How We Do Our Work

Boundary Spanning

Our work extends across multiple boundaries:

a diagram that explains boundary spanning
(Weerts & Sandmann, 2007)
  • University - Community
  • Faculty - Staff
  • Content Expertise - Engagement Expertise
  • Research - Practice
  • Individual - Collective
  • Positional Power - Functional Power
  • Quantitative - Qualitative
  • Positivism - Constructivism

This powerpoint goes into more depth about boundary spanning - what it is and why it is critical to university-community engagement.

A Healing Centered & Restorative Lens

Dr. Tracy Hall and Dr. Jessica Camp's scholarship, Healing Centered and Restorative Engagement, provides a lens through which we approach community engagement. Some examples include:

  • Scholarship that is created with and by members of the community rather than scholarship that is separate from those that are studied
  • Encouraging faculty to conduct creative and interdisciplinary research rather than reinforcing discipline-specific promotion and tenure rules
  • Relying on knowledge of the community to define priorities and allocate resources rather than relying on university "specialists" separate from community
  • Delegating decision-making to those closest to the situation rather than a hierarchical decision-making approach
    a slide that differentiates between traditional and progressive community engagement
    (Hall & Camp, 2013)

 

 

Office of Community-Engaged Learning

Suite 1100, First Floor - Ford Collaboratory - Mardigian Library
4901 Evergreen Rd
Dearborn, MI 48128
View on Map