Engagement Scholarship Involves and Impacts Students

Following remote instruction due to COVID-19, institutions are still grappling with how to keep students engaged on campus. Promoting that goal through an institutional department and research is one approach.

Pennsylvania State University officials created the Student Engagement Network in 2016 and, through an engagement scholarship program for faculty members and staff, they are creating a culture of research and understanding around what it means to be an engaged student.

What it is: The Student Engagement Network came from an institutional interest in engaged scholarship in 2012. Three vice presidents created a council that served as a theoretical think tank and eventually piloted subcommittees on various subjects.

“It grew and grew and eventually they said, ‘We can’t be a committee [or] a council forever,’” Mike Zeman explains. SEN was born in 2016, with Zeman as the first director.

As a department, SEN has several program opportunities for the Penn State community, including grant funding for students involved in various projects, a physical center and a new engagement app.

The Engagement Academy was born in 2017 to support faculty and staff who wanted to create engagement experiences for students or do research on engagement, explains Alan Rieck, assistant vice president and assistant dean of undergraduate education at Penn State.

Over the years, those two purposes have remained true, but how the program works has shifted to broaden eligibility beyond faculty members to include student affairs personnel, as an example.

What’s the need: Student engagement, as defined by SEN, is the act of intentionally seeking, completing and reflecting on experiences, activities or events that help a student personally grow, establish professional readiness or contribute to a community or promote social impact in a positive way.

In a nutshell, student engagement is an umbrella of learning through different modalities in which a student demonstrates behavioral changes like resilience, ethical leadership, critical thinking and professional skills.

The academy encourages professors and staff to expand student research opportunities but also creates a culture of engagement across Penn State’s 19 undergraduate “commonwealth” campuses.

“They come out of it with a deeper understanding of what engagement really is and what students are looking for,” Rieck says. “And oftentimes, they become large advocates for what we’re doing and remain connected to what’s happening.”

How it works: Each fall, SEN opens applications for incoming participants and closes them in early spring, with a review in March and naming the new academy members in late March or early April. The academy is a bit behind schedule this spring, due to some funding hiccups, but it will name its incoming members later this term, Rieck says.

Selection is dependent on an applicant’s past scholarship activities, interest in deepening the conversation around engaged scholarship, the proposed scholarship activities and personal capacity to share information about the project and become a campus leader or mentor, according to the academy’s website.

There are two types of roles, Rieck explains. A fellow has a one-year appointment, including a summer stipend and a budget of up to $7,000 for development of the project.

A scholar is a two-year appointment, with a half teaching buyout for the duration of the appointment. A scholar is a faculty member with an expectation to complete research on engagement and preferably involve students, also with a research budget.

Each cohort has one to two scholars and between four and six fellows.

Academy members meet four times per year, once in the fall to discuss upcoming projects, twice to provide updates and finally to share the results of the projects.

Projects have ranged from evaluating journaling assignments, best practices in international programs, supporting marginalized students in transitioning into their first year, crime on campus and engagement related to cybersecurity at Penn State.

The impact: After seven years, the academy’s impact is growing as projects produce tangible results and academy graduates become champions of the program.

“We may not really broadcast out to the entire commonwealth what every single fellow and scholar is doing, [but] they do have a reach within their peer group, within their academic unit or their college or even at their campus,” Zeman explains. “We see these, like, heat blooms that are popping up.”

Some of the research about student engagement at Penn State has also informed institutional practice, Rieck adds.

“How else do we have metrics on changes in behavior if we don’t have an engaged faculty member who can attest to a transformation in students’ thinking?” Zeman says.

Looking ahead: SEN launched an app in August 2022 and its first market was students, but it will include faculty and academy participants past and present to further grow reach and interest in the projects.

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