Faculty for the Engaged Campus

Community-engaged learning and research are gaining recognition and legitimacy in the academic health professions, including public health. Much of this community-engaged work is focused on addressing social determinants of health and is aimed at achieving social justice. The critical issue facing health professional schools today is not “should we do them?” or even “how do we do them?” but rather “how do we institutionalize and sustain them as core values and practices of the institution?” Having a cadre of faculty who have the commitment and competencies for community-engaged scholarship (CES) is central to any answer to this question.

There are a number of persistent challenges facing community-engaged faculty and the graduate students and post-docs who hope to pursue community-engaged faculty positions: (1) There are few professional development pathways for those who seek community-engaged careers in the academy; (2) Peer reviewers in a given faculty member's discipline or profession who can understand and assess the rigor, quality and impact of their CES are not readily identifiable; and (3) There is no accepted method or vehicle for peer reviewing, publishing and disseminating products of CES that are in forms other than journal articles (e.g., technical reports, resource guides, handbooks, policy briefs, etc.).

Faculty for the Engaged Campus, a national initiative of Community-Campus Partnerships for Health in partnership with the University of Minnesota and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, aims to strengthen community-engaged career paths in the academy by developing innovative competency-based models of faculty development, facilitating peer review and dissemination of products of community-engaged scholarship, and supporting community-engaged faculty through the promotion and tenure process.