Checklist from the President’s Chair

By Jerry Beasley, president of Concord College and chair of the Bonner Foundation’s Presidents’ Advisory Committee

• The following checklist identifies concrete tasks and strategies college and university presidents can pursue in order to integrate civic learning and engagement into their ongoing campus work. The suggestions range from monetary commitments to revising evaluation practices of faculty and staff.
• Direct the internal allocation of funds to students and faculty engaged in service activities that require reflection and deepening levels of responsibility and awareness.
• Set a fund-raising agenda for the institution that includes gathering support for service projects. Depending on your institution, this process might require you to educate legislators, the public, and alumni and other potential donors about the purposes of higher education and its relationship with sustainable community engagement.
• Encourage the behavior your institution claims to value. Honor students, student organizations, faculty, and staff for their service. Urge the selection of honorary degree recipients who personify the community service lessons worthy of emulation.
• Collaborate with other presidents to align your institutions in cooperative endeavors to extend the reach of your service efforts.
• Ensure that service is woven into statements of institutional mission as well as general education goals. Design assessment plans that require evidence of these commitments.
• Encourage faculty and students to use their research skills as one way of serving their communities.
• Include community service in the evaluation of faculty and staff. Including evidence of humanitarian impulses in the evaluation of employees suggests that the institution itself must submit to similar assessments.
  

 

 

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