Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement

A Call for “Insider” Community-Engaged Research: Considerations of Power Sharing, Impact, and Identity Development

Jey Blodgett — 2024-10-18

The transgender community is rich with wisdom about how to live authentically, embrace duality, and embody intersecting identities, but our stories have been widely missing from or misrepresented in research. “Insider” community-engaged research offers a framework for boundary-spanning researchers to blend their “insider” and institutional knowledge to redress the harm of erasure through power sharing and community building. We offer vignettes from boundary-spanning researchers and participants to unpack the question, what becomes possible when research is conducted by, with, and for one’s own community? We detail the significant methods and processes that positively impacted participants and provide implications for fellow researchers.

Developing a Strategic “Container” to Support Boundary Spanning and Belonging Amongst Diverse Collaborators at a Land-Grant University

Jonathan Garcia — 2024-10-18

This essay reports on engaging academic and community partners whose positionalities spanned diverse lived experiences and power structures. Using groundwork from several literatures, we reflect on developing, nurturing, repairing, and expanding a container as a critically reflective space for experimenting with new ways of being and doing. A well-curated and nurtured container creates processes and spaces where group members feel they belong; they commit to practice a shared set of agreements, and work through interpersonal and organizational conflict that will inevitably arise. The container can be an instrument for identity, organizational, and tactical boundary spanning. As a microsystem, a container can mobilize collective engagement when team members reflect diverse identities, hierarchies, and roles within the academic system and partnering communities. Theorizing the container as an opportunity structure for boundary spanning may help those advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) within academic land-grant institutions, university–community collaboratives, and community-based organizations.

Fluid Practices of University–Community Engagement Boundary Spanners at a Land-Grant University

Ania Payne — 2024-10-18

Research on higher education community engagement (HECE) rarely places university or institutional voices in conversation with the community partners’ voices. Boundary-spanning frameworks such as Weerts and Sandmann’s (2010) for universities and Adams’s (2014) for community partners help boundary spanners, but such models draw boundaries between community and university spanners and the beneficiaries of their work. Contrary to a resource-based view of value creation, which posits that organizations with more resources create more value, beneficiary-centric views see the beneficiary as central to value creation (Lepak et al., 2007). In this essay we incorporate a beneficiary-centric lens into HECE boundary-spanning practices to advance a critical theory of value creation that considers for whom, for what, and to what effect beneficiaries may create value (Le Ber & Branzei, 2010). We advocate for an integrated framework that unites university and community partners and places the beneficiary at the center of all engagement efforts.

Community-Engaged Scholars’ Boundary- Spanning Roles and Intersected Identities: Korean Dual Language Bilingual Education Program in a Public Elementary School

Jayoung Choi — 2024-10-18

Neoliberal ideology and an overemphasis on generating quick results dehumanizes higher education community engagement by overlooking the multiple roles and identities of boundary spanners, individuals engaged in community-based scholarship. If university–community partnerships are to prosper and be sustained, their human aspect deserves more attention. We contribute to the literature by framing this research project as the collective stories of our research team, nine community-engaged scholars who have established a partnership with a public elementary school’s Korean–English Dual Language Bilingual Education program in the U.S. Southeast for the last 3 years. By drawing on pertinent literature about boundary spanners in higher education community engagement, we construct our narratives around how our fluid identities as females, immigrants, multilinguals, mothers, and professors have intersected with our boundary-spanning roles. Our nuanced stories provide insights and lessons to other boundary spanners in different partnership contexts.

It Takes a Village to Raise a Science Communicator

Veronica F. Frans — 2024-10-18

Using the metaphor of a medieval village, I share and reflect on my story as a PhD student, holder of an underrepresented identity in STEM, and next-generation boundary spanner in science communication. I am a science communicator to faith-based communities—a neglected and often contentious space in science communication. Through 6 years of graduate education, my metaphorical village helped me to discover and refine my “impact identity,” the fusion of my outreach with my scholarship that enables me to advance into the next stage of my career with community engagement as one of my strongest assets. Beyond my personal story, I reflect on what a “village” can look like for other boundary spanners. My village concept can help students, universities, and others in higher education navigate the development of next-generation boundary spanners in science communication.

Nurturing Community and Resilience: Four Years of Reflection on Virtual Coworking Among Boundary-Spanning Community-Engaged Scholar–Practitioners

Kathryn A. V. Clements — 2024-10-18

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed the practice of community-engaged scholarship and challenged internal and external boundary spanners to maintain and grow authentic and meaningful relationships. Female-identifying scholars and practitioners faced, and continue to face, extra personal and professional demands in the postpandemic era (Purcell et al., 2022). In this reflective essay, four female community-engaged scholar–practitioners reflect on the importance and value of cocreating a weekly, virtual coworking space to support professional and personal resilience. Over 4 years, this coworking space shifted in focus from solely a cowriting accountability time during the COVID-19 virtual work era to more of a “relational pause” (Barton et al., 2022) focused on encouraging, caring for, and uplifting one another. We offer readers practical ideas to organize and lead their own virtual coworking spaces or, for institutional leadership roles, strategies to support others in developing communities of care that sustain boundary spanners.

(Re)Building Trust With Indigenous Communities: Reflections From Cultural Brokers

Lorinda M.N.M. Riley — 2024-10-18

Indigenous people are often hesitant to participate in research projects because they lack trust in researcher intentions. In this article, we explore the critical role that Indigenous boundary spanners play in research conducted with Indigenous communities through our research on oceans and human health. Our analysis centers around five principles where Indigenous boundary spanners significantly influence the research process. Centering work around 'ohana (family), being intentional around where to collect data, approaching the work with humility knowing that the community are the experts, cultivating team members’ knowledge of community through conversations, and challenging assumptions within the institution are all aspects of research that must be considered when working with Indigenous communities. Including Indigenous community members and Indigenous scholars as part of teams can improve these aspects of research and begin the process of (re)building trust with Indigenous communities.

Feminist Community Engagement Disrupted: Pathways for Boundary Spanning and Engagement During Disruption

Chelsea Wentworth — 2024-10-18

Feminist community-engaged scholars and practitioners value deep relationship building with their community partners, which can be challenging during periods of disruption. Increasingly, disruptions occur at multiple levels (e.g., pandemics, civil unrest, community/campus violence, partner staffing and leadership turnover, experiences of illness or dramatic shifts in caregiving responsibilities). During disruptions, engaging partners in deep and meaningful ways requires innovation and creativity. Authors chronicle a multiyear, campuswide interdisciplinary learning community about feminist community engagement disrupted. Authors describe the ways in which feminist community engagement practices informed how the learning community was envisioned and convened and the various learning community stages over time. Throughout, authors share reflections on how meaningful this learning time and space has been and how participation in the learning community has influenced their thinking and practices. Conclusions address lessons learned useful for other boundary-spanning community-engaged scholars and practitioners and those who develop programming to support them.

Spanning Boundaries and Transforming Roles: Broadening Extension’s Reach With OSU Open Campus and Juntos

Emily N. Henry — 2024-10-18

For over 100 years, Cooperative Extension has served communities through local Extension agents with expertise in such topics as agriculture, youth development, and family and community health. In 2008, the Oregon State University Extension Service launched a pilot (Open Campus and Juntos) to broaden Extension’s reach by placing agents with “boundary spanning” expertise inside communities to address disparities in educational and economic opportunities. Open Campus and Juntos span three university–community boundaries: cultural dissonance between higher education and communities, particularly for Latinx families; the disconnect among community colleges and universities in supporting transfer students; and the silos among traditional Extension content areas to build programs addressing community needs. Impacts include 7,200 students and family members served through Juntos, increased high school graduation rates for Juntos students, additional transfer support for 1,500 community college students, and the creation of multiple centers providing broadband access in one of Oregon’s most rural counties.

Assessing the Boundary-Spanning Roles of Cooperative Extension Professionals in Higher Education Community Partnerships

Casey D. Mull — 2024-10-18

Cooperative Extension has a long-standing history of placing individuals in communities to lead community-wide change. These individuals are employees of the nation’s land-grant universities, with significant roles and responsibilities working between and among institutions and their communities. They often must maintain dual identities and roles, bridging the university mission and community needs. This study examined the boundary-spanning behaviors and orientations of Cooperative Extension staff and found few personal or work characteristics correlated with boundary-spanning behaviors. We explain how this lack of correlation may serve to assuage concerns about objectivity in the boundary-spanning work of Extension professionals. Higher education administrators and community leaders can use this information to better orient, equip, and train these Cooperative Extension professionals to make a lasting impact through propelling objective community change.

Collective Impact as a Novel Approach to Seeding Collaboration for Boundary Spanning

Cara Marie DiEnno — 2024-10-18

Responding to longstanding calls to develop institutional support for boundary-spanning faculty and staff in ways that enhance collaborative community–university engagement, our study investigated a novel, facilitated approach to building community–university collaboration derived from the collective impact framework. In particular, we present new research on faculty and staff perceptions of a collective impact process that was designed to seed community–university collaboration around pressing public problems. Through semistructured interviews, 23 faculty and staff shared reflections on their participation in the collective impact process. Faculty and staff narratives touched on four categories of boundary-spanning behaviors, including technical-practical, socioemotional, community, and organizational orientations. The presence of these categories of behaviors reinforces the centrality of boundary-spanning concepts to efforts to advance community– university collaboration. Based on this research, we recommend organizational practices that can support professional development innovations for boundary spanners to enhance public good impact.

Foreword: Special Issue on Community-Engaged Scholars, Practitioners, and Boundary Spanners: Identity, Well-Being, and Career Development

David J. Weerts — 2024-10-18

Foreword

Introduction to the Special Issue on Community-Engaged Scholars, Practitioners, and Boundary Spanners: Identity, Well-Being, and Career Development

Jennifer W. Purcell — 2024-10-18

Introduction

28(3) Entire Issue

2024-10-18

28(3) Entire Issue

28(3) Editorial Board

2024-10-18

28(3) Editorial Board

28(3) Table of Contents

2024-10-18

28(3) Table of Contents