Drs. Annie Jonas (L) and Ashley Oliphant (R) are the first Engaged Faculty Scholars.
Service-learning faculty members are uniquely positioned at the intersection of teaching and community engagement to help colleges and universities realize the values of the engaged campus. These faculty members draw on their disciplinary expertise, their pedagogical acumen, and their interest in the world beyond the classroom to build partnerships and programs that give students access to meaningful community-based learning experiences.
Our two inaugural Engaged Faculty Scholars — Dr. Annie Jonas of Warren Wilson College and Dr. Ashley Oliphant of Pfeiffer University — epitomize this commitment to students’ academic and civic growth.
As Engaged Faculty Scholars, both Jonas and Oliphant will fill a dual role: leading a project to deepen the scholarship of campus-community engagement at their own institution, and serving as a consultant to support faculty development at another campus in the North Carolina Campus Compact network.
NC Campus Compact Executive Director Leslie Garvin conceived the new scholars program as a way to support outstanding faculty and encourage them to share their service-learning expertise.
“Over the years, we’ve learned so much about the great research and partnerships our faculty are engaged in,” Garvin says. “The Compact already supports faculty through our annual PACE Conference and our online, peer-reviewed journal Partnerships, but the Engaged Scholars program provides a new opportunity for faculty members to deepen their engagement and to strengthen our network.”
As chair of the education department at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, Dr. Jonas has incorporated community engagement partnerships with local and regional K-12 schools into all her undergraduate courses. A new project in 2014 included a semester-long learning partnership between her First Year Seminar students and 3rd graders at a local public school. Dr. Jonas Jonas received the Andy Summers Award for Excellence in Service Learning in 2013 and currently serves as the Faculty Liaison to Service-Learning through the Service Program office at Warren Wilson.
For her Engaged Faculty Scholars project at Warren Wilson, Dr. Jonas will examine how the college’s First Year Seminar (FYS) can address concepts of civic identity. She will explore the developmental qualities and needs of first year students in relation to civic identity and then connect this understanding to the community engagement component of FYS courses. This new understanding will assist faculty who teach FYS courses and also support the launch of the college’s new general education program that emphasizes community engagement.
At Pfeiffer University in Misenheimer, Associate Professor of English Dr. Ashley Oliphant will also focus on the first year experience. Oliphant will restructure the Introduction to College Writing course (the first in the first-year writing sequence) to include a significant service-learning component requiring real-world writing grounded in sustained direct service. The first-year “Pfeiffer Journey” seminars will provide the space for the service, the Francis Center for Servant Leadership will offer logistical and financial support, and English Department faculty will facilitate the reflections, writing and grading of the program.
Oliphant has been a service-learning practitioner for more than a decade. She has used her first-year writing courses to explore a series of diverse themes, including animal welfare, advocacy and mentoring. For the past six years, Oliphant has also directed the Francis Center for Servant Leadership; and she served as the institutional writer for Pfeiffer’s latest Carnegie reclassification application and the university’s applications to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll.
Jonas and Oliphant were competitively selected from a strong pool of faculty applicants from across the statewide network. In August, the Compact will identify the campuses where the Engaged Scholars will serve as faculty engagement consultants.
The Engaged Faculty Scholars receive a stipend and professional development package valued at $2500, and host institutions are encouraged to provide additional support or course release. In addition to their proposed project and consulting work, the scholars will have opportunities to share their research at the network’s annual Pathways to Achieving Civic Engagement (PACE) Conference for faculty and to submit work for publication in the Compact’s online peer-reviewed journal Partnerships.
Learn more about program and about the 2015-2016 Engaged Faculty Scholars.