Current Research

The National Center for the Study of University Engagement (NCSUE) is currently involved in the following research initiatives:

Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure

Assessment of Impact of Embedding of Outreach and Engagement in the 2001 Revision of the Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure Review Form

In 2001, MSU's Office of University Outreach and Engagement (UOE) undertook a major revision of the Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure Review Form to embed outreach and engagement as well as extension, urban, and international work into the form. Along with UOE, a faculty team, academic governance, and the Office of the Provost, a form was produced that better reflects MSU's definition of outreach and engagement as scholarly activity that cuts across teaching, research, and service. The form suggests types of evidence candidates can report on, and chairs and deans review, within the teaching and research sections, as well as a revised community-based service section. The form also provides opportunity for candidates to describe integration of their work.

After six years of implementation, NCSUE is studying the impact that changes to the form are making on the reappointment, promotion, and tenure review process.

View the Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure Review Form (PDF)

Faculty Interviews

Faculty and Academic Staff Perceptions about Engagement

In 1989, MSU undertook a massive effort to transform the culture of the institution to promote and foster engagement as scholarship. Both creating an environment that encourages a broad and inclusive definition of engagement and working to expand faculty conceptions of engagement beyond service-oriented work have been pivotal to this effort. Rather than assume that the work faculty were defining as engagement was aligned with the institutional definition, NCSUE set out to learn how faculty conceptualize their work as engagement and the impact of that work on their scholarship.

Drawing data from the annual responses to the Outreach and Engagement Measurement Instrument (OEMI), NCSUE researchers are conducting in-depth interviews with faculty and academic staff across multiple disciplines and across a variety of engagement and social issues. The purpose of the interviews is to understand more about how faculty perceive engagement as it relates to their own teaching and research and how the work of the faculty is influenced, if at all, by changes implemented at the institutional level.

From the findings, NCSUE will engage MSU stakeholders and other institutions in a dialogue about improving institution-wide alignment efforts, stimulating engagement, and understanding individual faculty perceptions of their engagement work. Those conversations could include the means of acknowledging such work, the importance of setting academic standards, various measures of faculty contributions, and institutional facilitation of and barriers to engagement work.

Comparison of Faculty Surveys

Comparison of the 1995 Faculty Outreach Survey to the 2005 HERI Survey

MSU's goal to strengthen faculty outreach and engagement rests in part on having data that demonstrate the degree of faculty and institutional commitment and the types of barriers to increased involvement. Survey data can show us how to help target areas where the institution should improve its support of faculty endeavors.

In 1995, in an effort to understand faculty outreach-related attitudes, beliefs, values, and practices, MSU designed and conducted a Faculty Outreach Survey. Ten years later, in 2005, MSU identified similar questions in (and added new questions to) MSU's administration of UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute Faculty Survey. Comparison of the ten-year data tells part of MSU's engagement story and how faculty perceptions have changed over the ten year period, especially in light of some of the changes instituted at the university, such as changes to the Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure Review Form.

Since 1993, MSU has defined outreach as a form of scholarship that cuts across teaching, research, and service. As a result, both the 1995 and 2005 surveys focus on these scholarly activities. Currently, similar questions are being grouped and compared.

Evaluation of MSU's RCAH/CASTL Graduate Fellows Program

Residential College in the Arts and Humanities (RCAH) / Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL)

MSU's commitment to the scholarship of engagement includes preparing the next generation of faculty to become engaged scholars. The Residential College in the Arts and Humanities (RCAH), University Outreach and Engagement, the Graduate School, and other MSU units are collaborating with the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) Leadership Program in a unique initiative to support graduate student professional development.

NCSUE staff, in conjunction with evaluators from the Community Evaluation Research Center (CERC), are conducting an evaluation of the RCAH/CASTL fellows program. The study aims to understand more about how graduate students envision their professional responsibilities in the scholarship of teaching and learning and the scholarship of engagement. Formative and summative evaluations will determine the extent to which the fellows program supports their development as engaged scholars.

Drawing upon the findings, NCSUE plans to engage other members of the CASTL collaborative as well as national audiences in a dialogue about effective models for promoting the scholarship and practice of engagement to graduate students. The study's findings will also be used to inform the development of a national certificate program for graduate students in engaged scholarship.

The Carnegie leadership program is open to doctoral students with interests in teaching, learning, engagement, and assessment in higher education who are enrolled in programs associated with participating MSU colleges (Arts and Letters, Social Science, Education, Agriculture and Natural Resources, and Communication Arts and Sciences). RCAH/CASTL fellows participate in bi-weekly seminars, organize scholarly learning communities, and complete well-defined projects on the scholarship of teaching and learning and/or the scholarship of engagement for their professional portfolios.

For more information about this or other studies, please contact us at ncsue@msu.edu.

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