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Work in Progress: Quality Indicators for Community-Engaged Education, Scholarship, and Research

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Conference

2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Portland, Oregon

Publication Date

June 23, 2024

Start Date

June 23, 2024

End Date

July 12, 2024

Conference Session

Empowering Students and Strengthening Community Relationships

Tagged Division

Community Engagement Division (COMMENG)

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/48509

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Paper Authors

biography

Angela R Bielefeldt University of Colorado, Boulder

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Angela Bielefeldt is a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering (CEAE) and Director of the Integrated Design Engineering (IDE) program. The IDE program includes an IDE BS degree accredited under the ABET EAC general criteria and a new PhD degree in Engineering Education. Bielefeldt's research includes community engagement, engineering ethics, social responsibility, and sustainability. Bielefeldt is a Fellow of the ASEE and a licensed P.E. in Colorado.

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biography

Lupita D Montoya University of Colorado, Boulder

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Lupita D. Montoya is Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder with courtesy appointment in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Colorado Sc

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Andrea Ferro Clarkson University

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Abstract

Academia can engage with communities in a variety of ways, including an education focus (such as service-learning) or geared toward research (community engaged research, CER). These different forms of community engagement (CE) share many elements in common, while other attributes differ. This paper first compares and contrasts educationally-focused CE with CER. We then present a rubric that was developed to evaluate CER in environmental engineering, indicating what aspects are appropriate for community engaged education. The CER rubric proposes nine evaluation categories: centering on communities, capacity building, action-oriented outcome, shared leadership, shared funding, shared data, equitable valuing of CER scholarship, culturally specific assessment, and culturally specific communication and dissemination. For illustrative purposes the rubric is applied to two case studies. In the educationally-focused CE case study, a senior capstone design course in environmental engineering worked on a project defined by a community partner. The rubric did a good job revealing where improvements in the project could have been realized while also revealing that the non-profit facilitator was instrumental in engaging the community. In the second case study, a community sub-contracted an academic partner to explore residential indoor air quality. The project was at a higher level of the rubric for most criteria compared to the educationally-focused case study. Use of the rubric at the start of any project will open important conversations, thereby contributing to both the community and academic partners more fully meeting their needs.

Bielefeldt, A. R., & Montoya, L. D., & Ferro, A. (2024, June), Work in Progress: Quality Indicators for Community-Engaged Education, Scholarship, and Research Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://strategy.asee.org/48509

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