Author Description

University civic engagement encompasses a broad range of efforts to directly apply university resources to the communities and societies in which they are located. These activities include applied research, community service learning courses, education and training of non-matriculated groups, community development partnerships, and student volunteering. The Engaged University is a fully empirical account of a genuinely global movement of higher education institutions to increase university civic engagement. Based on the self-assessment policies and practices of an international network of over 20 universities committed to social and civic service, it examines the everyday their objectives, management and achievements. This timely volume offers three special contributions to the literature on higher education policy and practice: an historical overview of university foundation, which is demonstrated as having almost invariably incorporated a context-specific element of social purpose, together with a survey of how these "founding" intentions have fared in different systems of higher education; a contemporary account of the policy and practice of universities all over the world seeking to re-engage with this social purpose; and an overview of generic issues which emerge for the "engaged university."