For someone who has never been convicted of a crime, the author spends an unusual amount of time in state prisons and youth correctional facilities. She does not work for these criminal justice agencies; instead, she studies prison culture, and--in small ways-- has become a part of it. The author is a university professor trained in sociology and…

University-community engagement is increasingly emphasized at institutions throughout the United States, yet there remains concern and confusion about how to conceptualize community engagement to provide benefits for both the university and the public. This article summarizes the history of community engagement and describes dominant paradigms of…

Since its inception, Metropolitan State University has demonstrated a strong commitment to community partnerships and the integration of community engagement into student learning and scholarship while meeting community-defined needs. This article presents examples of reciprocal partnerships in the context of a shared community-university library…

This article describes the Community Grant Writing Project (CGWP), a flexible service-learning framework designed for use in writing-intensive courses. The CGWP incorporates best-practice recommendations from the service-learning literature and addresses recent challenges identified for successful service-learning partnerships. In the CGWP,…

Since 2008, Taiwan's Ministry of Education has sponsored a number of short-term residential educational programs aimed at senior citizens and administered by local colleges and universities. In 2009, the Ministry of Education named a project the Elderhostel Program (notwithstanding the lack of involvement by the United States organization, which…

The Community Legal Information Center (CLIC) of California State University, Chico, provides a unique civic engagement program designed to serve the legal service needs of Northern California. Founded in 1969, CLIC is now a 12-program, on-campus law clinic staffed by up to 125 undergraduate students each semester and is the most extensive…

Communication between health care professionals and Aboriginal patients is complicated by cultural differences and the enduring effects of colonization. Health care providers need better training to meet the needs of Aboriginal patients and communities. We describe the development and outcomes of a community-driven service-learning program in…

In this article, the authors describe how an existing partnership between two communities, one in eastern Iowa and one in Mexico, was turned into a cross-disciplinary and international service learning course for students in the University of Iowa Colleges of Engineering, Pharmacy, and Liberal Arts and Sciences. The projects that students worked…

Communities across our nation--whether geographic, ethnic, or issue-based in their composition--are struggling to be healthy, to grow, and thrive. The production of knowledge and the sharing of knowledge by both the community and the higher education institution is the key to helping our communities improve. Retaining and valuing community-engaged…

In order to comply with the New York State Education Department's (2000) recertification mandates for teacher education programs, the reading clinic of the Master of Science in Literacy Education program at Dowling College, Oakdale, New York was moved to a high-needs school district. This school district was seriously deficient in its pass rate on…