101 examples of NKU public
engagement shown in report

 

What does public engagement look like in higher education?

 

At Northern Kentucky University public engagement includes, 50-plus service learning courses per semester; thousands of volunteer hours by students each academic year; dozens of examples of applied research for community partners; a student philanthropy program that has distributed more than $500,000 to nonprofits; 35 centers and institutes that have public engagement built into their missions; a public lecture series; a regional policy forum; and a specific collaboration on P-12 initiatives in the community, including an intervention process for boosting high-school math skills for at-risk students.

 

NKU has carefully and systematically constructed a commitment to public engagement into the university’s mission, strategic plan and promotion/tenure guidelines. A newly released report, “Public Engagement: The Community is Our Classroom,” profiles that commitment and includes 101 examples of public engagement at NKU.

 

Both academic and co-curricular initiatives are among the 101 engagement examples in the publication, which include:

 

· Service is built into the curriculum for students seeking a doctoral degree in educational leadership.

 

· Professor Greg De Blasio’s public relations class picks a client each semester and creates a PR plan.

 

· On 100 acres owned by the Sisters of Divine Providence in Melbourne, Ky., NKU’s biological sciences faculty and students are working with partners to turn a rare wetland into a living lab for ecological study.

 

· President Votruba is co-author of “Becoming an Engagement Campus: A Practical Guide for Institutionalizing Public Engagement,” published last year by Jossey-Bass.

 

To order a copy of “Public Engagement: The Community is Our Classroom,” send an email to engage@nku.edu or call 859-572-1448. Be sure to include a mailing address.Click here to view the report online.

 

From NKU