the Critical Service-Learning Framework” discusses how community partners can be involved in all states of the critical service learning process, including course planning and collaborative research.

ABSTRACT:

Over the course of the past three decades, service learning has become a major component in higher education. Heretofore, however, there has been no published research that focuses on the community partner or that assesses the role of the community partner within the community-service-learning (CSL) model. This paper fills that gap by focusing on the community partner relationship as delineated by Mitchell (2008), the community partner’s position in CSL, and the authentic relationships between the community partner, class, and instructor. Specifically, we address the following question: How do community partners articulate their voices within the CSL framework? This paper argues that community partners may articulate their own voices and concerns through the use of autoethnography, as well as through involvement in all stages of the CSL process, including course-planning and subsequent collaborative scholarship.

READ MORE!

Office of Community Engagement’s 18-19 Annual Report

Office of Community Engagement Report Cover

OCE Annual Report 18-19 linked imageCurious about what the Ball State Office of Community Engagement was up to last year? HINT: they were busy! They’ve shared their 2018-2019 Annual Report on ISSU. Check it out!

Our 2018-2019 activities have largely focused in four areas:

  1. Deepening Ball State’s involvement in city, county, and regional initiatives;
  2. Strengthening the culture of community engagement across the university;
  3. Connecting to networks of community-engaged institutions across the nation; and
  4. Celebrating campus and community successes.

A PDF version is available for download at on Box.

2015 Carnegie Elective Community Engagement Classification

Ball State University has received some great news – they are the recipient of the 2015 Community Engagement Classification from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching!  The prestigious classification is awarded to institutions of higher education that have demonstrated “excellent alignment among campus mission, culture, leadership, resources and practices that support dynamic and noteworthy community engagement.”

Ball State’s collaborative partnership with the Whitely Community Council was included in the Carnegie application as a prime example of a mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources.  This partnership is an essential part of Ball State’s mission to “transform information into knowledge, knowledge into judgment, and judgment into action that addresses complex problems.”

Carnegie Application (pdf)