Pre-Conference Service Activity
Paint Rally for the New Orleans Recovery School District

Paint Rally for New Orleans Schools is an ongoing initiative designed to restore, paint, and beautify New Orleans public schools, creating a more conducive learning environment for children across the city. Paint Rally was created in 1998 by the New Orleans Public Schools Alumni Association and New Orleans city government. Tulane University has been involved since its inception. When the effort was discontinued in 2002, Tulane formulated its own Paint Rally Committee to continue repair efforts. Since 2002, more than 3,000 volunteers have spent more than 20,000 hours painting, repairing and landscaping schools.

Pre-conference Session #1
Getting Community Engaged Work Published
Robert G. Bringle, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Jeffrey Howard, University of Michigan

Do you want to get your community-based work published? Writing for publication is the culminating step in producing scholarship associated with service learning and engaged scholarship. Participants in this workshop will critically examine the writing process for research papers and other forms of scholarship (e.g., Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, theoretical and conceptual articles, book chapters, review articles). Discussion will focus on framing the product for different types of dissemination, tailoring literature reviews, presenting key components of the written product, honing the manuscript prior to editorial review, and responding to editorial feedback. A list of journals and publishers friendly to community-based scholarship will be provided.

Pre-conference Session #2
Community-Based Research: Exploring the potential, meeting the challenges, experiencing the rewards.
Nick Cutforth, University of Denver
Trisha Thorme, Princeton University

Community-based research (CBR) is collaborative, change-oriented research that engages faculty members, students, and community members in projects addressing community-identified needs (Strand, Marullo, Cutforth, Stoecker, & Donohue, 2003). CBR is an important tool in engaging institutions of higher education with local communities. Indeed numerous academic disciplines have acknowledged CBR’s contribution to the paradigm shift toward university-community involvement.

However, CBR projects are challenging, making them difficult to pull off due to unrealistic goals and timeframes, minimal resources, and a lack of personal investment. This workshop will focus on the kinds of questions that faculty members typically ask about the potential, challenges, and rewards of CBR.  These include:

• Where does CBR fit into the service-learning and community engagement movements?
• What motivations do professors, students, and community partners bring to the table and what benefits accrue to them?
• What models exist for integrating CBR into majors or course sequences at the undergraduate and graduate levels?
• What best practices exist for developing CBR partnerships and programs in higher education?
• What are the best practices in teaching CBR?
• What impact does CBR have on student learning?
• What ethical issues are involved in CBR projects?
• What factors lead to successful CBR projects?
• How can CBR projects and programs be funded and sustained?
• How is CBR recognized, rewarded, or published?

This interactive workshop will be useful for faculty, staff, students, and community partners who are currently involved in CBR or who are considering beginning this type of applied, community-focused scholarship. Participants will gain a better understanding of the potential for effective CBR on their campuses and with their community partners, and be better prepared to meet the challenges and obtain the benefits of conducting CBR.

Pre-conference Session #3
Research Informing Practice and Practice Informing Research:  The New K-12 Standards and Indicators for Quality Service-Learning Practice
Shelley H. Billig, RMC Research Corporation

Over an 18 month period of time, the K-12 sector developed new standards and indicators for quality service-learning practice.  These standards and indicators were based on the body of current K-12 research on service-learning impacts and moderators of impact, and through a reactor panel process with feedback from expert practitioners.  In a reciprocal manner, the new standards and indicators are now being used to inform the new K-12 research agenda and the development of assessment tools and guidance for professional development and policy.  This session will review both sides of the equation:  We will share and discuss the research base and process used to translate the research into practice guidance, and then will conduct interactive activities to address how the practice guidance can drive research questions and the conduct of studies.  Specific examples from other fields will be presented to illuminate effective practice. Time will also be set aside to discuss potential studies, methodologies, and funding.

Pre-conference Session #4 - Closed
Designing Instruments for Community Engagement Research: Issues and Strategies
Andrew Furco, University of Minnesota
Barbara Moely, Tulane University
 
Much has been written about the need for higher quality and  more rigorous research in the study of service-learning and community engagement.  High quality research studies require the application of reliable and valid measures that are aligned with the research questions, are appropriate for the developmental level of the study participants, and are suitable for the scale and scope of the study.  

One of the challenges of constructing high quality instruments in the study of service-learning and community engagement is that many of the constructs that are addressed (e.g., civic responsibility, empowerment, ethic of service, etc.) are not-well defined. In addition, they are constructs that are not easy to measure.  This workshop unpacks some of the instrumentation issues and challenges in the study of community engagement and service-learning.  Workshop participants will be asked to consider the issues raised during the workshop in developing and refining of their own research instruments.  Participants will work in pairs or teams to strengthen the quality of their research instruments and develop an action plan for securing the reliability and validity of their measures.
 
All participants are asked to bring a research instrument or protocol to the workshop.

Pre-conference Session #5
Practical Suggestions for Securing Recognition of Your Community-Engaged Scholarship
Sherril Gelmon, Portland State University
Catherine Jordan, University of Minnesota

This workshop will assist community-engaged faculty members in developing strong portfolios for promotion and tenure review that highlight their scholarship related to their community engagement.   Roles and expectations of faculty are changing in many higher education institutions, with increasing emphasis on connecting scholarly work to societal issues and community needs. However, the faculty review, promotion, and tenure system has not kept pace.  A frequently cited barrier to sustained faculty involvement in community-engaged scholarship is the risk associated with trying to achieve promotion and tenure in a potentially unsupportive environment.  This interactive skill-building workshop will present strategies, resources and examples for preparing a dossier that highlights community-engaged scholarship, drawing upon best practices such as CCPH's Community-Engaged Scholarship Toolkit and experience from a number of institutions.  A variety of faculty development strategies will be illustrated, as well as resources that faculty can draw upon as they develop their portfolios and progress towards tenure and promotion review.

Pre-conference Session #6
Higher Ed 101 - A Primer on the Cultural Quirks of Academia for Civically Engaged Scholars
Marshall Welch, Saint Mary’s College of California

This workshop will be an introduction on key elements of academic culture to avoid committing cultural faux pas on the way to attaining tenure.  Promotion and tenure procedures as well as other concepts such as rank and role, publishing, institutional mission in the context of service-learning and community engagement will be explored.