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431 Developing Higher Education Administrators Jeri L. Childers and Theodore J. Settle Today, developing and implementing an institutional strategy for engagement is vital for developing the capacity of the university to respond to the needs of its various publics, to educate the whole student, and to realize the potential and promise of its scholars and their impact on society. Core to developing, implementing, and institutionalizing this engagement plan is the development of university leaders for the twenty-first century which necessarily means enhancing the institutional capacity to engage with community partners and to support engaged scholars. To respond to these challenges, Virginia Tech developed a week-long Engagement Academy for University Leaders to help higher education institutions develop partnerships with key external stakeholders in conducting research, teaching, and public service or outreach that will benefit the public and enhance the institution, as well as its faculty, staff, and students. Academy members were selected through a competitive nomination and selection process. The participants learned and applied concepts of engagement and engaged scholarship to develop individualized plans for institutionalizing community engagement within their institutions. This program is supported by a national advisory group, three national associations, a team of national scholars of engagement, a university president serving as a mentor-in-residence, and the recipient of the 2007 C. Peter Magrath W. K. Kellogg Foundation Engagement Award, Virginia Tech. Results of the Academy evaluation (Dubinsky, 2008) indicate that the participants gained a greater understanding of the core competencies of engagement and how to develop and implement institutional plans for engagement. J E R I L . C H I L D E R S A N D T H E O D O R E J . S E T T L E 432 The Coming of Engagement Many colleges and universities, including but not limited to land-grant institutions, have a history of being involved with their local communities. For many years this was called public service, and later the term “outreach” came into more general acceptance and use as a way of describing these activities. But, regardless of the language, institutions were extending their resources away from the campus and into the community, generally helping local communities, nonprofit organizations, and companies through various kinds of technical assistance. In the past decade, along with increasing calls for accountability and decreasing financial support for public higher education, there has been a call for a renewal of recommitment to and strengthening of the purpose of public education institutions to be more engaged with their communities, nonprofit organizations, and companies. This call for engagement implied partnerships with these stakeholders and therefore a two-way interaction . Each partner would invest in a project, and each partner would get a return. For example, the community may provide funds and knowledge of local community networks, and the university may provide intellectual resources and experience through faculty and students to address issues. In return, the community would get solutions to their problems, and the university would have more informed faculty and students, increased research, and increased scholarship emanating from this field-based effort.This call for increased engagement had many and multiple sources. Some of those include the report by the Kellogg Commission on Returning to Our Roots: The Engaged Institution (1999). The American Association of State Colleges and Universities followed with Stepping Forward as Stewards of Place (2002), and the same year another report followed, Leveraging Colleges and Universities for Urban Economic Revitalization: An Action Agenda (2002), a joint venture between the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City and CEOs for Cities that suggested increased connections between reduced state budgets and universities demonstrating value to their stakeholders. Beyond reports and initiatives, engagement is now an accreditation criterion, such as Criterion 5 of the Higher Education Commission of the North Central Association of Schools and Colleges. In 2008, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching announced the 2008 Community Engagement Classification in which 120 institutions were successfully classified, building on the first classification of this type that was released in 2006. Many institutions are including engagement in their strategic plans. Some institutions are creating senior level administrative positions with oversight for engagement. Other institutions are figuring out how to best organize for engagement. Some institutions are expanding their engagement activities beyond a strong foundation of service learning. So, as in any new field, engagement is in a state of flux, change, and evolution. Institutions are securing their leaders for this new function from across the institution and developing an...

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