Engaged Learning Forum with Anne Weiss: “Traditional and New Areas for Assessing the Results of Campus-Community Engagement”

Thursday, March 28, 2019 

National community engagement expert Anne Weiss, director of assessment at Indiana Campus Compact, is in demand across the country consulting on tracking, monitoring, assessing, and evaluating campus-community engagement. Weiss helps faculty, administrators, and community partners think strategically about data collection, analysis, and the use of (new) information for planning and improvement.

Weiss argues that measuring and drafting “impact statements” is an essential practice of documenting campus-community engagement for program officers and grantees, but also for faculty who seek to use this work as part of their promotion and tenure dossier. Good impact measurement practices can inform how individuals talk about and improve their work, but they can also improve how an organization functions—driving efficiencies and growing the organization—and help us get to statements about the impact this work has with the community.

Through this public forum our speaker will introduce areas of impact that are rich with evidence and examples (e.g., students’ civic learning outcomes) as well as other areas of impact that are ripe for more assessments (e.g., community impact). Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of all the areas of impact available within campus-community engagement and, based on a research study just concluded, provide examples of how faculty document this work to gain recognition during promotion and tenure activities.