Viewpoint

Outreach & engagement ‘new’

By Brett Fairbairn

The following are excerpts from a presentation to the Oct. 20 meeting of University Council.

… Outreach and engagement are not “extension.” The terms outreach and engagement represent a new way of thinking about the missions of universities and the activities of faculty, other staff, and students.

… [As an example, at Penn State University] faculty members from architecture and political science, English and biology, engineering and theatre (among other disciplines) are looking in both common and separate courses and research at issues related to democratic participation. … class assignments, along with the various research projects of the faculty, were informed by lunchtime discussions with community members and by small-group work that identified community issues. The result is what Penn State calls “a curriculum of consequence” in which the regular work of faculty and students is related to the well-being of communities.

… Such approaches have to reflect the institutional culture and environment. We will have to do outreach and engagement our way, and it might or might not resemble Penn State’s way.

… Many faculty throughout the U of S have been doing outreach and engagement for years, or have been doing closely related things that with a little reconceptualization and refocusing would be outreach and engagement.

… It is not only large collaborative groups that do this work. Many individual faculty members do as well ...

I have stressed the connections with degree-credit teaching and with research, scholarly, and artistic work. That is the primary kind of faculty engagement. But there is also outreach, a broader concept that includes non-degree-credit learning among many other things.

… [For example], continuing education for professions does not need to be a degree-credit activity, and it does not necessarily involve research. But it happens within a partnership between professional colleges and their professional organizations, a partnership that relates to the basic missions of professional colleges. The relationship with professional associations provides a framework for employment of graduates, for external input into program design, for accreditation, and contributes in many ways to those colleges.

… When we think about what we want this university to do in outreach and engagement, we should keep in mind our colleagues who do this work today. We should listen to them, and learn from them, and implement changes gradually in ways that support the kinds of things that they do.

… Outreach and engagement practitioners located in colleges told us that they do not want central organizations of the university telling them how to do their jobs. But those who are getting into outreach and engagement may want resources they can call upon by choice.

We see a need for three kinds of resources. Faculty who may wish to incorporate engagement approaches into their teaching should be able to call on the New Learning Centre to help them ... We propose that the office of the vice-president research be expanded in competence and resources to assist and advise faculty on techniques and resources for community-based research … Where faculty see a need to become involved in non-degree-credit or off-campus learning, we think the continuing education unit that was proposed in the university integrated plan would be a place they could turn for help.

…Why not combine all this in one central service unit? Because such a unit would then have to have resources and credibility to advise faculty on both teaching and research, and would cross the responsibilities of other units that also have these functions. So our current thinking is three central support units aligned with academic functions and priorities of the university as a whole.

… [This is] what the drafting committee is anticipating from this document: that, with your help and feedback and ultimate approval, it will highlight the outreach and engagement the university now does; will provide a better framework for thinking and talking about what we do; and will be followed by proposals from faculty and staff and from their units, from the bottom up, according to their interest and choice and capacity, that will be considered by colleges and the university in integrated planning. Make no mistake: our intention is that there will be resources, redeployed ones, new ones, according to how future proposals align with academic missions and priorities.

... Outreach and engagement are the ways in which this university will be the people’s university of the twenty-first century.

In the course of doing my part of the consultations about this document, I have listened to faculty members tell me, their voices quavering with emotion, that this report must take account of the work and accomplishments, the labours of commitment and passion, by faculty and staff who already do outreach and engagement no matter in what college they are located. I have listened to members of this university’s community who live two hundred kilometers away tell me that the University of Saskatchewan is losing its reputation of old, that we are too rigid, too distant, and too self-absorbed. And I have listened to dignified and respected community leaders tell us, with passion of their own, that the most important thing of all is for members of this university to approach communities with humility. We will respond to those challenges, not with a bureaucratic policy, not with a mechanism, not with the stroke of a pen, but with the dedication of faculty members, students, and staff who engage with communities because it enriches their work, because they believe in doing so, and because it makes sense in every way.

Brett Fairbairn is Head of the Department of History, vice-chair of University Council's Planning Committee, and a member of the drafting committee for the Foundational Document on Outreach and Engagement.