Book Review | Civic Studies: Approaches to the Emerging Field

For faculty and staff in colleges and universities who labor to fulfill higher education’s civic purpose and mission, two challenges generally dominate the discussion on what it will take to create a culture where the civic mission flourishes:

1) institutional support to develop and maintain robust civic relationships and student learning outcomes; and 2) an intellectual shift among departments and disciplines regarding the nature and understanding of scholarship. Institutional support for civic engagement rises and falls with changes in administration and the occasional realignment of priorities. The precarious nature of federal and state funding is not insignificant either. The second challenge—academic departments that eschew non-traditional methods, products, and outputs as inferior and unworthy of tenure and promotion—is more complex and pervasive, though equally frustrating for those faculty and staff who work to align scholarship with public engagement. As a result, the narrative of the institutionalization of university-public engagement is generally negative in tone and less optimistic than pessimistic. The walls of the ivory tower seem impenetrable to new forms of scholarship, especially those that espouse a civic purpose.