Engagement Research
Another of my responsibilities as a research assistant for the FCTL has been to investigate how to integrate the concept of engagement into graduate student development. Engagement refers to the mutually beneficial and reciprocal interaction between researchers, teachers, students, and the community that connects disciplinary expertise, university knowledge and resources, and shared goals and agendas. My work in this area was put on hold due to changing priorities at the FCTL, but this area of scholarship has piqued my interest, and I continue to look for interesting readings on the subject.
A key aspect of engagement as it is defined at NCSU is that it goes beyond service learning, outreach, and extension to build mutually beneficial collaborations between the university and its larger communities. Teachers and researchers (both faculty and students) not only bring new knowledge into the public community, they also seek to learn from the community, to find new areas for research, and to identify practical, working solutions to diffiuclt problems in the real world. In other, less academic words, the university and its faculty, students, and staff must become an integral part of its community at the local, national, and global scales, acting as an informed, responsible, and contributing citizen.
My initial research into the topic of engagement in graduate education resulted in a brief collection of notes and references that served as a starting point for a conversation between the Graduate School, the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning, and the new Center for Excellence in Curricular Engagement. This is fertile area for scholarship, because while service learning programs for undergraduate students have become common and are well-supported, very little has little effort has been to cultivate engagement in graduate education. I continue to look for articles on this topic, and plan to return to this area of scholarship in the future (if not as a student, then definitely as a teacher and researcher after I complete my degree).
